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Psychologists around the world will tell you that people overestimate what they can accomplish in a month, and underestimate what they can achieve in a year. Homeschool Advantage is all about what your homeschool students can accomplish in a year. Specifically, what your students can accomplish in a year by building, fact by fact, upon a series of very specific SMART goals. A course in HomeSchool Advantage is, in fact, a SMART goal. SMART represents: Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic, and Timely. SPECIFIC - If you want your children to succeed, teach them to create specific goals. A specific goal is "I will learn the names of all of the American Presidents." A general goal is "I want to learn American history." Avoid general goals and actively pursue specific goals. MEASURABLE - To achieve a goal it should be measurable, otherwise how does one know it has been achieved? A measurable goal allows the student to experience the exhilaration of achievement and spur the student on to the continued effort required. A measurable goal is reflected in the goal "I will learn to recognize all of the flags of Central America." APPROPRIATE - Specific and measurable goals require another important characteristic, they should also be appropriate. Leaning your local phone book by rote is probably not an appropriate goal, where mastering 10 verbs in Spanish is an appropriate goal. Appropriate goals provide a framework to support you in achieving something of real value. Many times students and even parents don't understand why an educational goal is appropriate, so they mistakenly set the goal aside. If you do not know why a goal is appropriate, it is always appropriate to ask. REALISTIC - A realistic goal is a goal that is attainable through a reasonable application of energy. A realistic goal is based upon the unique individual energy and abilities of the person setting the goal. To determine if goal is realistic, ask if the student is prepared to meet this goal. For example, it is not realistic to learn the borders of the countries before they have learned the names of the countries. We encourage only assigning one course in a subject at a time, at a grade appropriate level, in the order we list, specifically to keep the goals realistic. TIMELY: Goals should be able to be achieved in a specific period of time. A time component to a goal creates a since of urgency, encouraging those who have that goal to set a specific times to work on those goals to achieve the goal by the deadline. Each and every course in HomeSchool Advantage represents a Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic, and Timely (SMART) goal. With Homeschool Advantage your children are fully equipped with the tools they need to attain their SMART goals. Goals that seemed far away and out of reach move closer and closer and become attainable, not because the goals shrink, but because the students grow and expand to meet them. Don't delay, assign your children's HomeSchool Advantage SMART goals today. And let me know all that they have accomplished in a year! -Tom Thomas Meloche President HomeSchoolAdvantage.com Remember: A typical student will forget as much as 80% of what they learn within just 30 days. With HomeSchoolAdvantage.com, your HomeSchool students can retain and recall it all. |
