And for our encore

As our second child neared the end of his home education, his passion was clear.  He wanted to study music in the jazz focussed performance program at MacEwan College in Edmonton.  We checked the MacEwan web-site and their printed calendar and found little help with the admission requirements for a non-diploma student.  Then one day, I was chatting with a neighbour who works in recruitment for MacEwan and he told me that there is an admissions test for the English requirement, which is the only specific academic requirement for this program (sadly, MacEWan very much limits the programs in which you can use this exam.)  Ben studied some grammar terms as a refresher and signed up for the test.  

He not only passed the test, he received a high enough grade that he qualified to take "real" English and not the music-program specific adapted English course.  So that solved the academic challenge.

The real deciding factor for the music program is the audition process.  This required writing a music theory exam and an ear training test, playing a prepared piece of music and a sight reading piece.  All of this was well outside of my ability to help and Ben was very blessed in having an excellent bass guitar teacher who worked with him to prep for all of the requirements.

My role was limited to hearing him practice his performance piece so much that I can still hum his line along with it every time I hear it on the radio ( if I don't instantly change stations!)  Hearing that song will always remind me of his diligence in pursuing his dream.

Lessons not on the curriculum

There's the course description given in the syllabus, the outline of what the professor hopes to cover during the course.  And then there are the extra things the students learn that aren't part of the official class, that aren't mentioned in the text book.

As a never-before-in-the-classroom student, our daughter had a few extra lessons like that to learn.  One of the first was that many students were much less prepared than she was, and that the simple matter of reading ability made up so much of the difference.  Even through her last year in university, she could see that her classmates struggled just because they couldn't get through the required reading in a timely way, and they didn't retain as much from their reading.  Because she had never had fellow students to compare herself to, she hadn't known just how smart and capable she was.

Another college first for her was the practice of group assignments.  I was surprised by just how many classes used group assignments at a university level and by the fact that they work as well there as they do in junior high:  the motivated students do the lion's share of the work, while hoping that their fellow group members won't mess things up too badly and everyone gets the grade that the motivated people earned.  Perhaps this is good training for some office jobs, but it certainly is an unnecessary and misplaced tool in a college class.

Of course the biggest difference from home education to university was the fact that the teacher is no longer named Mom.  Kaylin had been blessed throughout her university education with professors and instructors who are motivated and well-informed, interested in the needs and progress of the students in their classes, and especially so when they can see that there are students who are highly motivated and desiring to learn.  She benefitted greatly from the teaching and mentorship of these teachers, and often learned much more than the curriculum had promised because of their interest and help.  Of course, she had her share of average teachers too, but the shining light of the excellent ones was one of the greatest gifts of the university experience.

The first week of school.

September always brings those back-to-school articles in magazines and newspapers, and there are always first day of school suggestions.  Those are typically aimed at the moms of five year olds, and my daughter's first day of school came when she was nineteen.  I wasn't worried about whether she would want to take along her teddy bear or if she would get lost in the hallways.  And there was no chance she would want me to take her picture as she stepped into the classroom.  But there were definitely nagging worries troubling me.

I worried about how she would deal with note taking in a classroom.  I'm not sure how any home educated student develops the skill of writing down what matters from a lecture, but I think that our years of discussions at home helped our children to see what the most important points of conversation or discussion are.  This is an area that has changed a great deal even while our children have been in college due to the increased use of PowerPoint by professors who often make their outlines available to students as a help to note taking.

I wondered how hard it would be for Kaylin to manage due dates for assignments.  Home educating parents naturally stagger our focus so that if there's something major expected in science this week, there isn't an essay due in English, but college does not work that way.  We were glad to see that adapting to having to think about the demands of multiple subjects came fairly easily for her.  Of course the end of semester pressures are always challenging but because of her reading skills and study skills which had equipped her to keep up through out the term, she was ready for finals.

There may be a bit of self flattery in my worry that she would find it difficult to learn from a boring teacher (since she had always had a non-boring one!)  She might tell you that she had had more practice there than I knew, but she seemed to do well whatever her teacher's abilities were.

And the minor stuff like remembering her locker combination, and getting to classes on time were never issues.  I remember seeing her off on her first day and being so afraid she would come home saying university was impossible, but she returned happy, ready for the challenge and excited about the classes she was enrolled in.  It was a delight to know that she was ready to learn, ready for the challenge.

Getting through the door.

While I had very confidently told critics that the path into college would be there when we got there, I knew that the details might be challenging.  I also knew that we had pursued a solid academic program and that once our children were in university classrooms, they would be able to show that they belonged there.

When Kaylin completed her twelfth year of home education, she was not sure what vocation she should seek, so she spent a year working.  Partway through that year, she visited the campus of a small university college where a friend was a student, and the size and feel of the school appealed to her, so we began to look into admissions.

At that time, some home education experts were extolling the virtues of the portfolio for college applicants.  This version of the portfolio filled a two inch binder and covered every aspect of the life of the student, from academics in tedious detail, through hobbies, volunteer and paid work, family background, travel, and anything else you could take a photo of or get a certificate for.  It seemed so over-the-top to us that we had never even begun the accumulation of the contents of such a portfolio.  (a couple of years later when our son and I were visiting a college registrar, she specifically asked me to tell home educators not to produce these books of data.  Her exact words:  "What I am supposed to do with a picture of a horse?")

