You’re probably familiar with the classic film "Mean Girls," a saga about a group of back-stabbing popular high school girls who people either worship or despise. One might believe this film is exaggerated and unrealistic, but I am here to tell you that I myself have experienced a "Mean Girls" scenario in real life. Like the main character Cady Heron, I moved locations and started my first year ever of public school, both at the same time. That’s right folks, I was homeschooled. However, unlike Cady, I didn’t move from Africa, I moved from Virginia to West Virginia. And I didn’t become instantly popular either.
Having never stepped foot into a school before, I was terrified to start eighth grade in a public school. The closest contact I had ever had with a school is through stereotypical Disney movies, including a popular girl who has minions that serve her, a cute guy that has history with the popular girl, and a nice girl who wins the cute guy in the end. Unfortunately, I would eventually discover that there aren’t many cute boys in middle school.
I was petrified on my first day because I was worried that the academics would be hard and people would find a homeschooled girl weird. It turned out that the adjustment wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Homeschooling is a foreign topic to many, and I was bombarded with questions when people found out I was homeschooled. For those of you probably wondering the same questions, I’m going to answer a lot of them to save you from socializing with an awkward homeschooler in the future.
1. “Why?”
Homeschooling is an unorthodox manner of education in today’s society, so people automatically wonder why I was educated in such an unusual way. Let’s put it this way: your parents either decide to homeschool you when you are too little to have a say in the matter, or you get sick of waking up at 6:30 and beg your parents to homeschool you. I’m the stereotypical sheltered suburban homeschooler who was raised in a conservative home, and my parents decided that homeschooling was the best option for our family. I was a pretty sheltered kid because of it, I still to this day have never seen "High School Musical" or "Hannah Montana."
2. “Did you have friends?”
This is a question almost everyone asks because to others it seems to be impossible for a homeschooler to make friends who aren’t their siblings. OF COURSE I HAD FRIENDS. I’ll admit, it is a little harder to make friends being homeschooled because you aren’t surrounded by other kids 8 hours a day. Yet, I made friends with a few other homeschooled kids from sports, church, etc. I didn’t have a lot of friends, but quality beats quantity.
3. “Was your mom your teacher?”
For almost all of my homeschooling experience, my mom was my teacher, and she won the best teacher award every year. In elementary school, my mom would wake us up, help us get ready, make breakfast, and then we’d get started with work. We had a pretty good routine. She taught us using homeschool curriculums, and we received a pretty decent education. But as we got older, she had to go back to work full-time, and it got harder for her to teach subjects she wasn’t so sharp with herself. As a result, we joined a homeschool group that met every Monday, and each parent would teach a different class. It was like a regular school class, just with a lot less people. The “teachers” would assign work for us to complete and turn in the next Monday. I liked this method a lot because it helped me make new friends, and I felt like I was in real school.
4. “Did you get to sleep in?”
Yes. And it was amazing. It was like summer existed all year round. When I was little and my mom taught us, we would wake up around 8:30. But when she went back to work, I would finish all of my work at the beginning of the week and sleep in till 10-11 in the morning and wake up with no work left to do. It was awesome.
5. “Did you like, have homework?"
OF COURSE WE HAVE WORK TO DO. WE DON'T JUST SIT AROUND ALL DAY, WE ACTUALLY HAVE WORK. However, homeschool work is definitely more lax than public school homework. I wasn’t nearly as stressed out as I am in public school, taking all honors courses. While being homeschooled, I had work to do, but I didn’t have to cram for exams or really ever get stressed.
6. “Do you prefer being homeschooled or going to public school?”
Again, this varies for everyone, but I can say that I definitely prefer public school. The adjustment was hard, but now I’m so used to the routine I sometimes forget I was ever homeschooled. Homeschooling was great because you were in control of your schedule, you could take a vacation in September, or decide to have a snow day in January. Homeschooling can provide you a great education, but public school offers so many more advanced courses. Public school provides students more extracurricular and academic opportunities. There are some pretty great homeschool sports teams that are comparable to that of regular school, but the performing arts opportunities that public schools provide are incomparable to homeschooling. I’ve made so many great friends and become apart of so many extracurricular activities since I’ve joined public school, and I’ve really become a happier person because of it.
There you have it. You now understand the basics of homeschooling. Next time you meet a shy, socially awkward homeschooler, know they don’t bite, they’re probably just petrified of you.
