I was just over at the Well-Trained-Mind board where I posted this bit about what a high school student should have attained by graduation. Perhaps you’ll find it valuable too:
As a father with three children in college and one a senior in high school who is also home schooling his ninth graders I’ve thought a lot about this. If you don’t mind, I’ll think about it some more right now…
The first thought is about college. Not much creates more anxiety, but not much is more toothless.
What I do and what I encourage schools and home scholars to do is to determine 10 or 12 colleges you would like your children to attend and then call the admissions officer at those colleges.
Tell them what you are doing and ask them if they want that sort of student. Don’t let them dictate what you are teaching the eternal soul you are raising.
Then you can start to develop your “profile of a graduate” with a clear head and this vague thing called “college” won’t matter to you anymore. Instead, you’ll have concrete, specific colleges for which to prepare.
When I think about what I want my children to achieve by the time they graduate, I try to throw out the assumptions of the age.
For example, Andrew Pudewa has taught me not to think high school matters. Therefore, with my ninth grade son, I have told him I have two goals for him: 1. to be running a profitable business of his own by the time he is 19 and 2. to receive his college undergraduate degree by the time he is 19.
Maybe it’s a boy thing, but that seems to have motivated him.
With those goals in mind, I then think in terms of three columns that Mortimer Adler developed:
1. Skills to master
2. content to know
3. ideas to understand and appreciate
For example, under 1, it is imperative that a human being in any age master language and reasoning skills to a high degree. Everything else follows, especially in the professions and management.
So I emphasize Latin, Greek, and the language arts of listening, speaking, reading, and writing (more Pudewa influence), along with the reasoning arts of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
Under 2, I want my children to vote, so I’d hate to think anybody would ever do that without knowing the contents of our consitution and the job description of those to whom we delegate our authority. I also want them to know our history as a people so they can understand why we are the way we are and what is possible.
Under 3, I want my children to understand freedom, justice, and order; truth, goodness, and beauty; glory, honor, and immortality; being, mode, and change; wisdom, virtue, and personhood – because these 15 ideas contain everything.
If I were bold enough to make a suggestion, then, I would recommend:
- that you contact the colleges you are interested in
- that you would not be cowed by the way things are done in our failing culture (after all, you home school!)
- that you identify the knowledge, skills, and ideas that YOU want your children to master before completing high school
- that you not fall into despair when you only make it part way there! One step on the path of life is better than a thousand miles on any other.
I hope this has some value for you. It has helped me clarify my own thoughts, so thank you for asking such a great question!
