My Experience Being Homeschooled for 18 Years
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- Опубликовано: 25 мар 2025
- This was my experience being homeschooled from kindergarten through the end of high school. If you have any questions, I’d love to hear them down in the comments below.
0:00 Intro
1:41 Elementary School
3:14 My Parent’s Philosophy
5:20 Homeschool Gym
6:30 Other Homeschool Families
8:30 Never Socialized
9:15 Making a Movie
11:33 Making a Restaurant
13:14 Middle School
16:05 Making a Restaurant Again
18:10 Making a Summer Camp
19:30 Robotics
19:49 Radio Show
21:02 Historical Farm
22:09 Making My Second Movie
24:04 High School
24:55 Show and Tell
25:45 My First Feature Film
26:47 Making More Movies
28:16 My I Didn’t Go to High School
28:45 College Classes
29:25 Homeschool Mindset
30:19 Regrets
31:13 Takeaways
Please leave a comment below with ideas for other videos I should make!
If you would like to follow along on the journey:
Instagram / meshachmalley
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Thank you all so much for watching! As promised, here is a link to the movies I made (Keep in mind I was in middle and high school) 😂
Lunch Money ruclips.net/video/c7ERmyalwuI/видео.htmlsi=5bi5qaGGM1L4ona1
The Red Crystal ruclips.net/video/s8uP3l4BlA8/видео.htmlsi=HN-zrmCVlOcb09JK
Doctor Who Show ruclips.net/p/PLNwgFDQhiIpmMnwZ-yg6vmOf0FFosjSMF
I love this video. What an amazing life you had growing up. Very cool. Did you know there is a famous Thoroughbred horse trainer named Meshach "Mesh" Tenney? He won the 1955 Kentucky Derby with Swaps and dozens of other stakes races.
"Hair, hair, lots of hair... I like it!"
May I ask? How did your parents afford to homeschool you and your siblings?
Homeschool mom here, do you have any tips for parents? Thanks
27:33 As I'm watching I keep having all these questions and comments (as you see in the comments section). Lol
I've had to delete lengthy portions! One other thought though is that you've learned patience and time. And to work toward goals. I think that's a concept that's very difficult now with basically wanting instant gratification. Both children and adults I'm finding that even within myself which is not how I have lived most of my life, I'm 56. OK just want to put that out there! Lol
Homeschooling doesn't mean no schooling. This guy was in a fairly privileged setup by having two teachers as parents and access to a marine biologist, physician, and archeologist. That is not typical for many kids. His parents are the key 🔑 here. They created a stable environment for their kids to thrive, and offered plenty of enrichment.
excellent points. most of us wouldn't have the temperment or skills to home school.
That's actually pretty typical of homeschooling. I homeschooled from Kindergarten to HS graduation. Same with my wife. We homeschool our kids.
Homeschoolers, even parents with low formal education, give great educations to their children and homeschoolers are constantly networking and connecting with incredibly skilled, educated, and knowledgeable people. It just happens. It's super common.
@@woodsghost9088so so lovely that you had access to a wonderful rich homeschool experience!! I tried. It didn’t really work out.
Grateful that I had the opportunity to try, and I think it was great for my kids.
I agree - by far the majority of the kids homeschooled are so because the parents are religious extremists.
@@woodsghost9088I believe you, but also every homeschooled person I've met irl was an anxious mess with trauma from religious fundamentalist parents. Not to mention any kid who is special needs. This guy was veeeeery lucky to have passionate and smart parents.
As someone studying child development, it sounds like your parents really set you up for success. I also think the saying 'it takes a village' couldn't be more true after hearing your stories. Your parents wouldn't have been able to do all of that without the great community that surrounded them - the people willing to try out your restuarant and summer camp, the woman allowing you to use her garden, all the parents that came together to pass on their knowledge...I can only hope my child will be raised in a similiar environment.
Yes! me too. It sound like project based learning
Its too bad the overwhelming majority of people do not set their kids up for success
His parents were fortunate
Honestly it doesn't take a village. We homeschool all 6 of our kids and have been on our and raise our kids just fine. That's how I grew up as well but I was in public school but stayed around my siblings and guardian the majority of my life. So that's not a fact it's just a way of life people choose. It's not the standard to raising kids well.
You started your statement with "we" which means you at least have a partner. Many don't even have that so you're assumption is already a fallacy. @millennialodyssey5956
Bro - you had the magical childhood. So many people wish they did. That's awesome.
absolutely
I was home schooled and this seems impossible 😭
As a homeschool mom, I really appreciate this video. Not just because it can shed some light to others on what homeschooling can look like, but to inspire current homeschooling families as well.
