a wide place

Yes, that’s right. Last year I had one highschooler; this year I have two.

How did it happen so fast?

Birthdays and grades are a little finicky in our family. Judah and Amie are 22 months apart. Amie and Gabe are 22 months apart. Gabe and Noah are 19 months apart. So while there’s virtually two years in between each of the kids, their birthdays fall such that at least two of them will be only one grade apart.

Because school was such a challenge for Amie in the early years, we had her repeat 2nd grade. She’d just been diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia, and with a mid-July birthday, we figured it enabled her to be the oldest in her grade; rather than the youngest.

I don’t regret the decision; Amie needed those years to work on reading and writing especially. But on top of being an “old soul” with interests above her age group, she’s also always had best friends a year or so older than her and had a really hard 7th grade year living in that tension. So we found ourselves at a crossroads last year.

Amie desperately did not want to be in middle school for another year (I mean, who can blame her?). She caught up academically, and while I preferred her to have the advantage of being in the older range of her grade, she gave me some valid reasons for allowing her to skip 8th grade and start high school this year. David and I in turn gave her some requirements (one being doing math all summer), and when I researched with our homeschool agency I learned she can take pre-algebra in 9th grade. Truly math was the only class she was “behind” on.

To be honest, my biggest hesitation was GPA and test scores. I wanted her to have every advantage possible for college, which to me meant staying back a year. But after lots of prayer and talking with David I realized there is so much more to Amie’s teen years than the highest possible GPA. If she is a B (or C) student but grows in wisdom and godliness during high school, if she enjoys learning and has good friends and takes ownership of her work and serves others, then that is a great high school experience. And God will provide financially for college, like He did for David and me.

So we went for it. Now, two months in, I really think it was the right decision. High school has not been quite as glamorous as Amie hoped for (tons of friends, hangouts every weekend, etc.), but she is working hard and really enjoying it.

She’s joined Judah at his co-op in this year, where students from all four grades of high school gather two days a week to study English/Lit., History, and Theology. They picked the afternoon session so there are about 12 kids in their class.

It is very rigorous. That was my biggest concern for Amie. They aren’t doing the volume of work I did in my college classes, but it’s still a lot of reading and they’re reading the same level of books (currently it’s C.S. Lewis’s novel, Till We Have Faces for literature, and next they will read The Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. It’s one thing to read and comprehend those works, and quite another to write essays on them! Thankfully there’s the option to listen to audiobooks, and the teacher gave me several pointers to help with learning differences. Another benefit is Amie is auditing the theology class this year; she sits in the lectures and does the reading, but doesn’t have to write papers or take the exams.

Anyway, all of that to say I truly couldn’t be more proud of her. She is being very diligent to carve out time for homework and not procrastinate. This is what I love about outside-the-home classes for high school. I truly see it challenge my kids with a different level of accountability. I also like that they get used to different teaching styles and expectations.

Judah is doing excellent as usual. We both learned some hard lessons last year when he got very behind on algebra and Spanish and spent the summer catching up. I failed to check in with him regularly and he failed to make a good, workable schedule for himself. Incidentally, those were the only two classes he didn’t have an outside teacher for, so of course he wasn’t as motivated to keep up. My poor “guinea pig” firstborn. We all learned from those mistakes, and he and Amie both have much more accountability this year.

In addition to co-op, he’s taking a Chemistry class this year, which meets at our church and is taught by my friend Anne. Judah is enjoying it, which says a lot because he’ll be the first to tell you science is not his thing. He’s also being tutored in Spanish 2 by another friend of ours, who works with him and her son after chemistry each week. Who knew that Spanish would become one of his favorite subjects? He’s now considering a Spanish minor in college.

I truly can’t express how thankful I am for outside help with high school. I just couldn’t do it otherwise. Amie takes both pre-Algebra and French online, and has a weekly watercolor class with my Mom, which counts as a fine arts elective. Another thing I was able to do for her workload is postpone Biology until 10th grade and instead have her take Health & Nutrition this year, which is a lighter class.

I’ve become a huge fan of homeschooling high school (I initially wasn’t sure what I thought of it), but I am so glad two of my homeschooling “mentors”, Susan Wise Bauer and Cindy Rollins, recommended outsourcing high school classes when a good option is available, especially for boys. They are growing in independence and boys need different voices from their mom. At the same time, the flexible schedules are allowing my kids to pursue other interests.

Amie was asked by a neighbor to babysit two mornings a week for two hours so the neighbor can homeschool her kindergartener. Amie told me recently, “Mom, when I’m doing art with Nina (my mom), or babysitting for Alex, I just feel like I’m doing what I was made for.” Sweet girl. And it’s a gift that in addition to the academics, God has provided outlets for her true passions.

Judah hopes to get a part-time job at Chick-Fil-A now that he’s driving, and has had time to work on writing his second novel, build up his weekly running goal, and experiment with stop-motion videos.

Now that I have two kids in high school, I laugh that I felt like I needed to send them to school in 9th grade. I would’ve missed out on all this fun! Suddenly, I find I’m no longer their teacher but truly just “Mom,” here to help with homework if needed and proof-read persuasive essays. I loved those other years, but this is fun in a new way, as I get to see the people God is shaping Judah and Amie to be.