What is your favorite thing about homeschooling high school?

[staceyobu]

I'm doing a talk for my co-op on homeschooling high school. I'd like to end on a positive note of why homeschooling high school is a worthwhile endeavor. I've come up with a few things I would say personally, but thought I'd toss out the question and see if anyone has anything else to say!

[ScoutTN]

Reading and discussing literature together. Also history and theology. 

Made for my student courses!

The ability to select outsourced teachers from a wide array of options in terms of approach, style, schedule, price. 

On a practical note, flexibility! I have added to or lightened planned coursework as circumstances and Dd’s interests changed.

[cintinative]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

Reading and discussing literature together. Also history and theology. 

Made for my student courses!

The ability to select outsourced teachers from a wide array of options in terms of approach, style, schedule, price. 

On a practical note, flexibility! I have added to or lightened planned coursework as circumstances and Dd’s interests changed.

All of this, and I would also add the ability to select texts, programs, labs, etc. based on what best fits your kid.

I feel like the one-on-one component enables the homeschool mom to provide rigor without the crazy hours commonly associated with that. 

Also, the ability to teach to mastery.

 

[Eos]

All of what @ScoutTN said about academics.  For us, the ability for my kids to have a "major" throughout high school -  going really deep in science, music, literature, and dance, respectively - was important and motivational, and helped them stand out in college applications.  

Besides academic flexibility, I have really appreciated how much less garbage my kids had to deal with.  High school kids can be brutal, and the social scene is so weird.  The pressure to conform or not conform, the disrespect shown to kids by the admins and each other, the weird childish rules were all great reasons to stay home for my kids.  I love childhood but I also want the teen years to be a natural and expansive path into adulthood, and homeschooling high school has let that unfold by keeping them grounded in our community.  I'm protective, yes, but I also want them exposed to real-world risks and develop real-world skills to address them versus what shows up as risky behavior in high schools.  

Mental, emotional, and physical well being for my kids has been being able to move, eat, use the bathroom, sleep late, be outside, and move more slowly than they would have had to in school.  Ds3 took an art class at the school one term and was shocked at how quickly the time goes by - he would be just hitting his stride with a project and the bell would ring and be time to put it away.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Eos

[Eos]

Adding, not least, teens are super fun and funny to be around!

[ScoutTN]

47 minutes ago, Eos said:

Adding, not least, teens are super fun and funny to be around!

Well, some anyway…

I have one that is and one that is not fun to be around when academic work is involved. 

Edited November 17, 2022 by ScoutTN

[ScoutTN]

43 minutes ago, Eos said:

All of what @ScoutTN said about academics.  For us, the ability for my kids to have a "major" throughout high school -  going really deep in science, music, literature, and dance, respectively - was important and motivational, and helped them stand out in college applications.  

Besides academic flexibility, I have really appreciated how much less garbage my kids had to deal with.  High school kids can be brutal, and the social scene is so weird.  The pressure to conform or not conform, the disrespect shown to kids by the admins and each other, the weird childish rules were all great reasons to stay home for my kids.  I love childhood but I also want the teen years to be a natural and expansive path into adulthood, and homeschooling high school has let that unfold by keeping them grounded in our community.  I'm protective, yes, but I also want them exposed to real-world risks and develop real-world skills to address them versus what shows up as risky behavior in high schools.  

Mental, emotional, and physical well being for my kids has been being able to move, eat, use the bathroom, sleep late, be outside, and move more slowly than they would have had to in school.  Ds3 took an art class at the school one term and was shocked at how quickly the time goes by - he would be just hitting his stride with a project and the bell would ring and be time to put it away.

Yes, all this. With an unhomeschoolable teen in ps, I am seeing all the bad stuff first hand. Ugh. Exactly the opposite of all I value in education. (Though ps definitely has some good things for my Ds too.)

[EKS]

The discussions!

[regentrude]

1. The ability to have my kids work at their academic level.

Just to give a perspective: My 15 y/o DD tutored calc based engineering physics at the university and won the undergraduate research competition for her French project at 17. What appropriate coursework would the local highschool have offered her???

