[Christine Worden]

I have been pleasantly surprised with the quality and variety of what is available with Outschool. It has so many of the features you suggested already integrated. We have had to do a lot of try it and see, but my just turned 12yo found a couple she really enjoys. It is a nice place to sample activities as well. What I find I like best is the ability to adapt to very advanced learners and also to be able to skim a subject.

On another note – having gone through this for the 3rd time at this age, we have allowed the tween/early teen years to be a time of deep exploration without any requirements outside of prove to me you can read, communicate, and continue math. This allows for such a vast opportunity of exploration into “who am I”, “what am I passionate about?”, “what is out there in the world for me?”, “where do I fit in?” types of focus. From there, in the later teen years, it is easy to transition into dual credit as a spring board for college as a focus of developing/investigating those passions. At that point, it is true they are ready for the adult type learning, and will hopefully have an idea of at least a general direction, being able to pursue the major of interest immediately instead of waiting to finish the first two years of “core” work at college. Additionally, it allows for the exploration of a couple of years of non-formal education, if the child desires as they enter adulthood, instead of being herded into the university pipeline. They have two years to become more as they have done the dual credit work. That one thing alone as an aspect of homeschooling, has been the greates benefit to my young adulters. (Now 21/23). Their advice to me for their youngest sibling is to allow for that time of exploration/becoming more than any academic pursuit. It is easy, one of the said, to learn anything you need to know for a class/course. It is not so easy to know who you are, what your passion is, or how you fit in.