As always, the metaphors suggest themselves.
In several weeks, my two youngest children, ages 16 and 18, will enter their senior year of high school, and their last year – our family's last year – of home education.
Of course, by now, "home education" is something of a misnomer. It's been some time since either of them was at home full-time for school, receiving education only from me (or rather, from the books and resources that I assigned). Belmont Abbey College, where my husband teaches, begins admitting high-school students for dual enrollment in their sophomore year, though actually, as a faculty family, we've often unofficially slipped kids into classes earlier than that, by under-the-table agreement with colleagues and friends. My youngest, for example, sat in on a first-year French class at – thirteen? fourteen? I can't remember now, but as a ninth grader – for which she didn't receive transferable college credit, but for which I awarded a year's full high-school credit, since she did all the work, took all the tests, and otherwise sweated it out like any other student. We've always done this, beginning as soon as someone showed signs of either readiness to handle the challenges of a fast-paced college class, or restlessness with being home, or both.
These youngest two children of mine aren't twins – they're seventeen months apart, a July '02 birthday boy and a December '03 birthday girl. When they were very young, I basically just waited until my daughter was ready to embark on some kindergarten work and rolled them together into a single class for everything, including reading and math, following the Mater Amabilis curriculum. They remained a single class until they were roughly 11 and 9-turning-10, at which point for various reasons it became more workable to divide them into their own grade levels, though they remained only a grade level apart. As high school approached, my daughter – a highly motivated person – began to feel that she didn't want to be left behind for a year after her brother graduated, and petitioned me to let her work through the summers until she caught up with him. And now, here we are, going into senior year, for everybody: the last big push.
For the last three years, we have done a hybrid combination of Mater Amabilis' high school syllabus (linked at the MA site above), which I helped to compile, plus dual enrollment and some extracurricular activities which have merited inclusion on our transcripts. Generally we've arranged the rest of our work around whatever classes anybody was taking at the Abbey in a given semester, which might be one, two, or three classes.
What we've done so far
(a very general overview over three years):
Child A:
Dual Enrollment:
U.S. History (a year-long survey, so 2 credits)
Western Civilization (1 semester, 1 credit)
Rhetoric and Composition (1 semester, 1 credit)
German (1 semester, 1 credit)
Math for Liberal Arts Majors (1 semester, 1 credit)
Intermediate Algebra (a remedial class, so not a transferable college credit, but a full high-school credit to knock out Algebra 2)
Film Studies (1 semester, 1 fine-arts credit)
My Coursework:
Algebra 1 (1 credit)
Geometry (1 credit)
Integrated science (roughly following Sabbath Mood's model over 3 years, for a credit each in conceptual chemistry and conceptual physics, plus biology)
Literature (English, American, genre studies, for 3 credits)
Ancient history (1 credit)
English history (1 credit)
Independent research in world history (to make up the second half of Western Civ, when he opted not to take another dual-enrollment semester 1 credit)
Religion (3 credits)
Philosophy and Logic (1 credit)
Picture Study (.25 credit each year)
Composer Study (.25 credit each year
Folk songs and Hymns (.25 credit each year)
Extracurricular:
Karate (PE credit)
Tabletop Role-Play Games (elective)
Child B:
Dual-Enrollment:
U.S. History (2 credits)
Rhetoric and Composition (1 credit)
Intermediate Algebra (1 credit)
French (3 credits, 2 of which will transfer)
My Coursework (I'm not going to break out the credits again):
Algebra 1
Geometry
Integrated Science
Ancient History
English History
Literature (English, American, genre studies)
Religion
Philosophy and Logic
Picture Study
Composer Study
Folksongs and Hymns
Extracurriculars:
Art (fine-arts credit)
Guitar (fine-arts credit)
Irish dance (P.E. credit)
Coffee-shop job which I will probably parlay into part of an economics or business credit
So this is the lay of the land going into senior year.
I feel certain I'm forgetting things, but off the top of my head, in a very general way, these are subjects we have covered one way or another so far.
Right now, in terms of dual enrollment, the fall is looking like this:
Child A:
Biology with lab (1 credit)
Child B:
Biology with lab (1 credit)
Western Civilization I (1 credit)
Math for Liberal Arts Majors (1 credit)
Child A has finished all his math credits (4 is the typical graduation requirement), and there was great rejoicing. Child B will have finished all hers by the end of the fall semester.
In the spring, the idea is for Child A to take a second German course (it's only offered in the spring semesters, and I really wish we'd jumped on it earlier so he'd have done at least three credits, but you can get by with two. I might have him do Duolingo this fall just to keep his hand in – according to them, 34 hours of Duolingo equals a college semester, so I might be able to grant him a credit if he does it assiduously).
Child B will take a second semester of Western Civ.
I'd like for both of them to take a particular physical science course with lab, if they can get it – it's been filling up fast, and so far we haven't been able to get the professor we want. If not, I'll figure out another science for that semester.
For me, they'll be
* Reading primary texts in theology, i.e., saints' writings from the early Middle Ages forward (last spring we read selections from the Early Church Fathers), plus the major prophets, the psalms, three of the four Gospels, and Revelation (following on Bible reading of the last three years), plus the papal encyclical Fides et Ratio
*Reading intensively in literature:
Dante's Divine Comedy (free online here)
Novels: Huckleberry Finn, Silas Marner, Death Comes for the Archbishop, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man, A Month in the Country
Poetry from the 17th century to the contemporary era
*Plutarch's Lives of Alexander and Julius Caesar (I really like Bernadotte Perrin's translation, which is available free online here).
*Hazlitt's Ecnomics in One Lesson (free online here) plus selected essays on themes related to economics, such as Distributism
*Hillsdale Online's Constitution 101 lectures, plus primary-source readings related to government
*a Senior Thesis, using Classical Academic Press's Senior Thesis program.
*following AO rotations in picture study and composers
My whole plan is here. Anyone is welcome to copy any of this for personal use. Please note that at Mater Amabilis, we do have detailed daily plans for core subjects, for all four years of high school: religion, English, history, geography. Science plans are coming very soon. We also have a breakdown of credit requirements, which should help with planning.
What my plans here represent is how a) you can flex home education to fit with outside classes, which we have always experienced as beneficial; and b) what "oh no, we haven't read X, Y, and Z yet" looks like in practice.
For years, as my kids have been out of the house, I have used blogs as "dashboards" for their daily plans each week. They do their narrations in Google Docs, which enables me to click, read, and respond quickly, whether they're home or not.
Up to now, each child has had his/her own blog, but for senior year, I've put all our "180 Days to Graduation" plan on a single blog. I may need to add some individual items (like Duolingo German, for example), but mostly I wanted ONE streamlined plan that I can tweak as needed, but that will address everything everybody really still needs to cover in order to graduate.
That blog is here. You are welcome to follow us, week to week.
We're still trying to mop up a pretty meaty eleventh grade this summer, with a light 3-days-a-week schedule of readings and math. I look forward to never ever again having to schedule any math lessons . . . and I know I'm not alone in that anticipation! Meanwhile, Abbey classes are set to begin August 19, and my hope has been to give folks here at least a tiny break before they dive into the new year.
For now, we're poised on the brink of the last big push, the transition phase of the labor that is home education. If you could spare a prayer for us, we'd appreciate it!
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