Consider Home Education in High School
"All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills; we need guides to show us how. If we don't, our lives get made up for us by other people." Ursula Le Guin
Ursula Le Guin was an American author known especially for her science fiction and fantasy series that spanned a 60+ year career in producing hundreds of well-loved pieces that included translations, poetry, and literature for children in addition to her main adult series. By all measures, Le Guin was a success at what she did. This quote is especially powerful in an age when so many fall under a trance and believe the lie that a good education should be standardized. Ursula Le Guin made history as a writer, but her education suggested she should become a French teacher. Instead, she learned to imagine a different life and then she invented it.
Young people are expected to plot a plan for higher education followed by career. We adults ask them to choose their life road well before they know how to count the cost of taking that trip. With limited experience dealing with life (or the universe, or everything else), students are called on to complete a standardized course of study but yet—miraculously –emerge at high school graduation with exceptional interests, noteworthy personal assets, and ambitious plans to set them apart from all their peers who have also had a very similar course of study, the same standardized exams, and the same AP classes.
Maybe All the Adults Have Lost their Minds?
No wonder anxiety and depression are on the rise with our teens. The conventional path toward adulthood consists of a maddening swirl of collecting good grades, getting a nice selection of AP classes, tossing in some music (art, writing, martial arts, basketball, etc.), marking a few hours in volunteer work, and maybe picking up a part time job. Don’t forget to spend much of ages 17 and 18 applying to colleges and scholarships while we fuss at them for not taking advantage of social or faith opportunities.
This manic method is marketed as today’s fail-proof path to success. We ask them to do everything fast, furious, while taking top marks but we often send them into adulthood before most of them know how to use a bank account, cook a meal, clean the house, do laundry, mow the yard, or change a tire. That’s just how the first semester at college goes. Soon they’ll wonder why they don’t know how to pay taxes, save for a mortgage, work through a rental contract, deal with medical paperwork…stress!
How can students power their way through a standard transcript with standard classes (or accelerated versions of the same) but yet somehow emerge from their high school years as uniquely gifted and empowered individuals who have a strong sense of self when they’ve mainly only experienced no more and no less than their comparable peers.
What’s the solution?
Educating at home allows both parent and student to create a unique and personalized education for your truly unique child. Students who are excellent at a subject don’t need to slog their way through 4 years (5 days a week) of the same bland stuff if it can all be done in one year. Students who have more control over pace, content, and subject matter not only have a far better education in high school, but will have a far better understanding of self afterwards.
Give your creatives time to be creatives from a young age. Give your STEM kids more time to problem solve and invent. Give your hands-on kids quality time working with hands!
Many families do a beautiful job of educating their own children right up to high school and then they put the student in a classroom for a “better standardized education.” While I know there are many more decisions at play in sending otherwise home educated students to a brick-and-mortar school for high school, in the end the biggest reason is that parents don’t feel they are up to the challenge. They lament that they don’t remember a thing about Calculus, French, or how to write a research paper! They wonder how to educate through high school. I can confirm, you home educators will do very well. Let’s talk about it why:
1. Home educators are Resourceful.
Most of us didn’t remember all the names of the presidents, world geography, or even the basics behind geometry. We get through it thanks to the mountains of homeschool resources, and free (or at least affordable) online resources and friends. Once a student hits high school the game is unchanged. Go be resourceful to find the best approach to cover topics for your student. Includes a buffet of online offerings available for subjects you simply can’t or won’t be able to master.
2. Home Educators Build Custom Educations.
Universities—at least the good ones—want to see students with unique educations and unique life experiences. Home educators often fear that their high school student will miss out on some opportunities, topics, and coursework if they don’t have “the” standardized approach. On the contrary, most standardized education are as bland and lifeless as it sounds.
3. Home Educators Are Their Child’s Best Advocates.
In our classes we often have students from conventional schools who are “allowed” to join a class or two by their school administrators. If they are very lucky, somebody up the chain of command will permit these students to enrich their education with a single class but only after much begging, paperwork, and hassle. My goodness! So generous! Consider home education. The only one “granting” permission about classes, passions, interests, and speed of study will be you and your learner. YOU are your student’s best advocate and you will make all the difference.
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