Does this hard hat make me look smart?

So I used to have a fear of homeschooling.  Well, not a fear, exactly.  More like I thought that it involved me sitting at the kitchen table having to impart my knowledge about the academic subject matter at hand.  And as much as I love my child and I actually did manage to learn a few things at school, the idea was daunting. Plus it sounded like a sure way to make your child hate you pretty darn quick.

I was especially worried about high school.  That's when the subject matter gets, well, complicated.  Geometry!  Biology!  Algebra!  World History!  Plus, your high school records follow you a ways into your budding adult life, what with colleges being kind of pesky about wanting transcripts and test scores and all.

But the more C's experiences in school seemed to be grinding her into an increasingly smaller, sadder version of herself, the more I looked into homeschooling.  And I had a Major Revelation:

I wouldn't have to actually TEACH high school subjects.  Homeschooling high school is more like acting as the General Contractor** and hiring subcontractors to deliver each subject to your child.

I can't even TELL you how much that calmed me down and made it totally doable. And that has been my approach.  I, in consultation with my client, um, student, decide what the subjects are for the year.  I decide how many hours/credit equivalent time she needs.  I research what the subject delivery systems are, and there are plenty: online courses, videos, textbooks, tutors, etc.

So that's my approach to home schooling in high school.  And so far it's working great.  I'll write more about how I've organized things and the course options I've explored, and why I chose what I chose.  But if you're daunted by the high school (or even middle school) content for home schooling, just remember:  You can put on your general contractor hard hat and go hire some subs.


** If you happen to be writing a blog post about general and subcontractors, and you want to find a picture of a woman in a hard hat, don't go googling images of  "female in hard hat."  You wouldn't believe what comes up.  Then again, you probably would.  Just saying.

Our School Calendar

When we started homeschooling this fall, I had a revelation.  We could make the course schedule whatever we wanted it to be.

I'd seen C grow anxious and stressed over her body of schoolwork, even while the work in each subject matter was reasonable and not difficult for her.  I'd tried various ways to both lighten her academic load and to make her FEEL that the load was lighter.  C's perception of her workload, I realized, was the real problem.  And, more importantly, I realized that, for her, the perception issue wasn't about the content or the difficulty of work.  It was simply the feeling that she had a certain number of balls to juggle at one time, and just that fact alone overwhelmed and stressed her.

Reading homeschooling info one evening online (as I do frequently -- seeking guidance and reassurance as I often do on this unfamiliar path), I came across a mom who reported that her family's schooling worked best when they did ONE thing for a few weeks, and then switched and did something else, but always one subject at a time.  LIGHTBULB!  Who says one has to do 5-8 courses at one time?  If that's what was freaking C out, why couldn't we try something different?

What a mind-opening idea.  It's amazing, really, how often the institutionalized school world defines my own expectations and assumptions in ways I don't realize.  And this was another. So, I sat down with C and we had a discussion.  I laid out what subjects she needed to cover for 9th grade.  And I asked her:  Did she want to try doing one at once?  Two or three at a time?  I pointed that that her work in each course would still need to cover a year's worth of material by the end, so if she did one at a time, she'd still be putting in the same general time every day, so it'd be an intensive dive into whatever the current subject was.

After some contemplation we agreed to try this:  She'd do two core courses at a time for half of the school year, and halfway through she'd switch to the other two core courses. That'd mean she'd do a year's worth of math in a semester, for example.  And we agreed that foreign language needs continuity, so we included a little bit of language every day all year long.  The advantage of this is that it'd give C just THREE subjects to keep track of.  And, I reminded her (and myself), if it didn't feel like it was working, we'd adjust.

It's been brilliant.  For September through mid-January, C studied English and Geometry, working about 2 hours a day in each of those two subjects.  She did a short language lesson every day, too, just as art and PE have continued all along. And in mid-January, she changed to World History and Biology, with ongoing foreign language, art and PE.  The change in her attitude about school work has been remarkable.

The plus side of this?  C feels far less stressed with only 3 subjects to juggle.  She gets to work in-depth a bit more in the core courses, so she can accomplish a lot in a week in each of those courses.  Another perceptual advantage: when she's wearing thin on a subject, she knows she only has a few more weeks to go before she's done with it.  It's also been advantageous for me, as it's made my planning of her work and progress easier as well.   That concept of juggling fewer things makes life easier for me, too.

I'm not sure how this would work for other kids.  But that's the great thing about homeschooling: you can tailor things to what your child needs and how she works best.

**Oh! That's the calendar over my desk up there.  It's from Paper Source.  Isn't it pretty?