You know that expression "never say never?" I've been thinking about that a lot lately. When we were getting ready to put Miss C into kindergarten and examining all of the area school options, my husband and I -- strong public school supporters that we are -- thought we'd never put her in a private school. By the time 7th grade rolled around, we knew the public school option available to us was just not right for her... and there we were, entering the world of private school education. And I remember SO vividly, from the days when Miss C was a toddler and I heard a home-schooling expert speak at a local mom's club, thinking that I'd NEVER homeschool. I just couldn't imagine it. And homeschooling for high school? That seemed the worst possible idea. Me? Teaching geometry and world history? How could a home-schooling parent set a child up properly for college? I just couldn't imagine.
But, as these things happen (another saying seems appropriate here: "We plan, God laughs...") we saw that Miss C is just not the sort of kid who learns best in a structured school setting. I've talked about the Asperger's, and her migraines, and throw in the fact that she has a hard time in noisy and smell-heavy environments (and what is life in a classroom full of teenagers, if not noisy and smelly?) and suddenly we're well off of the traditional school paths.
Despite my certainty when Miss C was 4 years old that we wanted her to have continuity in school and move forward with a group of buddies and have a school community where she could see her kindergarten teacher in the hallway on the way to her 6th grade classroom, my naive vision didn't match up with what Miss C actually needed. So, we went from a large public elementary school (for K-4), to a small rural and very personal public elementary school (5-6), to a private school (7), to an online virtual high school for gifted kids with some homeschooling and tutoring mixed in (8). They all had their wonderful qualities, and for our needs, they all had drawbacks.
I've had such an education -- and the most important aspect of it, I know, is that I have a much different way of thinking about how learning should and/or does happen. Most of all, I know that it's different for different kids ... Hugely different for some of them, in ways that a structured school system can't accommodate very well. I've researched the options in my area, which include things like special ed-focused schools, public school programs that are essentially full-time independent study with regular check in with teachers, public (and State paid for) virtual schooling (where the State checks out a laptop computer to you for online lessons, even)... The options that exist are amazing.
And I've discovered that home-schooling isn't scary at all. For many families and kids, it has enormous advantages. You know where I'm heading, don't you? My biggest NEVER about Miss C's education is about to happen -- she'll be doing this 9th grade year via homeschooling. (And after that? Who knows. I've learned that we see what happens and then adjust -- year to year, month to month, day to day if need be.)
What has changed my views? Well, necessity, for one thing. (Funny how that works.) But mostly I've spent hours and hours reading and talking to homeschooling people and emailing and learning via online homeschooling groups. The resources are terrific. I've found really helpful information at Homeschooling Extraordinary Kids, and through Homeschooling Toward College , and on the forum at The Well-Trained Mind. I now think of the parent's role in homeschooling high school as being a general contractor, whose role is to hire a bunch of subcontractors for various specialties, and then to oversee it all to make sure it's going smoothly and the work is getting done. Really, you help your child orchestrate her own education -- following her learning style and interests within the framework of legal requirements and what colleges will be looking for, of course.
So we have mapped out a plan of interesting but challenging work, and we've got materials winging their way to us from all sorts of sources. Miss C will be exploring the Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightment for history, integrated with art history, music, personalities, and architecture of the period; literary analysis using the Lord of the Rings trilogy for English; Japanese I (using amazing materials that integrate learning the language with Japanese manga); geometry (with a local tutor), and biology (yep, there will be a virtual frog dissected along the way if that is not the first thing she does because she's so excited about it). I'll sneak in some other stuff along the way -- etymology with greek and latin word roots, logic and critical thinking using some fun books called "Fallacy Detective," art history, and the usual abundance of art creation and creative writing.
And I love that we can take the work with us if we go somewhere. We can go spend the morning at Starbucks, working all the while. We can adapt the schedule to fit the times we want to take vacations and to suit Roger's work schedule. Miss C can continue her horseback riding and volunteering at the local animal shelter and see her friends, too. If she has a migraine, no problem. Neither of us has to stress about falling behind or making up something she missed because she couldn't be in class. Frankly, this thing I thought I'd never do is feeling pretty good right now.
Oh, and there's this: Along the way, I've found so many amazing educational resources, great for adults as well as younger students. I'm sort of itching to start some of these things myself! For example:
The Teaching Company sells sets of DVD and audio lectures, presented by lively professors from leading universities, on all sorts of topics: art history, "how the earth works," game theory, "life lessons from great books," and more. Miss C and I will be watching some lectures on the Art of the Italian Renaissance over the next few months, to go with her renaissance history. Imagine, if you could have learned American History or Astronomy that way?
Were you grossed out but fascinated by having to dissect a frog in biology? Or do you feel cheated because you never got enjoy that experience? The Digital Frog lets you do it without smell, mess, OR harming a real animal. It's not too late! (If you want to see what it's like, you can watch clips on YouTube, here.)
MIT (Mass Institute of Technology) has FREE open courseware, which provides full web-based publication of course content from actual courses that have been offered at MIT. While you don't get course credit from MIT, the material is all there to use, and can include syllabus, readings, assignments, lecture notes, and even audio and video material. They have foreign language courses that include the software to hear the spoken language. I'm excited about a course called Kitchen Chemistry, which uses cooking to explore chemistry principles.
There are tons of interesting looking videos available online (many of them free) from The History Channel,
The Biography Channel, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet, The Science Channel, and more.
See? Once you start looking it's downright astonishing how much educational material is available at our fingertips.
I'm kind of wishing I could have done high school this way.
