Homeschooled

Before going to college I had never set foot in a public school. Ever. Except if one counts 4-H and the Sundays when our then-nomadic church was held in a high school cafeteria. I was homeschooled, and I regret nothing.

I am not sure when my mom started making plans to educate my sister and I by herself. I don’t think she even knows when the decision was made. More accurately, I cannot even say that the decision was made at all, like just sort of happened.

The initial purpose was to let us “play one more year.” Mom did not see any point in making us perform elementary math equations or regurgitate grammatical principles. She read to us herself and math was not terribly important to five and six-year-olds. But the law is the law, so at age seven I was suddenly called inside and commanded to count M&Ms before eating them. It was great fun, and the math problems were interactive pictures, not unlike my coloring books. So school began.

Unfortunately, not all school was so enjoyable, nor did those enjoyable subject remain so. Hooked On Phonics was my bane through the early years of grade school and Saxon Math was just as bad. Mom diligently sought out new materials for us to use, and with each passing year she refined her methods and curriculum. Her mission was to make school profitable and fun at the same time, so before long we were enjoying comparably superior course programs. In the tradition of reading as a pastime, Mom made it a policy – to which I am eternally grateful – to use as few textbooks as possible, leaving us with real books for use in most every subject besides math and the occasional science.

Each year Mom made plans to send us to public school, but each year something would come up and she would decide that another year at home wouldn’t hurt. So grade school passed and we were “off” to junior high and high school, so before we knew what had happened, I was a senior and my sister was making plans to spend a semester of her junior year studying overseas in Osaka, Japan. By that point Mom had given up on the idea of ever sending us off to finish up in public schools, so we churned right along until graduation.

It was said the other day by one of my history teachers that it takes a few years for a newly proved fact to become common knowledge. That seems to be the case with the assumption about homeschoolers and functioning in society. Some years ago I heard about a study conducted that found that homeschoolers are just as socialized as “public school kids,” if not more so. And yet, I continue to encounter a subtle assumption that because I was educated at home, I am somehow inferior in my social skills. I can see the logic, and if I was indeed “chained to a table leg,” as goes the joke among my homeschooled friends, then I would certainly consider myself socially juvenile. But as things stand, I can sense no indication that I am lacking at all.

More on homeschooling “cons” next go ‘round.