cyber high school -- easy transtion to college?

Post Reply New Topic

Our 14 year old is really having a rough time with high school academics (not socially, oddly enough). He just cannot seem to pick up on when assignments are due, or when a test is coming up, etc., and the teachers don't all keep their web sites/calendars up to date. It is a constant struggle trying to balance all of the demands, and it's causing great stress within our family.

I often think about homeschooling my son. So far, he doesn't want to, but things are getting difficult enough that I think he is "thinking" about it. What I would like to ask is this:

Those of you who have been cyber-schooled through high school -- did you have any trouble getting into colelge?

Also, if you have entered college, have you had any trouble transitioning?

I'm sure you all know that whenever you're going through difficult times in a current situation, whatever is the alternative looks really good, and you can't see the pitfalls. I'm just curious what some of the pitfalls are about cyber-schooling and then going off to college.

Social skills is such a positive, I'd be hesitant to let it go.

He's struggling with executive skills, and with the teachers and their web sites, even some of them struggle with it.

What I've learned is a good enough system you stay reasonable on top of, and a system with some flex, that rather than a perfect system.

When I was interim manager of a retail store, I kept a piece of yellow legal paper in my shirt pocket, basically a list of what I had going on right now, people I needed to call, store projects, etc. And then I'd update it every couple of days. Wasn't pretty, but was effective.

For my job hunting right now, I have two light purple sheets where I have addresses of previous employers, phone numbers for references, etc. It isn't pretty, but I can find quickly very quickly in my backup.

A retired military guy who taught one of my college public speaking classes (or it might have been the textbook) but I remember the story: practicing the speech with a ratty index card that has arrows and underlines and so forth. Then, prior to the speech writing it all nice and neat on a new index card, but then the speech went less well because you were less familiar with it. Would have been better off sticking with the ratty index card!

I always struggled with time management and due dates etc. I remember when I was a teen, a majority of the points lost were because I was late or forgot to bring in an assignment. When I first started college this was still a struggle for me. There are fewer assignments so they were worth more and some professors don't accept ANY late work.

Somehow he needs help developing a system to help him keep on top of it.

I try to keep due dates on my Outlook calendar. It's tied with Gmail and I have reminders pushed to my phone. Plus, if it's something "big" I tell the people around me of upcoming events.

If I was in high school right now, I would probably get an iPod touch.
- Use the calendar
-Use Jotnot, take snapshots of things to remember.
-Use notes


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmpXSMpBfTM[/youtube]

The State of Minnesota allows students to finish high school on-line. I have not looked into the program, but wish it had been available to me.

Socialization is ok, but not at the expense of getting an education.
As it is, I got a lot of anti-socialization, what I learned I learned in spite of the education system, and with the help of a few really good teachers.

http://www.mnohs.org/
http://www.minnesotavirtualhighschool.com/index.html
http://distancelearn.about.com/od/onlin ... Public.htm

True. There are a lot of distance education opportunities out there....
List of online high schools

I am torn. I think I would have performed better academically with an online high school. However, my one ONLY IRL friend I met from high school (although, we no longer live in the same state -- but keep in contact everyday).

First off, doing a year or two at community college doesn't hurt. It's cheap, it's the same level of education, and they'll accept a diploma from any school, and you can always transfer to a university once you've racked up a year or two of classes. When I was having a rough time in school I looked into it. The summer before my Junior year tried taking a geometry class online to advance my math class, and I couldn't do it, because any schooling or education online takes a high level of self-discipline and responsibility. It's up to you to learn the material, study it, take the tests etc. It's a good way to learn how to do things on your own, an essential skill for college. However, college professors vary greatly. Some will hand you a syllabus outlining all of the assignments and material, and some will just tell you in a class session what assignments etc. they want completed. And, college requires a lot of organizational skills. If you're going to do the online classes, I strongly recommend you teach him how to keep a calender or a planner, and teach him how to organize his school material. And as far as transitioning, I had a very hard time, because I was on an IEP in high school and I was used to teachers and case workers doing everything for me (i.e. giving me my work when I was absent and making sure my teachers would accept it, making me come down to my case managers room where she hovered over me until I worked, and sometimes even doing homework/tests for me). In college, your teachers don't care if you show up to class, they don't yell at you when you don't do the homework, and really they just don't care at all if you pass their class or not. Point being: If you think he'll be able to sit down and learn the material, and do all of the work, then I would say yes, because it teaches that essential skill of doing things on your own in college. But if you end up doing that, he'll have to end up learning some organizational skills.

I agree with others high school prepared me to attend college a great deal since it taught me how to keep up with assignments and to stay on task. Had I not gone to high school I probably would have failed miserably with the transition to college. In college there is no hand holding and they expect you to be fully responsible for yourself and turning assignments in on time and its up to you whether you go to class or not which is much how the real world is its up to you if you want to make it or not.