Are high school classes at STAC rigorous?
This month’s blog post is from Kelly Elmore, one of our founding members and teachers. Kelly addresses some questions that parents may have about high school classes for homeschoolers and the concept of “rigor.”
Can a co-op like STAC, a co-op with a flexible, out-of-the-box, loving, relaxed, and joyful culture, provide rigorous high school classes?
This question only arises, I think, because of a misunderstanding about rigor. And to clear it up, I’m going to divide rigor into two different varieties: Type 1 and Type 2.
Type 1 rigor is the traditional stereotype of an advanced high school class with massive amounts of homework, stressed-out kids, and an over-reliance on tests, and it’s a big mistake for homeschooling parents to push our kids into this kind of rigor. If we want them to continue to love learning, this kind of rigor will drain that love away. Yet, I know that parents want kids to be well-educated and ready for college.
Fortunately, there’s another kind of rigor: what I’m going to call Type 2 rigor, and it’s the gold standard in high school education. There’s rigor for the sake of hours or unpleasantness (type 1), and then there’s rigor that leads to deep learning and lifelong understanding (type 2). I want the second kind for my child, and STAC teachers want to provide the second kind of rigor for your child, as well.
Type 1 rigor feels like rigor mortis. It makes a person hate learning, turn off her brain, or only work for a prize. It strips away all intrinsic motivation for the subject and makes it less likely to turn into a passionate career. The symptoms of this kind of rigor include too much homework (pushing aside passion projects, movement, social time, and family life), assignments that are rote or mindless, making things more difficult than they have to be, students who stop enjoying a subject they always liked, and the implicit lesson that learning is tedious and miserable. Many of us can remember these kinds of classes. Perhaps we did learn the subject, but we learned a lot of terrible lessons along with it.
Type 2 rigor, on the other hand, feels like a hard workout with endorphins pumping afterwards. The tasks are difficult, but they are fulfilling because they are meaningful, interesting, useful, and involve thinking. This type of rigor fuels lifelong learning and readies a person for higher education and career success. The symptoms of Type 2 rigor are homework assignments that teach (instead of being solely an assessment), joy combined with hard work, a focus on more depth instead of more volume of work, and students who find meaning and interest even in subjects that aren’t their favorite. These courses were probably more rare in our school experiences, but most of us can remember a few of them: a teacher who demanded more from us and showed us how awesome it was to rise to a higher standard, a subject that fascinated us and stretched our minds, a project or book or assignment that really caught our interest and drove us into deeper learning.
No one who has done intellectually challenging work believes that it’s all puppies and rainbows and the feeling of eating candy all day in your pajamas. But real intellectual work shouldn’t leave a person feeling bored and barren. Learning can be engaging and challenging at the same time; in my experience, engagement comes with meaningful challenges, properly supported by someone knowledgeable and helpful (like a teacher).
STAC is a treasure trove of Type 2 rigor, though we avoid Type 1 rigor like the plague it is. Here are some questions parents might have about STAC’s high school classes and rigor.
How can a class be rigorous without grades?
Many STAC classes are ungraded (though it’s up to each individual teacher). Many parents worry that an ungraded class means a class without challenges and meaningful feedback, but that’s a myth.
I teach high school writing (and have taught it in graded high school and college situations), and I don’t put a grade on an essay. When I do, the students who got a grade they liked feel that their work is over (it’s not!), and the students who disliked their grade feel judged and trapped (C writer for life). Instead, what I do is write specific feedback for each student and ask for revision (sometimes many revisions). Excellent writers learn to hone their craft more and more, understanding that improving writing is a process that never ends. Struggling writers see exactly what to work on and receive ongoing support in improving, without that sad/mean letter grade (I am pretty sure they perceive it this way) getting in between us and the writing.
Putting a grade on a paper (not just writing, but a Latin quiz or a grammar assignment) feels like an ending, and really rigorous learning requires continuing to learn from mistakes. Revision is a hallmark of rigor. When you see revision offered in a course, you should hear the words: “My standards are very high, and you will keep learning until you meet them.” That’s rigor.
Parents sometimes need help figuring out what grade to put on a transcript, and you can ask your teacher and work with her to sort that out.
How can a class be rigorous if students are smiling and having a good time?
This is the saddest question I’ve ever heard, to be honest with you. I’ve devoted my whole life to intellectual pursuits, and it’s been a HAPPY HAPPY life. There is nothing about learning that should prohibit joy. I’ve noticed that when students are engaged with challenging material, they often experience pleasure in the act of learning.
