So as you may know from reading my other blog posts, I was homeschooled.

Being both white and homeschooled, and living on the West side of America, I’ve definitely never really fit in with modern prgoressive culture.

And the biggest way I always noticed that was (shockingly) in Education.

Not having the picture perfect background wasn’t harmful to my education

Usually people say that white kids have different family dynamics than other ethnicity, and my friends who are not white have expressed surprise at my personality and dynamic, I think because they expect my family to be the classic two-parent, non dysfunctional, well off household, just based on how they perceive my sisters and I as classy, polite people.

But the truth is that was mostly our mom, and partially ourselves too, our family is at least 50% white trash on one side, with just as many broken households, drug problems, and jail time as any other stereotyped group.

And by contract I know black and latino families who are much more well off and functional than us, and with better behaved kids than my cousins have.

So I’ve learned not to make so many assumptions based on the popular narrative.

My mixed experience in Public education

But I did not fit in at my secular college, being homeschooled and not given to assuming things about people based on their color or background.

(Shocking really, how much people just assume you’ll judge by color, when they say that’s racist.)

I did not get along too well with my professor who pushed this agenda the most.

Some people claim there is no agenda, that the schools should be educating their students about how racist America is and all its bad history.

I remember one of the singular moments I decided that was insanity was in my World History class where the teacher confidently told us that the Spanish Conquistadors were disrespectful to the Aztecs for criticizing them offering human sacrifices.

The “criticism” was pretty light, in my opinion, Cortex didn’t shoot them or start yelling at them and dragging people out of the temple, he just asked why they didn’t find it abhorrent, and the leader got very offended by the question (some things never change).

My professor said it was arrogant and disrespectful to their religion.

I put my hand up and said “Are you saying they should have been okay with human sacrifice?”

And for contex, they were sacrificing slaves…you know, the people these types always say were the most mistreated in America? But we never got to that point of sacrifing them to our pagan gods, at least. I mean, we had some line. (Not much of one for some people), but the thing is, it was totally accepted in the Inca and Aztec Cultures).

I’m not saying we didn’t have our sins, but I fail to see how Cortex questioning it made him the bad guy here. In fact, he seems to respect the lives of these slaves more than their own neighbors did (they were usually captured slaves from when the Aztec colonized smaller tribes…and yeah, that was thing that happened before the Europeans ever got here.)

The hilarious thing to me that all this was in our textbook, and the Professor could have fact checked her own class assignments to know she was wrong, but she just didn’t care.

She didn’t like me too much because I kept questioning her assumptions or “edited” version of history. And another student told me to “educate myself.”

I wanted to say: “I did, that’s why I know this.”

I wasn’t taking the class because I didn’t know history, I was taking it because my stupid college requires it and you can’t just take a test to prove you don’t need the class, unfortunately, so I had no choice. But I could have aced most of it without needing the lessons, for all the professor really covered in detail.

At that point I decided it was stupid to rely on them to teach me history and I avoided taking any more history classes except the required ones.

I also took a Philosophy class, where the Professor told us there was no such thing as definite truth.

I asked her if she was sure that was true.

She looked at me for a second and then said. “No, anything is possible.”

I lost all respect for her ability to teach me philosophy (the pursuit of truth), but I did have fun proving her wrong at the end of the semester after she expressed doubt that I could write an objective paper about whether or not people should teach Intelligent Design theory. ( I got an A, she admitted she learned something from it, she wasn’t a bad person, just clueless about her subject matter).

This and many other experiences convinced me that my parents were right about the modern education systems, 100%.

Funny, my family member all said that we wouldn’t be properly educated being homeschooled, and my grandma said that right up till I went to college and made the honor roll my first semester, and then stayed on it. She hasn’t said it since, but she’s never apologized to my Mom for her lack of support.

My aunt gets defensive about it if we talk about the problems with public schooling, since her kids are public school, but to me the crowning irony was that I tutored both her kids while they were doing online schooling during COVID, and I got her son way more into reading and her daughter to at least finish her work, where they couldn’t do it.

She even admitted it.

But no apology, no acknowledgment that we were right about school.

I’m not blaming parents per sec for putting their kid into public school if they have no choice, but my aunt could have homeschooled them if she wanted, she just didn’t consider it a viable option, which is too bad, because both of them woudl ahve done pretty well with it, I think. Especially her son, he’s probably smarter than I am, but his talents are wasted in Public school. Thankfully their school isn’t a bad one as far as that goes, but it’s just not even close to being able to provide the same nuturing as homeschooling.