Do you also find yourself constantly defending your decision to literally everyone you meet? 😂 I'm gonna send this video to everyone going forward....
Yesss this made me think about the real reason I wanted to homeschool sometimes we just get caught up in curriculum and forget you can learn a lot while having fun
Another homeschool mom here also. We used some curriculum but the focus was “the curriculum works for us we don’t work for the curriculum “ that made it easier to drop curriculum that wasn’t right for the kids and to just use whatever parts were useful. lol and my kids (19, 22, 26, 28, 36) still love the local Pioneer village we spent our summers at. One of my sons is now a heritage carpenter. They love that our homeschool history group was dress up and learn by doing. They all eventually went to a year or so of high school but really found the work ethics of the other kids frustrating. My kids also share the feelings of not relating to the other college students their first year. But as they progress further in their journey they look back along their path and see the benefits that homeschooling gave them.
@@laurathepoetI had that same thought! 😂
That pretty much sums up the life of a homeschooler.
All my kids were homeschooled.
Good times
Wouldn’t have changed it.
This is how homeschool is supposed to be. Especially the whole unschooling trend. I feel like your parents kinda tottered on that but still gave you a proper education.
"Unschooling" as seen in mainstream clickbait is just that. "Kinda tottered" unschooling is the *real* version.
@nicolcacola I don't know. As a teacher, I don't have a problem with home schooling per se-- if it is done right. That is, if the parents are educated, they can teach kids the basics. The hands on stuff is a great idea. Getting involved with other homeschooling groups is really good, especially with middle school and high school.
However, unschooling, from what I understand, is actually NOT teaching the kids anything at all--not teaching them how to read, write, or even add or subtract. Not until the child takes an interest in learning to read for example. But if you never ever expose your child to anything whatsoever, how realistic is it that kids will take an active interest in anything. From what I've seen online, those people unschooling kids don't learn something as easy as C A T is cat till they're 12. To me, it is a form of neglect.
This kid's experience seems very rich in exposure, experimental learning, ect. He learned to do things kids don't learn in public school or private school.
So, it all depends on the parents, the structure, subjects taught, ect. But if parents don't have an education, have low reading levels themselves, the kids are better off in public school.
I agree that kids can get socialization skills outside of school. They can still join teams, they can still join book clubs at the library, join home schooling groups, all of which provide socialization.
@sharonrinkiewicz3940 Yes, my only concern with homeschooling is that not every parent has what it takes to homeschool properly. I could not have done it. I never would have had the patience.
It sounds to me they had some unschooling aspects of it but it's not completely, its 100% child directed. What they used was their actual educational background. Grouping themes is what elementary teachers are taught, this helps kids learn, I used to know educators, this is also the reason why kids have field trips too. The difference is schools, have a lot of kids to teach, curriculums to follow, state testing, only 2 designated field trips.
Unschooling is commonly deeply misunderstood and as another commentator noted, it's often used as clickbait. I unschool my children because they have Pathological Demand Avoidance (diagnosed) and they couldn't cope with the demands that are inbuilt in mainstream education methods.
Unschooling actually looks like this:
My youngest (9) has a special interest in raccoons. My role as a home educator is to facilitate his interest in a way that ensures all "academic" areas are covered. So as an example, our project last week was to make a model of a raccoon enclosure in a zoo.
He researched the things a raccoon would need to thrive in captivity.
We used area, converting cm2 to m2, to draw out the blueprints for the enclosure.
He used the blueprints to make a scale model out of cardboard and other recycling we had lying around.
He then made it "full scale" in Minecraft.
He wrote an information board to put outside the enclosure, telling the zoo visitors about raccoons.
When I tell people how we unschool they often say "yeah but MOST unschoolers don't do it that way." This simply isn't true. What IS true though is that a small minority of people have figured out that clickbaiting unschooling by saying "we don't teach our kids ANYTHING" gets them views and money. It's incredibly frustrating because it makes the general public assume we're all out here just letting our kids watch RUclips all day, but actually unschooling involves a massive amount of work on the parent's end to make sure the child is learning everything they need.
As a sidenote - we're in the UK. When I look at the National Curriculum outcomes, my youngest understands areas of science and history that aren't even looked at in school for another 2-3yrs. This is because I follow his interests, so with the raccoons we've gone into classification of living things which means he can tell you which order and family raccoons are from and which animals are their cousins. He can tell you the skeletal characteristics of the order carnivora, and how / why species are grouped into their particular families. He would be in year 4 if he was in school but this level of classification wouldn't be explored in school until year 6 and 7.
