Questions
Questions about Lumen
Same facts as Why and the journal.
- What is Lumen?
- University lectures for the kitchen table. Aristotle through quantum physics, written for kindergarten through high school. You pick an age from 5 to 18. The idea stays. The language and the number of evenings change.
- Is Lumen free?
- The catalog is free. No account. Bring is a household year: $24.99 a month or $224.99 a year (25% less), plus tax calculated from your address. That year is only for talks and books released under licenses that allow adaptation.
- Is Lumen a school? Is it accredited?
- No. Lumen is a curriculum layer. It does not enroll anyone, keep attendance, or stand in for compulsory schooling. Certificates say completed the work. They are not diplomas. We do not claim accreditation, Cognia, or NCAA.
- Can I homeschool with MIT OpenCourseWare?
- Yes, as a curriculum, under your own state's homeschool notice. OpenCourseWare is free to adapt with credit. Lumen does that rewrite, prints the lesson, and asks the idea again later. You remain the school of record.
- What ages is Lumen for?
- Kindergarten through high school. In the catalog you pick an age from five to eighteen. Age eighteen keeps every concept from the original lecture. Younger ages get more evenings and shorter ones. We do not thin the physics into a cartoon.
- Is Lumen a homeschool curriculum?
- It is a curriculum layer you can use at the table. You remain the school of record and you file whatever notice your state asks for. Lumen rewrites the lecture, prints the sitting, and asks the idea again later.
- Can a tutor use Lumen?
- Yes. Set the age, print the pack, sit with them. The catalog is free. A household year is only if you want Bring — talks and books you may adapt into courses of your own.
- How long is a sitting?
- About twenty minutes of looking, reading, and a check they must pass. A long university lecture is split across more evenings for a younger chair. Age eighteen may take the lecture in one sitting.
- Does Lumen sell MIT courses?
- No. The CC BY-NC-SA license on MIT OpenCourseWare does not allow selling those courses. We do not. Credit the source. Keep the free free.
- Are the lessons printable?
- Yes. Print packs are the point-of-use object: cover, lesson, practice, a check, an answer key. A4 and US letter. Grey pictures on cream so they survive a tired printer. Designed for a kitchen, a backpack, or a hostel with no wifi after Tuesday.
- What is Bring?
- Bring is the household year. It opens courses already assembled — civics, Leonardo, Western civ — and lets you turn a talk, a chapter, or words you wrote into a printable sitting. Public domain, CC BY, CC0, or your own. ShareAlike, no-derivatives, and non-commercial licenses fail, because a lesson is a derivative.
- Is Lumen religious?
- No. It is secular. Science is not rewritten as intelligent design, young-earth, or “neutral.” History is not a tract.
- How is this different from watching the MIT lecture on YouTube?
- The lecture is for undergraduates at lecture speed. Lumen keeps the ideas and changes the evening: one picture that is a question, a short body, a check they must pass, mixed practice, and a reason to come back in one, three, seven, and twenty-one days instead of rereading.
- Can worldschoolers use it offline?
- Print the pack while you have a signal. The paper is the lesson. Come back to the due list when you have wifi again.
- What does a Lumen certificate mean?
- It means the child completed the work for that class or lecture series. With distinction means they passed the last check on the first try. It is not a diploma and not a school transcript in the legal sense. A separate export lists what they actually finished.
- Is there a Kickstarter?
- A founding print pack is being prepared: cream paper, grey stills, three sittings you may teach. Goal $1,000. The catalog stays free. Details and the day-one list are on the campaign page.
The founding pack: Campaign.