Documenting the Present
I mentioned in my last post that it's the time of year when one must get all one's academic ducks lined up for future pond-paddling. This includes everything from thinking through all the plans, to filling out the paperwork to implement them. Sort through your options. Pick your preferences. Research your resources and choose your druthers. Chart and spreadsheet and calculate. Make sure your kids are taking what they need to take to tick all the right boxes, which means make sure you know what boxes need to be ticked.
I made a mistake with L, with that last part. I did not realize soon enough that a) all colleges pretty much expect you to have had biology in high school, and b) the life science course he took at TPS (which I would swear was listed as appropriate for 9th grade; although when I went back to verify that some time later, I was either wrong—which is possible—or they had changed it—equally probable) is considered a middle school course and does not count.
The result is, he got a mere half credit for science his freshman year, and now has to spend the summer before his junior year taking biology. Yay. Go Mom.
These poor kids have to not only be academically sound (and competitive), they have to look the part.
We recently went on a tour of the NCSU College of Engineering. That was helpful for a number of reasons. Up until now, I think the idea of college has been like a dark room for L. When information about future possibilities and possible futures came his way, he would stuff it into the room and close the door. No idea how to sort through it. The info session and tour gave L a better feel for what college is like, which was basically like going into the dark room and installing a scaffolding on which to hang the stuff. (Yes, I'm mixing metaphors, go with it.) It also put some things in perspective for him. The NCSU College of Engineering is clearly among the best of the best, but it is, in his mind, a doable kind of elite. And the prospective work load of a college student makes L's overwhelming sophomore year of high school seem still hard, but less hard than it could be.
Also he now realizes that a 1320 on the SAT, albeit a great score for a sophomore, is less than impressive to the College of Engineering.
Meanwhile, P, who as your typical second-born wonders why he should bother putting the effort into just about anything in life, can now see that "it pays to get A's." The primary criteria for the admissions department there is how much you challenged yourself academically in high school, and how well did you rise to that challenge? In other words, take hard classes and aim for a 4.0, or you fade into the masses of oblivion.
Incidentally, P is what I would call a B+ student. He understands the material but then makes careless mistakes and snap judgments, or he plunges in without reading instructions carefully or submits his answers without thinking through whether they make sense in context. This is a maturity issue, a lack of focus due to his youth. This is the problem you get when you have a very intelligent kid capable of taking advanced coursework beyond his grade-level. Somehow he's got to figure out how to focus, how to put in the effort and concentration the first time to keep his grades up, or he will fall short of his potential, and his freshman-year high school transcript will look less impressive than he would like.
So we have to have all our ducks lined up, and then we have to document them. I feel like I have spent HOURS working out academic red tape. (Actually, there's a reality that corresponds to this feeling. And I've probably got a few hours to go.) When filling out an official transcript for L, I have listed and edited and recombined courses and altered the corresponding credit hours for each at least eighteen times. I have created course descriptions to have on hand, in case someone comes back wanting to know what on earth I mean by giving him 1.5 credits for math his freshman year, and 2 credits his sophomore. Well, I'm being honest. Algebra 2 includes a 1/2 credit for geometry. The course description states it (and I pulled that from someone else's official site, I didn't make it up). Precalculus includes 1/2 credit of trigonometry, and now he's going to complete half the Calculus 1 course before summer; that's 2 full credits. You don't want to count them for some reason? That's fine. He will still take 2 more college math courses before he graduates. But I'm calling it like it is.
I figured out (not early enough, I'm ashamed to say) that if you're taking a course from an online school, you should copy whatever you want from their course description at the beginning of the class. Don't wait until near the end of the year, when they are enrolling for next year's courses, and they may or may not have changed the details of what the course covers or what textbook they're going to use. (Face palm.) This didn't really happen to us. I think. But still.
A big part of figuring it all out is working out where the money is going to come from. (I'm not suggesting we have financial problems. I'm just saying resources are finite and require careful planning.) There are a lot of free tools out there, but they all require me to be resourceful, organized, and disciplined enough to pull a course together and drive it by myself. I have friends who are very good at this, but I know myself well enough by now to know what my weaknesses are, and there are areas where I am definitely NOT the best teacher for my kids. So here I am, the very prototype of the modern homeschooling mom, functioning as the CEO of my school, pulling together resources and delegating appropriately in order to give my kids the best education possible.
For those of you who aren't eating/breathing/sleeping this stuff like I am, let me back up and take you on a stroll through the variegated levels of resources out there.
