July 1, 2024

Keep Calm and Master the Basics

Part Four

Sequential Mastery

We’re discussing sequential mastery: Mastering the skills and content appropriate for a given academic level.

We’ve finished our discussion of the minimal skills and content for elementary school.

Let’s take a look at late middle school and high school, which prepare students to read, think, and write critically.

Students should take the “normal” high school subjects – English, math, history, science, a foreign language, and an elective or two. I won’t discuss the sequence of those classes here. It’s standard.

It’s worth discussing at this point, however, that high school and college are not interchangeable. While a college chemistry class and a high school chemistry class may have the same name, they are NOT equivalent even if, at times, they cover the same body of knowledge. A student may read Paradise Lost in high school and then again in college without wasting anyone’s time. The skills students should develop and the engagement they should practice at each level are quite different.

Here are the skills students should be mastering in the high school level of any given course. By the time they arrive at “college-level classes,” students should be competent in these skills. Quality colleges may not teach these skills directly, because students should come to college with them.

Logical thinking: Students leaving high school should be able to recognize and form a sound argument.
Critical reading: Students leaving high school should be able to identify themes and motifs. They should read for assumptions, worldviews, and philosophies.
Academic writing: Students leaving high school should be able to form an argument with a thesis and support.
Spiritual formation: Students leaving high school should have built a solid understanding of their own worldview through age-appropriate teaching and discussion. They should have wrestled with their own and others’ answers to the big questions of life:
- What is the nature of God?
- What is the nature of the universe?
- What is the nature of man?
- What is the basis of ethics and morality?
- What is the meaning of evil and suffering?
- What happens when we die?
- What is the meaning of history?

These high school skills can be intimidating. Many homeschooling families reach the point where they need or want to outsource one or more junior high or high school courses for various reasons:

Subject knowledge of a passionate teacher
Accountability that comes when your student answers to someone else
Feedback from an experienced teacher
Classroom experience: synergy and, yes, even “socialization”

If you decide that outside classes are right for your family, here are some things to keep in mind.

Outside classes are a supplement to homeschooling, not a substitute for school.
Sequential mastery means that an 8th grade class will teach 8th grade skills and content to 8th graders, NOT missing skills from grades 1 through 6 or children who are too far outside the appropriate age for 8th grade.
Outside classes are a three-legged stool:
- Teachers provide subject knowledge and resources, concentrated class instruction, accountability, and feedback.
- Students take responsibility for learning. The hours that classes meet each week provide a springboard for student learning at home.
- Parents take responsibility for inspecting and monitoring work. Students do what you inspect, not what you expect. “Do you have your homework completed? Let me take a look at it.” “Did you get any work back today? Let me take a look at it.”

A final note about the high school years

Don’t over-schedule your students. Do the math: add together a realistic estimate of homework time in each class. Then add to that figure family time and Sabbath rest. Hours left over are for jobs, sports, hobbies, activities, and hanging out.

Next Time:

What if we’re behind?
What if we’re ahead?
What about earning college credit in high school?

--Patricia Samuelsen teaches The Great Conversation and Latin at Schola.