Don’t you wish you could be around other kids? Does that mean you don’t have any friends? Don’t you get bored being home all the time?
Those were the questions I was asked the most.
So let me set the record straight; I thank GOD that my parents homeschooled me.
I feel like I am better prepared to live life having been homeschooled. If you want to call it ‘home schooled’ – We weren’t home very often. We lived a very busy and full lifestyle – my mom taught me how to live life and brought school into practical application for me. Cleaning, shopping, budgeting, cooking, baking and babysitting, throwing parties, taking care of the elderly, and traveling are some of the things that I was able to learn because my mom was home with me and chose to homeschool me.
I couldn’t seem to grasp fractions until she showed me how it tied into practical application with baking. I had no interest in geometry until she showed me how I would need it to design a horse stable. I didn’t care for geography until she tied it into going on vacation and traveling.
As a homeschooler I was taught self-discipline, I was taught to question things, I was taught to love learning because I had the freedom to learn at my own pace and to learn about things that sparked my interest.
I am blessed to have a creative mother who could tie in what I needed to learn (grade specific & etc.) with what I wanted to learn.
For example, in 2004-2005 we were living in central Florida. – this was the year that we got hit by many hurricanes during that one hurricane season. I remember being so fascinated about hurricanes, we went to the library and checked out every book I could find about them and I read every one of them. My mom was able to tie all of the different school subjects into learning about hurricanes – I didn’t lose focus, it helped the principles to stick and it was fun!
I loved tigers – I did the same thing there, plus I did a ton of online research about them. And because I was homeschooled I had the freedom to do that. With that project she was able to expand on my research skills, my ability to put together a research paper with references, and to teach me which sites were trustworthy for research. My mom never discouraged me or told me we didn’t have time for me to learn about what I wanted to because it didn’t fit into the ‘curriculum’.
Looking back now, as an adult, I can see how courageous it was of my parents to homeschool me. I didn’t see it at the time. But by homeschooling me, they really went against the grain to do what they felt was the right thing. That’s a hero in my book.
Never stop learning and growing!
-Jorjia
