One Mom's New Experiment

    This week, I am talking about a new experiment that we will be attempting this year. First, I must give a little background into our previous years of schooling. From the first year, I have been more of the planner. I chose the courses to be taught, made sure the materials were available, and actually taught most of the courses myself. This seemed to be okay, but my son did not appear to be as engaged as I would have liked. The year just ended I had started letting go of some of my control and had my son do some of The Great Courses series to supplement some of his learning. It actually worked better than I had anticipated.
     This year, I am planning on taking more of a role as a facilitator and allowing my son to be responsible for the work. I still have to type out his books as needed (I have found some sites that have large print available or can be adapted, but because of my son's vision delays I have to type out the rest). I am creating my own series of books for learning German. I still have selected some of the courses. The only classes I will still be teaching will be German, American Government, and Creative Thinking. I will still, of course, be there if he needs assistance with his classes. I have decided that since he has expressed an interest in attending college that I want to make him more responsible for time management and would like to increase his study skills.
    He will receive all of his assignments on Monday that are due at the end of the week. It will be entirely his responsibility to have them completed by Friday. How he learns to manage his time is his journey. I have told him if he would prefer to do as we have in the past and divide his day up into manageable segments with a little from each class he is free to do so or he can do all his classwork required for a subject during one day so he only has to do it once a week. He may also choose to experiment with different methods in order to find the path that works for him. I am not to interfere unless he starts getting behind with his work.
    This marks a major turning point in our schooling. I am trying to let go in order to make him a more independent thinker. Whether this experiment works or not only time will tell. If it succeeds, the following year he will be allowed to plan what he wishes to learn just as if he were at college. He will have certain courses that will be required (English and Math) and the rest will be electives of his choosing. I am hoping that by the end of high school he will have learned the art of self-learning and hopefully this will make the transition from high school to college much easier.
    If any of you have any suggestions that may help make this transition easier, I would welcome your comments. I will keep you updated in future blogs as to our progress.