Thinking Outside of the Box

Over the past couple of days I have been reading a book, "Homeschooling the Teen Years", and it really has me thinking. Plus we had a playdate yesterday with a close friend that leans more towards unschooling or at least a very relaxed schooling. It has made my brain really push the limits of the average thinking about higher math and science in the high school years. We started down this path of homeschooling to do it differently than public school. We wanted the chance to pursue Grace's passions and strengths. Once you get to about 8th grade you start feeling the pressure to do all the subjects just like public school and really you don't have too. If your child is planning on attending college that college should be contacted and asked what type of maths and sciences will be approved for admission. In the book I am reading it gave some really great alternatives for science other than what everyone else is doing, i.e. chemistry and physics. Some of the alternatives might be: entomology, agri-science, marine biology, botany, astronomy, microscopy, geology, paleontology, herpetology and meteorology. These are just a few of the other sciences out there, especially for kids that won't be attending college or will be attending college but not with a science focus. I feel like we decided to home school to do something different and if we are going to do something different we should not copy everyone else just because that is how it is always done. Thinking outside of the box is not a bad thing.