My Son's Latest Curiosity for Physics and Astronomy

Add to the list of individuals who have proven themselves brilliant despite having been an average student in school at best: Stephen Hawking. I found some interesting quotes about his years in primary school and college on the Wikipedia page (always an easy and fast reference place to read). Wonder if he's a right-brainer? Don't know enough to form an opinion but wonder.

My thirteen year old is curious about who Stephen Hawking is after having stumbled upon a documentary series on TV "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" (released in 2010) and is also currently watching "How the Universe Works". He was curious why he speaks with that device. I checked wikipedia for a fast answer as I didn't know the exact disease that he was afflicted with. I now know it is ALS.

My son also noted that what he's learned about black holes from various classes and books he's read left him disappointed in the black holes episode of "How the Universe Works". He said, "It's an hour long but they left a lot out, it probably should have been expanded to two hours so it could be more complete."

My son asked if Hawking has written any books and I handed him "A Brief History of Time" which I picked up at a library sale but warned him it's written on adult level and it may be over his head. He took it to his room and is looking it over now.

I note the watching of the documentaries is done for "fun TV viewing" while folding laundry and the reading of the Hawking book is self-initiated learning. Past things he's done to learn about black holes, astronomy and physics in the last year are: he took a class given by a astronomy buff homeschool father, has taken two astronomy classes and two physics classes by a physics major and astronomy buff teacher at a homeschool co-op. Oh, and he also took an optics-high school physics content workshop class given by a teacher with 39 years experience teaching (and former department head) at the top public high school in our state this last fall.

I realized it is important to have teachers with enthusiasm and a passion for the subject which I felt was superior to me (who is nearly clueless about those topics) to teach him at home using homeschool curriculum or other materials. I do note though that sometimes subject matter experts or those who are passionate about the topic are sometimes not great teachers. (My husband is in that category for his expertise in finance. His past attempts to teach homeschoolers about the stock market was challenging for him. There is something to be said for being effective at group management and also for being able to figure out if a student is not getting it and how to shift the teaching to get the content across to different kinds of minds.)

Although at first I would grumble to myself that I wished the teacher was effective at that, I changed my mind over time. I now put the passion first and the teaching ability second when teaching small groups of homeschool kids. For some reason it seems more imperative to me that my kids see people with passions about academic topics.

After reaping the benefits of having teachers with a true passion for a topic I wonder if my kids would be better off in school but then I remind myself of the sad fact that not every teacher in every subject in every grade fits that category. If a student is lucky they may have one or two great teachers in their thirteen years in school. Again, if they're lucky. So, we're still homeschooling and hiring out teachers for certain subjects and using co-op's which can pool resources and split costs by having small classes (4, 6, 8, or 10 students) to one teacher and sometimes also with a 'teacher's aide'. You can't beat those student to teacher ratios.