1) There's your basic teach-it-yourself-at-home stuff, like the two years of Latin I required of L and P. There was a course kit, and it did have some DVD lectures to enable me (I pretty much skipped them), but basically I had to know what I was doing so I could teach them. (It is called the Latin Road to English Grammar, and it's a fantastic course if you're willing to go through the pain of teaching it. I really ought to make E do it at some point, because everyone who speaks English should have to study Latin.) Sonlight's history/geography/literature cores also fall into this category. When the boys were younger—meaning up until this year—they shared a core, and then each did their own grade-appropriate math and science. E is coming along, several years behind them, using the same Sonlight cores. This year E wraps up Core C (World History, Part 2 of 2) and next year she will be in Core D (American History, Part 1 of 2). Since she's such a great reader, and these cores are based on a dive-in-and-live-it kind of studying history through historical fiction, this works well for her.
2) There's your self-paced streamable online video lectures kind of resource. That's what E will be doing for math this year, using the DIVE math lectures along with a physical Saxon Math textbook. (L did this for Algebra 1 and 2, and P did it for Algebra 1 and then switched to Shormann Math; more on this in a moment.) Khan Academy also offers lots of free stuff, along the lines of extra practice exercises to strengthen your kid in a given subject. I have some experience with them, but not a lot.
3) There's your self-paced streamable online video lectures with some kind of auto-graded exercises. An example of this is the Fluenz foreign language courses. Their French course is what I used, along with some supplemental reading, exercises and discussions with me, to create a French 1 course for L and P. (L did it last year and then placed into French 2 at TPS. P is following in his footsteps a year behind him.) E is also toodling along in Fluenz French, which is to say she has free reign to learn and practice, but I don't require anything of her. I will at some point work with her to help her actually learn and make progress.
4) Shormann Math and DIVE Science are the next level up. The math is a self-paced e-learning course, meaning it's designed so that it can be done in a year, but you get two years of access in case you have a kid that really needs to turn two semesters of math into three. The practice sets and tests are instantly auto-graded, and there's a real, live teacher who is an email away if you get really stuck. (Dr. S is amazing, responding almost immediately with kind, encouraging help.) Also, Dr. S has taken the old Saxon Math program, which is already one of the best out there, and created his own course surrounding it, streamlining it and bringing it up to date with the newer math needed for the current-day requirements for standardized testing and college readiness. (He makes a compelling case for why you should do Shormann Math instead of his own DIVE math lectures here, kind of towards the end of the page; L and P have tested both and I can say beyond doubt Shormann Math is preferable.) We don't yet have any experience with the Science, as both L and P are about to do DIVE biology starting this summer, but the courses are structured similarly.
5) And then there are actual online classes, where your kid is watching a live lecture presentation and interacting with the teacher and peers via microphone (when appropriate) and a chat window. (I love this chat window. Essentially, teachers are legalizing and fully monitoring the passing of notes in class.) At T(he)P(otter's)S(chool), for example, you are paying someone else to teach your child from start to finish, but to also keep you fully in the loop. The parent gets weekly emails regarding recently graded assignments and upcoming deliverables. It's a school, but one where you can just pick and choose a class here, a subject there. This year, but not that. This child, but not that one yet. As a school, it has its pros and cons, but generally I have found that you're getting what you're paying for.
And I think it's high time to get E into some classes at TPS. L had his first online course in 8th grade, and it was a tremendously stretching experience for him. That was a unique course, a special circumstance, and it was only after it was almost over that I realized that was his unicorn, the magical thing that opened him up to a new future. Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but it was sufficiently life-changing for him that I instantly veered P's course to include online classes the next year. (I can learn from my mistakes. L finds it irritating that P seems to benefit more from this than he does—he likes to paint this picture of P sauntering jauntily along the trail, following in L's bloody footsteps—but I like to point out that I just turn around and make different mistakes with P, because the manual that you write as you watch your firstborn fledge somehow doesn't seem to work for your other kids, and you may as well just toss it out.)
So P started in 7th grade—he and L both began taking English and science at TPS, because that was our best option that year—and now I'm getting ready to start E in 5th grade. Just like her brothers did, I want her to take a science course and an English course online. Science, because that's my weakness (I have NEVER taught science effectively, no matter how good my intentions were), and English, because that's her strength.
