Downplaying High School

I feel like the people I've been around or influenced by, regarding homeschooling high school are of two extremes, with the majority in the camp of downplaying the rigor of traditional high school. The other extreme are unclear exactly what comprises traditional high school and are more like deer caught in headlights with the immediate thought that "I can't possibly do this" and most choose to enroll their homeschooled children to high school as a result.

As my older son starts eighth grade this month, I'm feeling annoyed at the various sources who are downplaying how rigorous traditional high schools can actually be. This includes the 'how to homeschool high school' lectures I've heard at homeschooling conferences.

In this case, so far, it makes sense for me to categorize the people based on their opinions. I hate pigeon-holing homeschoolers as a general rule since they are such a diverse group, much more diverse and complex than the media or even some homeschoolers themselves will admit. However over the years I see common threads that cannot be ignored. I have known some families for years and watched how their philosophy of education in the earlier years turned out in the end.

The Camps

The first group of people are solidly in the camp of alternative education. They have different ideas for what it means to be educated. In other cases up to this point, when homeschooling younger children they were able to use nontraditional methods or more fun methods or (fill in the blank) and arrive solidly at the same end goal. Thus they feel that high school is no different. If you compare what they are doing to traditional high school the two are completely different animals. Some things these students do is cool and interesting, other times it just seems like they are skimming by doing minimal work, less than the lowest track of public school students is doing. Perhaps the biggest thing going for those teens is they are generally happy people with some genuine interest in some career field, an art, or a sport. What they have going for them over some other kids their age is being a well-adjusted interesting person. That in and of itself has an appeal to college admissions officers, especially if they are well-spoken and interview well or turn out an interesting portfolio which stands out apart from the leagues of traditionally public schooled kids.

The second group is acting under advice about what to teach and how to get to the goal they have in mind for the child. They think they are doing enough or doing more than is adequate. They are confident that the choices they made are right. Other people who judge their reality may think the student's education lacks rigor. Some may accuse the families of being over-confident.

The third group really thinks they know what regular schools do as they have researched it thoroughly. Their child is on a track to seek admission to a college with strict admissions guidelines. These students are usually on a very academic track, it seems they are either doing heavy liberal arts, a solid classical homeschool method or seek a math or science field in college. They know the student must do A, B, and C to meet college admission guidelines. They are working hard to get those requirements done. They tend to be a bit more on the worried side that to get it all done via homeschooling is a huge undertaking. They usually have one or more areas where meeting the guidelines is a struggle (i.e. hard time accessing a community college biology lab course or stressing over which online homeschool course is good enough).

Taking Advice

When taking advice or being influenced by people about how to homeschool high school, or at least even listening to what various options are it helps to try to figure out which of the above category they are in. The degree to which I listen to them or feel their information is credible is also influenced by these factors.

1. What is the goal for their child? It makes no sense for me to take advice on how to homeschool a future engineer from someone who says college is nothing more than a binge drinking fest and they not only feel it's not necessary but they have no intention of sending their children to college. This is a statement made on my local homeschool chat list in the last year; I'm not making up that mindset.

2. What is the parent's own frame of reference or their own experience? I am the product of an alternative college education while my husband had a traditional route including earning an MBA. Should I take advice from someone who is totally clueless about college as they didn't attend and hold little respect for a degree? Should I take advice from a parent who has always worked a blue collar job if my son's goal is engineering? Shouldn't I pay more attention to my engineer friends? Should we listen to people who hold little respect for college or high school? It's one thing to have some negative opinions of one's own public school education but another to choose a homeschooling path that avoids the negative stuff but gives the child a weaker education than the parent actually had, especially when they espouse a goal for homeschooling is to have an education superior to what the public schools provide.

3. If the person has no firm goal for their child and is of the loosey-goosey attitude that "whatever they choose when they are 17 is fine with me", take caution. It takes years to prepare for college admissions in some cases, you can't just scramble in the junior and senior year to meet requirements in all cases. When I hear these situations, I've found that the students wind up taking an easy route such as admissions to a non-competitive college, community college, or don't attend college at all.

4. If the student is extremely gifted or talented in one subject area, take caution. Students may gain admission to colleges based on their talent or giftedness in one slim area while other areas are more average. For example if a student is a child prodigy in playing a musical instrument but barely knows any science or history, I would not take watered down advice from that parent to not worry about teaching my child barely any science or history, especially if my child lacks some special talent and seeks a science career.

