From Homeschool Grad to
Successful College Freshman
from Phyllis Paladin
My oldest son, Larry, graduated in July. In late August,
he began his freshman year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Larry was
accepted into the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP, a brand new, unique
program that sounded like it was designed with my son in mind. I was confident
that Larry was properly prepared for college and capable of competing in this
tough academic environment. Nevertheless, I was relieved when the first
semester was over. My son had adjusted well to dorm life and the campus
environment, and his first semester grades confirmed my convictions that Larry
was right where he belonged.
During Christmas break, Larry and I had many
opportunities to talk about these first few months of college life. I was
especially interested in areas where he felt he was at a disadvantage or where our
homeschool program was lacking. I am now using my son’s suggestions to improve
our homeschool program for my younger son and two daughters.
Larry feels that time management skills are very
important to academic success in college. In his words, “No one tells me when
to go to bed, when to study, or when to go to class. In fact, no one even cares
if I go to class.” It seems that many
freshman struggle with this freedom and are simply poor at disciplining
themselves to study instead of taking part in one of the many more interesting
activities that are always available. I have made an effort to put my children
in charge of their own schedules, especially in the high school years. Each
child receives a weekly list of goals and assignments on Saturday morning, and
has until the following Friday at 4PM “check-in time” to complete them. I still
meet with each child daily, but they are ultimately responsible for seeing that
we cover enough material each day. This system may have helped Larry to adjust
to college, although procrastination is still a temptation since many
professors don’t have “check-in time” until the end of the semester.
Prioritizing is another skill that Larry mentioned.
College involves a much greater volume of work than is usually required in
homeschool. Since it is impossible to take enough time to do your best job on
every assignment, it is important to know which assignments deserve the most
time and attention. I’m sure we could teach children this skill around the
home. In managing a household, there are always so many things to do that I am
constantly deciding what is the most important, what can wait, and what can be
“temporarily dealt with.” I intend to involved the children in my decision
process and give them more practice in prioritizing.
Larry did run into a few areas where he felt he was at a
disadvantage because of his homeschooling. He had to work at adjusting to
lecture courses, especially boring lecture courses. Larry’s suggestion is that
homeschoolers practice learning in lecture situations and taking notes. We have
a very good opportunity to develop these skills during church services. I have
begun to give my younger children “sermon worksheets” based on each Sunday’s
sermon. I hope this will give them practice in learning from a lecture
situation. It also means that I have to take notes and pay very close attention
to the sermon and that we all benefit from remembering much more of what is
taught at church. However, Larry did say that students should get practice
listening to boring lectures. Our pastors are not boring, so we have to
continue to look for a source of boring lecturers!
After very carefully guiding my children through all of
the mechanics of writing a research paper according to the MLA Style Sheet, copyright 1971, that I am so familiar with, Larry
told me that the MLA Handbook, as it
is now called, has been revised. I was teaching my children some outdated
procedures for citing references and footnoting information. The exciting
outcome of this unfortunate situation, was that my son simply found out the
correct procedures and used them. It didn’t seem to bother him that he had to
learn something on his own. I would like to believe that learning many new
things on his own during homeschooling prepared him for this experience. I have
purchased a 1997 version of the MLA
Handbook and we are now learning updated annotations.
Larry also had to learn a new form of essay writing for
his Honors Core Course. He had never done any writing exactly like what was expected
of him for this course. Again, he was able to learn the format and got an “A”
in the course. It seems that the type of essay that Daniel is practicing for
the AP US History exam is very similar to what was expected in the Honors
College. Therefore I would expect that an AP course might have eliminated this
problem and that our younger children may not face the same difficulty.
A final issue we discussed was that homeschooling is just
“too enjoyable.” We all work at letting our children pursue topics in ways that
will motivate them and hold their interest. In planning unit studies and
choosing topics for long papers and projects, we give our children lots of
latitude and flexibility. Larry wonders if this is always a good idea. He
brought up an interesting point in that he was required to study topics that he
has very little interest in, and he felt that some homeschoolers may have a
difficult time in college simply because they have never been required to learn
material that they are not interested in or to learn in ways that are not
always fun. His point is worth thinking about.
I am more committed to homeschooling now than I have ever
been before. Unless there would be a major change in our family situation, I
intend for all of our children to graduate from homeschool. One aspect of
homeschooling which I especially enjoy is that I am constantly learning. Among all that I am learning, I hope to
continue to learn to become a better homeschooling mom and more important, a
better parent. À