Earlier this year, I assigned my 11 year old son a book to read: Ultralearning by Scott Young. As my son went through various chapters he told me a premise made. It was an idea that a person could get an MIT level education without ever attending MIT. It sounds incredulous but as I read his ideas for myself I understood his meaning and it shifted my homeschool goals.
Young was explaining that if you map out all the college courses required for a major (such as at MIT), you would likely find most (if not all) of these college courses offered for free. Sure, you won’t be getting college credit, but if your motivation is to learn a topic or carrier, what better way then attempt it for free?
My wife has been going through college and I’ve seen the process of study, work and testing. I thought it could be something my son could ease into. Without any pressure or expectation, I found several online courses that were free. The courses were varied, in order to offer a wide range in scope.
The first course my son attempted was from Hillsdale College. While I’m not a fan of their political and religious thrust, I did respect the value of their free courses. My son took their course, Euclid’s Geometry, which was less about applied Geometry and more about the History of Euclid. Still, it was a very deep topic for an 11 year old.
My son took the quizzes and ultimately passed the final exam. There was a slight struggle for him as this was the first college course he had attempted. I helped him quiz before he took the final exam and he got a passing score of an A.
After getting one college course under his belt, I found another free course. This time it was about College Algebra. It was offered from the University of Arizona. Again, given my son is 11 years old I didn’t expect or pressure him to achieve something outstanding, but he impressed me all the same. At the rate he is going through the material he will finish roughly 10 months after he started.
As more classes were completed, I found another college level course to occupy his time: Dante’s Divine Comedy. This was another course offering from Hillsdale College. Without any prompting on how to study, my son was able to review all the quizzes he took prior and get a 93% on the Final Exam.
Given all this, I’ve come to a conclusion about children and college. If we can better prepare them, by taking away the fears and concerns over college, we can better equip them.
My son hasn’t yet found his calling, so the material I offer him is still varied across a wide range of subjects. I believe introducing college level courses is a great addition to his character and intelligence. These lessons don’t replace his 6th Grade Material, but the compliment and overall learning process.