Broad vs. Focused Study in High School and How to Find Balance?

[Kfamily]

I was wondering if anyone would like to discuss the idea of how to balance a high school curriculum with a broad study of subjects to create a solid base and a focused study of subjects based on the student's greatest interests. It seems I'm still struggling in this area. :) My older dd, my high school student, has some very unique interests, as many of you here already know, and those interests are still holding steady. My dd is very determined that she would love to study abroad...Cardifff in Wales....and double major in ancient/medieval history and literature or ancient/medieval culture/religion and literature. I'm not really sure that studying abroad will work out for her...us...we really don't have the income for this and her test-taking skills, so far, have not proven to be her strong suit. We still plan on making time to prepare and study for the SAT and ACT. I'm very on the fence about CC, AP and other options. With all of this being said, I'm thinking that an early study and specialized interest area may be helpful for her. I don't know...what do you think?

 

And while I may make some changes to create a more specialized plan for her, I want to be clear that I would not leave the basic foundational core of a typical high school education so much that it would be to her disadvantage. I would still insist on the basic cores, but I would allow subjects such as history and English to work alongside her specialized plan. I'm still so new to all of this that I'm more than willing to listen to the more experienced ladies (and gentlemen) here to make sure I'm not overlooking something.

 

Any advice is gratefully taken... :)

[Candid]

I've just been reading this old thread: http://forums.welltr...orstin-trilogy/

 

What Jackie is doing there is kind of what I think you would want to get at.

 

I found it interesting that she was using mind maps which I've been investigating. They are raved about by folks I know and respect in various areas. To be honest I haven't caught the flame. I'm much more of a traditional outline person, which I think means I am more linear thinker.

 

So let me throw out some ideas for what you describe.

 

The linear (or as this part says to me, the practical part) part of me says, why not do two years and do the traditional world history and then American history focused study. Use a text, cover history quickly. Then the other two years could be her concentrated studies. You could alternate these. So tackle world history in 9th, do a year concentrated on either ancient or medieval studies in 10th, then do American history in 11th (maybe picking up the AP along the way), and finally close again with a focused study.

 

But if you would like to do something like Jackie is suggesting. You could pick themes from her interest areas and then spread them out to study how those themes from ancient or medieval times have impacted other times and how they were influenced by previous themes. She is doing a wise thing and choosing to think about which themes will be more difficult to study and arranging the four years to move the student up in depth.

[regentrude]

My personal philosophy is not to specialize in high school to the detriment of well-roundedness. For me, high school is the time to get a broad foundation of which then to specialize in college. I strive for a high school education that keeps doors open, because very often even teens who have known for eight years what they want to major in suddenly change their minds.

For our family, this specifically means to complete four credits each in math, science, English, history and a foreign language, fulfilling the admissions requirements of the most selective schools. Any specialization according to my student's interests comes on top of that, not instead. This is what electives are for.

Within the mandatory core subjects, I try to find a way to gear the coursework a bit according to their special interests - for example, my DD's history has an Arts/literature slant, while my DS' history will be more focused on military history. I acknowledge their literary interest in the selection of their reading lists. They are free to choose the topics for their writing assignments and research projects.

Since these core requirements only amount to 20 credits, they have plenty of room to pursue their academic interests as electives. This may mean doubling up in math and physics for DD, or for your DD adding an extra Old English course or Special topics in Medieval Literature - electives don't have to be things like basket weaving and hoolahooping; they can be in the core fields.

[Kfamily]

Thank you both! You've given me a number of things I want to consider.

 

 

Here is a list from the University of Cambridge that I'm thinking about using as a guide for primary sources, booklists, paper ideas, etc.

 

http://www.asnc.cam.ac.uk/currentstudents/undergraduates/reading-lists/intro-reading.htm#paper1

[8filltheheart]

Our 11th grader is managing to do both.

 

Since he loves science, he has been taking 2 sciences every yr. He takes the main "core" and then an additional science on his "focus."

 

I developed a philosophy course around science and theology and how the 2 have impacted each other from the 1500s forward. (he absolutely loves this class, btw.)

 

For lit, we are doing a non-traditional lit course but still incorporating excellent selections. (Lewis's space trilogy, Til We Have Faces, Paradise Lost, Divine Comedy, etc......not a generic high school reading list. ;) )

 

Does that help at all?

 

[Jane in NC]

While we aimed for well rounded studies, it seems that my son's interests were always targeted. So perhaps we as homeschoolers can do both?

 

My son has always loved history but he began high school thinking he would become an engineer. By 10th grade he had determined that his true passion was archaeology, a field in which he could study the past but use the tools and methods of science.

 

We followed the WTM path so 9th grade was focused on Ancients. He watched the TC series on Great Battles of the Ancient World and I adapted his Great Book reading list in part to those lectures. Knowing that he would read The Aeneid in Latin in 12th, we spent a chunk of time on the English translation in 9th--including the TC lectures on the work.

 

In 10th, he watched all of the Medieval history lectures by Daileader and listened to additional literature lectures--again coupled with WTM readings.

 

You get the picture. He did four years of Math, had five credits in science due to taking classes at the CC, had four years of Latin and two and a half of French.

 

He could have gone any route in college with this foundation. But it is interesting that much of his high school reading enters the continued conversation in college. He mentioned Leviathan (Hobbes) the other day. I had always felt badly that we never did the political philosophy course that I so badly wanted to do (limited time) yet he read Plato's Republic, the Communist Manifesto, a bit of Hobbes... It was a scattered foundation but there was some structure.

