Saturday, September 17, 2011

Homeschooler


I've been homeschooled my entire life.  I have never set foot in a public school, and, truth to be told, when I see them I shudder.  They look like gaudily-painted prisons.

When I was stubborn or uncooperative about my schoolwork, my mom used to threaten to send me to public school.  Luckily for me, I have only one year of school left, so I think I'm fairly safe.

My mom has many reasons for homeschooling me, and I have many reasons to appreciate it!


First, there is the matter of religion.  Of course I want to preserve my faith, and I feel that I can do that much better at home.  I have significantly less temptations, and very little peer pressure.  I study out of predominately Catholic books, and since my parents and I are in control of what I learn, I get to explore alternative views of things like history and science.  Instead of being taught evolution, I was presented with the hypothesis and the refutations of it and allowed to draw my own conclusions.  (Obviously my book - Exploring Creation With Biology - is against evolution, but it was not dogmatic about it.  That book is really good.  My biology-major dad loved it.)
I mentioned peer pressure.  Obviously that has a large bearing on religion as well - being homeschooled, it's easier for me to choose who I want to be around, and of course I choose people who are like me.  My friends don't put pressure on me to wear tight jeans or dye my hair pink or act impurely or anything like that, because they themselves would never do those things.  I'm not saying that I refuse to be friends with somebody who doesn't share my views, but as it stands now, most of my friends do.

Another reason I like being homeschooled is that I feel that I'm getting a better education this way.  I'm not trying to brag, but there are statistics showing that homeschooled children do consistently better on tests like the ACT.  (If you don't believe me, look it up.  You can start here.)  Really, I'm not trying to be a snoot.  I'm only sharing my personal experience (and the test results).  I know that there are public-schooled people who are eons ahead of people like me in intelligence.  Only....I haven't met too many of them. 

Homeschooling, if done right, increases one's self-discipline.  This is very important, because in today's world, self-discipline is the last thing on most people's minds.  It's all about gratifying ME, and instantly, too.  We can't restrain ourselves - we're not taught to!  And so we're morally weak - lots of times, physically weak as well.  With homeschooling, most of the time you have to do it yourself.   You're not herded from class to class, your mom isn't going to walk you through every lesson and every subject, and it's oh-so-easy to stop taking that Religion test and start blog-hopping instead....
Now, I am by no means perfect in this.  Far from it.  I've struggled many times (including now) to keep up with everything.  I may be way ahead in some subjects, but I'm still doing a couple subjects from last year, too.  But nevertheless, I'm working on it, and learning from all my responsibility.  I'm very much involved in my schoolwork.  I feel like this way I'll be much better prepared for the responsibility of an adult than if I were public-schooled, being spoon-fed my information and having everything tidily taught to me.

I know that one of the most common objections to homeschooling is that homeschoolers are "anti-social".  You hear it all the time: "Homeschoolers have no social life!  Those parents are depriving their children of normal interaction and therefore forcing them to become shy, socially-unskilled recluses!" *insert glare of righteous horror at homeschooling parents*

I could go on and on and on about this.  As a matter of fact, there was much more that I wanted to cover in this post - but I'm kind of running out of steam now.  Perhaps I'll do a "Part II" sometime, if I remember what else I wanted to say.  Anyway, this post is getting rather long and seeming to get more confused the longer I go, so I shall end presently. 

If you have any questions about homeschooling, comment and ask me!  I'll be happy to answer them - perhaps with another post.  Homeschooling is rather misunderstood, on the whole, and I'd be glad to help clear up the confusion.

What do you think of homeschooling?  I'd love to hear your opinion.

Picture not mine - unfortunately I don't remember where it came from.

8 comments:

  1. I love being a homeschooler! School people don't always understand how I can stay at home so much, and not be socially deprived, but they envy me my freedom. I get all the socialising I want through sport, choirs, and other outside activities.

    Great post!

