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Starting HS in High School

684 views 8 replies 6 participants last post by  moominmamma 
#1 ·
Has anyone started home schooling their child in high school? My oldest has been in a private elementary and middle school that has served him well. He is a shy and sometimes anxious child who has made great strides in that setting. As we begin looking into options for high school though, neither of us is satisfied. I don't agree with hours of homework, and he is not motivated to do it. As his homework has increased in middle school, I have watched him become more unhappy.

We are currently looking at Keystone's online program. I think it's a perfect academic fit for him. Does anyone have experience with it? My only concern is socialization. I understand that he will socialize with all sorts of people in his day to day life, but I think there is also value in having friends your own age. I worry that it will be difficult to step into a home school group at this stage of the game. Would appreciate hearing what your experiences have been. Thanks.
 
#2 ·
We started homeschooling our daughter in high school. This is our first year, in fact. She went to a Waldorf school for elementary and middle school.

We decided to homeschool her (and our 2 young boys as well), because:

1. My full time job was killing us as a family. Going to part-time meant not being able to afford private school any longer.

2. We gave our daughter a list of options, and she chose to homeschool. She didn't want to go to a school with 900 kids. She had a brief stint in public school before (K-4th grades) and didn't remember it fondly. She liked the idea of going at her own pace and having time to pursue her interests.

So far, it works really well for us all. At times she has felt a little envious of her high school friends- and even felt that she might want to try going, but then she sees how much homework they are bogged down with every night, and how they have no flexibility in their lives. No thank you, she says!

What she really craves is the socialization. I will admit, she is lonely often, and we do worry that she is missing out on things. But she is adamant that she wants to stay homeschooling. To her, the benefits of homeschooling far outweigh the benefits of going to school.

She is getting better at creating and taking opportunities to get herself out there though. She made a friend through a homeschooling group (although she dropped it after going 3 times). However she keeps in touch with this friend and they are making plans together to hang out. She is also going to try to play Volleyball at the high school next year, and has just told me she wants to do another play, finally. (she took a hiatus after last summer's production).

We do Oak Meadow, although we are not officially enrolled. We both like the curriculum. It's nice to have the freedom to linger in a subject a little longer, or to add our own things to the mix. Like right now we are watching Roots to go along with her U.S. history.

At times I was close to making her attend the high school, out of concern of her loneliness. I'm glad I listened to her though, and stuck with the homeschooling. Things on that front are starting to turn around. And she really, really enjoys working independently. It suits her well, and she is a good student. She enjoys her subjects. I cringe when I think of her coming home at the end of the day and then having 4 hours of homework ahead of her. So wrong, in my opinion. This way, she gets to be a kid a little longer.

She has been writing a novel this year, and spends HOURS every day working on it. This is her bliss. If she were in school, there's no way she would be able to devote that much time to doing the things she loves.

In short, homeschooling has been awesome!
 
#3 ·
I'm interested in reading about others' opinions and experiences with homeschooling high schoolers too! My oldest is still in middle school, but will be starting high school after one year. I heard that high schooling is a bit different, because you have to deal with more intensive lab work. How is that dealt with? Thank you!
 
#4 ·
you have to deal with more intensive lab work. How is that dealt with? Thank you!
I guess it's dealt with however you want to deal with it! I suppose you could spend a bunch of money on lab kits for home, or find a homeschool co-op, or community college course or enrichment camp. Or ask a mentor who works in a scientific field to help.

We haven't found any of that to be necessary. To me lab work in science is about giving kids a way to experience science, not just read about it, and to put the scientific method into practice. I think schools tend to be sorely lacking in encouraging both these things, since they're very focused on sedentary learning and for organizational reasons can't really encourage inquiry-based learning. So it's not surprising that they like to put a bit of focus on them through labs. But in a homeschooling situation we're very focused on hands-on and experiential learning, and on letting learning be driven by our kids' curiosity and questions ... which is exactly what science is all about.

When we encounter something in a book about a scientific principle, we can usually think back over things we've experienced in our lives and come up with an experience or observation that illustrates that principle ... a nitrogen cycle in the fish tank, or buffering soil acidity, or using a static rope vs. a lead rope with rock-climbing for the differing tensile forces, or the warm rocks on the beach after the sun goes down, or the decline in kokanee salmon stocks that have been noted in our area and how that relates to a food web that includes cougars, deer and bears, he problem we had with the short-circuit in the power steering, the upside-down reflection of your face in the spoon, the importance of tucking fully during a back somersault on the trampoline, the inward sucking of the shower curtain when the shower is on, the sympathetic vibration of your violin's G string when you play D, the cool parabolic light-streak you see when photographing your siblings tossing LED lights on the lawn after dusk, the way Uncle Jeremy's light-sensitive eyeglass lenses never reacted inside the car but turned dark as soon as he stepped out of it ... In school kids don't share a many-years-long history of daily experiences with their teachers, so the curriculum includes planned-out activities to demonstrate various effects and principles.

At home we find it fun to occasionally do hands-on science relating to what we're seeing in a book (we recently did a double exchange reaction between epsom salts and washing soda in order to collect and measure a precipitate) but I don't find it's necessary to do much of this when we are able to witness science in our lives so much, and when so much of our learning is inquiry-based anyway. If we don't have the equipment to do a good demonstration at home to fill in some gap in experience there's usually an awesome YouTube demonstration that we can watch.

My 12yo is doing mostly high school stuff now, and I've watched her older siblings move through this stage as well. What I've found to be different at the high school level is the extent to which personal goal-setting and facilitated self-structuring becomes the focus. My kids have also increasingly wanted the opportunity to measure themselves against and hold themselves accountable to external standards, and to feel connected to mentors and real meaningful work in the larger community. Since we live in a tiny, somewhat isolated community, this has been the main challenge for us.

Miranda
 
#7 ·
Thank you Miranda for your detailed response!
 
#8 ·
I think we will be hsing my son entering grade 10 next year. We have been living abroad and he was in a fantastic international school but we just learned we are moving bck to the US and I cant imagine putting him in public school. We will live in Northern NJ. My concern is his getting into the college of his choice. He is very academic and coming from an International school is a bonus as schools like that diversity but now we are going to a very competitive area and I want him to have the edge so he can continue with what he wants to do ( wants to attend University of Va and major in Engineering) Thoughts?
 
#9 ·
LukesMum, you might want to look into community college options in your area. Not so much for the educational challenge and quality of education as for the documentation of his high academic potential, in a flexible, more mature environment. I'm in Canada, so I don't know the intricacies, but from what I hear it might be worth taking, say, Calculus and Chemistry at a CC while homeschooling and locking up a couple of official credits with exceptional grades while he is still technically a high schooler. I would imagine that would go a long way to validating whatever you have on a home-generated transcript, and I gather community colleges in the US are as a rule amenable to enrolling younger teens part-time.

Miranda
 
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