Since I have been home schooled, people are always asking questions about my schooling. Some people are being noisy, some are rude and some are just curious. It is interesting to see how people react when they find out I am home school. Some act like I am strange and some act like they would love to know more. Since I have started high school, it seems that people are asking more and more questions. Some of the questions I get asked are, Do you like being home schooled?, Do you get to interact with other teens you age?, Do you do any school outside the house?, Can you get into college?, Do you have to do testing at the end of the year?, What kind of program do you use?, Do you school 8 hours a day?, Who grades your work?, and What do you do during the day?. Today I thought, I would answer some questions and also let you know what a typical school day is like for me.
The first qustion I will answer, is do I like being homeschooled? Yes, I do. When I was in 7th grade, I thought about going to public school. I even brought this idea to my parent's attention. After about a month of talking and praying about it, we came to the decision to home school for 7th grade and talk about it again the following year. I completed my 7th grade year with flying colors and then decided on my own, to stay with home schooling. To this day, I do not regret that decision. I am content where I am and I enjoy not waking up at 6am to ride the bus every weekday, and I enjoy being able to do school in my pj’s and on my bed. Being home schooled is also very versatile. If I do not do school on Monday then I can make it up on Saturday or on another day. Trust me I have schooled on Saturdays before because we took off a weekday to go somewhere or do something with family and friends.
As for the curriculum we use. Mom has used and uses many programs for schooling. One year we did SOS (Switch on Schoolhouse) which is a computer program. Personally, I did not enjoy it. But many people that I know have tried it and enjoy it. Also, one my my friends use the Abeka video schooling. All of her classes are on DVDS and she watches them everyday. I have never tried it, but she said she likes it. I like more textbook schooling which we are using now. Mom buys different curriculum from different companies. Some of the companies we have used are, Christian Liberty Press, Saxon, Developmental Math, Explode the Code, and many more. I have a certain amount of pages to read each day. Normally, I end each week with a test or quiz.
I school about 6 hours a day sometimes more it just depends on the amount of work I have that day. I have, had homework before such has a essay being due or book that I have to read. Most of the time I schedule this into my school day so I do not have any. However, there is that occasional time where I have extra to do.
This brings me to my next mostly asked question, “Who grades my work?” . Well, the answer is my MOM does. In most cases, each curriculum comes with a tests and quizzes already written. Just like any other test you would take in public school, I read the directions and fill in the answer. But instead of turning the test into a classroom teacher, I give them to my mom. Then she gets the answer guide which also comes with the curriculum and marks the correct or wrong answers. She then calculates out my grade and gives me an A, B, C, D, or F. Yes, I have made a F before on a test like most people have done. When that happens, I have to study harder in that subject to raise my grade. I am also required to write essays, reports and also read certain books for high school and college. At the end of every semester mom must turn in my grades to “Home Life Academy”. This is a group that makes sure every home school child is doing the appropriate work for there grade and not just skimming by. Yes, there are people out there who say they are home schooling, yet they are not. We also do end of the year testing. By law we do not have to do it every year in elementary or middle school. In high school we are required to take SAT’s and ACT’s if we want to attend college.
Another question people seem to ask a lot is “Do you get to interact with other teens?”. Normally, the first way I think to answer this is, “Well nope I do not. I’m this talkative but my mom keeps my locked up at home and I have no friends.” I have never said this to anyone, yet. Most likely, they would take it the wrong way and actually think that it was true. But the honest answer to this question is, yes I do get to interact with teens my age. Most home school groups offer outings that you do with other home schoolers in your area. I was also in a literature club with about 8 teens and I do cooking classes with about 6 teens. Most people think the majority of my friends are also home school. This is not true, actually most of them go to public school. I have met them through friends, family, parents or on my own in some way.
The last question I will answer before closing this post is “Can home school students get into college?” The answer to this is yes we can. I have already started preparing for college. I am also trying to figure out what profession I want to study and what college I would like to attend. I’m so excited for my high school years and seeing what God has in store for me. I hope you have found this post informative and it has answered some of the questions you might have been wondering about homeschooling.
As for the curriculum we use. Mom has used and uses many programs for schooling. One year we did SOS (Switch on Schoolhouse) which is a computer program. Personally, I did not enjoy it. But many people that I know have tried it and enjoy it. Also, one my my friends use the Abeka video schooling. All of her classes are on DVDS and she watches them everyday. I have never tried it, but she said she likes it. I like more textbook schooling which we are using now. Mom buys different curriculum from different companies. Some of the companies we have used are, Christian Liberty Press, Saxon, Developmental Math, Explode the Code, and many more. I have a certain amount of pages to read each day. Normally, I end each week with a test or quiz.
I school about 6 hours a day sometimes more it just depends on the amount of work I have that day. I have, had homework before such has a essay being due or book that I have to read. Most of the time I schedule this into my school day so I do not have any. However, there is that occasional time where I have extra to do.
This brings me to my next mostly asked question, “Who grades my work?” . Well, the answer is my MOM does. In most cases, each curriculum comes with a tests and quizzes already written. Just like any other test you would take in public school, I read the directions and fill in the answer. But instead of turning the test into a classroom teacher, I give them to my mom. Then she gets the answer guide which also comes with the curriculum and marks the correct or wrong answers. She then calculates out my grade and gives me an A, B, C, D, or F. Yes, I have made a F before on a test like most people have done. When that happens, I have to study harder in that subject to raise my grade. I am also required to write essays, reports and also read certain books for high school and college. At the end of every semester mom must turn in my grades to “Home Life Academy”. This is a group that makes sure every home school child is doing the appropriate work for there grade and not just skimming by. Yes, there are people out there who say they are home schooling, yet they are not. We also do end of the year testing. By law we do not have to do it every year in elementary or middle school. In high school we are required to take SAT’s and ACT’s if we want to attend college.
Another question people seem to ask a lot is “Do you get to interact with other teens?”. Normally, the first way I think to answer this is, “Well nope I do not. I’m this talkative but my mom keeps my locked up at home and I have no friends.” I have never said this to anyone, yet. Most likely, they would take it the wrong way and actually think that it was true. But the honest answer to this question is, yes I do get to interact with teens my age. Most home school groups offer outings that you do with other home schoolers in your area. I was also in a literature club with about 8 teens and I do cooking classes with about 6 teens. Most people think the majority of my friends are also home school. This is not true, actually most of them go to public school. I have met them through friends, family, parents or on my own in some way.
The last question I will answer before closing this post is “Can home school students get into college?” The answer to this is yes we can. I have already started preparing for college. I am also trying to figure out what profession I want to study and what college I would like to attend. I’m so excited for my high school years and seeing what God has in store for me. I hope you have found this post informative and it has answered some of the questions you might have been wondering about homeschooling.
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