I have returned, with more First Impressions

If anyone was thinking my blog was dead, they were wrong! I took a break from most of my usual Internet activities during Lent.

In the near future, I have plans to write about my own home education plans and ideas, the reactions of those around me, and of course introduce my children and their works!

First Impressions Part III

When I was in high school I was very active at church, I got to know almost everyone who went to daily services and some of their families. I was also involved in the youth group. Which is where my next encounter with homeschooling began.

These two families are actually related and were fairly conservative for people attending the Vatican II church. They were actually the first families I met who gave me a favorable impression of homeschooling. I'd like to say that in both families, all of the children were nice and relatively innocent. I would not say that "Family A" put homeschooled out of any love for education but rather because of religious reasons. However, "Family B" was probably homeschooling for religious and academic reasons. So anyways, I continued to have social dealings with both families over the years and was able to gain a more realistic impression of homeschooling.

Both families changed my mind about the socialization issue. I would like to say that the children in Family B, had better manners and were able to communicate better with all sorts of people than their relations in Family A. At times, the children in Family A did things that were socially inappropriate and acted like they were in their own world. However, knowing the parents made me understand this all together: If you have a parent that is weird, usually the children are weird.

I began to understand that homeschooling and homeschoolers could take on so many different qualities and they were dependent often on the parents and their style or approach to home education.

In the case of Family B, I saw that homeschooling produced smart and funny people-- the kind of people everyone loves to have around. The children of both families were also very prayerful and took their faith seriously. At this point my view of homeschooling began to change.

It was also during this time that I spent half of my waking hours on the Internet chatting with other Catholics. During this time I met what most people know as "traditional Catholics." I didn't know I was on the road to becoming one, but that it another story for another day. Most of these people homeschooled. They showed me that their children loved God and the Catholic Faith, they showed me that homeschooling could produce exactly the kind of child that I would want for myself. These people also introduced me to many of the traditional Catholic homeschooling websites, which I read, looked over their curriculum and was very pleased with. I even pleaded with my own mother to take my little sister out of school and homeschool.

Before I knew it, I was totally in support of homeschooling and knew from the age of 18 that I was going to homeschool my children.

So at 19, when I met my future husband, we were already in agreement about homeschooling, and there was nothing more to do than dream of the day when we would have children of our own to teach.

First Impressions Part II

My second encounter with homeschooling occurred when I was in junior high.

We had a girl in our grade who was pretty much a spoiled, rotten brat with the most permissive parents in the world. She was the first person to get her eyebrow pierced, this was before body piercings were common place in public schools. She constantly paraded around her immoral lifestyle, which her parents supported her in. Her parents also allowed her to use drugs.

She could not even do the most simple work or sit still to take a test. She was constantly arguing with teachers, disrespecting them or sleeping in class. I think the teachers must have had a party when her parents decided to pull her out of school.

So she was taken out of school and homeschooled, I do not know what happened to her. But the event added to my impressions that homeschooling was for people who could not do all the "hard" work in a public school and that homeschoolers were social misfits. I also thought that her parents took her out of school so she could do nothing all day and have fun. I just could not see this person taking part in any educational experiences. This added to my former belief that homeschoolers took the easy way out and that we students in the public school were superior.

First Impressions

I want to begin by recording my first and earliest impressions of homeschooling, homeschoolers and their lives.

My very first contact with the concept of homeschooling was when I was in fifth grade, in public school. We had a student, Jimmy, who seemed to be a social misfit. Whether he was or not, it did seem like he came from an odd family. His mother came to school to eat lunch with him because the other boys would not play with him. The boys were constantly picking on him and teasing him, I don't know if Jimmy provoked it. However, the situation escalated and I can imagine school must have been a horrible experience for this boy.

Eventually, Jimmy's mother pulled him out of school to teach him at home. Of course all of the other children thought it was because Jimmy couldn't handle "real" school and that he was a momma's boy. Unfortunately, my earliest attitude towards homeschooling was shaped by this experience.

I just want to say that now I realize Jimmy had a wonderful mother who really cared about him. Jimmy is probably out there working on his doctorate or pursuing something else great or at least worthwhile. Meanwhile, many other students from our school are working at Odd-Lots and Valu-City, I know because I see them when I go home to visit.