Are we done with middle school?
May 8th, 2008 by learningumbrella
My sister is at a big transition point - middle school to high school. This Fall would be the beginning of 9th grade if she were in public school, and it also happens that she is about to finish the Kumon program that she has done for math and reading. She’s going in tomorrow to a local community college to take the math placement test, and she should place into college algebra without any trouble. It’s offered as an internet class, which she’ll take this fall (and get her first college credits).
But, while all of this looking ahead is fun, are we ready for this? Have we finished all we intended to finish for middle school?
I spent several hours yesterday organizing our scope and sequence against her transcripts, to see where we were. Because we’ve only been doing this for 2 years (she was a sadly neglected youngest child unschooler before that), we’ve been playing “catch up” for a long time. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much she’s accomplished, but there are some things still to do.
According to our scope and sequence (not the one published by our state, but we did look at it before we made our own), she’s missing:
An elementary level look at Ancient World History
South Asian and Pacific Islands history, culture, and geography
Poetry memorization and speech arts
Asian history, culture, and geography
Middle Eastern history, culture, and geography
South American history, culture, and geography
American History, 1800-to present
Engines (how they work, how to fix them)
Nutrition
Sex Ed
Roots of Vocabulary Words
Media Literacy
Dance Appreciation
Art Appreciation
Music Appreciation
Speech
This list isn’t terrible, but it does mean that we’ve stacked 9th grade with a lot more catch-up work. It was nice to realize, however, that our scope and sequence and goals for high school leave room for that, and we’ll still get to the cool high school things we want to do (logic, formal ethics, philosophy, comparative religion, cultural studies).
And she really has done so much, to pack 8 years of learning goals into 2 years. Luckily, math and literacy were a given, it was just everything else that had been neglected. So, she’s made incredible strides, and I think she can finish this off next year.
Wow! Good for you for not being overwhelmed… maybe it’s because you have been working with her, and middle school goals, and high school goal-setting, for two years. From my end of the spectrum - JediBoy will “officially” start homeschooling with first grade next year - those missed objectives seem terrifyingly large! But your confidence is clear, and your sister is lucky to have you.
I totally love the balanced and positive tone of this post. So many times people get all caught up on the wrong end of it all. Congratulations to both you and your sister on the amazing work you are doing together.