That is *just* when we consider his raccoon interest. Before this, he spent six months on sharks and octopi, and he's been deeply into learning about World War 2 for the last month.
Please don't fall for the narrative that it's normal or common for unschoolers to not teach their kids - we don't follow a curriculum but we DO spend a huge amount of time facilitating a well rounded education.
People often forget that being homeschooled doesn’t mean “not having social skills”. You ever hear of parks? And libraries? And outside??
Yeah it just requires SO much more parental effort. They need to go out of their way to bring their kids to social environments, instead of just taking them to traditional school. The main worry is that many homeschool parents don’t put in this effort, or purposely isolate their children for religious or ideological motives.
the thing is you need your parents to raise you in a way to be able to do that... ive been homeschooled my whole life and i do have no social skills i was so surprised seeing this video cuz ive never been able to do any of the things in this video and i genuinely thought every homeschool experience was like mine cuz mine has made me feel dumb and less then other people like i know so much about my interests but almost nothing about math and other school stuff and it took me so long to even read... clearly not everyone can just homeschool there kid cuz they actually need to put in an effort thats why i always say being homeschooled isn't as fun as it may seem...
@@thecolorjune Yup I was in the homeschool community for 8 years . having lots of social options for my girls was very important to me., but it was very clear it was not important to most of the other homeschool
parents. Most live on acreage and believe siblings are all that's needed. One of my sister in laws in particular has really isolated her children (she hates driving around/leaving the house).
Anywho, I was constantly organizing get togethers, playdates , signing my kids up for sports , activities and at the end of the day the real friends my daughters made were the friends that they could make on their own from when they eventually started school. one started regular school in 6 grade , the other started regular school in 9th grade.all that organizing with other home school kids never amounted to anything. kids need to be free to make connections with people they personally make connections with.
Yes! And the kids learn to socialize with every age from Babies to adults ❤
I'm from Argentina and here both public and private schools provide such a poor education that if a parent is involved and interested in their children actually learning something or getting an experience of any sort, they have to take them to extra curriculars. As a kid I was always tired, cause I had to be at school for many hours, and then attend the classes outside of school where the actual learning took place. I wish I had been homeschooled, and hadnt had to waste so much time at school... Most of my social life came from the extracurriculars too, so as an adult, I believe school only made me tired and robbed me of time that I could have spent on something else.
I'm a public school teacher and my husband was homeschooled. I think our public schools can learn a thing or 10 from homeschooling families. The families who 'homeschool' by instilling a desire to learn and create, therefore becoming lifelong learners. The public schools sure are doing a disservice! Thank you for sharing your experience!
Very inspiring! My parents homeschooled me. My husband was homeschooled. We are homeschooling our children. We want to take the best from our experiences and implement that for our children. My mom always said, "Do better than I have done." Her mom told her the same things. I am standing on the shoulders of giants.
"Do better than I have done" wow. I am stealing that.
@@beccacoleman498 wow I'm also stealing that! I wish my mom was self aware lol
I was taught by religion “honor your parents” basically meant to “do what they say/want”…but now I know it means what your mom and gramma taught you, that we honor them by expanding and improving on what they taught us by (hopefully) doing their “best”.😃
☝️🙌☝️❤️
“Standing on the shoulders of giants “ gave me goosebumps I love that
My niece, nephew, and their cousins had very similar experiences. Two of the five were recruited by elite colleges, and two went into the Marines. My nephew passed away at 24, but he dug holes all over the yard trying to build underground tunnels. My niece has two degrees and has taught music for 25 years. One is now a vet, another an engineer, and another also has a music degree but chose to stay at home with their children. They never had a TV. You did not miss a thing!!!!
Thank you for speaking the truth about homeschooling. The best part about being homeschooled is the TIME. It only took us 1 hour daily to do our bookwork in 1st grade. Time spent on work gradually grows... But in Highschool it doesn't take more than 5 hours a day. The rest of your day is FREE to do other things.
I read. A lot. Myself & siblings did a lot of creative projects, like digging a big hole to try and build a pond, make a shack, build a teepee, create maps of our yard and neighborhood, create board games, disassemble & reassemble items, make movies, create a newspaper, make a band, create a skateboard, et cetera. The 'unschooling' movement is neglect and illegal.... but the premise is true. Children DO naturally teach themselves important skills and knowledge about the world around them.... (However they must be taught how to read, how to do mathematics, how to write, et cetera. Those are not innate skills.)
