Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Higher Education without highschool: part 2

Here is a nice story about a family of musical boys who started out living in BC but moved to Washington state.

Parenting councilor and author, Naomi Aldort's kids move into higher education from unschooling. Notice in one case, Aldort and son were able to meet with school representatives and TALK their way in (once you hear these boys play you will understand why any school would want them!!).
Aldort writes:
"Our first born, Yonatan, surprised me one day by phone, when I was away from home, saying he decided to apply to Evergreen State College, Washington.
They required SAT and GED. He did the GED the year before, after a couple of months of study. They waved the SAT once he and I talked
to them, explaining the way he was raised and how much he has been always engaged in the community and has the desire to learn. He was
accepted and is now a very successful senior. His impression the first year was that students try to minimize homework, while he does the opposite, getting deep into it and doing more than being asked.

Our second son, Lennon, went to college through the running start program at age 16. He was bored with it after three semesters. Last year he was accepted to the best Music School in Seattle with double their greatest scholarship. It was still too expensive for us so he didn't go. Now he decided to go to the Music School of the University
of Washington which is a hard one to get into. However he found out that the running start program gave him almost enough credits to be a transfer student.
He was amazed. "That's all one has to know? Why do they take 12 years of children's lives for it?" He is now completing the two missing classes and he can then go to the university if he still wishes to. You can see Lennon playing his own improvisations on piano on his site LennonAldort.com and on youtube.

Oliver, our youngest, is only 16. He has been invited with full scholarship to Colburn School of Music in LA, one of the two best in the county. The scholarship includes room and board. Since it is college level, they required the GED tests or high-school diploma. Oliver was always very removed from any academic interests, being too busy
with his music. He studied for the GED for less than one month did the tests, some in the 93% percentile. The application went in last week and the formal audition is in march. You can watch Oliver on his site OliverAldort.com on cello, and see him also on piano on youtube.

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