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  2. I've been in public school my whole life. It's not always easy, especially when you're just one out of 900, or one of 30 (in a class.) Last year (for reasons I shall not go into here) I was home schooled for math. I found it difficult-- the complete change from a bunch of people to just you is quite apparent. I think home schooling works for some, and not for others, and I fall in the "not for others" category. Sometimes it's difficult with your teachers and homework at public school, but then there are also the absolutely great teachers and classes you can have. I think it is also the luck of the draw-- I know that some people are pulled out of public school at an early age because of teachers, and I was lucky enough to get absolutely great teachers for almost every single year of school (at least in Elementary. Middle school has proved differently, sadly.)

    ~Sofie

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  3. Sofia,

    Thanks for sharing your opinion! It is true that homeschooling just doesn't work for some people, especially those who've already been public schooled. You're right, it's a big switch, and it can be pretty hard. I've had some friends who tried homeschooling for a bit and couldn't take it. I completely understand. An interesting thought, though, is that most people I've met that were homeschooled "from birth" are very happy with it. Maybe it's just students who "switch" who have a hard time. (Again, completely understandable!) Thoughts?

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  4. and your musings about homeschoolers are as accurate as can be. especially the bit about self-discipline and hoopla (ok, i believe this small part was unmentioned, but no doubt, we do have more time for playing hoopla than the average, no?) so glad we get to stomp peer pressure also

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  5. Yes, I think that the complete switch is the hard part-- going from one loud, crazy, full of people environment to just you and your parent (or whoever home schools you.) Or perhaps just you. For me this switch didn't work, and it was just part of the day-- and though I may not love the school I'm at, I think that middle school is just difficult, and high school will be better with more opportunities. That went kind of wonky... what ever. :)

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  6. I started homeschooling halfways through 5th grade, mostly because of an issue with some teachers and being really bored in my classes (I am pretty old for my grade-- but not old enough to be a grade higher because of the distrit's cut-off date, so that also affecting being bored, because I was older and liked learning).

    Homeschooling is perfect for me. ^_^ My little siblings all started homeschooling a year after me. One of my brothers wasn't very motivated and no matter how much mom and dad would make sure he did his work, he got bad grades. He started up at the public school in 8th grade to play football, and honestly public school is really, really good for him. He needs the competition. Another brother just started public school this year to do cross country, and he hates it and wants to homeschool next year.

    Mom and Dad let us choose whether we want to homeschool or not (once we hit 6th grade or so).

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  7. I totally agree with everything said here. It's interesting to note, that many people who have been homeschooled all their life, often go to public for high school. I'm the only exception in my acquaintance. Often times, I hear, home schooled kids don't like public school at first, but they settle in after a while.

    That said, home schooling is the only way for me, mainly because of peer pressure. I'm an introvert and I need my space. I was driving myself crazy in public school because I was shy and embarrassed and had no idea what to do to make friends. I'm still not very good at it but I have more confidence now, and I'm not afraid to just be who I am - shy and introverted.

    But it's not for everyone. Unfortunately, there are some homeschoolers (especially parents) who think it is.

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  8. I think the reason that a lot of homeschoolers go public for high school is that when you get to high school, it's a lot harder to control everything. Every single thing you do counts, in high school. I had some problems settling into homeschool-high school myself, so I started Seton instead of continuing the "free-form" style homeschooling I had been doing up to ninth grade. Seton is helpful because it's all structured, I don't have to clock hours, and most things are graded for me. (Not to say it isn't hard!)

    I'm amazed at all the comments I've gotten on this post. Thanks, everyone!

    ReplyDelete

Your comments make my day! I read every single one of them, and I'll usually check out my commenters' blogs, if I don't follow them already. I try to reply to my comments, but please don't be offended if I don't make it to yours. Procrastination habits do extend to comment replies, unfortunately.

Of course, courtesy is necessary. I will delete any comments which do not meet my requirements.

Thanks for making the effort to tell me your thoughts!

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