How I'm Making Choices for High School
I don't know about *most* kids, but I know for my kids for most things, they need a guide that's an actual person, not just a book. They need accountability. They need someone that's going to inspire them, model for them not only a good grasp and love of the subject at hand, but also what kind of a person they ought to be becoming. They need to engage in conversation around the ideas they're encountering and be sharpened and challenged, shown how to engage ideas without accepting them. I want them to be interacting with and inspired by adults in their teenage years in real life (or virtually). I want them to have great tutors that love their subject for all their classes. That can be me and their dad for most things, but not for all things. I realize that about myself.
High school credits/subjects/courses seem to fall into three categories for me as a homeschool mom:
1. Things I know well enough to help my kids learn
2. Things I *want* learn with them or ahead of them
3. Things I have no interest in studying or learning about
For us, being as we are focused on giving our kids a Scholé education in the liberal arts, there's just SIX things we're attempting to do really well:
-Composition --> Logic --> Rhetoric
-Latin
-Mathematics
-Natural Science
-Music
-Great Books
So for me personally, this is how things break down:
1. Things I know well enough to help my kids learn:
-Music
2. Things I want to learn with them or ahead of them:
-Composition, Logic & Rhetoric
-Latin
-Great Books
3. Things I have no interest in studying well enough to guide them in:
-Mathematics
-Natural sciences
So the funny thing about this is that the one thing that I have fully outsourced is the one thing that I know well enough to teach! But, this is because music is ideally collaborative, and our public schools allow us to attend for fine arts only. So my kids go to the public school everyday for orchestra and choir. (They even get to rent an instrument from the school for the year for next to nothing.) This works for us for one big reason. So far, the teachers they've had for choir and orchestra have been people we would have hand-chosen to be their mentors and guides in music. They are wonderful people that love their students, love music, see the wholistic and beautiful place of music in education, and bring that to their students. They are completely in harmony with the rest of our curricula. They also have become friends and encouragers, and I feel like they respect what we're doing in our home. I'm so grateful for their work and respect them so much as well. Getting to know to each other has been a good thing for all of us, I think.
Here's how I'm making the rest of this work though.
Things in Category 2: I want to learn!
Composition & Logic: We love all things Classical Academic Press. The major advantage I have found in the CAP composition and logic books are that they do a great job of teaching the teacher while teaching the student. There are no DVD's, but their books are so well laid out that it's possible for me to read through them the summer before, and if not that, then for me to read through them a week or two ahead of the kids and know enough to facilitate their learning to write and the topics in the logic courses. This is working for me because the things I'm learning here are helping me in general in life, relationships, faith, and that motivates me to keep studying it. It's rich and deep and restful.
Latin: I love studying Latin. I stay right alongside the kids, doing the same chapter as them each week, but I understand it in a lot greater depth than they do. We get together once a week for class and go over the exercises and translations and make sure they understand why things are the way the are. Latin Alive! by CAP makes this possible.
Great Books: I have found some excellent resources that have provided me with the skills and confidence to tackle the hardest books! If you have not yet, get yourself a copy of Center for Lit's Teaching the Classics. Also, get yourself a copy of Invitation to the Classics, Poetics by Christina Somerville, and The Circe Reading Guide. These are the four basic resources I'm using to teach high school literature. We read books. We talk about them. Then they write essays about them. We cycle back through essay types they've learned in their composition books for practice. This year, they've written first person narrative stories of being a part of the Jewish exile to Babylon, a confirmation or refutation of Odysseus' killing the suitors, and comparisons of three ancient civilizations. This is not rocket science, and there are some basic but great questions and tools to teach them to read closely and search for the themes in the books. I make my book lists myself based on lots of factors (maybe another post on that another time). But this is definitely something I don't want to miss out on with them. This is where we apply a lot of the other things we're learning. I can handle doing the pre-reading in the spring and summer to finalize our reading lists and then re-reading through the year at the pace we do.
History also falls into this category. I have struggled with history. Most history programs are like majoring in history. I do think history is important, but I think it's less important now than I once did. Because of this, I'm opting for lighter loads in history to allow us to go deep with logic, rhetoric, and the Great Books. I've found simple resources that have built-in assignments and assessment that are easy for me to schedule and assign and don't require much of me otherwise. Because history is content and not skill, I can assess their understanding and apprehension of the topics by their assignments and writing, and move along.
So category 3: things I have no interest in studying.
I think there are basically two different ways to outsource responsibility for high school courses.