Instead, we visited the college and talked with admissions people there.  Since Kaylin wanted to be admitted into their ARts program, they required proof that her reading and writing skills were sufficient for university level work.  We wrote up a basic transcript of the high school level work she had completed, including a list of the books she had read.  Even though I had not given percentage grades at the time, I reviewed her work and gave a grade for each subject.  We also submitted an essay she had written as proof of her writing skills.  She had a brief interview with a professor and she was accepted.

She attended Taylor University College for one year.  Unfortunately, it was too small a school to offer a sufficient range of classes for her to complete the degree she wanted, and she transfered to MacEwan College to have a more options.  From MacEwan, she transferred again to the University of Calgary for two specialized years in the faculty of Social Work.   Even before she had completed her B. S. W., she was researching her options for graduate studies at other universities either in Social Work or Law.  

Unfortunately, Taylor has since closed its doors, so her path to a degree is no longer available.  But the route she took can still be replicated through other schools.  We in Alberta are blessed to have the university college option, especially for our children who do not have diplomas or credits. 

What about college?

Twenty years ago this summer, I took our daughter to the doctor for her five year old check up.  He asked her about kindergarten and she proudly answered, "I'm homeschooled."  And then he asked me "How's she going to get into university?'

Well, twenty years later, I'm proud to say that she not only made it in, she completed a professional degree and is working in her chosen field.  She has a passion for helping people and making a difference in her community.  And until her first day of college, she had only her parents as her teachers.

Yesterday was Kaylin's convocation from the University of Calgary, with the degree of Bachelor of Social Work.  It's a powerful moment for any parent, watching your child receive that recognition of the scholarship and effort that has equipped them to be awarded a degree.  For a home educating family such as ours, it's an additional affirmation that the years of working with that child did prepare her for the rigors and challenges of advanced education.  I felt like cheering as we watched her make her way across the platform.  I wiped a tear away as her name was read aloud.

Twenty years ago, I told our doctor that when Kaylin was ready for university, there would be a way for her to be admitted.  It was a statement of both faith and audacity, an answer that surprised me even as I said it.  Today I can look back and see it as truth.  I am so proud of the woman that that little girl has become.  And I am both proud and grateful to have had such a central role in so much of the learning that has taken her there.

On a completely different topic

Almost a year ago, a holiday in the mountains revealed to me exactly how out of shape I was, and I resolved to do something about it.  I hate running, I hate gyms, I knew I would not commit to any at home exercise program, so I signed up for adult swimming lessons.

I had been a non-swimmer until after our third child was born, when I signed up for the absolute beginner lessons taught at the pool near our home.  I learned to swim then, and would sneak in some exercise when I took the children swimming.  But we moved, the pool was not as convenient and I had not swum intentionally for exercise for perhaps fourteen years.

So I signed up for lessons.  I was a little surprised to find out that summer lessons are five days a week, 45 minutes a day.  That's a lot of swimming when you're not in great shape.  The first night, I could only swim half the length of the pool at a time and then had to rest.  But by the end of week two, I had improved my strokes, learned some new ones, and I could swim eight lengths.

Well now I'm trying to get back to the shape I had gotten back to in the winter.  I was not able to get into the pool for almost six weeks after my heart attack, and I am now back up to being able to swim about ten lengths before I tucker out.  It's incredibly frustrating to be doing this from scratch again, but I feel a little stronger and it's worth it to me to get truly fit again.

I think a lot of us let our health and fitness slide, just because we're busy with children and home education, and the general responsibilities of our lives, but it doesn't have to take that long, and it has made such a difference in my energy level, in how well I sleep and in how strong I feel.  Days that I can't swim, I try to take a brisk walk.  Some days, my most strenuous activity is knitting and folding laundry.  But I'm keeping going towards my goal, and it feels good.

Home school math OR Have I really been doing this almost forever?

I have been thinking about milestones frequently over the last several months.  We're now days away from our daughter's convocation, and she turns 25 this year, both of which seem momentous.  Our older son had his convocation in April; our younger son turned 20 in the winter, and our youngest entered the double digits with her 10th birthday in April.  I could start feeling old if I think about all of this long enough.

A random comment overheard at the cardiology clinic made me add up my years of home education.  The doctor taking a case history behind the privacy curtain (honestly, the things you get to listen to in a hospital setting are quite amazing) told a patient that his pack and a half a day for 20 years smoking history was "thirty pack-years of tobacco consumption."  Doesn't that sound like so much more than the way the patient had said it?

Well, I added up my child/grade/years of home education:  3 children finished at 12 grades each, and four grades done for the youngest.  That's 40 child-years of home education.  I'd be all the way across the wilderness if I were a Hebrew following Moses!

40 years of experience, plus two finished degrees, and the third accepted into Engineering feels like success.  We began this journey thinking we'd try home education for a while and see how it went.  It wasn't until about the fifth year that I felt confident enough to say that this was the path for our family.  And the past five years, as we've launched our adult children have been sweetly rewarding.  I'm still trying not to think much about the fact that I'm committed to eight more years of this, for a total of 48 child /years, and twenty eight calendar years.   I got here by doing this daily and I'll get to the end of it one day at a time as well.  And they are good days.