Leaving the outsourced class.....

[Janeway]

<sigh> back to this topic. But at least it changed. 

 

15 yr old goes to outsourced history/lit/English class. The class is wonderful, high quality. Son has no trouble handling it. The teacher is amazing, I highly recommend her.

 

At the end of this semester, son will have 1.5 credits in world history. I already plan to have him take US History at the CC for 2 credits and government for 1 credit. On our own, I would like to do a world cultures and/or a world religions class. For world religions, I like the looks of Oak Meadow so that would be half a credit. But even without the additional classes I want to do on our own, and counting what he has done so far and what I expect him to do through DE, he will have 4.5 credits.

 

I am happy and fine with him continuing on in the outsourced class. It is an excellent, high quality class. AND, someone else teaches it and corrects his papers and so on. He also gives an occasional speech or presentation.

 

He is asking to drop the class. I had purchased the literature books for the class back in May/June and he already read them all. We do not have the textbook for the spring and he has not read ahead in the textbook. 

 

I asked him why he wants to stop the class. He admits he really likes the teacher and the other students and even the subject. BUT, he does not enjoy the textbook, or just going to class. All the other students are girls. He has already read the books. And, he also brings up that he only needs 4 credits in this area and even the public school only required 1 credit total in world history. So, he thinks he should be allowed to drop it.

 

Funny thing is, my main reason for saying no is that I really like the teacher as a person and I do not want to be a flake who drops out. Also, I would never offer that level of class at home. She does so much and I feel not-equipped. She is an experienced homeschooler and she only has one child at home now. She has one in college and 3 are graduated from college. So she really seems to invest herself in this and does a great job.

 

Also, I am not 100% certain we will do world cultures/world religion. I plan to do that course 2018-2019 year when 12 yr old is in 9th grade, and by then, he might be too busy with DE and all. 

 

Cost is not an issue, she is very reasonably priced. What do you think? Just finish the year, we have come this far. And let him out of it for spring semester? 

[regentrude]

I would not let a student drop a class simply because "he did not enjoy the textbook or going to class". 

If the class serves a valuable educational purpose and is the right level for the student, I would expect my student to finish what he started. I would not want to send the message that if he complains enough he gets out of anything he "does not enjoy". Since this seems to be a pattern with your son, I would be especially strict about continuing.

 

This said: any argument about how the teacher is reasonably priced, is a nice person, pours herself into the class etc - would be irrelevant to me. You don't have your student in the class to please the teacher, but because you have decided that it works towards your goals for his education. What the public school does is irrelevant - you can have higher/different goals. If he wanted what the public school offers, he could go to ps which he does not want.

 

So no, I would not let him quit if "not enjoying" is all there is to it. Especially not since he has in the past dropped outsourced courses and has a history of complaining about the materials you use. It would be time to make him stick out something for a change.

Edited September 22, 2016 by regentrude

[Janeway]

I would not let a student drop a class simply because "he did not enjoy the textbook or going to class".

If the class serves a valuable educational purpose and is the right level for the student, I would expect my student to finish what he started. I would not want to send the message that if he complains enough he gets out of anything he "does not enjoy". Since this seems to be a pattern with your son, I would be especially strict about continuing.

 

This said: any argument about how the teacher is reasonably priced, is a nice person, pours herself into the class etc - would be irrelevant to me. You don't have your student in the class to please the teacher, but because you have decided that it works towards your goals for his education. What the public school does is irrelevant - you can have higher/different goals. If he wanted what the public school offers, he could go to ps which he does not want.

 

So no, I would not let him quit if "not enjoying" is all there is to it. Especially not since he has in the past dropped outsourced courses and has a history of complaining about the materials you use. It would be time to make him stick out something for a change.

We have never dropped an outsourced class before. We had considered discontinuing this one in the past.

[regentrude]

We have never dropped an outsourced class before. We had considered discontinuing this one in the past.

 

Now I am confused, since you wrote on July 7 in this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/617283-is-it-possible-for-science-to-be-enjoyable/

 

As far as the older child goes, we tried outsourcing last year, but the book was online and he says he hates online books. He didn't do the homework at all as a result. We had to give up

Edited September 22, 2016 by regentrude

[yvonne]

A  bird in the hand is worth two in the tree.   He's in a solid hist/lit class now. It will presumably give him two credits if he completes the work. It takes an enormous load off you by completing two full credits, doing all the grading,... An outside, objective teacher and a peer class situation often draws better work from a student.

 

If you pull him out, you'll need to scramble to back fill those two credits for this year. You may or may not succeed.  English is notoriously difficult for a parent to do with their student, esp at the high school level. You risk getting to the end of the year and not having much to show for it vs getting to the end of the year with solid Eng & Hist credits. With the outsourced class, it sounds like he'll have something to show for the year, hopefully including a few really good writing samples that he could submit if he wants to get into an advanced outsourced English class somewhere.

 

His main reason for dropping seems to be that he's read the lit books.  Good lit books can be read (and I would argue they _should_ be read!) multiple times to fully benefit from them. I bet even an adult could re-read whatever books they were and get more out of them the second time through.

 

Nope, I wouldn't risk it, especially at this late stage of the game!  

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by yvonne

[Janeway]

Now I am confused, since you wrote on July 7 in this thread: http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/617283-is-it-possible-for-science-to-be-enjoyable/

Oh yeah!!! I forgot about that! I was so confused there. Took me a bit. Yes, that was science. I remember now. They used CK12.org

[katilac]

I would definitely have him finish the semester. 

 

If he is just as likely to complain or resist about the replacement subject done at home, I would definitely have him do the spring semester as well.

 

 

[Lanny]

All the other students are girls...  Possibly that is among his reasons?     It could make him very popular, like a woman in an Engineering course or a boy in Cheerleading.   How many students total?   

Edited September 28, 2016 by Lanny

[Janeway]

All the other students are girls...  Possibly that is among his reasons?     It could make him very popular, like a woman in an Engineering course or a boy in Cheerleading.   How many students total?   

It might be.