5. Homeschoolers who are very religious further confuse things. In one case I know a family in which one parent has a PhD and the other has a Master’s, who had their kids on a rigorous academic track for homeschool. The oldest has decided to become a missionary in a foreign country, she’s not even seeking college admissions now. In other cases, in multiple cases, especially at homeschool conferences, I hear of people who think they have provided a rigorous homeschool education worthy of getting their children into Harvard or Yale, but the children could only get into very religious colleges that happen to be their same religion. From where I stand if the child was truly prepared for admissions to a selective college they would have at least gained admission to some of them not just the religious (non-selective) schools, even if they in the end, chose to go to the religious non-selective school.

My Struggles

I have said it before and I'll say it again. If I fail to provide my children with the necessary requirements to seek their career of choice I will not be able to live with myself. I will have failed my child. In choosing to homeschool, in taking responsibility for their education I have taken on a lot. I do not want my children to be surprised at age 17 that they cannot take the next step that they those for themselves.

However I do not want to be one of those stressed out homeschool moms who is never happy because she's always freaking out about possibly being inadequate.

I use this blog to write out my thoughts and concerns; it's like therapy for me. I sometimes wonder if some of my readers have a different view of me that's not accurate. Perhaps some of you think I'm more anxiety ridden than I actually am. The truth is I have had goals for my kids since they were in Kindergarten but our more relaxed manner of homeschooling which was first unschooling then Charlotte Mason then classical inspired but eclectic is truly more laid back than my plans indicate. Usually my plans don't fully come to fruition. Sometimes our goals are not met but often they are and sometimes they are even exceeded. It is good to work toward a goal and to have a plan but real life sometimes takes us a bit off course. I try to be cognizant of this and revise plans during the year or set different goals the next year to try to move us back to being more solidly working toward that goal again.

What has happened for us is generally we do a lot of extra, added in stuff that is interesting and enriching to my children in a general way. I've been thrown a couple of curve balls with some learning disability diagnoses with my older son that blindsided me (as LDs in homeschooling kids is seldom discussed instead the focus is on over-focusing and celebrating their gifts while keeping their struggling points hidden in the shadows but that's another topic altogether). Our family has had some challenges and experiences I'd not wish on other families but we have survived, life includes stressful events, that's a fact, I just didn't think my kids would experience some of them at young ages, but it is what it is.

In thinking about plans for homeschool high school for my older child I'm a bit of an anxious state right now. I feel that this eighth grade year is a turning point. Shifts in how we have had learning experiences need to be taken to move up to the next level. I'm concerned that too many events held outside the home will occupy our time instead of lessons at home. Yet my worry is what is done away from home is not an equivalent instruction to meet my son's goals or to even compare equally to what is taught in public school.

I also realize I don't have a true understanding of what is covered in high school or how deep it goes. Reading a textbook or knowing what textbook schools commonly use is not good enough. I need to get a grasp on what it will take to teach the content of that textbook. Doing three chapters out of a high school text is not good enough, I don't want to skim or skip or be too superficial with our use of curriculum which is what some people I know are recommending. If a literature course reads ten books in a year I need to know that so I don't focus on just three books. I will not use a job at Scout camp as a high school sociology course on the transcript as the homeschool mom lecturer at the homeschool conference said she did and advised us to do.

I am looking for rational approaches to homeschool high school that are rigorous enough to fulfill admissions requirements for engineering school for my older son. That's what's on my mind today. I don't want to live perpetually stressed out and worried that what we're doing is not good enough. I don't want my kids homeschooling in a panic mode or feeling low-self esteem due to me worrying they are not performing well enough or not doing enough school work to be on par with their peers and thus unable to fulfill their educational goals.

My friend advised me to attend eighth grade open houses at local private high schools which take place early this fall in order to get a sense for the academic scope and sequence and their rigor. My goal would be to meet or exceed those requirements for my engineer wanna-be. To do this I'll have to change some plans I have with my schedule but it may be worth my while.

Some of my confusion is that when I read things like college admissions websites with the requirements and even the brochure from HSLDA that outlines the different tracks for high schoolers those recommendations are only supported by two homeschooling parents I know and so far, no homeschool conference speakers I’ve heard lecture.

I feel like I’m dealing with people who have a very different perception of reality than the other sources have (like the colleges themselves). When you are around so much of this alternate reality it gets hard to determine if I’m the one whose perspective is skewed and it’s hard to decide who is getting their facts right. Which set of recommendations is fact and which is fiction?

I'm so confused!