Introducing our graduate!
Surprise! It was for her. We staged a surprise graduation party for her during our family reunion this weekend. I’d borrowed a cap and gown from a local high school. It was fantastic. Just ceremonial enough to make the occasion grand, spiced with the adrenaline of surprise. She loved it. We loved her.
One of the perks of homeschool grad is that you get to keep the cap and gown around for a bit and can do things like eat leftover homemade Black Forrest cake for breakfast while wearing them. It’s an occasion, after all. (One of the other perks is the total lack of dress drama that her friends are going through.)
It is amazing to think that she’s done. Graduated. An adult.
I’ve struggled all week to post about this. I think because I feel a pressure to make a Big Moment of this blog. Yet, as with so much of homeschooling, graduation is not so much a Big Moment as a fantastic process of evolution and growth. She’s done because she wanted to work 4 full months at the research station like university students do rather than the 2 months she did last year. She’s done, not because a test told her, or a ceremony, or a diploma, but because she’s moving on to other things. It happened before we could mark it with an occasion.
It’s a big deal, but not a Big Deal. She’s incredible. She’s done this part. It’s all been an adventure and it will all be an adventure. It’s life. Her life. She’s got roses and a diploma we invented, and she’s got plans.
Handmade Homeschool 
Lovely post!
Congrats to both of you! I can understand the sentiments on being done, as done is usually arbitrary in the school system. Since not all children develop at the same pace, how can they be deemed “done” on the same day at the same time? In reality, by the time a person realizes they are done, they’ve usually been there for a bit.
How did the university classes go? What are her plans now? Do you think you’ll miss homeschooling her, or do you think learning is so integrated into her life that things may not change much?
The way you’ve described Sandra over the years reminds me of my daughter–mine has reading development issues, thus how I found your blog so many years ago–but she’s been in school for the past couple years after many years homeschooling. We’re moving across the country in a month, and she’s considering homeschool for high school because she wants to take college science classes. She’s felt her science and history classes were too basic since she began “regular” school. I was quite excited to read that Sandra got to take science classes, so I’ve been wondering what she thought of the whole process.
I’ll try to post a bit about the science questions next week.