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About Me
New to Digital Scrapbooking, just started in 2019, want to make a record of family stories before my mother passes away. My dad died in 2016. I currently live in Canada but was born and raised in New Zealand, and emigrated to Canada upon marrying my Canadian spouse. Home Country - lets see - New Zealand or Canada? Which to choose? Most of my photos will be from NZ, but any pics of my son will be from Canada. MY IP Address will say that I am in Canada which is fine. My mother and sister are still back in NZ so I will make my home country as NZ for now. For Facebook, I dont check it every day - I am not addicted to FB, and I use a different name for privacy. My image is myself as a child - aged about 2 or 3 years old
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From High School to Homeschool.
This is going to explain everything about why my son dropped out of High School to become a homeschooler. Warning. This will be LONG
My sons high school experience for grade 9 was not a good one.
In grades 7 and 8 at his elementary school he had been given the responsibility of managing his own education. he was and his classmates were given worksheets and assignments to do for the week and these had be handed in by the end of the week. Once they were done, the kids could do whatever they chose in the classroom, within reason. For most of them, including my son, this was to go on the internet.
John absolutely flourished in this environment. He had the freedom to do his lessons at his own pace - (he regularly finished them early - usually by the second day if they were not all complete on the Monday) - and then he was free to do his own learning online for the rest of the week.
He loved maths and did very well. He even won awards in maths at his grade 8 graduation. His teacher arranged for John to go into the pre-AP Math class for grade 9 at the local high school.
In the summer of 2016, John was encouraged to attend the 4 weeks of summer school at his new school so he could "Socialize" with his new classmates, learn his way around the school, learn how the school system worked and meet his teachers in advance.
As those 4 weeks wore on John became less and less enthused. By the time he completed the summer school, he had missed as much as 10 days out of the 4 weeks.
And when the first official day of high school rolled around he was even less enthused about going. I later learned that there were several things that he didnt like, such as ...
- the semester system where one years worth of classes were squeezed into 5 months. (I had no experience of the semester system. All of my schooling had been classes all year round)
- the class lists where he was not permitted to stay with his friends from elementary school so in most of his classes he didnt know anyone.
- the 1 hour bus and train ride he had to take every day just to get to and from school - this was 1 hour each way!!
- which also meant he had to get up early and was home late.
- whenever he was put into teams to do a project (especially for Tech (aka Shop)), he often found himself doing most if not all the work, and the entire team losing a grade if the whole team did not work together
John was no longer responsible for his own education as he had previously been for the last 2 years of elementary school. He was now required to stick to the teachers timetable and was not permitted to read or move ahead of the rest of the class. Thus he often sat in class twiddling his thumbs. If he was ever told to get on with his work, he would say he had finished, and yet he was still not allowed to move ahead. He hated the loss of freedom and responsibility he had previously had.
He often never had any homework because he had completed the assigned exercises. For maths he got bored because if he understood the concept, he did not feel the need to do 20 problems just to understand the lesson. He would already understand how to do the problem within the first 5 exercises.
The first semester was relatively easy. Although he did miss a few days due to illness - you cannot believe how many flu viruses and colds he caught. Being diabetic meant he needed to stay at home so that his blood glucose levels were not going too high or too low. The subjects for the first semester were new and interesting, He had Technology, PE/health, Geography and Religion. Having attended a catholic elementary school, he was bored in religion since we as a family do not attend church or mass at all.
In February 2017, the 2nd semester began and John was suddenly expected to remember stuff he hadnt touched for 8 months - not since his 8th grade graduation the previous June. He was now doing English, French, Science and Pre-AP Maths. Within a few weeks, his grades dropped off sharply. He was very bored. I think a lot of these lessons were a review of his middle school education, which he already knew. By the March break in 2017 he absolutely refused to go back to school. He told us bluntly that he wanted to be Homeschooled.
So we applied for homeschooling - which means we just had to formally withdraw him from the local district school board in order for him to be homeschooled.
John and the local catholic high school were not a good fit. The elementary school was small. less than 200 students for 10 years (2 years of kindergarten plus 8 grades). That school was like a family.
The high school was 4 times larger (over 800 students). None of the teachers knew the students on an individual basis. The classes all had at least 25 or more students, whereas his elementary school classes had all been less than 20. None of Johns elementary school friends were doing pre-AP math and they all had different schedules from him. All of this contributed to John's isolation.
Since John has been home, he has made new friends, discovered his passion, and is doing very well.
The photos show John at age 4 (top) being a mad scientist in 2006, and his first day of grade 9 (bottom - high school in 2016).
Supplies used
Notebook paper and 3 photo frame - from school fun bundle
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/sheila-reid/kits/school-fun-bundle-elementary-alphabet-class-classroom-kindergarten-back-to
Periodic table paper, solid black paper, scrabble and periodic table word art - all from the mad scientist bundle
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/melo-vrijhof/kits/the-mad-scientist-bundle-science-chemistry-technology-intelligent-red-yellow-green
AP and Math word snippets from Bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/janet-scott/kits/a-bouquet-of-freshly-sharpened-pencils-bundle-rainbow-colorful-school-education
high school and home school word art - from heading back 2 school bundle
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/jessica-dunn/kits/heading-back-2-school-bundle-elements-embellishments-papers-journal-cards-word-art
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- Uploaded Fri, 08/16/2019 - 09:43
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Recent Comments
Journal on a layout page? No waay. This story is way too long for me to do that. Sorry. Thats why I love these descriptions!! Lots of room to write!!
That's a fantastic story! Did you journal that? Love the page as well.