help with high school accountability

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  • January 5, 2011 at 5:47 pm
    famofeleven
    Member

    I am just wondering if anyone has any ideas to help me with holding my children accountable.

    I am currently working on how to shore up an accountability problem.  Mainly… there is just not enough me! 

    I have 9 children… 3 high school, 2 middle school, 2 primary, 2 preschool.  Needless to say, I am busy ALL the time, always trying to juggle things.

     

    We have been using Tpaestry of grace for 5 years or so… and I really love it.  It works in a way that I can understand.  However, after a hard crosss- state move and feelign a bit robbed of joy and tired of nagging children who did not finish their work, I decided to relax a little, try to remmebr what I used to do when I only had little ones, and get back to a more Charlotte Mason style of schooling. 

    My eldest has always resisted anything that was not one on one.  Discipline, good habits and self control have been points of contention for years.  He has spent his last few years just simply not doing assignments and behnd in every subject.  Anything that was not cut and dry as far as expectations got the short end of the deal.  This last semester, in a last ditch effort to keep him form going to public schoool, we permitted him to begin early entry in college.  I meticulously outlined what he needed to do for each class… how much each writing assignment was worth, etc. That was a total failure.  He flunked the 4 classes I was supervising and did not do as well as he could in either early entry class. 

     

    So, long story short, he is home again.  I still would like to reincorporate him into our homeschool day.  I really love Sonya’s plans for studying history and Bible as a family.  It would help me recover some family time subject wise and gives me a better plan than I currently have for Bible.  A bit gentler than tapestry, yet still keeps everyone on the same page.

    Yet…  2 issues:

    1) we need to pick up where there is no published plan.  We are at the point in our cycle for 1800s and American History. 

    2) I don’t know how to evaluate and schedule out my son.  Well, everyone… but my eldest in particular.  I need clear cut evaluations.  So often I have sighed and said, “that was not your bst effort.  It wasn’t near what I know you can do”…

     

    I know Charlotte Mason was against grades.. and for the most part, I have felt they are a false measure of learning and achievement.  Yet… without them I feel like my kids slide by and do not do their best.  THey are lazy and aim at finishign work as quickly as possible to go play.

     

    Obviously I have a lot of issues to sort out.  I don’t expect “the answer”.  But I would like some feedback on how to deal with giving my kids soemthing to measure themselves against.  I’ve looked at the Beautiful Feet History guides, Notgrass History, Lightning Literature and a few other programs… but I keep coming back to the one issue… how to evaluate and keep my whole flock accountable. 

    I know… expect what you inspect. 

     

    Any ideas?

     

    thanks!

    caroline

    January 5, 2011 at 6:22 pm
    laurap
    Participant

    I know with my oldest we often butt heads simply beacuse he is testing to see “who is in charge” (he is now in school but his testing goes beyond school stuff)

    So my way of dealing with it has been to give him a few things to be “in charge of”. now I picked carefully what I was willing to let go of and pass the responsibility to him.  For example when he was still HSing I had him prepare and teach history to my older elem son.  I find that you learn so much from teaching to me it served two purposes….he was learning and my other son was learning too….without too much mom intervention.  He even went the extra distance on creating projects that I may not have done.

    I have also found this to work with our yard work…..my 2nd son cuts the lawn, and my two preschoolers pull weeds etc.  My oldest in in charge on supervising, helping them with anything they can’t do and edging and weedeating.

    Maybe your oldest could be in charge of taeching your other two high schoolers and Middle schoolers for say science or something they could do together??  This could free you up a bit for your younger ones.  You could call it something that sounds fun like the “Think Tank” or something so they know it is their time REALLY work together to learn something but ultimately your oldest is in charge????

    You could then have 20 min or so each evening when the littles are in bed that you sat down with your older ones to recap what was learned in the think tank each day???

    I personally think boys are tough at this age beacuse they are sort of stuck between a boy and a man…….

    Laura

    January 5, 2011 at 10:31 pm
    Oakblossoms
    Participant

    I wish I could help. My oldest is really hard to motivate. He is in grade 8 this year and I was hoping he would be better prepared for High School. I have to keep an eye on him all day. I wish I had set better habits for him when he was younger. I was overwhelmed and had no good role models for a Homeschooling mom. I am doing much better with his siblings. I will keep an eye out here.

    I would not put him in charge of teaching other siblings.

    January 5, 2011 at 10:52 pm
    botanicalbecky
    Member

    I also don’t really have any advice, though I think you bring up a really great issue. I would imagine that accountability is a problem for some no matter if they are in public school or home school. Because to me, the person has to care about what they are doing – that’s the point, I think. You want your child to care about his education and work at it. You want him to value his education – for it to have some importance in his life. How do you create this desire in a child? And I think that grades or even tests really will not solve this issue because if you don’t care about your work, why would you care if you get a poor grade?

    January 7, 2011 at 3:22 am
    famofeleven
    Member

    Thank  you for your thoughts, ladies.

    I guess it boils down to this for me… if I can’t measure things… well, then my children don’t do it. 

    Yes, this is a flaw in their character.  I have been fighting it (apparently ineffectively) for years.  It is most evident with my eldest (always has been). 

    How do I assign him work that will not be “graded” and then deal with the sub-standard or undone work? 

    I switched to textbooks for him for the semester… to totally remove my “opinions” on how much he needed to do and to remove any grey areas in my grading him.  I had hoped that with clear cut expectations he would see what he needed to do and get his act together.  That did not happen.

    Now that he is home full time again, I would like to make sure that things are still very measurable, even if they are not “text book”.  Is that do-able with a Charlotte Mason approach?

    Still mulling things over… always hoping to help him find success.. and feeling quite clueless…

    Caroline

     

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