As my daughter finishes her 8th grade year, we are confronted with what to do for high school. It seems the beginning of middle school and high school are common times that homeschoolers enter "traditional" school. It has always puzzled me since, I feel, that as kids get older and have more maturity, the opportunities for learning in the community expand greatly.
However, as our family approaches this point ourselves, we are confronted with the reality that homeschoolers can have a difficult time finding peers with whom to socialize. The "easy" answer is to jump into a place that has lots of kids the same age: a school. But is it worth all the sacrifices: the loss of control over your time; the negative peer pressure; the bells, whistles, hurtles, hoops, etc.? These are the questions we face.
Parenting choices are rarely easy. This is merely one more in our quest to provide our children with the most healthy and nurturing environment that we can. We want to prepare our children for the adult world that they will eventually have to enter. What is the best way? Traditional school hardly seems the answer.
We visited a non-traditional school the other day. I was excited by their model. Thrilled to find an educational institution that did not seem like an institution. It is a wonderful place...if you have to go to school. However, no matter how wonderful the model, it is still, alas, a school. It still has the trappings of school: the shallow interactions, the peer pressure, the posing. This school, I admit, seems to have less than a traditional school, but it is still there.
This school, however, has introduced us to a potential model for our high school experience: The Walkabout. Read my next post to learn more.
TTFN
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