Friday, February 06, 2009

Planning – High School and Beyond . . .

It’s really hard for me to believe, but Ga’hoole Girl starts “high school” (at home) next year.  It’s just amazing to me that my little baby girl is almost 14.  What’s really cool is that she’s thinking and planning for her future.

Right now, Ga’hoole Girl is most seriously considering a career in the culinary arts.  We have been learning some about “Food Science” using a couple of Alton Brown’s cookbooks over the last several months.  Tomorrow, Ga’hoole Girl will be spending the afternoon helping a woman from church who has her own catering business.  Ga’hoole girl has also been taking every chance she can to cook and/or bake.

Ga’hoole Girl has been thinking about her post-high school plans.  Right now, she thinks that a two year program at the technical college will prepare her for what she wants to do.  But, she’s still young, and Mr. Math Tutor and I have told her that we want her to have the preparation for a more academic program so that she has some flexibility later on.

Since Ga’hoole Girl finished her Spanish semester this week, she asked me to sign her up for Latin.  Actually, she’s been asking to do Latin for a couple of weeks.  She understands that she has to have two years of the same foreign language, so I got her signed up.  So far (after a whopping three days), she loves it.  We use PowerSpeak which gives her grades, so she is having to pay attention to the quality of her work all the time.  She’s in the last part of 8th grade, so I signed her up for high school Latin which means that this course goes on her high school transcript, grades and all!

Even though Ga’hoole Girl is only in 8th grade, I’ve started looking at educational experiences for her in high school.  The technical college has some dual-enrollment opportunities for high school students that might be good for her.  Since a technical education is rather specialized, I think it will be good for her to start to see what culinary arts is all about before she actually starts a program.

She and I have also done some looking at options besides the technical college route.  There are various two and four year programs at colleges and art schools around the country.  Some of them include more management-type courses and emphases.  It’s going to be an interesting few years as Ga’hoole Girl sorts through career options.  Who knows?  Next year, I could be writing about her wanting to try something completely different!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well at least the culinary arts / food science industry isn't outsourcing all their work.