Last year after my daughter completed her first high school level class (an outside Latin class) and did well with it, I gave her the choice of either continuing on a traditional junior high (middle school) then high school approach, or to start directly into high school level work, in the areas where she was ready for it. She chose to start the high school homeschooling journey.
So about a month ago, my husband and I sat down and mapped out what our homeschool’s requirements are for high school graduation.
Each school – public, private, or homeschool – has it’s own agenda, its own goals, and we are no different. We value creativity and independent thinking. We’re raising and educating our students to be well-rounded and to be creative problem-solvers, to serve others, and to be ready not only for the work place, but also for the most important relationships they will have – with their spouses and children.
And so, we adapted our graduation requirements to reflect our goals, our objectives.
I’m sure yours will look different than ours, but here’s a few of the areas where we made changes:
Be prepared for Dual Credit and/or College Prep. While our daughter (and her siblings) currently have no interest in going to college, we want to make sure she has the requirements needed, in case she changes her mind. We also want to leave the door open for the possiblity to earn dual credit in a few years.
More technology. Now we are biased, both my husband and I work in the IT world, and our kids have been using computers since they were toddlers. But we also feel that the need for an understanding of how technology works and for technology skills will only grow. We want to equip our homeschoolers with a good foundation. So, we are requiring 4 credits of technology, including a credit each of programming, office productivity software, and web technology.
More Interpersonal Skills Training. Basic high school requirements state a half credit in Speech, and we just didn’t feel that was enough. Being able to be comfortable speaking to not only groups, but also with a variety of individuals and in a variety of situations is a key factor in both personal and professional success. We are requring two full credits, and one of which needs to be in practical experience.
More Language and Culture. We live in a diverse world, and we feel our children must be able to be able to live in that world without unfounded ignorance or bias about other cultures. So we’re requiring a half credit of world langauge and culture study AND four years of foriegn language study. Each child must be verbally fluent in at least one other langauge (other then English) and be familiar with at least one other langauge (other than English). American Sign Language does count towards our langauge and culture requirement.
More Practical Skills. We’ve added requirements for Fine arts, Community Service, Recreation (not including PE), Psychology (including Human Motivation), Personal Finance (not just Economics), and child development and parenting skills. Why? Because we’re not just preparing our students for work, we’re preparing them to be ready for life – for balancing the reality of money, relationships, and personal fullfillment.
It ended up being 9 more credits than our local traditional public school, but we’re okay with that. We have opportunity to earn credit outside of traditional public school hours, and our goal is not to compete with or duplicate the traditional schools, but to provide our children with an education that allows them to be prepared for the life they will be leading as adults.
Please feel free to share your thoughts on creating your own homeschool high school graduation requirements in the comments below. I welcome your thoughts.
…Shannon
P.S. If you are looking for more info on homeschooling high school, please be sure to check out my homeschooling high school page where’s I’ve listed resources I’ve found useful.
When we homeschool, our children often have the opportunity to start working on high school level material much younger than traditionally schooled children. And that can be a bit of mental adjustment for those of us used to thinking of high school in terms of 9th grade or age 14 or 15.
I know that last year when my daughter (now 12) earned her first high school credit ( a half credit for Latin), I wasn’t prepared for it. I had heard about homeschoolers starting high school work at 11 or 12, but didn’t really expect to find myself there. (Don’t get me wrong my daughter is bright, but I just wasn’t focused on having her start high school that early.)
I did a bunch of research and discovered that high school transcripts really aren’t that difficult to pull together. The bottomline is that as soon as high school credit is earned it should be recorded on a transcript. That way you always have a running transcript ready in case you need it for outside activities and other opportunities.
This last month, I’ve been reminded that it’s important to balance how much work I’m doing with how much much time my family needs. I’ve been under deadlines, in a major crunch zone, and it’s impacted my family – obviously. But it has also impacted our finances – and not necessarily for the better.
I know – that doesn’t exactly make sense. But it does. When I’m under pressure, working hard, I don’t always get to making dinner – and so we go out more.
And, to make up to the kids for all the time I have to spend at the computer, I’m more likely to buy them little treats or take them out to do something. It’s my way of giving them a reward for all the help they give me during these temporary crunches. But yet, those things cost money too.
When it’s all said and done, I sometimes look back over the time and realize that I actually spent more money than I made. How insane is that?
So, it is times like this I have to take a step back and ask myself, will this project really be worth the costs in the long run. Will it really make us money or will it end up costing us money?
When it comes to teaching kids to write, I’m very off-the-beaten path. As someone who writes for others and edits others work, I’ve just seen too many adults who feel they can’t write or write well, because of the way they were taught to write. The fear of the blank page is just too common, and most of the time completely unfounded. So, my approach is a little different.
My kids are not forced to write. But they are given free access to tons of writing materials. And if they have something they want to write about, then they are encouraged to do so – with no or very limited critique. (With my oldest, I do periodically suggest she go back through and add some punctuation.) I want them to view writing as a tool – a tool to express themselves and their ideas.
One way they do this is through their blogs. My 12-year-old particularly has taken to this medium. Over on Little Lounge, a kids version of The Homeschool Lounge, she has a blog that she shares with her friends, where she is writing a multi-chapter book.
Now, she’d never do this for me. But her friends encourage her to write the next chapter, to not let the story hang. “What Happens next?” they ask. and they reciperocate with stories of their own, which she comments on. It makes the writing relevent and gives it a purpose.
A few months ago, when she was doing her research on dogs, I suggested she write out some of the things she found to help other kids who were trying to convince their parents to get a dog. She just looked at me and said, “Mom, I already did that. I wrote an article on my blog.” Okay. I can’t complain about that.
Now she’s got another blog going, My Little Bichon, dedicated to the topic of her Bichon Frise puppy and sharing information about the breed.
It’s the work of a 12-year-old, but completely of her own doing. Aside from me setting up the Wordpress blog for her, she’s done everything, plans everything, and has figured out how to work with Wordpress on her own. She does her own writing, her own posting, and her own editing (sometimes not quite enough, but she’s working on it.)
I don’t have to nag her about it. She just does it. Because she likes sharing. And she’s learning valuable skills along the way. It’s relevent to her. And makes teaching writing skills much easier for me.
At first I was uncomfortable about her having a blog. But Little Lounge provided a good, relatively safe beginning point for her learn about posting online. And, she and I discussed internet safety a great deal (and still do), and came up with boundaries that she needed to follow in order for me to be comfortable with this. But in my book, the positives of her writing on her own very much make it worth it.
You know. The world doesn’t always go the way you’d like it to. okay, well maybe your world does. But mine, not so much. But then that may becuase 1) I’m not in control and 2) there are five other people who live in my household and rely on me to do stuff. And of course all the other things going on around me.
Yet, no matter what is happening, I’m always reminded that somewhere, someone else is having a more challenging time. Right now in my own homeschool group, I know of families who are dealing with illnesses, injuries, and even a few deaths. I won’t even get into what my neighbor – another homeschooling family – has had to go through this year in all three of those areas.
I find it hard when I’m having my own pity party to write and be uplifting. And so all I can say, is that it helps for me to look around and realize that it is better to be spending my time and energy helping others, supporting others, than to focus on my own stuff.
So right now, as I face a variety of issues in my own life, after I wipe away the periodic flood of tears and desire to crawl under a rock and not come out until it’s over, I can only set my cares upon the Father and set out to do His work for others, in whatever capacity I can. Because he does have a plan. And my plans aren’t His.
…Shannon
P.S. If you need some help during some challenging times, here’s some verses that help me
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