<p>Let me add my congratulations to Chelsea and Family, and APOLOGIES to them for any posters here who got a little... cranky. We're old, we've been here FOREVER, and we get cranky - so I hereby apologize on behalf of all of us.
;) :)</p>
<p><a href="Parents%20who%20can't%20pry%20their%20kids%20away%20from%20the%20PlayStation%20should%20stop%20reading%20here.">quote</a>
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Yes, I was kinda disturbed by this sentence. It's almost like saying, "I know you're reading this to see how to get your beloved child in to Harvard, but sorry your child probably isn't inherently good enough."</p>
<p>good for her.</p>
<p>Or perhaps it is saying, 'Parents who do not have the resolve to limit time wasting activities like Playstation, video games, TV etc.,do not have a chance for the child to get into Ivies.' </p>
<p>So many parents passively allow their children to develop mind-numbing bad media habits, then wonder why the kids are slip into academic mediocrity, or lack interest in ECs.</p>
<p>Narcissa:</p>
<p>Your discomfort is with the author of the article. Don't transfer it to the object of it.</p>
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Yes, I was kinda disturbed by this sentence.
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Don't transfer it to the object of it
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Where did I do that? I didn't say I was uncomfortable with chelsea, but with the language used in the article.</p>
<p>My congrats to Chelsea and her family -- Chelsea sounds like someone who will make the most of her opportunities.</p>
<p>Given that this was a front page news article in the Chicago Tribune, I'm curious, how unusual do posters think is Chelsea's accomplishment -- acceptance at a great many top universities?</p>
<p>I ask, because there is a girl in our local high who was accepted into 10 top name schools (HYPS/MIT & top LACs among them) and she was not one of the "top 10 - 20% students in the class" which of course has many speculating about how she accomplished this feat because she did better than all of the top students. But clearly she had some super hook and her classmates can't figure out what it was. For Chelsea being home schooled appears to have been the "unique hook". But as many who post here note, these are all very different schools, so how common is it to sweep admissions at all of the top schools?</p>
<p>I really do appreciate the many supportive posts here. I especially like hearing that the article about Chelsea has inspired another home schooler. That's why we did the interview!</p>
<p>Here is a bit about how we home schooled Chelsea. Chelsea had a lot to do with designing her curriculum. It was important to me to provide a rigorous liberal arts education, and we structured this around Chelsea's interests and passions. I am what would be known in home school circles as a sort of blend between an "eclectic" home schooler and a "classical" home schooler. </p>
<p>We always had a focus on reading Great Books. I've always thought foreign language was important, and that languages should be started early to coincide with the time when the brain is focused on language acquisition. Chelsea has studied French since we began home schooling up through the month she spent last July taking French at the Sorbonne, and is preparing to take the AP French Language exam next month. She's used a prep book, and taken a released exam and that's it for the AP, because she already knows so much French from living the rest of her life that that will be enough. In the early years she also learned a little Spanish, a little German, and then two years of high school Latin, done in middle school. She has a goal to learn Russian in college, because she has such a deep love of Russian literature.</p>
<p>We have always used a variety of online providers for distance learning. On Chelsea's high school transcript, she lists 16 high school level courses taken through Stanford's EPGY program, and four courses taken from Northwestern's LearningLinks. For these classes, she received credits and grades, as well as official transcripts from these (and four other) institutions. On the unified transcript my husband and I created, we only listed grades awarded by outside entities - we never graded Chelsea ourselves. She took many math courses through EPGY, through the current year when she is taking Multivariable Calculus from Stanford's School of Continuing Studies. For math, I also recommend The Art of Problem Solving. She took AP Physics with EPGY (only one of her 13 APs she didn't self-study), and she took writing and grammar classes from them as well. Latin and two fantastic vocabulary courses from CTD.</p>
<p>We also took advantage of colleges in our area. She took a Chemistry Lab class from Shimer College, but taught herself AP Chemistry using a variety of materials, including an online course from Oxford University (free! there is so much open courseware out there you can take advantage of - MIT, Yale and others). She also took eight live classroom courses at Northwestern's School of Continuing Studies, so she's had plenty of experience being in a college classroom, doing college work. These classes were in European History (and only required a trip through a prep book and a practice exam to do well on AP Euro), Astronomy, Psychology, Anatomy and Physiology, and the Human Brain. She's had to write papers, do projects, and take exams for all of the courses mentioned above.</p>
