beckiecarsey

I am a married mom of 2 sons,I took them out of brick and mortar
schooling. They go to a online charter school known as OHVA. My oldest
son will be 17 in a few days time.He failed the first sem At the
public school last year, so he has to redo 11th grade. Our friends
unschool; my son is interested in unschooling. He constantly tells me
that he is stressed out because the school expects so much more from
him.I can see the benefits of letting him learn what he is interested
in.I told him we have to fully research this kind of education, which
he is willing to do. My only concern is if he wants to go to college
later, will the ones in our area except his schooling?

Jodi Bezzola

I have no idea about his prep for college because I'm in Canada.  Your son sounds really unhappy and I would be too if some school was telling me I wasn't good enough for them.  Screw them, really.  He's asking to come home  - listen to him!!!  Then he'll at least be happy and relaxed and you can figure out together what he needs in order to get to college.  Does HE want to go to college??  Others here will have more info on what his next step should be if he does.  Welcome to the list!  Oh, and read some John Holt.
 
Jodi

--- On Sun, 9/21/08, beckiecarsey <beckiecarsey@...> wrote:

From: beckiecarsey <beckiecarsey@...>
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Online schooling
To: [email protected]
Date: Sunday, September 21, 2008, 10:43 AM






I am a married mom of 2 sons,I took them out of brick and mortar
schooling. They go to a online charter school known as OHVA. My oldest
son will be 17 in a few days time.He failed the first sem At the
public school last year, so he has to redo 11th grade. Our friends
unschool; my son is interested in unschooling. He constantly tells me
that he is stressed out because the school expects so much more from
him.I can see the benefits of letting him learn what he is interested
in.I told him we have to fully research this kind of education, which
he is willing to do. My only concern is if he wants to go to college
later, will the ones in our area except his schooling?


















[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

aenclade

My oldest son Austen 16 1/2 decided last November to step outside of
public high school and give traditional independent study
homeschooling a try. He chose this because he wanted to play it safe
so he could re-enter high school if he wanted and still be up to date
with his credits. After about 4 months he realized that he loved being
on his own and wanted to take the high school proficency exam and be
done with it completely.He took the test in July, passed and is now
taking 2 classes at Santa Monica Community College...drawing and
psychology. He has a part time job and has loads of friends. He is so
happy now...still decompressing from 10 years of public
schooling...ugh. He has blossomed and loves to sleep!
It has been an amazing process to watch. I have trust that he will
find his way...more trust now than I would have when he was in school
because I could not help but be affected by all of the scores, grades,
college pressure, competition, etc.Now he is free to take any class he
wants at SMC, online, etc. If he wants to go to college it seems to be
a much easier route to go to community college first and then
transfer. He has friends from all walks of life as far as schooling
goes(private, public)...they all seem pretty bored for the most part.
If I can help you in any way let me know! If you don't already own a
copy of The Teenage Liberation Handbook, get it! It changed our lives
and got us on this course.

Amanda



--- In [email protected], "beckiecarsey"
<beckiecarsey@...> wrote:
>
> I am a married mom of 2 sons,I took them out of brick and mortar
> schooling. They go to a online charter school known as OHVA. My oldest
> son will be 17 in a few days time.He failed the first sem At the
> public school last year, so he has to redo 11th grade. Our friends
> unschool; my son is interested in unschooling. He constantly tells me
> that he is stressed out because the school expects so much more from
> him.I can see the benefits of letting him learn what he is interested
> in.I told him we have to fully research this kind of education, which
> he is willing to do. My only concern is if he wants to go to college
> later, will the ones in our area except his schooling?
>

Joyce Fetteroll

On Sep 21, 2008, at 1:43 PM, beckiecarsey wrote:

> My only concern is if he wants to go to college
> later, will the ones in our area except his schooling?

Maybe, maybe not. Unschooling won't get in the way of college, but
the ignorance of admissions staff about what to do with an
unschooler's application might make it difficult to get into a
particular college.

Upper tier colleges are a lot more familiar with unschooling so the
admission staff knows how to handle it. Lower tier schools are more
used to shuffling papers of less than stellar kids who are jumping
through the college hoop to get some kind of job on the other side so
don't know what to do with kids who are on a quest to explore an
interest.

One thing that can help is for him to take community college courses
that interest him. *Not* ones that might supposedly ease his passage
into college (like basic math). Courses that interest him.

Another is seeing that unschooled kids have the advantage of being
able to create a transcript that looks like they've been out living
life and exploring the world, rather than a list of course titles
matched with a letter that says little more than how well a child
jumped through high school hoops.

If *he* wants to go onto college, you might look into what colleges
ask for that have policies for unschoolers (specifically). Not for
you to control what he does, but to help you frame what he does into
a narrative of what drives him.

Wes Beach has a booklet on how to write transcripts - he has written
hundreds of them for kids with all kinds of backgrounds, many of them
unschooled.

This is from the Homeschool Association of California:

Opportunities After "High School": Thoughts, Documents, Resources, by
Wes Beach. Includes a number of transcripts Beach has written for his
students; these transcripts can be used as models for homeschool
transcripts. Also discusses community college enrollment; preparing
for, choosing, and applying to four-year colleges; and opportunities
other than formal academic study. A number of resource books are
described. Available from HSC for $15: Make checks payable to Wes
Beach, and send to HSC Book Order, 5520 Old San Jose Road, Soquel, CA
95073. His talks can be arranged through HSC by emailing the teen
adviser or at (831) 462-5867.

Joyce