My Review of Switched On Schoolhouse

Quite possibly the most frustrating thing I hear most families that homeschool seem to deal with is curriculum.  An advantage to homeschooling is the ability to customize your child's learning needs.  A definite disadvantage is an inability to really get a feel for the curriculum until you buy it and use it.  I do not know how many times I have heard people complain about spending hundreds of dollars on a particular program only to discover that their kids hate it.

Sierra is a very techy kind of girl.  Well, techy in the sense of being able to do a lot on her computer.  After dealing with some boring textbooks for 6th grade, it seemed that an easy choice for us was Switched On Schoolhouse for 7th Grade.  It was a win/win situation for both of us.  For Sierra, it was more interactive with videos and it was all on her computer which made it convenient.  For me, it scheduled her whole year for her, gave her her assignments, and did 75% of the grading (as well as kept a record of her grades).  I thought, we just can't lose.

Well, I am here to tell you how we lost with using this program and how we are trying to fix a lot of issues after a full year of using SOS.

1. There is the issue of being on the computer for so many hours during the day.  When Sierra was in the midst of the schoolyear, we both would have said to you and anyone who listened...this curriculum is awesome.  She was making good grades.  Over the school year, though, she was very moody a lot.  She lacked energy and I would get so frustrated with her and she would get frustrated with herself.  Over the summer, I saw a transformation with her.  Her energy level was up, her moods were more stable.  We had a meeting of the minds on what had changed and we came to the conclusion that sitting in her chair at her computer for hours each day had been zapping her energy!  During the course of our conversation, we decided that it may just be best to discontinue using SOS and go back to textbooks....just be choosier with which textbooks we chose.  She had such relief at the end of it all.  Interesting since we thought that we would likely continue doing SOS throughout the rest of her school career!
2. I am not sure what SOS taught her.  I saw her grades and they were good.  She ended the school year with all As.  However, in starting new curriculum, I have noticed a severe lack in many areas.  For instance, we are now using Abeka for American History.  In each chapter, you read several paragraphs and than you have questions to answer and terms to identify....read some more paragraphs and answer more questions and identify more terms....and than you will have a quiz.  I looked at her first quiz before she took it and was satisfied that it was not too hard, but not too easy....typical.  After studying for her quiz, she got her quiz and than panicked!  She said she was not expecting these types of questions (example: Who were the king and queen who financed Christopher Columbus' journey to America?).  She did not expect to have to know names of people or places.  Uh, what??  She said that SOS didn't ask for "stupid" things like that.  So, what exactly did they want.  Isn't history knowing dates, facts, names?  Don't even get me started on Language Arts!!  It blows my mind what she does not know.  It is of no fault of hers....well, I am sure she is somewhat at fault.  So, she is having to learn how to study (not a bad thing).  She is having to learn how to read text and find the important facts.  She is having to learn to diagram sentences.
3. A big problem with SOS (and, admittedly, a problem with me) was a lack of one on one involvement.  It is VERY easy to take advantage of letting the computer be her teacher.  I can honestly say I know maybe 5% of what she learned last year.  I gave very little input to what she was learning and she rarely, if ever, came to me with questions.  It sounds terrible now, but I liked not having to worry about her.  Now, I am completely worried because I see she has a long way to go to get where she needs to be.

So, now I am completely involved in her work.  We sit down together at least once a day to go over something.  Language Arts has become a one on one event for us.  I have had the pleasure of sitting down with her and her science to help make sense of measurement conversion.  I have learned something important:  It's fun!!  I like sitting down with her and explaining to her about predicate nomitaves and metric conversions.  

So far I am only unsure of one of her curriculum...Language Arts.  It is fairly complicated and did not come with a teacher's guide (or didn't come with one worth anything).  I am having to really reach back into the far recesses of my mind to remember all those terms I had to learn so long ago.  Maybe I will review this curriculum when I feel confident that it is good or not.

But, my thoughts on SOS is maybe stick with only doing one subject...maybe an elective course like foreign language.  Sierra is so enjoying her new curriculum and the book work.  She does not feel so trapped.