2. The freedom to choose materials,  and the efficiency which meant much less time spent on much more learning compared to school.

Edited November 18, 2022 by regentrude

[wendyroo]

My oldest is only in 8th, but is taking a full load of high school courses this year and my favorite part about homeschooling him is how much time it gives him.

My middle schooler is in public school, and it takes them sooooo much time to accomplish sooooo little.

My 8th grader, on the other hand, can efficiently complete a full load of rigorous, advanced classes while participating in 14 hours of electives/extracurriculars a week including nature class, board game club, escape room class, comic book drawing, adventure sports, and being a teaching assistant in a Spanish class. We don't have to choose between academic rigor and a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

As a corollary, I also think our activity-rich homeschooling is preparing him very well for the logistics of college. Every day doesn't look the same, so he has to learn how to schedule and balance his responsibilities. He doesn't have a class schedule forcing him to work on each subject for its designated hour each day, and instead is learning to schedule flexibly and creatively...a skill that will come in handy when he is trying to juggle classes, recitations, study groups, individual study time, language labs, clubs, office hours, chores, etc.

[daijobu]

Control control control.  No negotiation with school officials about what classes my kids can and can not take or whether they have fulfilled prerequisites.

No relying on an overworked school counselor to write a letter.

I can create my own beautiful transcript that is organized to present my student in the best possible light.  No badly printed table with course name abbreviations that do not reflect the course content.  

Less teaching, more writing checks and finding options and opportunities.  

[8filltheheart]

Being removed from bureaucratic control.  We can move at our pace.  We can choose the subjects we want.  We can study them how we want to study them.  We can create our own calendar.  There is no busy work.  

I love discussing lit and philosophy with my kids.  I love their ability to explore subjects that interest them.  

[lmrich]

1. More time 

2. Less peer pressure

3. Better relationships (unless you put academics ahead of getting to know your child better) 

and it is actually really good for you, as a person, to challenge  yourself to learn or relearn new concept. I discovered that I really liked biology. My biology teacher in high school had cancer, and we had a miserable long-term sub who made the class awful. So, selfishly, I found it really cool to  learn and study. 

[Farrar]

Control over the transcript. 

Customization, just like everyone is saying. It's a huge benefit.

The ability to balance easier and in depth courses. When students are good at "school" then schools typically push them to go all in on everything. It's like, oh you CAN do this, then you now MUST do this. It's part of how kids get overloaded. And if they don't do it, then they're at a disadvantage because then they're stacked against their peers. So a kid who hates history textbooks is usually stuck taking APUSH if they're academic and go to a "good" school. If you homeschool, you can let a kid go all in on one area and engage in a lighter, lower output course in another area. And it doesn't have to look bad. Maybe APUSH isn't right for that kid, but maybe they read a small stack of historical fiction and couple it with a bunch of documentaries instead. Looks totally fine for colleges, is way less taxing, kid can focus on AP Chemistry or writing their novel for a creative writing credit or taking multivariable calc at the community college or whatever is going to be time consuming and tough. Balance.

[teachermom2834]

I homeschooled three and now have one in school. Definitely the freedom to take the courses you want in the sequence you want free from all the external rules, requirements, and scheduling limitations. I have my dd in a private school because that gave us a little more flexibility and more of what we wanted but still it is nothing like homeschooling. I am paying $$$ for my dd to take an online wellness course to meet that requirement to free up a course period for another academic course just to claw back a little of that. I knew I was giving it up, but it is real.  Just so many limits to what is possible. My dd took French 1 in 8th grade. The private school worked the schedule for her to take French 2 in 9th even though there was only one section and she is the only 9th grader in it so it took some working out. They did it-but it was an issue and she might have had to give up something else.  The public school doesn’t allow 9th graders to take foreign language case closed. So many limitations that just are not issues at home.
 

Dual enrollment. My oldest three did 30+ hours at our local private U. While I didn’t think this was the be all and end all - it was just the logical next step given the resources available to us- it turned out to be really valuable for all three of them in college. It was a great experience and the course offerings were extensive. Sometimes I think it is weird my dd is going to have 4 years of high school classes before moving on to college. Her school does have de on campus through a community college but that is totally not the same and not geared toward the high achievers. She’ll have a full slate of AP available so maybe I’ll end up sold on that. But I don’t think it will yield the credits and campus experience that the de did for my other kids. 
 

