We walk among you every day, blending beautifully into Pepperdine’s small community of intelligent and chiefly conservative students. You may not know we’re even here. We go to class, do our homework, play on sports teams, lead clubs and start non-profits, just like every other Pepperdine student. But you sense our presence here, and once you know one of us long enough, you may begin to notice the subtle differences. Whether it’s a reference to not having a high school mascot or an unexplained giddiness at the novelty of cafeterias and lockers, we begin to betray our collective abnormality.
“I was homeschooled,” I say.
“Oh … wait, what?” the unsuspecting colleague replies, staring at me with confusion and disbelief as if I’ve just told her I’m actually a vampire with two heads. “But you’re so … normal.”
“Normal” is a term that I’ve come to understand means I can communicate appropriately with members of my peer group, manage my grades well in a university setting and know not to wear Birkenstocks with rainbow toe socks. This term, “normal,” defined any other way, would never apply to me as anyone knows who has seen my character on “The Beacon.”
The colleague then usually relates her own personal minimal experience with the world of homeschooling, usually along the lines of her mom threatening to do it if she didn’t get her grades up. Another classic response is the description of the one homeschool family she knew from church, usually including upward of six children with rump-length hair and Biblical names who knew how to read Latin, quarter beef and build rocking chairs. This acquaintance, of course, is what my colleague has used to derive her stereotype, and why I’m sure I seem comparatively normal.
“But you didn’t do it all the way through, right?” she asks. By this, she wants to know if my normalcy can be accounted for by four corrective years in a public or private high school. She mistakenly assumes that I have already learned how to engage in hallway flirting and sleep while convincingly appearing to take notes. Unfortunately, these are skills I never attained.
“Yes. Yes I did. I homeschooled all the way through high school. Except for second and third grade.” Second and third grade were spent in an ultra-conservative, uniformed private school, where I developed all possible girlhood insecurities and mental anxieties until my mother realized what was happening and promptly pulled me out. We don’t talk about second and third grade.
“Wow,” she says, surveying me with an expression of mingled curiosity and pity. “Did you like it? I mean, was it your choice?”
I loved it. And it was most certainly my choice. I got a well-rounded education, but I was able to spend more of my time on the things that I wanted to learn. My siblings were my playmates and my best friends. Learning was fun, and school was a choice. I could spend hours reading on the couch in my pajamas. I developed a full-blown love for mathematics. I studied everything from swing dancing to calligraphy and wrote a short novel when I was 13. I came into Pepperdine with more than 20 college credits that I acquired while I was still in high school.
Obviously, homeschooling is not for everyone. As much as I loved my experience, I know there are plenty of people who would have not enjoyed or learned in that kind of setting, but, in my opinion, it definitely worked for me. (Of course, if you would like to rebut this argument with a case against my wholeness and development as a human being, you are welcome to your opinion.)
Sure, I missed out on football games at my small online high school, (but I came to Pepperdine, so obviously that wasn’t a huge priority for me). I still feel weird about the fact that there were maybe more teachers than students at my prom, and that there was basically no competition when I ran for National Honor Society president; however, I hardly think anyone would describe his or her formative middle school and high school years as being “normal.” Besides, what is normal but another word for “boring?” (Did you like that cheeky tidbit of wisdom? I learned it from the best teacher I’ve ever had: my mom.)
We walk among you every day, blending beautifully into Pepperdine’s small community of intelligent and chiefly conservative students. You may not know we’re even here. We go to class, do our homework, play on sports teams, lead clubs and start non-profits, just like every other Pepperdine student. But you sense our presence here, and once you know one of us long enough, you may begin to notice the subtle differences. Whether it’s a reference to not having a high school mascot or an unexplained giddiness at the novelty of cafeterias and lockers, we begin to betray our collective abnormality.
“I was homeschooled,” I say.
“Oh … wait, what?” the unsuspecting colleague replies, staring at me with confusion and disbelief as if I’ve just told her I’m actually a vampire with two heads. “But you’re so … normal.”
“Normal” is a term that I’ve come to understand means I can communicate appropriately with members of my peer group, manage my grades well in a university setting and know not to wear Birkenstocks with rainbow toe socks. This term, “normal,” defined any other way, would never apply to me as anyone knows who has seen my character on “The Beacon.”
The colleague then usually relates her own personal minimal experience with the world of homeschooling, usually along the lines of her mom threatening to do it if she didn’t get her grades up. Another classic response is the description of the one homeschool family she knew from church, usually including upward of six children with rump-length hair and Biblical names who knew how to read Latin, quarter beef and build rocking chairs. This acquaintance, of course, is what my colleague has used to derive her stereotype, and why I’m sure I seem comparatively normal.
“But you didn’t do it all the way through, right?” she asks. By this, she wants to know if my normalcy can be accounted for by four corrective years in a public or private high school. She mistakenly assumes that I have already learned how to engage in hallway flirting and sleep while convincingly appearing to take notes. Unfortunately, these are skills I never attained.
“Yes. Yes I did. I homeschooled all the way through high school. Except for second and third grade.” Second and third grade were spent in an ultra-conservative, uniformed private school, where I developed all possible girlhood insecurities and mental anxieties until my mother realized what was happening and promptly pulled me out. We don’t talk about second and third grade.
“Wow,” she says, surveying me with an expression of mingled curiosity and pity. “Did you like it? I mean, was it your choice?”
I loved it. And it was most certainly my choice. I got a well-rounded education, but I was able to spend more of my time on the things that I wanted to learn. My siblings were my playmates and my best friends. Learning was fun, and school was a choice. I could spend hours reading on the couch in my pajamas. I developed a full-blown love for mathematics. I studied everything from swing dancing to calligraphy and wrote a short novel when I was 13. I came into Pepperdine with more than 20 college credits that I acquired while I was still in high school.
Obviously, homeschooling is not for everyone. As much as I loved my experience, I know there are plenty of people who would have not enjoyed or learned in that kind of setting, but, in my opinion, it definitely worked for me. (Of course, if you would like to rebut this argument with a case against my wholeness and development as a human being, you are welcome to your opinion.)
Sure, I missed out on football games at my small online high school, (but I came to Pepperdine, so obviously that wasn’t a huge priority for me). I still feel weird about the fact that there were maybe more teachers than students at my prom, and that there was basically no competition when I ran for National Honor Society president; however, I hardly think anyone would describe his or her formative middle school and high school years as being “normal.” Besides, what is normal but another word for “boring?” (Did you like that cheeky tidbit of wisdom? I learned it from the best teacher I’ve ever had: my mom.)
