I'm curious, what are you using as "reward" for him putting forth the effort
to do this work? At an early stage some sort of reward is usually required
to inspire a person to make the effort, otherwise it tends to seem like the
quizes are punishment.
Later, as their skills build, pride in their skills will tend to take over.
You will know when that happens when he starts to ask for more problems (or
takes on more responsabilities by himself) and stops caring about getting
the reward.
Growing up, my dad made sure that I knew he was proud of me and my work, and
one of the worse punishments I earned was no more than my dad telling me how
much I disapointed him, this was not a common thing (or it would not have
meant much) and that made it all the more shamefull.
There is an old saying that goes "it only thakes one O-sh*t to wipe out 1000
atta-boys".
With kids make sure that;
1. they earn the "atta-boy" (or it won't mean anything)
2. you give them lots of chances to earn those "atta-boys" (give them them
the chance to earn your praise)
3. make sure most corrections are not given in an O-sh*t manner (don't
treat every mistake as a major problem) and
4. never ever treat a mistake as being "the end of the line", no matter how
bad it is, work with them (never ever take their mistake away from them and
solve it yourself) and make them take a part in the solution.
This is much like dealing with women...only much easier (yes, I'm single).
:-)

Eric

In answer to several questions:

It has been many years since I did any teaching so it will take a few
days for me to get up to speed on it.

I used 7700 lbs of water because that is the empty displacement of my
boat.
The captain of the sinking vessel knew what displacement meant and
about concepts of buoyancy.
I inadvertantly gave a problem that was too easy,
I have no knowledge of coast guard pump capacities but only intended
for him to show he knew how to do such a problem.
I have read both the Patrick Obrien and CS Forester novels multiple
times and consider Obrien too verbose and detail oriented for a 14 yr
old.
I have him do some steering, actually I make my kids do a lot of
steering in and out of port although the auto-pilot does most of in
transit.
I make him do coastal piloting by taking bearing on markers and
markings LOPs on the chart.
The "Reward" thing really hasn't been an issue. We are both sure he
could pass the end of 8th grade tests now but I told him I wanted him
to be more educated than that. I explained that most of us are of
average intelligence and the only way we can do better than seriously
intelligent people is to simply know how to do more things than them
and to be more determined.

today's lesson:

This involved compass variation and I got out a globe and showed him
how it occurs because the magnetic and geographic poles are far
separated. I also explained that the magnetic poles wander to make
annual variation increases.

First, I had him do some conversions of a position like 23 deg. 30 min
to degrees and fractions of a degree (23.5 degrees).
Then, I explained that on short trips, I never have to account for
compass variation because it is only about 2 degrees in our local
waters. Then, I gave him a chart from 1983 of the NE Gulf of Mexico
with its variation and annual increase marked. I then asked him how
much I would be in error today if I steered strictly by compass from
Cedar key to our next destination; Tarpon Springs (about 60 miles).
The correct answer is about 5 miles if you account for the variation in
1983 and add the annual variation increase. He was surprised at this
and thought he had done something wrong at first so i guess he learned
something.

Tomorrow, I will ask "Why do we use only the latitude scale on a chart
to measure nautical miles? Why cant we use the longitude scale?" He
ought to be looking at the globe for this one.

I will also ask, how many right angles can a triangle on a plane have?
How many right angles can a triangle on the surface of a sphere have?

On 11 Jan 2005 09:55:37 -0800, wrote:

I used 7700 lbs of water because that is the empty displacement of my
boat.
The captain of the sinking vessel knew what displacement meant and
about concepts of buoyancy.

I suspect that perhaps the captain didn't fully understand the
concepts of displacement and bouyancy. An empty hull will displace its
own weight in seawater. Its ability to take on water without sinking
depends on the hull volume, which is related to the registry tonnage
through a complicated collection of rules that probably vary from
authority to authority.

For example, my boat displaces about 12000 lbs and has a net registry
tonnage of 9.45 tons. It also has a waterline "footprint" of about 200
square feet, so adding 12000 lbs of water would raise the waterline by
rather less than a foot, and I have much more freeboard than that.

Ryk

Eric,
Some great thoughts there. It sounds like you had a fine dad. I hope I can
do as well with my own 15 year old....
--Alan Gomes

"Eric Currier" wrote in message
news:65KEd.1245$sF5.1226@okepread06...
I'm curious, what are you using as "reward" for him putting forth the
effort
to do this work? At an early stage some sort of reward is usually required
to inspire a person to make the effort, otherwise it tends to seem like
the
quizes are punishment.
Later, as their skills build, pride in their skills will tend to take
over.
You will know when that happens when he starts to ask for more problems
(or
takes on more responsabilities by himself) and stops caring about getting
the reward.
Growing up, my dad made sure that I knew he was proud of me and my work,
and
one of the worse punishments I earned was no more than my dad telling me
how
much I disapointed him, this was not a common thing (or it would not have
meant much) and that made it all the more shamefull.
There is an old saying that goes "it only thakes one O-sh*t to wipe out
1000
atta-boys".
With kids make sure that;
1. they earn the "atta-boy" (or it won't mean anything)
2. you give them lots of chances to earn those "atta-boys" (give them them
the chance to earn your praise)
3. make sure most corrections are not given in an O-sh*t manner (don't
treat every mistake as a major problem) and
4. never ever treat a mistake as being "the end of the line", no matter
how
bad it is, work with them (never ever take their mistake away from them
and
solve it yourself) and make them take a part in the solution.
This is much like dealing with women...only much easier (yes, I'm single).
:-)

Eric