There’s a lot. I do feel like my dd needs to be in school but academically homeschooling was better. The number of throw away classes and days is kind of astounding. The school produces pretty good results so it must take less effort to get from point A to point B than I ever thought it did? So we will see…

[Clemsondana]

We play on a public school ball team, so we have a good idea of what my older would be taking if he went to public school.  The ability to take classes that are either useful or interesting is big. Kid would have taken AP Human Geography in 9th - that's what all of the smart kids are scheduled for.  For the 3 social science requirements that we've done/are doing in 9t-11th, we chose either interest-based or co-op with friends, which also happened to be rigorous enough for kid to get a 5 on AP US History, fulfilling a big social science requirement at a couple of kid's preferred colleges.  The ability to choose classes that are either interesting, box-checking, or specifically useful for the future is great.  We aren't dumping massive amounts of time on busywork for useless classes.  I remember my SIL playing the the video game Plants vs Zombies because her kid had to get to a particular level as part of a high school biology class and the family was taking turns playing the game because it served no educational purpose.  Really?  

Being able to do more extracurriculars.  Kid does Science Olympiad and is on the quiz bowl team, which is usually mostly the same kids since their seasons are offset, plays baseball, and is working towards being an Eagle Scout.  There is no way that kid could manage all of that plus a challenging courseload in school.  When we went to Science Olympiad nationals one year, we learned that most kids there have to commit to doing no other extracurriculars in order to be on their team and accommodate their practice schedule.  We don't make it to nationals on a regular basis, but when we do it's with a team of kids that also do sports or have jobs or do other normal teen things.  

Being able to take classes (DIY or outsourced) that specifically explore possible career paths.  Kid likes working in the garden so I wondered about a possible career in something agricultural.  I designed a horticulture class and kid decided that ag was a great hobby but not a job.  Spouse designed a computer engineering survey and kid thought thinks that that's a better fit and enjoyable.  I've known other kids to find CC classes that helped them choose a career direction.  I think my younger may find more benefit from working - kid debates between things like early childhood education and something like occupational therapy (either as a therapist or an assistent).  Some of the local childcare places will hire older homeschool teens to work part-time and our martial arts school hires some teen instructors.  Either would provide a good chance to see if working with little kids in big groups is actually a good job fit.  And kid can choose DE courses related to either field to do more exploration.  

Being able to spend more time together.  With very active teens, I've come to treasure the time I spend in the car with them, and the time that I spend because moms help coach or organize or facilitate most homeschool activities.  I have spent so many Fridays at practice and Saturdays at competitions for Science Olympiad, driving kids, finding food, interacting with the kids and their parents.  It's a lot of fun, even if exhausting.  Our lead coaches are awesome, parents of kids who graduated years ago, so clearly I'm not the only one who feels this way.  

The fact that I keep learning things.  Kid does so much independent learning at this point, but is always coming to tell me things.  And, many of the kids have a kind of...confidence? purpose? self-directedness? that is fun to watch. They can be loud and goofy and all of the sometimes annoying things that teens do, but with much less peer pressure they seem more self-assured - they do what they do, and so do their friends, and it doesn't have to be the same.  Our co-op has a group of juniors who are some of my favorite people - many will mostly DE next year, and at any rate they'll soon graduate and I will genuinely miss all of them, not just my own kid, when they head to college.  

[teachermom2834]

Just another note on the course selection/limitations- I am not entirely sold on loading up on APs or the value in them just to put them on the transcipt. My dd will not likely apply to competitive schools and I'm not excited about having to take a full AP schedule. But I can already see she will have to for social reasons. Her non-honors classes are driving her batty because of the chaos and bad behavior of her fellow students. So she will be taking every honors and AP class available to her for that reason. Now, I am not saying that honors kids are angels because that is not true and in alot of her classes it is the honors kids that are also trouble makers in the non-honors classes. It is just that those classes get a critical mass of disruptive kids/low expectations/large class size that just goes off the rails and she gets frustrated. So I'll be the parent fighting for her to be in all AP classes even if she isn't interested in the subject matter. So yeah just so many factors outside of what is academically the right path. 😞 

[Momto6inIN]

The gift of time, sweet time.

