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Planning School Year with Teens
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My son will be 15 this fall, and I am in the middle of planning next year’s curriculum for him. I would really like his input, but he’s not the most conversational kid. Even though I see where his interests seem to lie (history, theology, philosophy, languages), I would like to work with him to design his curriculum so that he can have input and feel invested in his high school career.
(An aside: My friend has a teen girl who will chat for hours about these things. The most I could get out of my son was Geometry next year instead of Algebra II – and that was after pressing him.)
Suggestions? I was thinking of printing out a questionnaire with specific things for him to answer. For example: Is there something special you would like to learn more about this year? What extra courses would you like to take (with a few options listed)? What are your goals for this school year? What are your goals for high school?
Have any of you used a questionnaire like that?
I’m at a loss. I could easily just design it for him, but if I do he has no ownership. He’s a fairly typical 14YO, meaning that school work that I assign isn’t his priority. 😉
For those of you with quiet teen boys – help!
I have one of those, too. He doesn’t really have an opinion except, “Do I need that to graduate?” But, mine is *pretty* good at doing his work, although he does have opinions about how “this or that” is really something he needs for his future. Oy.
So, I asked him just yesterday if he wanted to be in on the choosing of his English course for the year. He said, no. Ok, then, I will choose it and that’s that. I have agonized over this kid when it comes to his interests and trying to accommodate him because he has so few interests and here I’m trying to spark something for him. But, I have figured out that he does have interests, he does like the books choices (for the most part) I select and he is getting a broad education/exposure to things that he would not otherwise search out because he’s just not wired that way. He’s reading The Screwtape Letters and has told me several times that it’s his favorite book at the moment, which surprised me quite a bit.
Anyway, his selections will be from AO this year with a few SCM resources. He’s not a difficult child, at all, but just doesn’t have what looks like a ton of interests like my other children. But I’m okay with that now.
I doubt this helped..I started rambling then got interrupted. Blessings.
My son was never interested in spending his free time looking at homeschool curricula. He did sometimes choose what period of history he wanted to study or which biographies he wanted to read the most. He also chose to take a Forensics course in high school and he chose his electives as well. Other than that, he really preferred for me to choose the materials and lay out a plan each year. It stressed him out to be involved in the process too much.
My daughter is more involved in the process of choosing courses and direction for our homeschool. She doesn’t want to spend her free time doing this either though so I end up allowing her to count curricula research as school time. When we are comparing science curricula, that is science for the day for instance. I’m about to get her opinion on some various Bible studies and I know I will have to keep it short and sweet since today is Saturday. Saturday is NOT for discussing school issues in her opinion! 🙂
What I do with Makayla is pretty simple:
1. Ask if she has any time period or topics she would like. (History, science, electives). I give her this post to look at for brainstorming ideas http://www.sprittibee.com/2013/08/the-ultimate-list-of-high-school-credit-courses.html I actually printed the list and handed her a pen and a highlighter. She highlighted ones that sounded interesting and wrote in ones that she didn’t see but that came to mind when she was reading the list. For example she added Herpetology (study of reptiles) and Novel writing.
2. Hand her a paper with spots to write in each needed course or elective. So there would be a spot for science, history, math, etc. as well as a certain number of spaces for electives.
3. If she didn’t fill in a space, I did. So she didn’t have pressure to do it all, but she had the freedom to have input.
4. Research materials for the selected classes and present to her a page with each option for a category with a short description plus that handy highlighter and pen. I had already narrowed it down. Instead of listing every writing course on the market I would list my top 2 or 3 I thought she would like, with notes about each. She highlighted the one she wanted to use. Or if she didn’t have one she wanted to use but did have one she did NOT want to do she used the pen to cross off that.
5. Whatever she didn’t make a choice on I made the choice for her. By this point she had been able to give input where it mattered to her.
Hope that helps!
(We also use Landry Academy online classes here and there so she got to browse their listing.
My son is a man of few words as well. I’ve learned that with the core subjects-math etc, he really truly doesn’t have a preference when it comes to curriculum. To him, math is math etc. So I don’t worry too much about whether or not he is giving input. I do however, try to make sure we have plenty of time/white space for him to pursue interests, and he does.
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