Homeschooling High School
When I first started homeschooling most homeschoolers I met were planning on sending their kids to high school when the time came. They couldn’t see themselves teaching at that level.
Today many people feel the same way.
High school is a different animal. TK-8 classes and grades aren’t requested by colleges. High school counts. Even if your student isn’t going to college, their experience in high school can end up on their resume.
Your child’s high school experience is a jumping-off point.
You don’t have to feel like you have to put your kids into public high school (or keep them there). Homeschooling your teen is an awesome opportunity to give them experiences that will set them up for a lifetime.
And you don’t have to do it all yourself.
Ideally, during the teen years, your role as a homeschool parent changes. You become more of a facilitator rather than the sole educator. You don’t have to teach them everything. There are programs, classes (online and in-person), and mentors that can help you and your teen. You are still ultimately in charge of their education but you don’t need to do it all.
It just takes a bit of planning.
When people ask for my help in planning their student’s high school experience I always suggest that they begin with the end in mind.
What does your student want to do after high school?
Most parents want their children to go to college but there are many ways to get there. The military. Community college. Building a career and then doing part-time.
Going directly to a four-year institution is not necessarily the best way.
I’ve taught at the community college and university levels. In general, for the first two years, students receive a better education at a community college compared with a large university.
At the university level, a professor’s first priority is publishing their work. They are pressured to get grants and do research. The professors in my department were very open about how they didn’t learn students’ names until they were taking upper-division classes.
Don’t get me wrong. These professors were wonderful people! But they knew from experience that only half of the students in the lower division classes would make it past their second year. And student support wasn’t really how they were evaluated by their supervisors.
I was given very little instruction on how to teach when I got the position at the university. I taught a lab science class and felt like it was sink or swim.
As an instructor at a community college, it was very different.
Each year we had a week of training.
I was first introduced to learning styles during my required professional development while I was teaching at the college. I was also evaluated by the students each term and my boss used that evaluation to evaluate me. It mattered if I knew everyone’s name. It also mattered if I was good at teaching. Being a good grant writer or researcher didn’t matter.
The most important thing for your student to learn during high school is the love of learning.
So many kids I talk to today don’t want to go to college. They are burned out. They look at school as a bunch of hoops they have to jump through and they are tired of jumping.
They want to do something worthwhile.
With homeschooling, you have the opportunity to design a high school plan that is worthwhile and engaging. You can eliminate most of the hoops and get your kids excited about what they are learning.