Me, Myself, and Online Education
Between you and me, homeschooling gets a pretty bad rep.
I don’t know if this was a worldwide thing or if it was only at the schools I went to, to be honest. But, let’s see if this rings any bells: A new kid comes to your school. You find out that the kid is homeschooled by their first and second period, either because you were in the class and overheard the kid speak or because rumors spread like crazy.
And it’s usually, like, a thing. Like, ‘Oh, you were homeschooled? What was that like? Do you have any friends? Was it easy? When did you become homeschooled? Did you like it? Was it easy?’
That student became an attraction as if they were an animal at a zoo.
And it was only kids who were homeschooled, I noticed. If you transferred from another school? You may get a question for what that other school was like but that’s pretty much it. But, if you were homeschooled? Oh boy, if you played your cards right, you could end up the talk of the school for days.
I don’t know if it was because of jealousy — meaning everybody wanted to be homeschooled and wanted to live vicariously through the newbie.
If it was because of pure boredom, as nothing much happened at my schools that was out of the ordinary so it kept everyone entertained for however long.
Or, if it was cruelty, as everyone assumes that if you’re homeschooled? Something was wrong with you. You were abnormal.
Who knows? Maybe it’s a mix of all three?
As for me?
Well, to me it was mostly boredom with a bit of jealousy. Back in elementary school and middle school, the idea of being homeschooled seemed like this weird thing that was almost impossible. Like, how did that even work, I used to think to myself from my corner of the classroom. Plus, of course, I got bored easily and was curious if the newbie had anything different about them that made them more interesting than the average public school kid.
Spoiler Alert: Other than maybe being a bit less annoying, they were just really freaking normal. AKA boring to little hipster Diamond who was bored with the world, generally speaking. (I swear, I was 30 in an 11-year-old body, it was bizarre.)
I didn’t even really get why kids got to be homeschooled. I always assumed it was because they had cool parents, honestly. At least when I was younger. When I got older, things made a bit more sense.
Now, let’s talk about me in high school.
I’m not going to go into detail as to the hell that was my high school years as that’s honestly worth a whole blog post on its own. I already have plans to write about it in the future so I’ll keep this vague. Just know that my mental health took a gigantic nosedive and things were… not good, not good at all. Dire, even.
So, my mom, being the best person in this entire universe, decided to take me out of public school for my Junior year and homeschool me. I was supposed to only be enrolled for my Junior Year but, due to me basically having PTSD as soon as I stepped foot back into my old school, we decided to just have me finish out my last year at the school as well.
The only reason I was gonna go back was to spend my Senior Year with my best friend and some other friends of mine. But, as I informed them, my mental wellbeing was not good enough to return and don’t get me wrong, I adore them, but not enough to go through an entire year of hell.
They understood.
Now, as to what homeschooling was like?
Well, considering I’ve already graduated and there is no actual proof that any of this is technically real thus making me completely safe, I’ll go ahead and tell you all this…
It was so easy it felt like I was cheating life.
And how was it so easy?
I cheated.
Oh boy did I cheat a lot.
I cheated to the point where I graduated knowing literally NOTHING.
I was so good at cheating I legit impressed myself like… wow. Just wow.
Plus, I had literally sooooo much free time, it was insane.
Wanna know what an average week was like with me being homeschooled?
I wake up at noon, maybe make myself some eggs or pancakes, maybe even some yogurt. Then, still in pajamas because let’s be real, I’m being homeschooled. I don’t have friends like THAT. I move back to my room, open my laptop, and log into the site. I look at my assignments for the week and I do all of them. In an hour max, maybe two IF I have a project I have to do or a big exam. But on a normal week? An hour max, and that’s me being generous.
How?
I cheat.
And I’m really good at it.
So, I cheat and finish all of my assignments (to be fair to me, some of them I cheated on and a good portion of them I didn’t have to.) and then I’m done for the whole week. Like, I literally logout and am then done and can do whatever I want for the rest of the week until next Sunday where I would do the same thing all over again.
I already knew I wasn’t going to college so I felt no guilt or anything of the sort for cheating my way through. By this point, I’d already known that I wanted to be a writer so it was a pretty simple decision as I knew I didn’t care about school and wanted to focus on myself and getting through school with the smallest amount of effort possible.
And I succeeded.
Now, I know some of you reading this may be giving me the side-eye for this decision but, I’m just being honest here. I don’t regret it that much. Those two years were huge for me. I was away from other kids, wasn’t really stressed because of school, and I spent a lot of time with just myself. And I’d learned… a lot, about myself.
I discovered a lot about who I am as a person. From my own sexuality to my own personal style to my growth as a person. In school, I did a great job of blending into the background and being friendly to every single clique and group at my school so that literally everyone liked me to some degree, hence me having no problems with anyone, really.
However, having a portion of my attention be focused on putting up this front of me being this quiet, shy girl who wore baggy clothes and who didn’t like attention and was painfully demure — it got to me. I was so focused on portraying that and juggling my straight A’s, I avoided a lot of exploratory experiences I could’ve had as a teenager to help figure out who I am and what my deal was. And apart from when I talked to my close friends, I never had any real idea as to what was real.
And now?
Thanks to those days, I know exactly who I am!
An authority-hating, sarcastic, narcissistic, over-protective, dry humor giving, black-wearing, flirty, smart-aleck with a taste for creativity who is either one of the best people you’ll ever meet or your worse enemy. (I’m a Scorpio, what did you expect?)
And honestly? I wouldn’t want me any other way.
Now, the title of this is, ‘The Truth Behind Homeschooling’.
Do you know what the truth is?
Homeschooling is an amazing way to discover things about yourself. I could go into detail about all of the issues I had with it as a school but, honestly? By the time I graduated, I didn’t even care about any of that. Instead, what lingered on after all of this was the fact that I found out more about myself as an individual in these two years then I did in all of the years prior.
Am I saying you should send your kids to homeschooling their entire school career?
No, not at all. Kids should go to public/private school, those interactions with other kids are huge in helping learn communication skills and the like.
But, I will say that if you decide to homeschool your kids for a year or two out of the twelve total, it might actually do more good than you’d think. Also, keep an eye on them, as cheating does exist in online schooling, just like in public schooling.
And that’s the truth about homeschooling.
It’s very possible to cheat your way through BUT you’ll probably learn a lot about yourself as a person soooo…
You kinda have to weigh the odds there, I can’t do that for ya.
I wonder if any of you reading this saw this coming…