I’ve learned through some other study that the modern education system was designed by businessmen to teach people only the basic knowledge they needed to work in factories or minimum wage or slightly above average jobs. (Look into Rockefeller and who funded the modern public school system.)

And now thanks to safety issues and the culture war, it’s gotten way worse.

Being raised homeschooled and then going ot college, I began to understand it.

The coursework was way too easy for the most part, it was shocking to me how little the professor expected of grown adults, and how irresponsible they were about studying.

But after years there,I began to stop studying as much also. Because I was smart enough to pass the class with minimal effort, I didn’t want to put in more effort. Because I wouldn’t be graded on how thoroughly I understood the subject, or be able to present more information than I was allowed to (gotta have no more than 5 points, or 5-7 pages per project, right), I had no motivation to keep digging deeper once I met the quota for the class.

Thankfully, I had the homeschool study mindset ingrained in me and I still looked further into some subjects when I was actually interested in them, but the ones I didn’t care about, I didn’t learn to care about more because of college.

I also learn to have very little faith in most of my professors to know what they were talking about. Aside from my History and Philosophy professor, my Astronomy professor admitted that the theory of how the moon was formed he was teaching was against scientific laws that we already know work and would have to just not work, magically, for the theory to make sense, he said he didn’t know the answer but there probably was one.

I was not impressed.

Granted, not everyone has to know the answer to everything, but you’re teaching a class on it and you’re teaching this in the class like it’s fact, when it’s not… So isn’t that lying?

To be fair, I have had the same experience in Sunday School when I had a teacher teach something that was unbiblical and I pointed it out. She didn’t like that (and I understand why now that I’ve taught, why it was annoying–but I’ve never had that happen to me in my Sunday School class because I don’t teach stuff that’s not in the Bible or at least not allowed for by the Bible).

Basically, teachers love me or hate me depending on what kind of student they prefer. I’ve had some who liked that I questioned stuff and dug deeper, but, I feel like they were more rare the higher up I got in classes.

And when I was in the Sign Language course, it was awful. So little focus on teaching the language, and so much on cramming the agenda down your throat.

(I don’t have a problem with people who are deaf, but I do have a problem with being asked to feel sorry for them and put myself down just because they’re involved in something. I wouldn’t ask anyone else to do this for me, no matter what disadvantages I had in life, and I find it disgusting that we encourage it in otherwise capable people who don’t really need to ask for pity when they could just function as part of society if they wanted to.)

To sum it up, public education of any kind often has done more to stifle my love of learning than it has to foster it, and that was mostly as an adult who’d been in the habit of learning for years before that. If it did that to me, what would it do to a child who never even got a chance to develop that enthusiasm before going to Public or Private school.

How did I learn to love learning?

My mom didn’t make us start learning seriously till we were 6-7, so unlike preschool and Kindergarten, we weren’t forced to start doing lessons really young, which is probalby partly why we didn’t hate it.

(Personally I believe before 6-7, the average child doesn’t have the attention span necessary to really start learning, and punishing them for not focusing is just teaching them to hate school).

My mom also started light, we didn’t learn officially about history or English or anything like that, we started just learning to read and do basic math. She eventually moved us up to high math, but she never forced us to read anything. She read to us a lot, and so did my dad sometimes, and explained stuff to us just in conversation so we didn’t think of it as learning. Mostly we were allowed to play and use our imaginations after doing a little bit of schoolwork.

For Geography, my mom didn’t officially teach us that till we were older, and then she used things like the Top Secret and Which Way USA kids magazines. I also read Ranger Rick, which taught me about life science in animals.

Eventually we officially studied anatomy and biology, but we were older and she didn’t really make us do it till we were willing to, usually (at least for me).

Me and my first sister both started reading chapter books at 7-8, I picked it up a little faster (and I still read faster than her now). But my second sister only really started to like reading at 12-13. She was very slow at it before then and sometimes wrote numbers and letters backwards.

Most people now would say to take her to a specialist, but we never did. She grew out of the problem and now can read much at a much higher level than most older adults. The trick was we just didn’t rush her to develop faster than she was ready to.

And that’s the problem, the education system is all about getting you through it as fast as possible, streamlining it, and not everyone’s brain develops at the same rate. Then you end up with all these “learning disabilities.” [I know that some of them are legitimate issues that can’t be cured, but, I believe the majority of them are caused by rushing kids before they are ready.]

My Mom’s approach was mostly inspired by this book that Homeschool leaders Oliver Demille put out called “A Thomas Jefferson Education.” They modeled their homeschool style after how the Founding Fathers, (and most gret men in the last centuries), learned and studied and got through college.