She's actually excited about the idea of taking a summer writing course, which I suspect she will love, and which will help to smooth the transition into a more rigorous load next year. Starting her in Writing Fundamentals 5 this fall will have her progressing nicely through their typical English pathway, with her ready to start English 3 in 9th grade, just like P... assuming a brighter, more magical unicorn doesn't pop up along our path.
Incidentally, I'm not completely in love with TPS. It has its drawbacks. But I've looked at other similar options, and basically, I've proven to myself that this is the shoe that fits us best, at least for now. Cue the spreadsheets (with cool drop-down arrows, I'm proud of that) for planning and budgeting.
I just need to copy down those course descriptions before they change them again next year!
I made a mistake with L, with that last part. I did not realize soon enough that a) all colleges pretty much expect you to have had biology in high school, and b) the life science course he took at TPS (which I would swear was listed as appropriate for 9th grade; although when I went back to verify that some time later, I was either wrong—which is possible—or they had changed it—equally probable) is considered a middle school course and does not count.
The result is, he got a mere half credit for science his freshman year, and now has to spend the summer before his junior year taking biology. Yay. Go Mom.
These poor kids have to not only be academically sound (and competitive), they have to look the part.
We recently went on a tour of the NCSU College of Engineering. That was helpful for a number of reasons. Up until now, I think the idea of college has been like a dark room for L. When information about future possibilities and possible futures came his way, he would stuff it into the room and close the door. No idea how to sort through it. The info session and tour gave L a better feel for what college is like, which was basically like going into the dark room and installing a scaffolding on which to hang the stuff. (Yes, I'm mixing metaphors, go with it.) It also put some things in perspective for him. The NCSU College of Engineering is clearly among the best of the best, but it is, in his mind, a doable kind of elite. And the prospective work load of a college student makes L's overwhelming sophomore year of high school seem still hard, but less hard than it could be.
Also he now realizes that a 1320 on the SAT, albeit a great score for a sophomore, is less than impressive to the College of Engineering.
 |
| P on the terrace at the Hunt Library. |
Meanwhile, P, who as your typical second-born wonders why he should bother putting the effort into just about anything in life, can now see that "it pays to get A's." The primary criteria for the admissions department there is how much you challenged yourself academically in high school, and how well did you rise to that challenge? In other words, take hard classes and aim for a 4.0, or you fade into the masses of oblivion.
Incidentally, P is what I would call a B+ student. He understands the material but then makes careless mistakes and snap judgments, or he plunges in without reading instructions carefully or submits his answers without thinking through whether they make sense in context. This is a maturity issue, a lack of focus due to his youth. This is the problem you get when you have a very intelligent kid capable of taking advanced coursework beyond his grade-level. Somehow he's got to figure out how to focus, how to put in the effort and concentration the first time to keep his grades up, or he will fall short of his potential, and his freshman-year high school transcript will look less impressive than he would like.
So we have to have all our ducks lined up, and then we have to document them. I feel like I have spent HOURS working out academic red tape. (Actually, there's a reality that corresponds to this feeling. And I've probably got a few hours to go.) When filling out an official transcript for L, I have listed and edited and recombined courses and altered the corresponding credit hours for each at least eighteen times. I have created course descriptions to have on hand, in case someone comes back wanting to know what on earth I mean by giving him 1.5 credits for math his freshman year, and 2 credits his sophomore. Well, I'm being honest. Algebra 2 includes a 1/2 credit for geometry. The course description states it (and I pulled that from someone else's official site, I didn't make it up). Precalculus includes 1/2 credit of trigonometry, and now he's going to complete half the Calculus 1 course before summer; that's 2 full credits. You don't want to count them for some reason? That's fine. He will still take 2 more college math courses before he graduates. But I'm calling it like it is.
I figured out (not early enough, I'm ashamed to say) that if you're taking a course from an online school, you should copy whatever you want from their course description at the beginning of the class. Don't wait until near the end of the year, when they are enrolling for next year's courses, and they may or may not have changed the details of what the course covers or what textbook they're going to use. (Face palm.) This didn't really happen to us. I think. But still.
A big part of figuring it all out is working out where the money is going to come from. (I'm not suggesting we have financial problems. I'm just saying resources are finite and require careful planning.) There are a lot of free tools out there, but they all require me to be resourceful, organized, and disciplined enough to pull a course together and drive it by myself. I have friends who are very good at this, but I know myself well enough by now to know what my weaknesses are, and there are areas where I am definitely NOT the best teacher for my kids. So here I am, the very prototype of the modern homeschooling mom, functioning as the CEO of my school, pulling together resources and delegating appropriately in order to give my kids the best education possible.
