By Willow McMahon (originally published in 2002)
I am sixteen years old and have liberated myself from public school, after attending for little less than three years. My first school experience was at the age of seven when I was enrolled in 2nd grade at a small school in our hometown. Up to that point, I had been homeschooled, fluctuating from child-directed to mother-directed learning styles. I recall influence from my grandmother and aunts about my education. They encouraged the belief that attending school was the way to make friends and “do the right thing.” My mama felt unsupported about her decision to educate her children alternatively. As freedom of choice was part of mama’s philosophy, when I expressed a desire to go to school, she allowed it.
Indeed, I was enthusiastic about the idea of attending school and was well-prepared for fun and friends on my first day. However, it wasn’t all the fun and games that I had imagined. Instead, I had an irritable, flustered teacher whom I was afraid to speak in front of. Apart from one good friend, I didn’t relate or connect with my peers. I quickly tired of the work laid out for us to complete, and struggled to focus on certain subjects I had no interest in. After several months of this experience, I was ready to get out and return to homeschooling with my older sister. Upon my request, I was removed from the school.
The next year, my family was preparing for a move, and when we arrived in the new state and town the choice was offered to me again. Do you want to try school? Yes, maybe this time would be fun. Maybe this was a good opportunity to make new friends, learn new things. And so, I was enrolled in the 3rd grade, and my older sister in the 6th grade, which was her first school experience. Mama continued homeschooling our younger brother.
In this new classroom, I struggled to fit in and make friends. I quickly found a passion for reading, one that I had not been ready to embrace before. I reformed myself to try to be a model student and please the teachers and school system, yet I could not erase a feeling of unease, that I was disrespected and judged by teachers and students alike. Also, I started judging myself by my grades, and blaming myself when I made a mistake. I was trained by the school system to learn in a new way. This form of education was challenging for me to understand and accept after the natural way I had been raised.
However, I continued to attend this school for 3 years. By the time I was in 5th grade I had a strained relationship with my family, felt distant and apart and misunderstood. I had a love/hate relationship with a “friend” at school and felt rebellious and unhappy. After graduating that year, mama made a decision: I would try homeschooling. I was resistant to the idea at first. “But what about…?” However, I soon realized that there was nothing for me to miss, miss-out on, or hold on to. I began to feel exuberant, liberated, FREE!
My sister, who had finished junior high school, was more than glad to comply with mama’s decision to return to homeschooling.
Meanwhile, mama had joined a local homeschool support group and was now more confident and informed about this learning option, and I had many new opportunities opening. We started a Drama Club which flourished, in which I was able to express, learn and have fun. We organized outings and put on events. For the first time in years, I actually had a healthy social life! No longer were cliques, teasing and judgment a part of my experience. They were replaced with open, intelligent, inspiring peers whom I befriended and enjoyed. Also, my family relationships flourished, as we were able to reestablish trusting bonds and understanding thru living, working and spending time together. I was re-introduced to creative learning styles, readapted to freedom and choice, both of which seemed new and radical after years in the institutionalized environment of public school. After my first year of homeschooling, I wondered: Why did I ever want to attend school?
Looking back, I believe that I was infatuated with the idea of school, not the experience itself. I was unable to release this craving — and so, indulged. And when the charms wore off, I felt stuck and trapped, yet didn’t know how to leave, to put my feelings into words, even realize consciously that I didn’t want to be there. I am eternally thankful that my mama was able to see the suffering it was causing me, and to help me step away.
I do not regret attending school and the lessons it taught me. However, I recognize that it was a painful, distressing experience for me, especially at such a tender age, and not one I would wish for anyone. In the present I am continuously discovering and working through the limiting beliefs and poor values that were taught and ingrained in me during my school experience.
Today, my family and I educate ourselves with unschooling philosophies and freedom. Seeing my sister grown and on her own, my younger siblings thriving and learning new skills everyday and myself nearly “graduated”, I feel ecstatic about this way of learning.
If there’s one thing experiencing school and returning to homeschooling has taught me, it is this: Education is not a chore, it has no time or place. Education is with us constantly, as we learn every day. When I graduate from our homeschool in the near future, it will not be the mark of something ending, but the beginning of new options and learning experiences.
Homeschooling is a vast land of possibilities and options; everyone utilizes it differently. But to me, it is my key to freedom, to the world, to my life.
