We now have a high schooler in the house, and I absolutely hated the idea of switching to a typical textbook method for the high school years. But the questions crept up: But what about transcripts for college? What about figuring grade point averages when Charlotte Mason shied away from grades?
But, after researching this over the summer, I felt completely comfortable and excited about continuing our CM education throughout the high school years. My daughter was very happy, because she truly does LOVE learning and wanted to continue this very rich "feast" that the CM method spreads before her every day. Once you've tasted the feast of whole education, it is indeed very difficult to think of reducing your diet to fast food education.
Simply Charlotte Mason has a great article about how to homeschool through high school using the CM method. That article is packed with good information. There is plenty of other information available about how to create high school transcripts using the CM method. One idea that I liked was to use 3 x 5 index cards to keep track of the number of hours that a student spends in each subject. That way, when they spend hours researching Abraham Lincoln just for fun :), those hours can be counted toward the high school U.S. History credit.
Here's a quick run-down of how we've gone about beginning our high school journey… Our daughter feels led to be a missionary of some sort. She is not sure of the exact details, but she knows she wants to work on the mission field with children (perhaps orphans). So, we basically are working backwards from that goal. We contacted a missionary agency to ask them what they require of their candidates. Then we looked at a variety of Bible colleges to determine a good degree plan for her. Each college has their own list of requirements for high school graduates, so she narrowed her college choice down to one. That way we have an idea of what their requirements are. For example, some colleges require high school students to have 4 science credits on their transcripts; others require 2 or 3. So, it's nice to know what a particular college wants.
Then, we looked into state requirements for high school graduation to make sure that we'd be covered on that end too. We hope to very soon be moving back to our home state of Texas, and so we looked at those requirements. In Texas, home schools are considered private schools, and parents can determine their own graduation requirements. So, for our situation, our goal for graduation requirements is based mainly on what the college requires. You may live in a state that has specific graduation requirements, so keep that in mind.
If our daughter ends up shifting direction, that's okay too. Who knows…she may not even need a college degree for what God calls her to do (We are reading a book about a girl who went to Uganda to serve orphans, and she didn't have a college degree…so we never know what God is doing in our children's lives! It is far better to let Him do the leading.). Or, she may end up going to a different college than she has planned. But, we believe that God will make those details clear in His time. For now, we march forward with what He has made clear so far.
If your child has no idea what he or she wants to do with their lives yet, don't fear. You don't necessarily need to look at a college's requirements for graduation. You can look at your state's requirements for high school graduates, and that should be a good guideline to determine how many credits in each subject are recommended.
Here's something I purchased this year, and I do love it. It's a planner for all 4 years of high school. Instead of using it as a planner, we use it as a record of everything accomplished each day. It will be very easy to go back later to determine the number of hours that she studied in each subject, simply by looking at this daily record.
This planner includes information on figuring grade point averages, preparing transcripts, etc.
There's also a sample transcript included in the planner.
There are 4 sections…one for each year of high school, so everything will be in one spot when she finishes high school. I love that.
Each year, we will write the titles of any curriculum that we use for that school year. We are also putting together a portfolio with samples of her work in every subject for every grade. We will make a photocopy of the front cover and the table of contents for each book she uses, and all that will go into her portfolio as well.
In the planner, there's also a place for keeping track of test scores. In CM style, we don't test like typical textbooks do. If you want to read about how Charlotte Mason tested her students at the end of each term, Simply Charlotte Mason has a good article (don't they always?!). There are many ways to obtain grades and test scores in the CM method. An interesting way to do this is by creating rubrics, and you can Google that or read about it here.
Here's the lesson plan block with all she accomplished on Monday. Scores are circled (her math program and Rosetta Stone provide a % correct for each lesson, so we record those). Charlotte Mason was against using grades for motivational purposes, and we very rarely have used grades at all. Now that our oldest is in 9th grade, we see that even when she is graded on an assignment, she thinks very little of the numbers. In other words, she does not memorize and spit out on a test just to get a grade. She really loves learning and is motivated purely by her desire to learn. The scores that happen to be provided really do not mean much to her. On Monday's math, she commented that she had made simple math mistakes and wanted to redo some of the problems the next day. That is reflected in the 86% on this sheet. After she got 100% in Chinese, she commented that she still did not feel like she fully knows the language well enough to move on to the next lesson. The 100% reflected the tones she spoke and not her true grasping of the language the way she wanted to understand it. So, even though the number says 100%, she plans to spend more time on that lesson in order to feel certain that she knows it. The grades simply don't mean much to her; instead, what matters more to her is whether she truly knows the information. I believe this is due mainly to our CM method of education.
We have thoroughly enjoyed so much of what we've read and learned and experienced over the years, and we wanted to continue that vibrant way of learning throughout the high school years. We didn't want to have to switch to tasteless textbooks and fill-in-the-blanks just so that we can churn out a transcript at graduation. It has been most freeing to realize that the Charlotte Mason method is not only acceptable for transcripts but also really prepares college-bound students for the higher level of thinking required in college. All those narrations (telling or writing what they have read) have indeed caused them to know how to assimilate information and how to think on a higher level than fill-in-the-blanks could ever do.
“Self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature.”
― Charlotte M. Mason
