for homeschooling can be a challenge.

E has finished four years of high school already. And he should be going into 11th grade this year. So he’s been taking classes at the community college. He’s planning to transfer to UT when I let him go (when he’s 18). I’ve looked online and found out what classes UT will accept as transfer in his degree program. I did make one mistake, so he’s got two classes they will accept as electives, but not as required courses. But that’s okay.

The real concern I have is that I want him to be able to take some general education requirements at UT so that he’ll have an opportunity to meet people who aren’t in the math department. Right now, with the schedule I’ve given him, he’ll only have government and accounting in the general ed classes.

But I want him to take some computer science courses. It seems that taking those while he has access to his dad for help would be a good idea. So I may drop the second history and his physics classes out of the list and have him take computer courses. Maybe I’ll even drop microeconomics. He can take that at UT too.

That would leave him with four classes that we could reschedule as computer science courses. Why do I want him to take cs courses? Because he’s a computer person. He should know how to do some programming. Also all the math people I’ve talked to say that you need computer programming skills. He may not need them if he stays with actuarial science, but he might even then.

So I’m going to require him to take computer science for me.

Then there’s M. I thought I had it all worked out. He’d take Algebra II and Spanish I. Then the homeschooling classes changed the schedule. Now he could take World Geography, which I would like him to have, as well as the other two courses. But he’d be sitting in a study hall for an entire class. Or I could just take him for the single class I can’t possibly teach him… I just don’t know what to do about that.

Possibilities for his schedule are:
Spanish I
Physical Science
Algebra II
World Geography

Or:
Algebra II only

Or:
Algebra II
World Geography

Or:
Spanish I
Physical Science
Algebra II

We’ve actually already had Physical Science, but it was two years ago, so it wouldn’t be outrageous for him to take it again, especially with someone else. He needs the Algebra II. And, of course, we’d do English, reading and writing and grammar, at home. If he doesn’t take physical science, we’ll do biology.

I’d like him to take Spanish I because he will need some basic foreign language skill when it comes time to take Greek. He has to have a foreign language in college if he didn’t take one in high school. But he has plans to take multiple years of Greek. So I don’t know.

I need to figure out what I think he will benefit from the most. I don’t think being in class all day three days a week is the best. Which are the most important?