|
| College Preparation in the Homeschool |
 Early Preparation
The student is likely to be very well prepared for college, if he is taught useful study habits in a suitable study environment at an early age. He needs to be given an ordered framework of high quality, very well-chosen books; this is an unlimited road that extends out in front of him down which he may go at his own step in accordance with his own capability. The average student should be so well prepared that he can skip at least one college year, while above average students can skip two years.
Nevertheless, do not forget that American schools have degraded severely. The first two years of college today are almost equivalent to the last two years of high school in earlier times before socialism destroyed American education. The academic achievement of skipping two years of college is almost the same as having been well educated at the ordinary academic levels that prevailed earlier in American history. We are asking no more of our children in good homeschools than their native abilities permit.
A Negative Influence?
Even more, when our children are bought up in a home environment, they can be open to good examples of correct social, moral, and religious standards. In group schools, their examples become confusedly chosen teachers and large numbers of immature children. Children learn by example!
In fact, children are modest, quiet, honest, hard-working, and well-behaved when educated in a home where discipline is rapidly applied on the occasions when they go astray. It is almost always a result of following bad examples, when children lose these characteristics.
Healthy social, moral, and religious standards are also a very essential part of college preparation. Christian colleges are lacking in these subjects, therefore this is particularly true of students in science and engineering. This makes the student to attend a secular college. A young man or woman must be very well prepared in order to resist the temptations and pressures of these places. Everyone, no matter how well prepared, is sensitive to peer pressure, so this exposure should be limited. Advanced placement can minimize this exposure. Strong links with family are a great help.
College is an opportunity to gain knowledge and credentials - especially in science, engineering, and other specialties. At present, it is also a dangerous time which can threaten an extended family. Eventually, this threat will be removed by homeschool universities. There is reason to hope that such universities, accredited and of good quality, may be only a few years away.
|
|
