Laura asks, “How do you know how to pace homeschooling? I know homeschoolers who finished high school at 16 – how do you feel about that?”
It’s a little hard to think about long-term pacing right now, when all I want is for Captain Science to finish his daily assignments on time! I wish I were currently in the midst of worrying about pacing from the “whoa, don’t go too fast!” point of view, instead of our current “why is it taking you three hours to finish one math problem?” point of view. This boundary testing nonsene is a bitch that I’d like to send back to the pound.
Still, you’ve touched on a big issue for homeschoolers. Obviously, there are different schools of thought about how (or whether) to pace work in order to keep a homeschooled student on track for a roughly “normal” age of graduation. Some people let their children work at an entirely self-directed pace, even if that means graduating at 14. Others believe strongly (and I mean strongly) that certain subjects are taboo before certain ages or stages of development, and that you’re damaging your child horribly and permanently for allowing them to work too far ahead of what they feel is “age appropriate.” Think I’m exaggerating? Ask Patchfire how much flack a homeschooler takes for daring to algebra to a nine-year-old (even a gifted one). One mustn’t learn too fast!
Of course, you’re not asking what They (the collective “Them”) do, but what the [Smrt] Homeschooler does. Thus far, pacing (at least for the sake of making sure he doesn’t finish too early) has not been something I’ve worried about excessively. Captain Science is already officially one grade ahead, due to skipping a grade, so he’d be graduating early anyway. He’s working ahead of his grade level (the one to which he was skipped) in several areas, when he isn’t wrapped up in his hissy fit of “I don’t wanna!” that we’ve been experiencing the last few weeks. I couldn’t imagine deliberately holding him back or slowing his progress, just to keep him on “grade level” — whether out of fear of potential damage from introducing concepts or out of fear of him going off to college too young.
Some of our curricula is self-pacing. Life of Fred is a good example of this. He does a section a day, moving through it at a pretty fast clip, unless he’s having trouble with one of the concepts. If something is tripping him up, it will come out in the bridges between chapters. Since he has to correctly answer 9 out of the 10 questions to move on the next chapter, he could theoretically complete the bridge in one day. If he answers fewer than 9 correctly, however, he must complete the next try the following day. While only five tries are provided, there’s the option of repeating them until the concepts are cemented. Typically, he makes it through by the fourth try, though second or third is more common.
This does mean that he’s moving through the Life of Fred books pretty quickly, covering more than one full book per semester. It also means that, in another six to eight weeks (provided he gets back on track) we will be faced with the choice of starting either pre-algebra or beginning algebra, which puts us into the “oh no, you can’t start algebra too early!” zone. Personally, if the kid has the prerequisite skills, I don’t see why s/he couldn’t start algebra. Whether or not Captain Science will be ready, however, is going to depend entirely on his skill set at that point. I won’t hold him back if he’s ready. I won’t push him forward if he’s not.
The subjects where I control the pacing, such as history, I’m careful to not throw too much information into one day. This isn’t because he couldn’t make it through the work, but because I want him to have time to savor the minutia of the subject matter. Yes, he could read the entirety of Eyewitness: Ancient Rome in about 20 minutes, if it even took that long. He wouldn’t, however, take the time to think about the similarities and differences between Roman culture and ours, or what it would really mean to live in a stratified society (especially as someone on the lowest stratas), or about how different childhood might have been for him had he lived over 2000 years ago. Pacing, for history, means offering just enough information in a go to let him look at each fact and draw conclusions between those facts and his prior knowledge and experiences.
What I expect from him, work-wise, is increasing gradually over the year. He’s moving pretty rapidly from simple ideas to broad and important concepts — the speed at which he goes through the material hasn’t changed, but how he relates to it has.We’ve gone from listing dates and finding vocabulary to writing (hopefully) thoughtful essays based on essential question (both the “recurring questions in life” and the “key inquiries within a discipline” varieties). How do the differences in cultures affect childhood? What is the meaning of the forms of entertainment we choose, the foods we eat, the rulers we elect (or who conquer us)? If he’s ready to seek out the answers to questions like that and to think deeply and meaningfully (moving from the grammar stage and into the logic stage), why would I continue to insist he work on the lower level, simply because he’s in fourth grade and the logic stage “officially” begins in fifth grade?
As for what we’ll do about college when (since we’ve already gone past “if” by virtue of grade skipping) he graduates early, most of that will depend on Captain Science. If he doesn’t get any further ahead than he is now, and graduates at 17, I have no problem with him going to college wherever his heart may lead. At fifteen or sixteen, if he’s ready to handle the work (which he should, if he’s graduated high school), we’ll probably send him to a local college/university for a year or two, as we have wide variety from which to choose within a 30 miles radius.
Of course, if Harvard or MIT comes knocking at fifteen, I guess we’ll just have to change our plans a bit, right?
Do you have a question for the [Smrt] Homeschooler? Email them to
smrtmama@smrtlernins.com
