In the midst of all the activity surrounding the power system and other doings around here, a very significant family event occurred: Aly graduated from college!
In keeping with her unschooling secondary education (see Unchooling: Self-Directed Learning on the Homestead) she accelerated her curriculum and finished a quarter early, in a true quarter system, meaning that she finished in 2/3 of a standard school year. She completed her studies for her Bachelors Degree March 17th.
We haven’t made a big deal about it, because she intends to march in graduation this summer. We’ll celebrate then. In the meantime, she continues to live in her college’s community. She’s looking for work within her chosen field, but also seeks stop-gap income to pay her bills. Those bills include a certain amount of college loans, to be sure, although thankfully less than the crushing debt many of her peers have accrued. Even so, it’s debt, something we strive to avoid.
For her parents, her completion of formal education (for now) marks a change in the relationship. In many ways, mostly legal, she’s an adult now, no longer a clearly defined member of our household. We anxiously await what comes next in her life, wondering if she’ll return to the “homestead” for any meaningful period, or if she’ll make her way in the world. As far as we know, she’s not even sure about what happens next, so we’re careful to give her plenty of room to make her plans in her own time.
From the blog’s viewpoint, this raises the question whether or not I’ll continue to write about homeschooling. As lifelong learners who continue to feel concern for our community and society in general, education will always be “on our radar” to some extent. Readers occasionally comment that they find our older posts on the subject helpful (search “Unschool” or “Homeschool” in the search field on this page.). I even have a few essays on unschooling that have yet to be published here. I should trot them out in the near future, I suppose. We’ll see.