Is All School Work Equal?

The title of this post seems obvious, right? Of course not all school work is equal. Some is just busy work, plain and simple. My point of this post is to encourage us to really evaluate the work our kids are doing to see if it is value-adding or if it just keeping them busy a lot of the time. Do we have an educational plan for our kids, or are we just winging it from year to year? If we're following someone else's plan, have we really looked hard at it to see what our kids will know at the end? We can't do it all, of course, but is what we're doing causing us to miss something that is more critical for later on (like college)? Is the plan good on paper but not in practice (i.e. is it the sort of thing that could only be great with the right teacher and/or students?).

We educate classically on one hand. This means Latin is a key component to our school starting in the elementary years, we use science that approaches material in-depth rather than a cursory oversight, and we strive to have subject integration when applicable. It also means in the elementary years there is memory work--rote memorization of facts. In general it also means academic rigor is the standard, as well as reading classics. As the middle and high school years come in to play, opportunities to discuss subject matter are critical. The goal is to produce students that have a solid, Biblical faith that contains a depth and breadth to it which is often not found in society today. We want to create an atmosphere of questioning 'why' things are the way they are as well as help our students understand history and how it pertains to what is happening in the world and church today. Practically, the way we are educating is geared toward preparing our students to enter college ahead of their peers, as much as it reasonable for them as individuals.

I say all of this because it is just a given to me that homeschooling parents be able to explain what they are doing and why. Too often we see parents who go along with a program or way of doing things without looking at the whole educational picture. That can be fun in the early years, but will students be prepared for what needs to happen in high school, based on what path the child is heading for after high school? Even in programs where questioning is said to be encouraged, it seems to me that people often shy away from really doing it.

If we want to be taken as serious, competent educators, the least we can do is weigh what our students are learning and truly determine if it is a worthwhile use of their time. If others are teaching them, who are these people? Do we know what they believe? Are they producing, or have they produced, effectively educated students of their own or in prior years of teaching? I think of the qualifications for a leader in Scripture--and I wonder why we often don't seem to care who is teaching our own children based on their personal, at home, performance. Along a similar vein, who are we listening to in regard to what path we choose for our own children? Too often in homeschooling we let people whom we like, or who are good saleswomen, influence us. But I think we really need to be aware of what constitutes a quality education before we latch on to who we'll let influence us. For example, in some circles, Algebra II is considered higher math, but that is ridiculous if you look at what public school standards are for above average students and possibly even average students. Let's then look at what private schools would say is the norm for average or above average students and then finally, college programs. My point is this--we can't take someone's word for what is the norm. If you ask my husband (chemical engineer) and myself (BS in Forestry), we'll give different answers to what is acceptable for minimal high school math. I'll tell you a trig/calc class, he'll tell you a full year of calculus. That flowed along with the math we then started with in college. I took traditional calculus, he took the engineering 5 hr calculus class. We were both prepared adequately for what we wanted to do. No one would have told us Algebra II was higher math.

This is just one area to explore. Again, my point is that we need to be careful who we are listening to and do our own research. Are we being told our students are on a rigorous path and believing it because we're told it, or have we compared it to Governor's schools, private schools, online schools, public schools,  and then made the determination? I think we often fall for the same tricks public educators fall for--they are told they are smarter than everyone else essentially, so they eventually believe it. But, according to Voddie Baucham in The Children of Caesar, teachers in universities test amongst the lower tier, not the higher.

We all have to make decisions based on what we can afford, mentally handle, the types of kids we have...the list goes on. My desire is just to motivate parents to be educated on what is required for college and to adequately prepare their students along the way. There is no shortage of parents who wing it and claim it all turns out just fine; or parents who have all sorts of ideas that differ from what they did AFTER their kids are out of the house.

What I'm interested in is seeing real academic or career success played out in a solid Christian life of a child who was homeschooled--and finding out how their parents did it.