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My Day to Post and Panic - I Need Help With a "Vision"


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Aaack!

 

I'm in a tizzy today. I'm planning my curriculum for my son who will be in 10th grade next year. Here it is so far:

 

Lang. Arts:

The history-linked WTM list for 10th grade

Finish the Worldly Wise books

Finish the comprehensive grammar book he's working on now

Lots of SAT practice

Work through Writing Strands 7

 

Soc. Studies:

Second half of Western Civ 1, doing questions/essays from study guide and other projects

Listening to Teaching Company "Early Middle Ages" and "Conquest of the Americas"

 

Science:

Campbell Biology Exploring Life with labs

 

Math:

Life of Fred Geometry

Mathpower 10 (So he can take provincial math exam)

 

Foreign Language:

Latin 2

Possibly a modern language class through the rec dept.

 

Arts:

Lessons in 4 instruments - school bands, town orchestra, string group, etc.

 

Life Skills:

Home renovation projects - ongoing

 

 

My "Panic" is about "vision": When I was in school, the vision was all about getting into an Ivy League university.

 

Currently my ds wants to be a high school music teacher and give music lessons. I'm sure we can find a program that's completely adequate at just about any state school. I'm not sure if I believe that will still be what he wants to do when he's 18, though....and that's fine - I think our course of study will allow him to do lots of things.

 

I haven't done anything to make his classes "honors" or "AP" - he's not asking for it, either.

 

I haven't done anything to make his homeschool experience really "different", either. We travel across the continent twice a year from BC to NY and spend two months in NY each summer, but we just hang out with family, mostly.

 

It's all slipping away....where's the vision? Where's the "specialness"? Aaaaah!

 

Talk me down, people! I don't want to blow this!

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The book "What High Schools Don't Tell You: 300 Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year" (discussed on this board last weekend) spends almost 20 pages on that subject. I really liked this book and found a lot of extremely helpful information in it. It helped me see that a child's passions (trivial as they may seem) really can lead, with careful guidance, to successful college majors and careers.

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Yeah, Nan - you're right.

 

After flipping out a bit, I calmed down and talked to ds, telling him, "I don't know how to be the parent of a musician."

 

So, I'm trying to look at this whole thing in a different way now. I spent some time researching summer camp music opportunities and there are some great ones in the NY area. I'm also going to talk to all his music teachers and try to get some ideas. I'm going to streamline his "regular" work so there is time to really play with music.

 

Sometimes I just freak out about the whole thing.

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It's scary having a child who actually has interests and choosing to drop some things so he can follow those interests. We've had "well rounded" pounded into us, and it is natural as a parent to want to keep a child's options open for as long as possible in case he changes his mind. They are young. And I think it is also scary to have a child who doesn't show any particular interests in anything. You wonder what will happen if they don't ever choose, or can't ever find anything they are passionate about. We all freak out from time to time, especially right before something changes, it seems like. Maybe it is our brain's way of telling us to change paths.

 

Good luck!

-Nan

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He has enough vision from the sound of it! Has he done any music theory study? I don't recall seeing it, and your post is now out of view. Have you put him in any local music festivals? As I recall, they abound in Canada. Or does he only play in ensembles? The camp idea sounds great, btw, and how may students traverse the continent by car annually?

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