Today’s Real Homeschooling for Real Families post is written by Pat from Breakthrough Homeschooling. She is writing about using an Eclectic Style for High School.
When we first began homeschooling, I think it would be fair to say that that prevalent approach to homeschooling high school was actuality preparation for college. Most homeschool moms replicated their own high school education, whether or not it was intentional, and that certainly was the context when we were homeschooling our two older kiddos, now 31 and 29. But I’d like to suggest an alternate approach to homeschooling high school today, without (I hope) sounding too melodramatic: preparation for life.
As mentioned, many years ago, college attendance was the assumed next step after teenagers completed high school. Since then, however, our country and culture have been hit with recessions, skyrocketing college costs, unprecedented pile-ups of student loan debt, and a staggering rate of un- or under-employed college grads. Add to this environment the unparalleled growth of technology-based businesses, many of which do not require or even need a college degree, and a business landscape that invites and encourages entrepreneurship. Oh, and don’t forget the useful application of a gap year…
The end result is that today’s high school students have a plethora of opportunities and possibilities, which actually makes our job as home educators a bit more complex than “just” preparing for college.
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