If you were switching to homeschooling in 11th grade...

[LaLouisiane]

What would you concentrate on and what would you write off? How much backtracking would you do?

 

(I started a topic on the general board, but got no replies and thought maybe it should be here, instead. Hope double posting is not frowned upon! I'm new here.)

[regentrude]

Depends on what the student has accomplished by the end of 10th grade. Are there areas he is behind? Is he planning to go to college? Any holes from school that need remediation?

You need to tell us more details if you want to get more specific suggestions.

[TranquilMind]

What would you concentrate on and what would you write off? How much backtracking would you do?

 

(I started a topic on the general board, but got no replies and thought maybe it should be here, instead. Hope double posting is not frowned upon! I'm new here.)

 

Check your state requirements. In my state, the student must have taken certain courses to get an Honors diploma, and a lesser load for just a diploma. See what you can do from this time out and do it!

[Nan in Mass]

What sort of relationship do you have? If it is not a good one or the 11th grader is an angry, hostile 11th grader, then I would look at some way of outsourcing. Here, I would take them down to the community college to take the placement tests. If you want to work at home, then I would assess academic skills first - things like summarizing, reading, typing, taking notes, writing different sorts of papers and reports, memorizing and reviewing, and math. If those aren't strong, I would work on those first. I would let the student choose whether to "ruin" an interest by using it to work on the skills or whether to make the skills work more interesting by doing it in the context of an interest. If the skills are strong, then I would look at graduation requirements and try to meld those together with whatever the student wants to learn. And I would work on foreign language, if that hasn't already been covered, and science. Personally, I like TWTM framework for aquiring academic skills, creating a person who can teach themselves throughout the rest of their lives, and doing some interesting reading in the meanwhile. Whether you are successful at this approach probably depends on how much time you have to work with the student, unless the student already has good academic skills.

 

Nan

[LaLouisiane]

He has taken honors algebra, geometry, and algebra II and made perfect and near perfect scores on the end-of-term tests, so I think he's ok there, although his grades don't reflect it. (He has no tolerance for busy work, and won't do it, even to avoid a zero.) He made a 32 in science on the ACT, before he took chemistry or physics, so I guess he's ok there, too. He writes reasonably well, but has read next to nothing. I doubt he can diagram a sentence, and he has never studied a page of Latin. I guess I have mostly answered my own question.

[LaLouisiane]

Great question, Nan. We have a good relationship, but he's a very tough one to parent. He's been mature for his age since he was born, and has no interest in the "high school experience,' but has pretty bad ADHD which keeps him jumping from one interest to the next. Self-discipline is a problem. He's also frustrated because he doesn't know what he wants to do. He's not exactly a motivated student. He has very little tolerance for B.S., though, and is DONE with busy work and waiting for the slower students in his classes. He keeps telling me that he could learn so much more if he didn't have to waste time in stupid classes. And he could. If he would.

 

So. Letting him homeschool could be a disaster. Or it could be wonderful. I'm afraid to find out.

[Lanny]

<snip> and is DONE with busy work and waiting for the slower students in his classes. He keeps telling me that he could learn so much more if he didn't have to waste time in stupid classes. And he could. If he would.

<snip>

 

@OP I read the entire thread, twice. One of the many excellent reasons my DD is now a Distance Learning student in Texas Tech University ISD (TTUISD) is that she was very bored, waiting for the teachers to explain, to the other students, for the 2nd or 3rd time, material that she had already learned. GL to your DS.

[Nan in Mass]

And he could. If he would.

 

So. Letting him homeschool could be a disaster. Or it could be wonderful. I'm afraid to find out.

 

 

I understand. Once you show them the way out, you never really know what will happen. They are too much their own people at that age. I agree that it is a risk.

 

Is there any way he can dual-enroll at a community college full-time through the public school? That would keep the outside accountability. The problem is that community college classes might not be any improvement over what he is doing now. The other students are probably going to look just like his high school classmates a few years older. The classes might be just as boring. He might be able to pick a major, though, something concrete in which to be certified (graphic artist, airplane pilot, x-ray technician, vet assistent, ...) and learn something more practical for the rest of his high school education. It wouldn't have to be what he chooses to do forever, just his high school major, a temporary major while he's trying to figure out what he wants to do afte high school. Our community college has an engineering transfer program, a pre-engineering transfer program, and a liberal arts transfer program, where you do the first half of those 4-year degrees. If he didn't want to choose anything now, he could work on getting his general education requirements out of the way for a 4-year degree. That, too, might make him feel like he was getting somewhere.

 

If you knew for sure he were going to self-educate, then you could hand him TWEM (literature and history) and show him the WTM method of spine+extras of learning anything. He could sign up for an online math class or take it at the community college. If your community college is good, you might consider doing that for science and/or foreign language as well. Or he could do something more interesting for those classes.

 

My son has learned tons left to investigate subjects on his own, but we built up to it gradually and he chooses the subjects. For things that he's not as interested in, I supervise. Our oldest, who went to public high school, is the same sort of person and could have done the same thing. I'm not at all sure he would have if we had pulled him out in 11th grade. I think he would have been better off switching to the community college full time and not being left to educate himself. Or not educate himself.

 

If only we had a crystal ball...

 

Nan