My kids could take a solid college prep course of study and still have time for 8 hours of sleep a night, family time and meals around the table, social activities, and extracurriculars. They weren't stressed to the max all the time.

We have time for talking and interacting with each other and finding out how we each think about the world a little differently. We have time to forge deep relationships.

They have extended time with their siblings to forge relationships with them too.

They have time to develop interests and passions unique to them, rather than a "you must pick from this list of pre-approved school activities".

They have time to figure out what they like and don't like and what makes them tick outside of the intense social scrutiny and judgement of "the pack" that they'd be immersed in if they were in ps.

We're only given so much time with our kids, and then they're grown. Hs'ing high school helps us make the most of it.

[Clemsondana]

4 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

Just another note on the course selection/limitations- I am not entirely sold on loading up on APs or the value in them just to put them on the transcipt. My dd will not likely apply to competitive schools and I'm not excited about having to take a full AP schedule. But I can already see she will have to for social reasons. Her non-honors classes are driving her batty because of the chaos and bad behavior of her fellow students. So she will be taking every honors and AP class available to her for that reason. Now, I am not saying that honors kids are angels because that is not true and in alot of her classes it is the honors kids that are also trouble makers in the non-honors classes. It is just that those classes get a critical mass of disruptive kids/low expectations/large class size that just goes off the rails and she gets frustrated. So I'll be the parent fighting for her to be in all AP classes even if she isn't interested in the subject matter. So yeah just so many factors outside of what is academically the right path. 😞 

Oh, my, yes!  That's why so many of the baseball kids are in so many useless APs.  College instructor friend reports that kids come to college with tons of APs and think that they'll graduate quickly.  They are shocked to find that most are useless, counting only as electives.  Non-calc physics doesn't count for engineers.  Getting 5s on both English tests is worth the same 6 credits (2 courses) that getting a 5 on one of them is.  AP Human Geography and AP Spanish likely fill the same humanities elective credit, so you don't need both.  They may be worthwhile in their own right, or not, but they won't necessarily  help you graduate more quickly.  In some schools these classes come with excessive workloads.  There is no reason that kids shouldn't be able to take an 'advanced chemistry' class and have it be a good, solid high school class.  Or, stated another way, do we really believe that high schools are full of kids who are prepared to do college work in 9th grade?  And if so, why don't we just send them to college?  I'm sure that there are a few, but...I've hung out with the baseball team a bit...I don't think that 1/4 of them were ready for college material in 9th grade, but they were in AP Human Geography.  It's entirely possible that my kid will graduate with fewer AP classes, but more useful college credits earned, than most of his teammates.  Tha'ts crazy!  

[teachermom2834]

Yep @Clemsondanayou have it exactly right. One of the things I initially liked about the school was that they didn’t do AP HUG in 9th grade and just didn’t start APs at all until 10th. Then we get to course selection and she was recommended for AP HUG. The principal gave a little talk that basically boiled down to she thought it was stupid but the parents were demanding an AP in 9th so she was giving in. Dd really didn’t want to do it but I told her that I wasn’t really enamored with APs but now that she is in school that is the game and she kind of has to play it. So she is in AP HUG and it is fine - definitely better than the non-AP 9th grade social studies now that they pulled the top performers out. And my dd is in the top ten % of her grade I would bet. But I can assure you she does not need college level work. But the choice is AP HUG or a frustrating non-honors class. And I’m paying for her to take wellness in summer school just so she can take APES next year instead of wellness. Now she is super interested in environmental science but it is as much a social choice as academic. Ugh. And I’m not at all under the illusion she’ll get a bunch of useful college credits. I’m just trying to make her school day as pleasant as possible. 
 

So many reasons homeschooling is great academically!

[teachermom2834]

And I actually like my dd’s school…you just really are giving up a lot academically when you choose school.

[kiwik]

I no longer have to buy school uniform.