 

I would also encourage your daughter to follow her dream of studying abroad. Attending an undergrad college in Wales might not be in the cards if you require financial aid, but many American colleges have study abroad programs for which their financial aid applies. There are also programs that do not cost an arm and a leg.

[Melissa B]

If she wants to get into Cardiff it looks like you will need to do at least two or three AP classes.

 

Cardiff admission requirements

 

She could also apply to the US colleges that have an exchange program with Cardiff, if that works better for your family. The specific colleges listed on the website are College of William and Mary, University of Miami, Rutgers and University of Pennsylvania.

[Kfamily]

Our 11th grader is managing to do both.

 

Since he loves science, he has been taking 2 sciences every yr. He takes the main "core" and then an additional science on his "focus."

 

I developed a philosophy course around science and theology and how the 2 have impacted each other from the 1500s forward. (he absolutely loves this class, btw.)

This does sound very interesting...I think this would get my dd excited about science if presented this way.:)

 

For lit, we are doing a non-traditional lit course but still incorporating excellent selections. (Lewis's space trilogy, Til We Have Faces, Paradise Lost, Divine Comedy, etc......not a generic high school reading list. ;) )

 

Does that help at all?

Yes, thank you!

 

[Nan in Mass]

I guess I am in the do-both camp, but with our own spin on things. I wanted mine to have literature, natural history, bio, chem, physics, foreign languages (plural), philosophy, geography, world history, US history, government, drawing, speech, writing, four years of math extending through calculus (one of mine didn't make it quite that far and took calculus in college), be computer literate, musically literate (only but so successful here), get intense physical training of some sort (gymnastics fulfilled this), independent projects of their own choosing, home skills (woodworking, repair, cooking, sewing, childcare, etc.), and travel. And for colleges, they had to have the equivalent of four years each of math, science, social studies, language arts, and foreign language, and they had to have outside proof of their ability to handle high school academics. (I chose SAT and DELF tests, and community college courses, but there are lots of options for this. You are going to need AP tests and/or SAT2 tests for non-US uni's, probably.)

 

Fitting all that in and achieving both breadth and depth required starting in 6th or 7th grade and being rather creative about how I approached it all. I didn't think of the list as year-long classes. I thought of it as skills and spines. The spines ensured that they got the breadth. The skills ensured that they got the depth because once the skills were learned, they could use them to dig into whatever interested them. I taught the skills and then left gaps in the school day for them to do that digging. I kept tabs on how much work was being done in each non-spine area and tried to make sure that it was some sort of multiple of half a year (so I could assign credit easily) and that I could assign it a course title that would convey what was covered. In other words, if on the transcript I called whatever-it-was electronics, it had to cover more or less what somebody else would expect would be covered in that sort of class. I just filled in the gaps. I left my sons to decide the majority of what they did for their independent projects, and I slanted their more conventional classes to suit their interests. We did TWEM so we could choose the reading list for literature. They chose which books they wanted to read to go along with the spine for US history and I chose a spine that was right for them. I chose their math books to suit their learning style (NOT Saxon) and needs (applied). Covering a year's worth of material over several years rather than lumping it altogether in as a year-long course allowed my children to do something that interested them every year rather than having to wait and do it at the end of high school. In the case of the youngest, it is just as well that we did it that way because his last year of high school is almost all community college classes, leaving him less time to work on his own projects. He covered history and science with breadth in middle school. For science, he focused on depth at the beginning of high school, and then either ran through the breadth again at a higher level at the end of high school. For social studies (history, geography, etc.), he covered the breadth by doing a spine for about half an hour a day for four years and focused on depth in intensive chunks, mixed with travel. I worried more about what he knew and could do than I did about telling anyone else. I tried to make his transcript a reflection of his education, but there were independent projects that didn't fit into any of the half-year courses that never received credit, and things I taught him that we never bothered to make into a course.

 

It sounds as though you might need to do APs for some subjects. In that case, if I were you, rather than design a course for your daughter to do, I would focus on teaching her the skills she needs to investigate her own interests and then let her do a series of independent projects based on her interests. She will have enough structured breadth doing AP classes. That is pretty much what we did for youngest, but with community college classes rather than AP classes. It gave him a very good mix of breadth and depth.

 

Nan

 

PS - Dare I mention the mega depth-versus-breadth thread?

 

ETA - It looks like SAT2s would also work, at least for certain courses of study. Just remember that just because they will accept applications without something doesn't mean that one is competative without it. One has to apply AND be accepted. I'd call the US contact person and ask if she needs the APs to be competative.

[Kfamily]

Thank you Nan and everyone else too. I think that the year is not complete for me unless I have at least one Am-I-Really-Good-Enough-To-Teach-My-Children Crisis. :) The self-doubt is my greatest battle sometimes. You ladies can never know how much what you write means to me. It gives me courage and makes feel supported. I can't thank you enough. Truly.

 

I've subscribed to this thread, so that I can come back and reread this again as often as needed.

[Nan in Mass]

Hugs. My crises are more along the lines of extreme panic and I-am-failing-at-this. And I definately get them more than once a year. One of the problems of doing things the way I do is that there isn't a nice list of comforting weekly grades that I can reassure myself with. Instead, if I am lucky, I get an email saying that nobody else in the group even noticed when we walked over Hadrian's wall or I am asked to visualize complicated math problems while I am driving.

 

Nan