It was an ideal my husband and I had held dearly to since the beginning of our homeschool journey. Dual Enrollment!
A silly as it sounds, in our minds we already had our preschooler earning college credit. Then our little boy grew and blossomed into an intelligent, sharp minded, polite and pleasant young man.
Before we knew it, the day had come. It was time to apply for Dual Enrollment. What was our reasoning or justification? Well, he was old enough and smart enough. So, why not?
After passing the entrance tests, filling out a plethora of forms, jumping through hoops and buying the books, we were now ready to proceed. Or so we thought.
The semester started off well enough. My son was amazed at how easily he was doing in his writing class. There was a lot of grammar review and no writing assignments until week 3!
For awhile, I double checked his planner with the class syllabus to make sure all was complete. This continued until my son told me he was old enough to manage his own schedule. Indeed, according to his prior schooling history, he was. And so wanting my little birdie to spread his winds and fly, I backed off.
After that I didn’t give his syllabus a second glance. Just checking in with my son weekly to make sure all was well. According to him, all was well…that was until finals. That’s when he confided to us some of his struggles.
Yep, it was too late. Salvaging what he could, he finished up with a passing grade.
We all learned something valuable through this experience. My son learned that problems need to be brought out in the open as soon as possible. Or else, they compound. He also learned that the professors don’t really care whether or not you attend class or pass. A grade is a grade with little emotional attachment.
I’ve seen dual enrollment work beautifully for both public and homeschooled high school kids. It’s a good way to get a jump on those pesky pre-requisites. But, we’ve also seen the opposite. Just because a child is smart, doesn’t mean they are the perfect candidate for Dual Enrollment. Things like maturity, level of communication, temperament and especially desire, need to be considered before making this decision!
If we could go back, we would have considered Dual Enrollment in a different light with a different set of lenses.
This is a great post. We also learned this lesson the hard way with one of our intelligent children. I let my other kids mature a little longer before putting them in college, and I’m very glad that I did.
When I first started seeing friends use concurrent ed it seemed like a universally great opportunity. But after a few years of observation, I have started to wonder why so many parents like myself, who have decided not to put our high school students into public high schools, automatically feel it’s a good idea to put them into what are essentially public community or state colleges at an early teen age.
I don’t want my kid online for most of her education, and I have for years been concerned about the down sides of getting a credit for sitting in someone’s class for the designated number of hours or regurgitating material for a grade. Why do concurrent college classes seem so alluring, then?
I have also noticed that parents of home schooled students don’t always teach their children that college teachers operate as college teachers — it is not their job to encourage your student to do his work or to keep track of when she is missing the point or falling behind (as it might be the job of a high school teacher or a parent). It is not the college teacher’s job to make sure you understand that high school concept you missed — if you need something for the class you didn’t get, it’s on you to go find it. As a high school student, you might rely on teachers and mentors to identify why you are slipping, but the point of dual enrollment is that you are taking college classes, and a level of independence and self-evaluation is now required.