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Hello, my son is in a bad situation and I'm not sure what to do.
He is in 10th grade and is just passing with a 1.3 GPA and was in the same case last year. He says he is very against how things are taught in high school and that they don't really teach things, just "methods of mindless regurgitation" for state given exams. He spends every day taking classes on websites like coursera.org, edx.org, and udacity.com instead of studying and doing homework. He wants to be an astrophysicist and has just taught himself calculus and the contents of an AP B level physics textbook and also makes computer programs and websites. I have tried helping by speaking with the school but due to his average, they don't want to let him go into higher classes, which he says will be taught just the same. Can someone please help me with this? I really don't know what to do .

Thanks,
Rosa

Good advice.

CLEP and AP exams are another way that he can demonstrate his understanding of what he's learning as an autodidact.

I agree with CFK. He's right, too. There was just an open letter printed in The Washington Post about how education by multiple choice exam is leaving kids without the critical thinking and writing skills necessary for college. Your son sounds like he has a rage to learn, and like he knows school isn't the place to do it. Homeschooling might work well for him.

You may need to tell him he has to "play the game" so to speak and do his homework - he must have a decent GPA to get into college and I would think an astrophysicist needs higher level degrees and high GPAs to be accepted.

If you homeschool, then the GPA won't be an issue likely and he can still get into college. But if you can't, he may need to buck up for a couple of years so that he has his choice of schools.

Just my 2 cents though!

If you aren't completely comfortable homeschooling, you might try online open enrollment EPGY to see how he likes it. Where he is now just isn't a good fit. That GPA really jeopardizes his future. I'd pull him ASAP so he doesn't have a second semester 10th grade transcript with that on it for college admissions.

Education by MOOC may be covering up some weaknesses. Can he organize his own work, follow through on a project, learn enough to pass the AP or CLEP exam?

I agree that school isn't working for this person; but I am also concerned that the method he has chosen to educate himself may leave him with weaknesses (in time management, organization, compliance with instructions, ability to work in a team...) that will make college as frustrating for him as high school was. Any homeschooling plan should address these issues.

DeeDee

Welcome, I think I would weigh in on the side of homeschooling as well, even if you are working, a child in 10th grade should be able to take care of themself enough during the day and handle the courses he's selected.

You might want to make sure he accepts a few courses you feel are key, such as English Lit., but on his level. That might mean work for you in the evenings to pursue that with him.

This is kind of how we handle things here with our middle schooler, although since he is younger I am working from home to make sure he eats lunch, etc. and doesn't forget to crack a book all day.
Still working on the self-motivation, but our ds has some issues with health so we are just trying what works for a particular week, from week to week.

Best of luck, and again, welcome to this board!

ps, to get started on this path, you might want to google 'home instruction' and your state or county/city school district to get info on what they require to do this. I was pleasantly surprised to find I could start my son homeschooling and had approx 30 days to fill out the paperwork, after wards.

I am just very nervous to home school him; it's not the most common path.

Sounds like he's already homeschooling himself. You just need to make it official. My guess is you will all be a lot happier and his future will get a lot brighter!

He actually seems like he could homeschool himself - many can once they get to 10th/11th + grade. You would just need to monitor to make sure he was touching every subject. I second allowing him to take AP exams but be forewarned he truly does need to study to those tests (at least when I went through 10 yrs ago you did). On the plus side most of the content I found interesting & truly didn't require that much studying (to the test that is). Best of luck. Get him out of there because college won't believe he can make better grades either and even if they did, most likely they would want to stay away. Is there an online school he does enjoy? Maybe he could enroll in that program full-time?