1. Full-on Outsourced: hiring another teacher (privately, online class, online self-paced)
2. Partnered/Supported: DVD based teaching from a great teacher, with packaged assignments and assessments with grading rubrics. This allows you to learn alongside your kids
I have no business teaching science. I am not at all motivated to set up labs and attend to details and repeat things when they don't work, figure out what went wrong, think hard about covalent and ionic bonds and such these. No interest. It's labor for me. I don't want to rob them of the wonder in these things though, because the wonder is real. I just don't have the margin in my brain for it. So it is absolutely best that I outsource this. This is going to be one of those things that I fully outsource, because I have not seen a DVD based science curriculum with labs at home that I feel does an adequate job. As of now, I plan to do astronomy next year, and then *maybe* do the Introductory Physics on our own and expect them to do the labs on their own (because there's only 5 or 6 in the course) and see how it goes. Novare Science does offer a ton of support in terms of assessment. But I've found I still have to have a handle on the material in order to assess their answers on quizzes and tests. Because Novare never uses multiple choice or matching, all their quizzes and tests are short answer, the answers vary a lot from the answers in the guides, so I have a lot of interpreting to do! We may do Intro to Physics through an online class, and then biology and chemistry either online or through dual enrollment. All I know is I don't want to be responsible for it.
Mathematics: I've been trying to keep up with their math. But I've not done a very good job. Their mathematical reasoning at the end of this school year (Luke finishing geometry, Kiryn finishing Algebra 1) is not near as strong as I'd like it to be. I'm working the curriculum fairly well and their tests scores were not raising any red flags, but when I ask them questions I can tell they don't really understand what they're doing. So I'm back to the drawing board with math. We're trying VideoText Interactive, because it's manageable for me, and it is strongly attacking the gaps that we have. The lessons are short and immediately assessed the next morning with a quiz. It doesn't take a lot of time and there's not tons of problems to grade, just ten each. So far this is taking a lot of uncertainty and guess work out of math for all of us and feels solid and secure. The time saved here is making it possible for me to continue teaching their high school math for now. Because I'm not teaching it. The videos are, and I'm listening in and am able to really assess their comprehension.
So this is my process:
1. Do I want to learn this really well?
2. Can I learn this really well (do I have the time?)
3. If I don't have the time or desire to learn this, are there programs that will allow me to learn alongside my kids (like DVD based with support) and provide them with accountability and assessment?
4. If I can't find a well-supported program I can work, I need to find a class or tutor.
Nota Bene: This year has been our first year doing high school credits in our home academy. Next year will be the first full year of high school credits for me as a teacher. The principles I'm outlining here are the ones that have informed what I've learned from this past year and how I'm approaching the coming year. I make no claims that this is a good idea yet. :)
High school credits/subjects/courses seem to fall into three categories for me as a homeschool mom:
1. Things I know well enough to help my kids learn
2. Things I *want* learn with them or ahead of them
3. Things I have no interest in studying or learning about
For us, being as we are focused on giving our kids a Scholé education in the liberal arts, there's just SIX things we're attempting to do really well:
-Composition --> Logic --> Rhetoric
-Latin
-Mathematics
-Natural Science
-Music
-Great Books
So for me personally, this is how things break down:
1. Things I know well enough to help my kids learn:
-Music
2. Things I want to learn with them or ahead of them:
-Composition, Logic & Rhetoric
-Latin
-Great Books
3. Things I have no interest in studying well enough to guide them in:
-Mathematics
-Natural sciences
So the funny thing about this is that the one thing that I have fully outsourced is the one thing that I know well enough to teach! But, this is because music is ideally collaborative, and our public schools allow us to attend for fine arts only. So my kids go to the public school everyday for orchestra and choir. (They even get to rent an instrument from the school for the year for next to nothing.) This works for us for one big reason. So far, the teachers they've had for choir and orchestra have been people we would have hand-chosen to be their mentors and guides in music. They are wonderful people that love their students, love music, see the wholistic and beautiful place of music in education, and bring that to their students. They are completely in harmony with the rest of our curricula. They also have become friends and encouragers, and I feel like they respect what we're doing in our home. I'm so grateful for their work and respect them so much as well. Getting to know to each other has been a good thing for all of us, I think.
Here's how I'm making the rest of this work though.
Composition & Logic: We love all things Classical Academic Press. The major advantage I have found in the CAP composition and logic books are that they do a great job of teaching the teacher while teaching the student. There are no DVD's, but their books are so well laid out that it's possible for me to read through them the summer before, and if not that, then for me to read through them a week or two ahead of the kids and know enough to facilitate their learning to write and the topics in the logic courses. This is working for me because the things I'm learning here are helping me in general in life, relationships, faith, and that motivates me to keep studying it. It's rich and deep and restful.