<p>Aside from this, we've used wonderful resources available on the internet (check out the resources from the Annenberg folks at learner.org for one example). I own a wall of Teaching Company courses, and cannot say enough about this company and how much their materials can enrich one's home schooling as well as one's life. I took full advantage of the incredible resources Chicago affords. I was blessed to be able to afford subscriptions to the Lyric Opera, a couple of symphonies, Joffrey Ballet, many great theater companies and memberships to many world-class museums. I took many classes with Chelsea through these museums. The list of local, national and international resources I dug up in the last 13 years is pretty much endless, so I'm trying to give you an idea. </p>
<p>I also networked with other home schooling families in the area to provide social and educational opportunities for our children. I organized a class for home schoolers to learn TV production at my local community TV station, for example. I started a mother-daughter book group, a science co-op, taught Junior Great Books. I taught an American history/civics class a couple of times. I founded a support group that today serves a hundred families. We have a Friday Co-op that runs multiple classes at a time for kids aged 5-18 ranging from HipHop to Ancient Americas to Human Anatomy to War and Peace. This is where Chelsea has discovered her love for Russian Literature, from another home schooling mother from Russia who is an extraordinary teacher for our home schooled children. This is where she has also learned about Bird Biology and comparative anatomy.</p>
<p>These are just some of the ways Chelsea has learned academically. In high school, we have used self-study for AP exams as a way of documenting her learning in a language with which admissions committees are familiar. To answer CGM's concern that Chelsea's entire coursework consisted of AP prep books - ummm, no. That would hardly have enticed Harvard to give her an academic likely letter. We used textbooks for some of those exams, yes. I put a lot of time into figuring out what textbooks AP teachers use, what prep books they recommend, how the exams work and are scored, etc. A lot of time. Then Chelsea would teach herself. However, for many of her exams, all she really needed was a prep book and a practice exam to understand <em>the exam</em> as she already knew the material covered from her day-to-day life. Chelsea's education was far lighter on textbooks, I think, than many people's. We chose primary sources wherever possible, believing them to be more interesting, accurate, and free of editorial bias.</p>
<p>Now, for the travel. This part has been really important to me, as I wanted my child to have firsthand experience with the rich cultural and geographical diversity of the planet. And I wanted to raise a citizen of the world. Yes, we went to Tibet and China instead of to a textbook about Buddhism and Taoism. We studied Greek philosophy for three weeks in Greece, tutored by Dr. Raymond Moody. We walked the ancient streets of Ephesus. Chelsea woke up on Macchu Picchu on her 13th birthday, having studied with Incan shamans and climbed Huayna Picchu the day before. We arrived in Cairo on September 10, 2001 and spent three extraordinary weeks in Egypt, where we attended the wedding of friends in between the paws of the Sphinx. We've had a sun rise service inside Stonehenge. I think this is a better way to learn about the world than through textbooks. This is what I did instead of pay private school tuition. </p>
<p>Please don't misunderstand me - I am grateful beyond belief that our hard work paid off and the company I started with my husband eventually did very well and we could afford to travel as we have. I completely understand that not everyone can do this. I also know that colleges will not penalize other applicants because they may not have the resources to travel as Chelsea did. I think, actually, that more is expected from people who have had these sorts of advantages.</p>
<p>Besides these types of things, we tried very hard to follow Chelsea's interests and to help her go as far as she could with the things she loved. For example, she wanted to found a nonprofit for kids to help animals, so we helped her do that when she was nine. We got the musical instruments she so longed to play, and found people to teach her. At 7, she became really interested in Irish music and dancing, so we found ways for her to learn that. When she was 11, she became the first child not from Ireland to win the world championship in Irish harp for her age group. She's won it four times. We spend the last half of every August in Ireland, where she goes to a music school and then competes. We've done this since she was ten, and consequently she has many friends in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland that she has "grown up with" each August. This has been a fantastic cultural as well as musical experience. Could she have done this and still gone to school? Possibly. Did we somehow buy her way to four world championship music titles? No. Chelsea's talent, connection to the music, and hard work are the only things that could earn that kind of recognition.</p>
