Unschooling High School with The North Star Strategy
Those who have followed our fam for a while know that at least every quarter for many, many years our homeschool was guided by our educational compasses. These educational compasses have been a cornerstone for our lives as self-directed learners and are basically personal action plans that my kids would come up with to help direct their learning activities over the next few months.
The heart of educational compasses serves as the foundation for the North Star Strategy, where my kids still take time to reflect, assess, and make headway with their educational objectives.
The Teen Years are a Whole Other Ball Game
With teens, it’s became more challenging to find the time to sit down and go over compasses the way we used to.
In the elementary years, there really wasn’t much on their plates besides the overall family schedule, which was peppered here and there with extra-curricular practices/rehearsals, church/community events, or whole family gatherings. It was easier to carve out time each quarter (or even monthly) to sit down together, thoroughly check in with each kid to see how they were coming along with their educational goals, and craft any adjustments that needed to be made.
However, in this stage of teen parenting/homeschooling … with differing schedules and places to be, where life is more fast-paced, and where lots of spontaneous things pop up because of the unique relationships and contexts each individual (burgeoning adult) kid has … we’ve had to modify our approach.
Pursuing a Meaningful Education with the North Star Strategy
What has not changed in our homeschool is:
- Encouraging/challenging our kids to take ownership of their learning, having vision for where they want to be, and creating a plan to make that happen.
- The habit of consistently checking in with each teen and how they are coming along with their goals (academic and otherwise).
But more recently, we’ve been doing this with something called the North Star Strategy, loosely borrowed from a business concept that refers to focusing on one key metric to determine a business’ direction and success.
Instead of dreaming up numerous objectives, books to read, activities to do, and places to go over the course of the next quarter (which is what makes up the educational compasses), they are challenged to focus on one, single overarching objective to help move them in the direction of their overall long-term vision.
How It Works:
- Our teens pray about their God-given vision, considering things like what they feel God is calling them to accomplish, where they feel they need to grow and be challenged, personal goals, etc. This vision is more of a long-term one (6-12 months). They even pray about a word of the year to help serve as a guiding reminder for that vision.
- Instead of sitting down quarterly with them (like I did with our compasses in the younger years), I’m simply asking them what their north star is for the week (or next couple weeks) and checking in with them: Literally: “So, what’s your north star for the week?” and “How’s it going towards your north star?” The north star for the week is something they feel is the more pressing, measurable factor in moving closer to their overall vision.
Examples:
Vision: Getting fit and strong and having more energy over the next 6 months:
North Star: Workout 5 times this week (next week it may be more of a nutrition focus).
Vision: Being able to travel to New York with friends in the next year.
North Star: Pick up extra shifts at work to frontload the savings (next week it may be to list outgrown clothes/shoes for sale).
Vision: Being able to speak conversational French in the next couple years.
North Star: Prioritize French lesson exercises on Duolingo each day (next week it may be to watch French films to train comprehension skills).
Vision: Memorizing Philippians by the end of the first quarter of the year.
North Star: Time-block the next few months to fit in memorization in between classes, shifts at work, and other obligations, plus read the entire book, and study the context (next week, begin memorization plan for chapter 1).
Vision: Create a 5-day devotional sometime this semester.
North Star: Create outline for devotional with a topic for each day (next week it may be to complete Day 1 of the devotional).
The north star for each week may look different depending on where they feel they need to focus specific energy on in order to stay in alignment with their overall vision. In other words, the North Star Strategy is simply another practical way of reverse-engineering bigger goals!
Benefits of The North Star Strategy When Unschooling High School
This North Star Strategy, while still incorporating the core principles of our educational compasses, is really about helping our adolescents learn to prioritize the “one good thing” of all the good things that God may want for them to focus on as they work towards their overall vision … and just for the week (or maybe the next couple weeks).
Why we started using this approach for unschooling high school:
- It simplifies their goal achieving activities into a primary focus that they can work heartily towards while being comfortable letting the “noise” of all other potential things they can be doing fade for the moment.
- This then simultaneously helps our teens by minimizing overwhelm and stress because they are learning how to surrender the idea of trying to get all the things done that can be on their plate.
- As well, this encourages intentionally seeking God’s will and word along the way, as they are constantly in prayer over which goal-achieving activities God would want them to prioritize for the week.
- Having a north star fosters intentionality and consistency by having one, simple, short-term task to focus on … and be able to accomplish (which provides further encouragement to stay consistent).
Questions Your Unschooling Teen Can Ask As Part of This Strategy:
- Lord, what do you want to do through me this week?
- What activity would you like me to focus on this week?
- Who do you want me to serve this week?
- What specific areas do you want me to grow in (aka what muscles would you like me to exercise) this week?
The North Star Strategy has been a great way to transition from our quarterly compasses in these teen years as Christian unschoolers! What do you think? Is it something you think may serve your family well?
Needing encouragement and inspiration for getting started with unschooling as Christians? You’ll want to grab my guide: A Christian Mom’s Guide to Unschooling.
It will help you break free from traditional thinking and help you discover the path towards natural learning that is centered on Jesus!
This is a very encouraging concept, I feel like we’re needing a transition strategy for our 12 year old, from “we plan it” to empowering him to plan his next school/life priorities. I really appreciate the concept of one focus for the week and no-overload, as we all get overwhelmed with too much on the To-Do list. Can you share where the North Star concept comes from? Is it from a business book?
Hi Lacacia!
I’m glad you were encouraged by the post. 🙂 I actually first learned about the North Star strategy from my business coach who encouraged me to focus on one north star each week for my own business! I don’t know where the original idea comes from, it was just passed on to me from my coach and I figured this would be a great idea to implement in with our teens, which ended up working really well!