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Woke with another thought to ponder re: outsourcing....


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Have any of you NOT outsourced and "done it all yourselves"? As I was thinking about my previous question and reading one of the responses on the thread, it made me think of my original goal in homeschooling, which is to give them a rigorous education.

 

With all the negative feedback I've received about FLVS and local cc's, I've thought long and hard about the idea of outsourcing. However, for purposes of Bright Futures and other scholarships, our classes have to be accredited. It has led me to the temporary place of being okay with sacrificing the scholarship.

 

Please, please... I am not insinuating by any means that outsourcing is a lesser degree of education, because I do believe that the choices made in this community are top-notch, but I was just wondering if any of you have decided to do it all yourself, and if so, any regrets?

 

Thanks, :)

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Guest Cheryl in SoCal

My oldest are going into 9th and 10th grade. Unless you count horse riding lessons as school being outsourced we are doing everything ourselves, and plan to do so through high school. Our plan is always subject to change if needed but at this time we don't see a need to outsource. Our ISP is associated with a private school that my kids could take classes at if needed so that is probably what we would do if it became absolutely necessary to outsource something. That plan is also subject to change based on need:D

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I'm not outsourcing anything except bagpipe and foreign language lessons. And that is only because 1. there is no way NOT to outsource bagpipe lessons and 2. I have a kindly old lady who insists on teaching my son his foreign language (for free).

 

Otherwise, I have no options for outsourcing where I live. Not for anything that would help him, anyway. The time difference blows active online courses, and the one non-active course we tried was an abject failure for his learning style.

 

So we do lots of DVDs and books; we review high school level stuff in some areas and then jump to college level, and in other areas just jump to 100/200 college level. It works out.

 

 

a

Edited by asta
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Have any of you NOT outsourced and "done it all yourselves"? As I was thinking about my previous question and reading one of the responses on the thread, it made me think of my original goal in homeschooling, which is to give them a rigorous education.

 

With all the negative feedback I've received about FLVS and local cc's, I've thought long and hard about the idea of outsourcing. However, for purposes of Bright Futures and other scholarships, our classes have to be accredited. It has led me to the temporary place of being okay with sacrificing the scholarship.

 

Please, please... I am not insinuating by any means that outsourcing is a lesser degree of education, because I do believe that the choices made in this community are top-notch, but I was just wondering if any of you have decided to do it all yourself, and if so, any regrets?

 

Thanks, :)

 

I have tried doing it all myself and simply got in over my head. For the sake of my children's education, I have had to outsource. Similarly, I have outsourced some things that I could have done myself and have regretted the decision b/c I could have done better. I think it really is a matter of knowing what you can do and doing it well and knowing what your limits are and finding alternatives for those subjects. The biggest factor in outsourcing is REALLY paying attention to what is going on and making sure that you are happy with the quality of the courses. In my life, the reality is that far too often I let my involvement in the outsourced classes slip.

 

Things I regret outsourcing:

 

my dd's 9th grade yr (all online courses which I didn't think were the greatest and all I was capable of teaching on my own),

 

chemistry labs this yr (she was supposed to do the labs with a friend, but they are so far behind schedule that they sucked dd backward with them)

 

logic

 

writing via GBA's course, though the Socratic discussions were wonderful

 

Things I don't regret outsourcing:

 

biology and chemistry at a "cottage school" (highly qualified teachers teaching the subjects 1 day per week with the rest of the work done at home)

 

AoPS maths (excellent courses and definitely beyond my skill level),

 

Math Counts (ds has an awesome math mentor. She is wonderful. Unfortunately, she is leaving for college in the fall)

 

Pre-cal (Math mentor's mother will be my ds and dd's math teacher in the fall. Definitely an absolute blessing!!!)

 

college level chemistry and pre-cal/cal (definitely glad ds got to experience those courses through dual enrollment. Far beyond my abilities and the limitations of replicating at home. It also gave him a firm foundation for dealing with college level courses when he left home.)

