February 12, 2013
An interview with my homeschooler;
Question: Why and when you became a homeschooler?
Keren: The idea that it is not essential to go to a public school in order to learn came up when I lived in Israel.
The whole thing started when I sat home pending a decision of the board of education whether to grant me permission to move to a new experimental school that just opened in our town. Those 42 days, of enjoying my new acquired freedom, and studying,on my own, from
my school books, were my first taste of homeschooling.
When we got to the US few months later (Idaho) I was at the beginning of my 7th grade. We decided to try homeschooling again. In the beginning it was rather simple and more like a full time ‘unscooiling’. I did not have a regular schedule; I did pretty much what I felt like and in addition took two classes in the local public school in our town but left after one semester. After a year and half we moved to Maine. I don’t remember all the details just that we went to several meetings with other families and it was a good way to find out what others are doing. At that time my mother found a program that was geared towards home school student and enables them to receive high school graduation certificate.
Question: Can you describe your daily program?
Keren: My program constituted of a personal teacher whom we met at the beginning of each school year to discuss the plan of studies for the coming year and then once again at the end of the year to show what we did. So we became a little bit more structured. My mother and I would
‘meet’ once a week to plan the week and go over the work I did the week before. I worked with school books and the internet and about age 17 started to take some college classes in addition.
Question: What did you do after high school?
Keren: When I turned 18 I was accepted to the University of Maine (Orno) I was not sure at the beginning about my major but
after several changes decided on Fine Arts which I finished 4 years later.
Question: What happened after that?
Keren: After school I worked and toured Alaska for almost 5 month and then returned to Maine to look for a ‘real’ job. Currently I work as a graphic designer.
Question: Anything that you want to add?
Keren: Looking back I am not regretting the choice of homeschooling and feel lucky that my parents agreed to take this route
and invested their time.I think that as a result of that I learned to appreciate my time and sometimes seem to look at things differently than other
young people my age. For example I was unhappy at the university with the need to waste a lot of time sitting in classes where the teachers did not contribute anything more than the text book. I felt that a lot of time was being wasted for no reason, time I could use to do other things like I did during my high school years. I had time then to grow my own garden, grow ducks, learn how to make maple syrup, learn photography, ski, fish, join the girl scouts, volunteer and so on.
Many people seem to think that this is not valuable but I believe that I learned a lot and it was worth every minute.
When we started to home school many of our friends expressed concern over lack of social contacts, and friends, and how I will learn to conduct myself in the outside world if all I do is sit home with my mother. I could never understand that. I clearly remember my public school where kids harassed other kids, disturbed the teachers, and all in the entire atmosphere that was not conducive to learning. Was that what I was supposed to
learn to be able to find my way in society?
From the day that I left public education in 2001 I never had difficulties finding friends. At times I had to work at it a little, and I did so by joining groups like the girl scouts but I never felt that I was in danger.”
An interview with my homeschooler;
Question: Why and when you became a homeschooler?
Keren: The idea that it is not essential to go to a public school in order to learn came up when I lived in Israel.
The whole thing started when I sat home pending a decision of the board of education whether to grant me permission to move to a new experimental school that just opened in our town. Those 42 days, of enjoying my new acquired freedom, and studying,on my own, from
my school books, were my first taste of homeschooling.
When we got to the US few months later (Idaho) I was at the beginning of my 7th grade. We decided to try homeschooling again. In the beginning it was rather simple and more like a full time ‘unscooiling’. I did not have a regular schedule; I did pretty much what I felt like and in addition took two classes in the local public school in our town but left after one semester. After a year and half we moved to Maine. I don’t remember all the details just that we went to several meetings with other families and it was a good way to find out what others are doing. At that time my mother found a program that was geared towards home school student and enables them to receive high school graduation certificate.
Question: Can you describe your daily program?
Keren: My program constituted of a personal teacher whom we met at the beginning of each school year to discuss the plan of studies for the coming year and then once again at the end of the year to show what we did. So we became a little bit more structured. My mother and I would
‘meet’ once a week to plan the week and go over the work I did the week before. I worked with school books and the internet and about age 17 started to take some college classes in addition.
Question: What did you do after high school?
Keren: When I turned 18 I was accepted to the University of Maine (Orno) I was not sure at the beginning about my major but
after several changes decided on Fine Arts which I finished 4 years later.
Question: What happened after that?
Keren: After school I worked and toured Alaska for almost 5 month and then returned to Maine to look for a ‘real’ job. Currently I work as a graphic designer.
Question: Anything that you want to add?
Keren: Looking back I am not regretting the choice of homeschooling and feel lucky that my parents agreed to take this route
and invested their time.I think that as a result of that I learned to appreciate my time and sometimes seem to look at things differently than other
young people my age. For example I was unhappy at the university with the need to waste a lot of time sitting in classes where the teachers did not contribute anything more than the text book. I felt that a lot of time was being wasted for no reason, time I could use to do other things like I did during my high school years. I had time then to grow my own garden, grow ducks, learn how to make maple syrup, learn photography, ski, fish, join the girl scouts, volunteer and so on.
Many people seem to think that this is not valuable but I believe that I learned a lot and it was worth every minute.
When we started to home school many of our friends expressed concern over lack of social contacts, and friends, and how I will learn to conduct myself in the outside world if all I do is sit home with my mother. I could never understand that. I clearly remember my public school where kids harassed other kids, disturbed the teachers, and all in the entire atmosphere that was not conducive to learning. Was that what I was supposed to
learn to be able to find my way in society?
From the day that I left public education in 2001 I never had difficulties finding friends. At times I had to work at it a little, and I did so by joining groups like the girl scouts but I never felt that I was in danger.”