TOS Blog Cruise ~ Wrestling with Challenging Subjects

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P is in the midst of 7th grade and already I am getting the question of whether we’ll bag homeschooling and just send him off for high school.

For some homeschool friends, this IS the approach they take. Sometimes the choice to enroll you child into a physical school after years of homeschooling is about the extra curricular activities. Many parts of the country do not give homeschoolers the ability to do sports, bands, or other great activities offered at the local public school.

Or, maybe a parent has reached the end of their rope and can’t fathom teaching a moody teenager at home. In my house, it’s the baby who’s more likely to be shipped off for driving mama crazy these days.

Aside from the usual lack of socialization issues, the big fear you may find lurking in the background is that the parent will NOT be able to fully educate their child at home. For many, high school is when those challenging subjects really jump out at you. Math and science are the ones often thought to present the greatest challenges. For me, those are MY favorite subjects and are the areas where my college education was primarily focused. So, those don’t particularly scare me.

But, there is a subject lurking in the background which gives me pause.

And it is one that ALL well rounded youngsters are supposed to have under their belt when applying for college….. a foreign language! Somehow my brain is wired in such a way that ‘logical’ courses seem easy. A different language…not so much.

Thankfully, there are many options out there for homeschooling families to rise to the challenge. If you’ve got the money to plunk down, the options can be staggering.

Maybe you feel moderately comfortable with the material and just need a little extra help. Well, for a subject like math there are options that include video instruction for the participant. Do companies like Teaching Textbooks, Math U See, Video Text come to mind? If not, they could be worth researching. Ask around and see if someone you know has used the materials. Even more ideal, schedule a mom ‘date’ to check it out.

Maybe you fear that science just won’t be the same away from the big classroom. Why not investigate a co-op experience where everyone uses the same materials and gathers together for lab work?

For my feared subject of a foreign language, there are programs that either have a video led option (e.g. Latina Christiana) OR computer based programs (e.g. Rosetta Stone and Auralog/Tell Me More Homeschool) that lead the student (and parent!) through the learning process.

Now, another path to take when wrestling with these subjects is to have your student attend classes at a local community college. Some places have programs in place where there’s little to no cost to you for them to participate as a high school student. While carting your child to classes might not be on the top of your list of things to do, it could be well worth it to have them learning from someone with the focused teaching experience for that particular subject. Assuming they have good grades in the courses they take at the college level, they may enter their college years with a few credits already under their belt.

As for what we’ll be doing, I plan to approach this as I do many other aspects of life… on a day to day basis. Since P has no real interest in doing sports or other extracurricular activities only found as a student in a physical school, I don’t see a real need to abandon his learning at home. But, knowing there ARE options out there gives me comfort.

Research is already beginning with me planning to follow our state’s guidelines for high school. Before his freshman year begins, P, Stephen and I will have to map out a rough idea of the courses he’ll be taking. Once we have that initial blueprint written down, I can start investigating HOW he’ll meet those goals. I suspect there will be a mixture of video/ computer driven instruction for some topics, cooperative learning for others and quite possibly a few classes at the local college during his last years of high school.

Who knows…maybe I’ll be inspired to pull together a few of the cooperative learning classes to tackle the subjects I enjoy. ‘Cause I know that science labs are definitely MORE fun when working with others!

Interested in reading how other TOS Crewmates are handling the advanced subjects associated with high school? Read all about it on the TOS Homeschool Crew page.