For those of you who aren't eating/breathing/sleeping this stuff like I am, let me back up and take you on a stroll through the variegated levels of resources out there.
1) There's your basic teach-it-yourself-at-home stuff, like the two years of Latin I required of L and P. There was a course kit, and it did have some DVD lectures to enable me (I pretty much skipped them), but basically I had to know what I was doing so I could teach them. (It is called the Latin Road to English Grammar, and it's a fantastic course if you're willing to go through the pain of teaching it. I really ought to make E do it at some point, because everyone who speaks English should have to study Latin.) Sonlight's history/geography/literature cores also fall into this category. When the boys were younger—meaning up until this year—they shared a core, and then each did their own grade-appropriate math and science. E is coming along, several years behind them, using the same Sonlight cores. This year E wraps up Core C (World History, Part 2 of 2) and next year she will be in Core D (American History, Part 1 of 2). Since she's such a great reader, and these cores are based on a dive-in-and-live-it kind of studying history through historical fiction, this works well for her.
2) There's your self-paced streamable online video lectures kind of resource. That's what E will be doing for math this year, using the DIVE math lectures along with a physical Saxon Math textbook. (L did this for Algebra 1 and 2, and P did it for Algebra 1 and then switched to Shormann Math; more on this in a moment.) Khan Academy also offers lots of free stuff, along the lines of extra practice exercises to strengthen your kid in a given subject. I have some experience with them, but not a lot.
3) There's your self-paced streamable online video lectures with some kind of auto-graded exercises. An example of this is the Fluenz foreign language courses. Their French course is what I used, along with some supplemental reading, exercises and discussions with me, to create a French 1 course for L and P. (L did it last year and then placed into French 2 at TPS. P is following in his footsteps a year behind him.) E is also toodling along in Fluenz French, which is to say she has free reign to learn and practice, but I don't require anything of her. I will at some point work with her to help her actually learn and make progress.
4) Shormann Math and DIVE Science are the next level up. The math is a self-paced e-learning course, meaning it's designed so that it can be done in a year, but you get two years of access in case you have a kid that really needs to turn two semesters of math into three. The practice sets and tests are instantly auto-graded, and there's a real, live teacher who is an email away if you get really stuck. (Dr. S is amazing, responding almost immediately with kind, encouraging help.) Also, Dr. S has taken the old Saxon Math program, which is already one of the best out there, and created his own course surrounding it, streamlining it and bringing it up to date with the newer math needed for the current-day requirements for standardized testing and college readiness. (He makes a compelling case for why you should do Shormann Math instead of his own DIVE math lectures here, kind of towards the end of the page; L and P have tested both and I can say beyond doubt Shormann Math is preferable.) We don't yet have any experience with the Science, as both L and P are about to do DIVE biology starting this summer, but the courses are structured similarly.
5) And then there are actual online classes, where your kid is watching a live lecture presentation and interacting with the teacher and peers via microphone (when appropriate) and a chat window. (I love this chat window. Essentially, teachers are legalizing and fully monitoring the passing of notes in class.) At T(he)P(otter's)S(chool), for example, you are paying someone else to teach your child from start to finish, but to also keep you fully in the loop. The parent gets weekly emails regarding recently graded assignments and upcoming deliverables. It's a school, but one where you can just pick and choose a class here, a subject there. This year, but not that. This child, but not that one yet. As a school, it has its pros and cons, but generally I have found that you're getting what you're paying for.
So P started in 7th grade—he and L both began taking English and science at TPS, because that was our best option that year—and now I'm getting ready to start E in 5th grade. Just like her brothers did, I want her to take a science course and an English course online. Science, because that's my weakness (I have NEVER taught science effectively, no matter how good my intentions were), and English, because that's her strength.
She's actually excited about the idea of taking a summer writing course, which I suspect she will love, and which will help to smooth the transition into a more rigorous load next year. Starting her in Writing Fundamentals 5 this fall will have her progressing nicely through their typical English pathway, with her ready to start English 3 in 9th grade, just like P... assuming a brighter, more magical unicorn doesn't pop up along our path.
Incidentally, I'm not completely in love with TPS. It has its drawbacks. But I've looked at other similar options, and basically, I've proven to myself that this is the shoe that fits us best, at least for now. Cue the spreadsheets (with cool drop-down arrows, I'm proud of that) for planning and budgeting.
I just need to copy down those course descriptions before they change them again next year!
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