 

 

I am using 2 PA homeschoolers AP courses next yr. I am really hoping that these will be online courses I am happy with b/c other than AoPS I have never been happy with an online course. Dual-enrollment and the "cottage school" experiences were excellent.

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The only things I plan to outsource at this time is foreign language (I can't find ANY I can afford!) and music - they all play different instruments.

 

As we get to algebra 2 or chemistry - I'll worry about when we get to it.

 

But so far I'm not nearly as worried as I was a year ago.

 

It helps that I don't really have any choice but to suck it up and do it at home bc we are exceptionally low on funds. I'm learning I'm more capable than I thought.

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We outsourced writing for both my sons (now 16 and 19). However, even with that (Write at Home), I was still pretty involved since my involvement increased the value of the course, i.e., I did lots of editing with him so the coach could focus on the more involved aspects of writing. My younger son has done labs and a lit class with a co-op. The first was very worthwhile, the second....not so much. They both detest on-line classes, so that pretty much eliminates that medium, and neither had a burning desire to do cc classes in high school. They both like the efficiency of doing work on their own.

 

But....I speak fluent Spanish (native speaker), so no need to outsource that, and my husband is an engineer, so no math outsourcing need there either.

 

My older son is a sophomore/junior in college, my younger son will be a senior in high school next year. We've homeschooled from the beginning.

 

Yolanda

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I'm learning I'm more capable than I thought.

 

 

:iagree: Having lots of money to outsource can actually work against you. I have a friend who has spent thousands on outsourcing only to have her kids say to their friends, "My mom hasn't homeschooled us in years. We just sit in front of the computer all day and do our lessons that way. Can't wait to get out of here!" The mom doesn't have to try, she has tons of money to spend on outsourcing. Very sad.

 

Yolanda

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We didn't outsource anything, except that ds took a psychology class--he didn't need it.

Now, he did take a math class and a French class, but he dropped French after being accused of cheating, and he failed the math class (this was after high school) because he was also working and couldn't handle both.

 

Dear husband taught all of ds' math after 10th grade. Is that considered outsourcing? LOL

 

ETA--I wish I had outsourced writing more--oh--Forgot! I did outsource one semester of essay writing with Write@Home. Although I considered it light, I do wish I had outsourced his writing the whole of high school.

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My boys took a computer programming course. I had purchased one for them to work thru on their own, but they just weren't doing it, they'd get stuck and I didn't know how to help them.

 

It turned out to be a great experience for them for multiple reasons: they learn how to work and present themselves to someone else, how to self-motivate, how to push thru w/o mom helping (maybe some kids are completely self-motivated, but mine aren't). They ended up w/ fantastic grades and were proud of themselves. So am I

 

Next year they will all take two outside classes, online. Classes that I have no experience to teach. I'm hoping at some point to get them to a community college for a try as well, but I work mornings, and no one drives yet (not that there is an extra car anyway.

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We did not outsource. We live in a rural area and our options are limited anyway with the local cc's being very poor. I once did drive her more than an hour one-way to spend an afternoon working with a chemist from DOW during her first year of chemistry and then there was her apprenticeship with a veterinarian. But, as far as assigning the teaching to someone else, we didn't.

 

That said, it certainly isn't for everyone. Math and math based science can be intimidating. It was easy for us because dh has a bachelor's degree in mathematics, business, and computer science with a virtual minor in science due to his love of it and desire to fill his electives with science classes. I too took A LOT of science in college. So we were very comfortable witth chemistry, physics, trigonometry, stats and analysis, etc.

 

Michigan is an easy homeschool state. Our public and private colleges are quite used to homeschoolers and openly welcome them. Therefore, we did not have any "accredidation" issues and her home issued diploma was just as accepted as her publicly schooled friends. She did apply to several colleges out of state but again, these were in areas with either few restrictions on homeschooling so the diploma or curriculum choice was not an issue or to private colleges with enough experience with homeschoolers that they didn't question anything.

 

We did it all; she's is doing really, really well in her young adult life and with her studies. So, we don't have any regrets and won't be outsourcing for her brothers. But, I know that isn't an option for everyone.

 

Faith

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