I Can’t Teach High School Level: Back to the Basics (Part 13)
Categories: Léo’s Insights 2023-2024, Back to the Basics
This may be true. Perhaps you never completed high school yourself or maybe you did not excel at that level. No big deal. Two things must be considered when addressing this concern, but first, let’s be abundantly clear that bringing “high school” home is not a solution but rather more a matter of normalizing school ideology. The only real thing schooled high school grads can claim is that they were incarcerated for at least twelve years. A potential employer looking for faithful workers should ask for a high school diploma as proof that a potential employee can stick with something they don’t enjoy for a long time!
The first thing to consider is that if you have been home educating from the beginning, you do not have to teach the upper level courses as your children have likely been taught to assume responsibility for their education. Even if there are questions you cannot answer, the internet is full of helpful sites. Also in this vein, you need not teach everything but rather the subjects that align with the interests and abilities of your child. A simple rule of thumb is that if a child has no problem doing the work, they should do the work, as this is likely leading to where they will end up.
The second consideration is that you are now older and wiser than when you went to school. Why not join your son/daughter in learning the things they are learning, just for the fun of it? Make it a competition. The one with the lowest mark buys dinner for the other!
I usually tell parents simply to get out of their older child’s way. You are not teaching in a school. Encourage your children to teach themselves. They should not need you to hold their hand at this stage in their home education. Put schooling aside and watch them flourish. Should your child not want to do anything, you can always invoke the biblical passage that says “he who does not work, does not eat”. This usually works well with boys!
To learn more about home educating high school age children, see the blog series Finishing Strong: https://leogaumont.com/index.php/category/blog2018/finishing-strong/
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