<p>CGM, you asked if Chelsea had to do projects in her coursework. Yes. In fact, she did an independent study project in Shakespeare through her sophomore, junior and senior years. I started taking her to outdoor Shakespeare when she was three. We are fortunate in Chicago to have the fabulous Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, are near the Milwaukee Shakespeare Theatre and the American Players Theatre, along with many other fine theatre companies who produce Shakespeare from time to time. Chelsea turned out to be someone who LOVES theatre, and she took many, many classes and performed in many plays and acting troupes throughout Chicago for the last ten years. But she is truly, obsessively, in love with Shakespeare. For the last three years, she has been teaching Shakespeare classes, for free, to home schooled students, aged 7-17. She teaches 2 two-hour classes a week (currently has 42 students). Her classes are amazing, and not only do these kids get Shakespeare from the way she teaches, but they fall head over heels in love with him. When they leave Chelsea's class, they will accept no substitutes for great literature. She also produces a spring Shakespeare festival, which many of her students work on all year. She produces full-length Shakespeare plays, with very young actors. Last year she directed 10 students aged 10-14 in Taming of the Shrew. We just finished a highly-acclaimed run of As You Like It with 17 actors aged 8-16. She adapts the play, holds auditions, casts, directs, and supervises choreography, music, sound and lighting, costumes, props and scenery. Everything is created by the kids. These are not run-of-the-mill middle school productions. These are mature, heartfelt renderings of Shakespeare that repeatedly leave the audiences speechless and the kids empowered for the rest of their lives by rising to the bar Chelsea sets from them. And it is FUN!!!! Joyful and fun!!!!! In fact, I think this is probably what really set her apart in the eyes of admissions committees. The parents of 19 of her students submitted a group letter of recommendation for her singing her praises for the ways she has basically changed their children's lives through mentoring them in Shakespeare and directing them in productions, as well as providing them with such a positive role model.</p>
<p>These are some of the ways Chelsea was home schooled. I hope not to have offended anyone in my description, and I do hope to express how grateful I am to have been able to do these things with Chelsea. I also hope it will give you an idea of the kinds of educational experiences you can create for your children, and that they can create for themselves, by taking advantage of the freedom and possibility that home schooling provides. My agenda is not to push home schooling. My agenda is to inform. What you do with the information is up to you.</p>
<p>Best of luck to everyone, on whatever path you and your family may be traveling.</p>
<p>1down: I think that the point of this article isn't to say that she was special in getting into all those schools, but that it was possible to get into all those schools despite the fact that she was homeschooled.</p>
<p>and you did all that while working full time? </p>
<p>and please no one needs to apologize for me, I don't apologize</p>
<p>and the above post makes everything very clear to me</p>
<p>nuff said</p>
<p>all I can say is WOW WOW WOW! My hat's off to both you and Chelsea!</p>
<p>Narcissa, why can't you just be happy for this extraordinary young lady and her accomplishments? Why does everyone have to read so much into the article other than wow, here's someone who's done some really neat things?</p>
<p>I have to say, in the world of CC where I see so many posts of people who are obsessing about how to get into HYP because getting into HYP is The Meaning of Life And The Only Way To Success (especially to their prestige-obsessed parents), it is SO refreshing to hear of a student like this, who did what she loved, had parents who facilitated those interests, and THEN the elite college acceptances followed.</p>
<p>"and you did all that while working full time?"</p>
<p>Yes, obviously she did. Obviously the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Some people are better able to squeeze more into the 24 hours a day than others. They should be congratulated, not critiqued.</p>
<p>"Now, for the travel. This part has been really important to me, as I wanted my child to have firsthand experience with the rich cultural and geographical diversity of the planet. And I wanted to raise a citizen of the world. Yes, we went to Tibet and China instead of to a textbook about Buddhism and Taoism. We studied Greek philosophy for three weeks in Greece, tutored by Dr. Raymond Moody. We walked the ancient streets of Ephesus. Chelsea woke up on Macchu Picchu on her 13th birthday, having studied with Incan shamans and climbed Huayna Picchu the day before. We arrived in Cairo on September 10, 2001 and spent three extraordinary weeks in Egypt, where we attended the wedding of friends in between the paws of the Sphinx. We've had a sun rise service inside Stonehenge. I think this is a better way to learn about the world than through textbooks. This is what I did instead of pay private school tuition. "</p>
<p>Alchemymom, once Chelsea goes off to school, will you adopt me? LOL.