Primates (that’s us!!) have evolved to be excellent learners. We are driven to learn, to teach our group, and to advance our survival with these awesome brains. We feel pleasure when we are doing the things we evolved to do (eating, moving, reproduction), and learning is no different! When you have support, when people are kind to you and communicate that you belong, and when the tasks are chosen for your appropriate developmental level and your interests, learning feels AMAZING. Cuz evolution.
Of course, not everyone loves every subject; that’s reality. But there is plenty of space even in a student’s least favorite course for “Wow, that’s actually interesting” or “I feel really proud of my thinking on this, even though it wasn’t my favorite.”
How can a class be rigorous without a textbook?
Textbooks are not often used in STAC classes because textbooks aren’t rigorous. Sometimes they are the opposite of rigorous because the information is predigested and requires little higher order thinking, and they are often so boring that they give students a wrong impression about how interesting the subject can be.
Alternatives to textbooks include the following real life STAC classes:
Darby Kennedy’s American Government class reading the Constitution together and learning to digest and understand that difficult text
Lyn Stewart’s Human Anatomy and Physiology class using case studies of diseases and disorders to understand body systems
Jenn Casey’s Economics class using appealing videos to get the basic concepts of economics and then using real news stories to apply those concepts
Kimberly Reingold’s Geometry class using a dynamic software program (GeoGebra) to uncover geometric theorems themselves, rather than just being handed the theorem and memorizing it
My own grammar class, where I am creating my own set of materials in order to teach the most fundamental grammar concepts (usually reserved for college students) in language accessible to high school students
Of course, some classes do use textbooks (for example, the Spanish, Latin, and physics), and for some subjects, textbooks really make sense. You can rest assured that if you sign up for a class and there is a textbook, the teacher has thought long and hard about the best possible resources and found something that really works. Because teachers aren’t required to use one particular resource (like in a school), they go looking for the best option they can find for their students.
How can a class be rigorous if the teachers at STAC aren’t certified?
First of all, STAC does have certified teachers, as well as teachers who have experience in different traditional educational settings (high school and college classrooms, private and college tutoring, etc). Many STAC high school teachers have years of experience in the classroom, teaching a variety of academic subjects. Check the teacher bios to see just how experienced our teachers are: https://www.stacofga.org/our-people.
Here are a few examples of teachers with extensive classroom and tutoring experience:
An American history and social studies teacher (Darby Kennedy) who was a certified Alabama teacher, taught government and economics in a public school, tutored college athletes, and developed and taught an undergraduate course in American Studies, as well as teaching many homeschool courses
A literature and writing teacher (me, Kelly Elmore) who managed the Georgia State Writing Center, tutored undergraduate and graduate students in writing, taught undergraduate writing, grammar, and rhetoric courses, and guest lectured in graduate courses on writing, as well as teaching many homeschool courses
A science teacher (Lyn Stewart) who taught in public and private settings for 10 years and is a certified teacher
A math teacher (Kimberly Reingold) who has a degree in secondary education and taught in private schools for 12 years before teaching homeschoolers
But perhaps more important, many STAC teachers have outside-the-classroom experience that enriches the learning by keeping the information fresh and relevant and connecting it to the professional world.
Here are some examples of the diverse kinds of expertise our teachers are bring to their classes:
A Spanish teacher (Michelle Salas) who is a native speaker from Mexico, who brings relatives to spend time speaking with her class and brings in music, art, and traditions from her own culture.
An economics teacher, financial fitness, and accounting teacher (Jenn Casey) who not only has an MBA, but has founded and run half a dozen small businesses, as well as working in corporate business settings as a process improvement specialist
A PE and health teacher (also Jenn Casey) who is an elite competitive athlete and certified to do functional movement assessments
A biology teacher (Lyn Stewart) who worked in a lab as an environmental specialist, as well as doing graduate research in genetics
An art and writing teacher (Tiffany Ard) who is a working artist and freelance technical writer.
I hope these answers put to rest the worries parents might have about finding rigorous high school courses at STAC. Rigor does not have to mean unpleasant, overwhelming, or boring. In fact, our teenagers may not even know that they are doing rigorous high school work because they are learning in a nurturing, interesting, challenging, and enjoyable environment. And because of that environment, their critical thinking and content knowledge are growing, as well as their love and facility for learning.
For those of us raised to believe that Type 1 rigor is the only way to be prepared for college, it can be eye-opening to see Type 2 rigor in action. The best way to see what this looks like is to visit classes, so please email any of our high school teachers and ask to observe a class.