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Erin
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Location: Australia
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| Posted: Oct 22 2006 at 5:45am | IP Logged
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Today I had a 'discussion' with my sister who is a homeschool graduate. We have had these 'discussions' before and they leave me unsettled.
She was sharing with me about another hs graduate whom she re-met over the weekend. He is from a very loving good Catholic home of nine children. His parents have a loving solid relationship, in fact when I was first married they gave me hope -via observation that you could have a good Catholic marriage. This young man spent time in the seminary before deciding it wasn't his call,and in fact his older brother is ordanined. His comment to dsis was that 'homeschooling is stupid', nor was he that favourable about religion either.
Dsis tells me that many of the hs grads she knows are not favourably impressed with hs, she is one of them. They feel that hsing did not prepare them for the 'real world'. The only ones who seem to be happy with it are those who marry young. The others, university educated or in the work force blame much on hsing.
Now my contention with dsis is that the 'feeling unprepared for the world' is something that all graduates face. I believe it unfair for these young people to blame it all at hsing's door. I recollect leaving school and being naive and innocent in many respects. I went off to the workforce at the age of 17 working in the building industry. I heard many s**ual innuendos and didn't know what they were on about. I had a vague idea, I was ridiculed for my innocence but God had protected me. There are still children leaving schools today not really aware. Going forth from the 'nest' is a transition for all young adults hsed or not.
I do see that we can protect our children too much, that we can leave them unprepared. I do see a need in their teens to start discussing some issues with them and teaching them stategies. Like the army doesn't send its recruits out onto the battlefield ill trained and ill prepared nor should we.
Forgive me if I have had this rant before but it irks me, but perhaps I should listen more to dsis. What do you think?
__________________
Erin
Faith Filled Days
Seven Little Australians
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ALmom
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| Posted: Oct 22 2006 at 11:06am | IP Logged
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My dd is only our first hs graduate and is only in her first semester of college so our experience is limited and perhaps not complete yet - certainly not tried by the years. However, our dd feels hs prepared her well. However, we went through the hs is horrible stage in high school where she blamed hs for any social awkwardness she felt and for not having any good friends - not realizing that the awkwardness was normal for all teens and not having good friends had more to do with not having shared values and interests with most of the people we ran into on a day to day basis. We persevered.
We actually protected our dd quite a bit - but as it became obvious that she was going to a secular institution, we began to talk more about some of the things she might see/hear. Probably her Sr. year in high school was the first time she ever heard of alternate lifestyles, etc. She has seen a lot of that on college campuses - as well as the obnoxious distribution of bc (taped to every dorm room). But she is not afraid to walk out of bc talks, write letters to the editor of the school paper (none have been published - but at least another point of view was presented after she wrote), and figured if someone could tape  to her dorm door, she could post a web site and plea for purity in the elevator and bathrooms.
Knowing that our dd was headed to a secular institution, we gradually introduced her to things we had previously not discussed (but she had many years of just the beauty of the marriage relationship - all the groundwork for what is good and beautiful and holy, so that the ugliness was not her first intro to things). We also signed up (and took it together) a defense course just for women. We felt we did need to be realistic about what she would need to know for her own personal safety.
We see that hs has helped give her time to mature without undue peer pressure. It was very, very lonely at times - but that does prepare her well for the lonliness of living a radically Christian life. She is not afraid to be different. I know she had expected to find more like-minded folks at a large University than what she had in her hs (she felt very isolated at times in hs)but the reality has been that we were telling her the truth that she wasn't excluded because she was hs, but because she had different convictions in important areas. She has been a bit disappointed by the degree of worldliness that is permeating even the religious believers on campus. She is back to being a bit lonely - while having plenty of aquantances, plenty of people to do things with, etc., none are really soul mates.
Her goals are not to be out there as the most popular, or the biggest paid or most prestigious spot. So she is not a dog eat dog competitor - but she strives for excellence. She is humble and kind - yet unwilling to compromise basic beliefs while being willing to learn from folks with very odd personal lives, but certain skills to share. For instance her English prof is a professional writer but very odd personal ideas - but she knows to discern where the expertise ends. So the writer will teach her how to phrase an intro so as not to turn off opposing viewpoints. This helps so that she has a better chance for her view to be considered. Perhaps she will suffer from her convictions, we live in pretty pagan times, so this shouldn't be surprising.
I really think that holding to our values and not compromising is what equipped her best of all for the things that are really important.
I also think the style of teaching makes a huge difference. This child may have become quite embittered about hs if we had stuck with a way that was constantly afraid to let them think. We encouraged our children to think, to share ideas with us, to question us politely (but we did not back down from convictions even if they did not understand right away). A basic secular style education where instead of secular humanism/paganism we replace the stuff crammed into their heads with a canned set of attitudes - even though based on the true faith, leaves them feeling like we are attempting a different version of brain washing. I can see resentment and a sense that it doesn't prepare you well. Quoting the polemics of what someone else told you will be of no help in the real world - and they may collapse when faced with arguements and attitudes contrary and flawed if they have no idea how to recognize a flawed arguement. They need to learn reasoned arguement, not polemics. They need to learn how to assume the best, correct the fault, discern and seperate truth from falsehood. We don't have to load them down with information about disgusting s* abuses of our day to equip them with this skill. They don't have to read depressing or obscene material to gain this skill - but they must be allowed some space to test their abilities to reason while still under guidance and not just be told what to think. We do need to give them some space to explore ideas according to their maturity and readiness. They must have a solid basic grounding in the truths of the faith, of course - and we must give it to them as they are not likely to get it anywhere else. We don't mince or back away from the truths of the faith, but we must help them see how they exercise this faith to help them discern and act. One wise priest cautioned me to give our teens enough space to learn from their own mistakes in areas that are not dangerous/ truely threatening.
I think hs can and should be a very, very positive preparation for entry in the "real" world. If they can develop a solid habit of prayer and the Sacraments, grapple and discern ideas while submitting to the teaching authority of the church (which takes humility), and have enough sense of who they are in relation to God - a certain confidence in God's loving providence and an overriding desire to please God, then they should have a confidence to do whatever God has called them to do. But we are called to transform the world, not be transformed by it. It is hard, and it helps that we recognize how hard it is because it is not doable alone. We all are like sheep wanting to follow the crowd, be a part of something. It is tough when we are different.
I do think our dc need to understand that the faith generally has always come with deep suffering - but eventually joy in suffering. We are all called to be saints, we should expect to suffer. This is easy to say - and I'm the first to whine and fuss at the first sign of suffering, and we talk about this with our dc and let them see some of our struggles.
Just some ponderings for what it is worth since we are just beginning this side of the venture.
Janet
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Topic: Young hs graduates comments