They have 7 Principles for learning that were applied, and I’m going to put them here, but also link to their page that describes it in their own words:

https://tjed.org/7-keys/#:~:text

 1. Classics, not Textbooks (or Fluff)

They have a list of recommended Classics also, but it’s not only old books. A Classic can be any book that has a profound quality to it that has stood the test of time at least enough to have people be impacted by it. Like “Ella Enchanted” could be a Classic, though it’s in the last few decades, because it was a trend setter of modern fiction and has a deep and thought provoking message, with no vulgarity.

But parents decide mostly what counts.

Also movies can be classics. The TJEd thing is very open to interpretation, which is why it works for so many people.

2. Mentors, not Professors (or Pals)

The idea here basically is to teach in a more personal way, not just doing lectures. Having a relationship with the students where you can give more one on one advice…and having worked as a tutor, I now see that most people would benefit greatly from more of this in their teaching style. Lectures should be only the start off point for learning, with mentoring and self study building off of it. (Some programs even in mainstream school realize this, I had a mentor assigned to me during my last few Sign Language classes–but unfortunately they don’t really allow for the language barrier making it difficult or the fact that my first mentor had a definite bias against me and tried to tell me to reconsider my field several times. So having a parent pick the right mentors is a must.)

3. Inspire, not Require (or Neglect)

They say this is the most important principle, and I agree.

The main thing was that my parents did not require us to read history books, or social studies books. I Read PYSCH books for fun as a pre-teen, and teen, and still as an adult. I read historical fiction and non-fiction stories about peoples’ lives for fun. I read about social issues from reading and learned about them in Church also. I watched videos about science for fun.

Because they let me find the things that worked for me, and we used YouTube and movies, and audiobooks and songs, and computer games even, to learn harder subjects.

My parents mostly just talked to us about the subjects they thought were important and then let us explore on our own. My mom took us to the library and let us go browse for whatever we liked. We all developed our unique reading taste through trail and error. I got into the Magic Tree House books, and learned a bunch. We loved the Magic School Bus too. A lot of stuff we watched was educational, but still fun.

The stories and interactive aspects of it inspired us and made us want to learn, instead of us feeling required to learn before we had any interest in it.

The key thing is that kids must feel their parents are invested in their learning. We felt like that with our mom.

4. Structure Time, not Content (or Ignore)

“There are 4 phases of learning: Core Phase, roughly ages 0-8; Love of Learning Phase, roughly 8-12; Scholar Phase, roughly 12-16; and Depth Phase, roughly 16-22.” According to Demille.

this was helpful to my family, because we did go through these phases while learning. I’m still kind of in Depth Phase, though I’m more of exiting it into full adulthood.

Because of these phases, My mom didn’t worry too much about my sisters not always wanting to learn some stuff right away. The cool thing is that once you like learning, even if you don’t like one subject at first, usually your love of learning eventually spreads to it. For me, it worked with every subject but Math, and that’s mostly because I’m not good at doing it in my head enough to enjoy it. But I did like it up till pre-Algebra. [Don’t use Saxon though. That will kill any child’s love of math, we made that mistake.]

Pretty much every subject we picked up either by osmosis because we read books that covered it (like History we picked up from Historical Fiction), or we did study projects. But at the Scholar phase, we mostly took con of our own learning, and that happened for us in our late teens usually.

5. Quality, not Conformity (or Contempt)

Basically this step means you don’t grade, you just critique constructively until the student does a good enough job to feel proud of their work. And for you to feel proud of it.

And of course if you don’t know the standard, there are people you can hire even for brief stints who can help.

6. Simplicity, not Complexity (or Chaos)

Again, their words might be clearer than mind:

“The more complex the curriculum, the more reliant the student becomes on experts, and the more likely the student is to get caught up in the Requirement/Conformity trap.

This leads to effective follower training, but is more a socialization technique than an educational method.

Education means the ability to think, independently and creatively, and the skill of applying one’s knowledge in dealing with people and situations in the real world.” [Demille]

When we studied, we read books written by people who experienced it or had a passion for it and did their research, not by people who just studied it to get a degree.

And you know what? That made it a lot more fun. People who love a subject do way better research than people who just need to earn points.

7. YOU, not Them (or Nobody)

At bottom, this method is about teaching your child (or yourself) in the ways that’s best for them.

