Lesson 1: Getting Your Feet Wet in a Sea of Studies
1-4 How Do You Use a Unit Study?
We've seen that a unit study may last a day, a week, a full school year. It may be designed for a celebration like a holiday, an historic anniversary, or as a reward for completing a difficult task.
A unit study like the bread baking study may only last a day just because of the nature of the theme. However, often a popular theme like this can be repeated occasionally or regularly as desired. Many unit studies are designed to last a week, giving prominence to key topics in whatever subject area you want to emphasize, like a week spent on the Industrial Revolution. Other studies may be more suitable for a month or more if the topic is broad. Studying the intricacies of the vast computer field might be more appropriate for this approach.
But don't feel tied to a particular time frame. The most important aspect of a unit study is that it provides a vehicle for enthusiastic learning. So if the week ends before the last industry is revolutionized, run your revolution through the weekend and on into the next week if necessary.
On the other hand, if you have delved into computers for weeks and your heads are ready to explode with all the technicalities crammed into your heads, then lay back a while. Pick up and finish your plans later in the year or even next year. Or maybe the remaining areas to cover are not all that critical. Let them go. Forced learning seldom sticks.
In our course textbook, Valerie Bendt adds this insight:
As we teach our children, we should ask ourselves, Is what I'm teaching really serving my children's needs? Am I filling their minds with tedious, nebulous facts, or am I feeding their minds with the good, the wonderful, the excellent?
To be sure you maintain a good academic balance, put your most important learning pieces near the beginning of the study if you can. This way, if you decide to cut the study short, you'll not have missed important topics you wanted to cover.
