Homeschool High School: Teach Them to Teach Themselves

Learning is more important than teaching.

If the goal is teaching, it would be much easier to simply teach the same math facts over and over and over again. After all, writing a lesson plan would take only seconds if you had taught that same lesson every day for a year.

But as homeschool parents, our goal is NOT to teach something. Our goal is for the kids to LEARN.

Give your children curriculum at their ability level, and allow them to learn something that they don't already know.

As teens grow older, they must learn how to teach themselves. Not every teen will self-teach every subject, but the more they can the better. For some it will be quick, and for others it will take some time. Once in a while, special subjects require a mentor. Still, self-teaching is a worthy goal.

If they go to college, they will be expected to learn textbook material on their own. College lectures are most often supplemental to the textbook, rather than an explanation of concepts in the book.

Teenagers who enter the work world will also need to teach themselves. It may be computer skills, accounting, or how to purchase a car, but they will need to teach themselves something.

My children taught themselves calculus, physics, and Latin. They could pass a test in those subjects even though they had a teacher who didn't understand any of it.

Curriculum developed for homeschoolers will be a good self-teaching curriculum. Curriculum developed for schools assumes that the teacher understands the concepts contained in the book; Latin, or calculus or whatever. Homeschool curriculum assumes that the parent knows nothing about the subject. Whatever is needed for teaching the concepts will be provided - usually with some sort of support by phone or email. Many choices will include a video tutorial. The best way to find self-teaching curriculum is to use curriculum developed specifically for homeschoolers.

I know the understood the material, because I gave them the tests. Although I didn’t know what the calculus symbols meant, I knew that my kids answers matched the answers on the key.

As a nurse, I could have taught them Biology and Chemistry, but they actually taught themselves that as well. It worked out better for us when they were teaching themselves. I merely checked up on them from time to time. I made sure they did the work, and that nobody got hurt during experiments. But I didn't teach them.

My son Alex taught himself economics, psychology and business law. I know he taught himself because he passed college level CLEP exams in those subject and yet I certainly didn't teach him. My son Kevin taught himself chess and became nationally ranked even without a private coach.

Here’s my point: kids will teach themselves something when they are interested in it. It’s fine for kids to do that, and it works out great for kids that are working on an intensely academic, college-prep curriculum as well as for kids that are in a relaxed homeschool environment.

Blessings,
Lee

Article Source: http://www.bizymoms.com/expert-advice

Lee Binz, The HomeScholar, teaches parents about homeschooling high school. Her boys earned full-tuition scholarships at their first choice university. Her Total Transcript Solution will help you create amazing homeschool transcripts that will impress the colleges! Learn how she did it on TheHomeScholar.com.

Please Rate this Article

# of Ratings = 2 | Rating = 5/5

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Homeschooling Articles Via RSS!