Doing this makes you smarter too. My mom said she learned way more about stuff and became a better reader after she taught us how to read and do other subjects. She became better educated through homeschooling. We’d go on trips to museums, watch historical exhibits, see people reenact, observe old skills like weaving, woodworking, dying, glass blowing.

And we’re not a rich family. We didn’t do all this stuff all the time. We got our books from the library more than we paid for them. We went on discounted trips or went only once in a while. We used free resources when we could.

My Dad also taught us economics by having us take part in his own small business, and we raised chickens and kittens and a dog and learned about the care of animals. We had our own backyard garden and read up on agriculture.

I now know that Potato had plant parts and carrots get flowers (weird looking ones too.) and so do onions. I didn’t know that before.

And we were not rich. We were renting the home we had the garden in, but they said it was okay (the last renter just left it a dump anyway, so we couldn’t make it worse. At least we weeded it so we could have the garden. And our chickens ate the pests. We also trapped gophers who stole our plants so we made the neighborhood more pest free.)

We aren’t even the most extreme homeschoolers. I knew kids, Mormons usually, who could whittle, cook, and do farm work and have small businesses before we did. And they had huge families who had a lot of expenses. But they made it work. Probably because they had a community of support.

Which is one thing no one ever credits homeschoolers for, but you often make better friends in a homeschool community because people care about depth and arts more than they do about cliques and trends; and those interests tend to last, while fads fade every few months.

Also the rate of teen pregnancy and drug use is in the abysmally low percentage in homeschooling co-ops since your parents are usually watching you at all times, or your older or younger siblings, so…not much chance of getting into any trouble there.

(A little too much so, maybe. One mom didn’t like that I picked her daughter up in a princess carry for a joke, though I didn’t touch her in any weird place and I was doing something I did with my sister all the time. I didn’t do it again after that but I thought it was odd that she made such a big deal out of something so small.

Was just as well though, I realized afterward that my back wasn’t strong enough for those stunts.)

Conclusion:

There were some challenges to being homeschooled.

We never fit in with Public schoolers. We had only a few friends, and after we moved, none of them lasted for very long. They were good friends, but the distance just made it too much for them.

There were subjects that got somewhat passed over. We didn’t do a lot of exercise because my mom didn’t really care about that. We didn’t do a lot of Geography either. (But then public school barely does that now.)

I studied language of my own accord, but my sisters never really got into it but they did art. One did dance.

So yeah, I don’t regret being homeschooled.

And if all that sounded like an amazing experience to you, then you might want to consider it. Heck, even if you’re not an adult and are still in college or highschool, homeschool yourself.

Really, it’s so painfully easy to do most school assignments, it’s shocking to me that kids don’t just do them quickly and then study more on their own, like I would, but, then, schools make them hate learning.

FAQs:

But what about transicps for college?

What we did was take our Highschool equivalency test, and then I’ve gone to community college for several years to get a GPA.

Then you can transfer to a lot of universities from a community college and already have several credits and a good academic record. They really just care about your most recent records, usually.

It’s true that the government does not support homeschool. You can’t take tests usually and prove you’re ready for a higher level and you don’t usually get grants or scholarships for homeschooling specifically. Though there are a few more right leaning colleges that might be able to help you like Hillsdale, and Monticello (where they use TJEd.)

I wouldn’t worry too much about your kids being successful. As long as they make social connections with people, even if they’re older or younger than them, and learn about the real world bit by bit, they’ll be able to figure it out.

It took me a while to learn how to talk to people who weren’t homeschooled in a natural way, but you can learn social skills also, and if you have a love of learning attitude, then you’ll put effort into it, like I did and not just wait for the skills to hit you in the head one day.

That said, homeschooling benefits far outweigh the cons, and especially nowadays, public school is dangerous.

So I’m not sorry my parents made a different choice, and if I have kids, and have the means and ability to home educate them, I will be doing it.

You will make sacrifices. But, the way I see it, either you can sacrifice your comfort zone, cushy lifestyle, and the approval of your friends and family–or you can sacrifice your kids to a system that demoralizes them, exposes them to danger, and makes them hate leaning.

Your choice. [If you have the means to have a choice, obviously not if you simply can’t afford it. But most of the things I mentioned you can do even as a single or lower class working parent, just with some tweaks. Check out websites about free or discounted learning activities in your area.]

Sorry if that got a little dark, but the school system is in terrible shape now and the time for being lenient about it is kind of fading, I think.

[Any more questions you have or resources you’d like me to recommend for different school subjects, please leave a comment. I know a lot of great tools for educating both yourself and your kids in a fun way.]

Until next time, stay honest: Natasha.