Zig Ziglar is often quoted as saying, “there ain’t no free lunch” and traditionally it has been true that you get what you pay for. With a 12 year and $75 million dollar investment in education, SAS has delivered a product, at no cost to US educators and students that is worth every penny. What this means is that this is a free tutoring tool available to all students.
SAS Curriculum Pathways is a free online curriculum/online tutoring tool that, “is designed to enhance student achievement and teacher effectiveness by providing Web-based curriculum resources in all the core disciplines: English, math, science, social studies/history and Spanish, to educators and students in grades 8-14 in virtual schools, home schools, high schools and community colleges.
Their core disciplines are broken down as follows:
English: Language, Communication Skills, Literary Genres, American Literature, English Literature and World Literature
Social Studies: Ancient Civilizations, Early Regional Civilizations, Modern European History, Contemporary World History, United States History, and Civics & Economics
Science: Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics
Math: Introductory Algebra, Intermediate Algebra, Advanced Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Data Analysis
Spanish: Culture & Civilization, Dialogue & Dialects, Grammar in Practice, History & Politics, and Literature
All the disciplines are very informative and easy to use. After working on
the Spanish module, I now know that, “Me cocina es mui grande” (My kitchen is very large), and “Me bano es rojo” (My bathroom is red). Prior to trying out a few of the Spanish lessons my knowledge of Spanish consisted of the numbers 1 through 5, the color yellow (Amarillo), green (verde) and a few words like, “de nada” and “gracias”. Under the Conversational Spanish module, I was able to listen the to passage for pronunciation purposes while watching a visual of the topic or I was able to choose to follow along with the script. The script allowed me to roll my mouse over certain words and they would be translated into English for me. I was able to answer the practice questions and also able to hear the correct answer. Finally when I was done and I answered the questions on the quiz, I was able to e-mail the quiz to myself as a PDF.
In the English module, I chose to pull up Communication Skills, Struggle and Growth, Maya Angelou’s, “I know why the caged bird sings. It just so happens that I bought the book from the library last week and I was curious to see how the lessons would be crafted around the book. To my delight there were links to Maya Angelou speaking about her uncle, a link to Maya Angelou’s biography, a link to Oprah’s interview along with other opportunities to, “Read, Prepare, and Reflect”.
In the math module, I focused on Geometry, in part because I know a high school student who will be taking geometry online as part of North Carolina’s Virtual High School. I chose Geometry: 2D figures and I am proud to say that all the knowledge of my youth was not lost. I was able to quickly catch up on how to calculate the area of a parallelogram, triangle, trapezoid, and rhombus. I was able to pause the audio, rewind, and redo until I understood exactly what I had to do.
For science, I picked Physics. Sufficed to say that I am now unsure how I earned an A in this honors class in high school. I would definitely use the word robust to describe the science instruction.
Given my particular interest in Social Studies I found the wide variety of lessons to be both sensitive and inclusive of beliefs and culture without shying away from topics that might make some individuals uncomfortable like apartheid.
While the curriculum is designed with the student in mind, it does serve as an excellent refresher for parents who are interested in assisting their children in the various subjects, especially math.
In closing, I would like to note that Departments of Education, School Districts and even individual teachers are often criticized by some groups for curriculum that is culturally biased. Many of those groups will point to the lack of in depth study of the Spanish Culture, African Culture, Asian Culture and or Middle Eastern Culture in the school’s core curriculum. SAS Curriculum, with their offerings, does provide parents and educators with the opportunity to fill in those cultural gaps if they do exist.
SAS has created a free program that rivals any online self-study program and is a must for any student whether they are in the traditional brick and mortar high school, in a virtual high school, taking virtual classes or participating in a homeschool.