I'm jealous! In a GOOD way, though - not that envious, sour grapes attitude of a few posters here.</p>
<p>alchemymom, thank you for your background information about how you and Chelsea designed her learning experiences. I appreciated hearing about the resources you used that are new to me.
It is clear to me that you are both outstanding!</p>
<p>Alchemymom--
Thanks so much for sharing your homeschooling programs/ideas/accomplishments with us! Exceptionally inspiring -- particularly with two parents working full time!</p>
<p>Interesting that you combined 'classic' with 'eclectic' approaches and how you blended teaching essential fundamentals with following your daughter's interests. If you don't mind, I'm going to pass along your post to a few other homeschooling moms of young children I know. I'm doing it part-time w/daughter...but your experience certainly provides motivation to approach it more ambitiously and whole-heartedly!</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>alchemymom: Whether you accomplished this full or part time or with the flexibility of having your own business, no matter. The inspiration lies in your allowing your daughter's quest for learning to dictate the parameters of her education, rather than a bureaucracy, and I admire that. I kind of regret not trying that approach for S1 in particular, at least in the area of more extensive travel at a young age. Bravo. Well done.</p>
<p>Jolynne, feel free to pass my post to anyone you think it will help. Many thanks to all for the kind congrats and well wishes. I appreciate them very much.</p>
<p>Yes, CGM, I did this while I worked full time. While we've been home schooling Chelsea, our company has grown from 3 people to 45 people. It wasn't easy, but I found ways to integrate the parts of my life into a relatively harmonious whole. Fortunately, I could rely on Chelsea to take a lot of initiative with her own education so that we found ways to make it work. It wasn't easy. I have worked incredibly hard, in fact. But it was one fantastic ride in so many ways, and I would absolutely do it again and work just as hard. No regrets - I gave it everything I had. And I loved every minute of it.</p>
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And it is FUN!!!! Joyful and fun!!!!! In fact, I think this is probably what really set her apart in the eyes of admissions committees.
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<p>I think fun is the operative word here. It is clear from alchemymom's earlier post that her daughter has long delighted in learning things and sharing what she learned with others. </p>
<p>This was a problem in her daughter's kindergarten, because the teacher had her own learning agenda, and didn't appreciate the daughter's initiatives to teach her classmates.</p>
<p>But in homeschooling, children who love learning as much as Chelsea obviously did can take ownership of their own learning and share it with others. One of the best ways to learn is to deepen one's own understanding by teaching others, as Chelsea has done. Essentially, Chelsea has founded and run her own part-time "private school," specializing in Shakespeare.</p>
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and you did all that while working full time?
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<p>Business owners often put in many more than 40 hours in "crunch weeks," but they may also have some measure of control over their schedules. In a project-oriented consulting business, a parent may have time to travel between projects.</p>
<p>A child who delights in learning and finds it fun doesn't need an adult constantly hovering over her to give her assignments and keep her "on task." A child who loves to read and write and problem-solve and has access to a good library with books on a variety of subjects that interest her (NOT textbooks, as Chelsea's mom points out, but REAL books!) does not need moment-by-moment micromanagement.</p>
<p>I am impressed, happy for your family, and -- again -- wish nothing but the best for you.</p>