Latin: I love studying Latin. I stay right alongside the kids, doing the same chapter as them each week, but I understand it in a lot greater depth than they do. We get together once a week for class and go over the exercises and translations and make sure they understand why things are the way the are. Latin Alive! by CAP makes this possible.
Great Books: I have found some excellent resources that have provided me with the skills and confidence to tackle the hardest books! If you have not yet, get yourself a copy of Center for Lit's Teaching the Classics. Also, get yourself a copy of Invitation to the Classics, Poetics by Christina Somerville, and The Circe Reading Guide. These are the four basic resources I'm using to teach high school literature. We read books. We talk about them. Then they write essays about them. We cycle back through essay types they've learned in their composition books for practice. This year, they've written first person narrative stories of being a part of the Jewish exile to Babylon, a confirmation or refutation of Odysseus' killing the suitors, and comparisons of three ancient civilizations. This is not rocket science, and there are some basic but great questions and tools to teach them to read closely and search for the themes in the books. I make my book lists myself based on lots of factors (maybe another post on that another time). But this is definitely something I don't want to miss out on with them. This is where we apply a lot of the other things we're learning. I can handle doing the pre-reading in the spring and summer to finalize our reading lists and then re-reading through the year at the pace we do.
History also falls into this category. I have struggled with history. Most history programs are like majoring in history. I do think history is important, but I think it's less important now than I once did. Because of this, I'm opting for lighter loads in history to allow us to go deep with logic, rhetoric, and the Great Books. I've found simple resources that have built-in assignments and assessment that are easy for me to schedule and assign and don't require much of me otherwise. Because history is content and not skill, I can assess their understanding and apprehension of the topics by their assignments and writing, and move along.
So category 3: things I have no interest in studying.
I think there are basically two different ways to outsource responsibility for high school courses.
1. Full-on Outsourced: hiring another teacher (privately, online class, online self-paced)
2. Partnered/Supported: DVD based teaching from a great teacher, with packaged assignments and assessments with grading rubrics. This allows you to learn alongside your kids
I have no business teaching science. I am not at all motivated to set up labs and attend to details and repeat things when they don't work, figure out what went wrong, think hard about covalent and ionic bonds and such these. No interest. It's labor for me. I don't want to rob them of the wonder in these things though, because the wonder is real. I just don't have the margin in my brain for it. So it is absolutely best that I outsource this. This is going to be one of those things that I fully outsource, because I have not seen a DVD based science curriculum with labs at home that I feel does an adequate job. As of now, I plan to do astronomy next year, and then *maybe* do the Introductory Physics on our own and expect them to do the labs on their own (because there's only 5 or 6 in the course) and see how it goes. Novare Science does offer a ton of support in terms of assessment. But I've found I still have to have a handle on the material in order to assess their answers on quizzes and tests. Because Novare never uses multiple choice or matching, all their quizzes and tests are short answer, the answers vary a lot from the answers in the guides, so I have a lot of interpreting to do! We may do Intro to Physics through an online class, and then biology and chemistry either online or through dual enrollment. All I know is I don't want to be responsible for it.
Mathematics: I've been trying to keep up with their math. But I've not done a very good job. Their mathematical reasoning at the end of this school year (Luke finishing geometry, Kiryn finishing Algebra 1) is not near as strong as I'd like it to be. I'm working the curriculum fairly well and their tests scores were not raising any red flags, but when I ask them questions I can tell they don't really understand what they're doing. So I'm back to the drawing board with math. We're trying VideoText Interactive, because it's manageable for me, and it is strongly attacking the gaps that we have. The lessons are short and immediately assessed the next morning with a quiz. It doesn't take a lot of time and there's not tons of problems to grade, just ten each. So far this is taking a lot of uncertainty and guess work out of math for all of us and feels solid and secure. The time saved here is making it possible for me to continue teaching their high school math for now. Because I'm not teaching it. The videos are, and I'm listening in and am able to really assess their comprehension.
So this is my process:
1. Do I want to learn this really well?
2. Can I learn this really well (do I have the time?)
3. If I don't have the time or desire to learn this, are there programs that will allow me to learn alongside my kids (like DVD based with support) and provide them with accountability and assessment?
4. If I can't find a well-supported program I can work, I need to find a class or tutor.
Nota Bene: This year has been our first year doing high school credits in our home academy. Next year will be the first full year of high school credits for me as a teacher. The principles I'm outlining here are the ones that have informed what I've learned from this past year and how I'm approaching the coming year. I make no claims that this is a good idea yet. :)
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