We were so excited every day when the school bus would drive by... because our friends were on it, and we could play with them after school!
I learned household repair & maintenance. I currently do my own car work. I can knit, sew, crochet, bake bread, make kombucha, play guitar, play banjo, preserve meat, grow my own vegetables, make traps for small game like rabbits & squirrels, ride a unicycle, put together furniture, disassemble & reassemble a computer, raise livestock, process grain, slaughter rabbits, turkeys, chickens, fish, build a shack from wood, read a map & compass, drive a trailer, weave baskets & fishing nets, shear sheep & create yarn from the wool, and more. I did all of that as a child & teenager.
My favorite poets as a child were Walt Whitman, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Maya Angelou. I wandered around the library and found out poetry existed.... then I looked at all the poetry books until I found ones I liked best.
I am extremely self-sufficient, resourceful, and independent. I am about to finish my second degree in my field(Computational & Data Sciences). I am a yoga teacher. I started a philanthropy program sending medical supplies & clothes to children internationally.
As an adult I am successful and fulfilled.
I was not a nerdy socially awkward kid. My parent's weren't religious fanatics, hippies, 'unschoolers', illiterate or anti-establishment. Neither of them have a college degree. They are 'normal' people.
There is no such thing as a 'normal' way to educate a child. People are typically surprised when they find out I was homeschooled. At an old job, a boss in passing made a joke regarding my education, saying something to the effect of 'your parents must have a lot of money, sending you to an expensive school where you were assigned Shakespeare to read at 10 years old'. I told him I was homeschooled, and I wasn't "reading & comprehending" Shakespeare, I was mainly curious to learn how people talked in England 500 years ago. My boss was flabbergasted for some reason!
Think about it.
Homeschooling is more normal than sending a child to a building for 6-8 hours daily, where they spend most of their time sitting in a desk and expecting them to learn with 20+ other children at the same time.
Our method of 'mass education' is very unusual when you widen your timeline to include the past 5,000 years.
Wow, I copied your brilliant story and put to my notes for to keep forever and transfer the knowledge to my kids. We are going to take your ideas on home activities and crafts, sorry!:))) and I love Walt Whitman, Leaves of grass especially. Thank you for your beautiful and inspiring comment! Thank Gid people like you live among us💞
“Thank God”💞
All the skills you learned as a child I want to learn now as an adult and wish I had learned when I was young. My parents were first generation immigrants and emphasized the importance of education and getting a better life financially. I did well in school and became a lawyer, but I started to realize that I have to pay for a lot of things that I wish I could just do myself- repairs around the house, plumbing, cleaning, cooking, tailoring, etc. I’m slowly trying to learn these skills and it’s been so fun and fulfilling! It feels good to be able to figure this out and do things with your hands. It gives me balance with my work.
Now this !
This is the most positive view of homeschooling that I have heard. The only instance in my family went very poorly for the kids. Everyone was unmotivated (especially the parents). It sounds like this was a valuable and bonding experience in your family.
Sometimes lack of motivation can come from being constantly criticised by family. At least that has been my experience as a homeschool mum and I am now making up for lost time with our children, because our parental authority was never respected. I'm not saying that that was the case with your relatives, but it may have been.
@@soundsoflife9549yes. That is our experience too.
@@soundsoflife9549I’m sorry that happened to u
The fact that I slept through every single class and still somehow passed highschool still baffles me to this day. Oh, and I’m also from Ohio. 👋
That would not have happened in Germany 😊
It wouldn't happen in my school in the US either.
My high school was so tough that college was a breeze getting a 4.0. My son is in 1st grade, reading chapter books, and still struggling with grades.
You didn’t actually pass, they just released you. It’s extremely common, sadly.
I am very interested in the school. Could you please share?
@@Be1New2You3good point. Happened to my sister and I in Canada- we went to about half of high school and skipped the rest (me to work, her because of drugs) and we both “passed”
I am a former public school teacher and I homeschool our six children. What a great video this is!! I love your pizza restaurant stories!
I just recently put my 3 year old in school and he seems to be very social but I hate the structured learning and the rushing each student. I've seen the teacher get frustrated and irritated with each student for not learning how to read and write by her standards. It makes me so sad, but now I feel like if I take my kid out from school im depriving him from social interactions. Hopefully you can shed some light!
As a homeschool mom who was not homeschooled, this is such an encouraging video. My oldest is only 9 so we still have a long way to go but from your video I can envision what his future could be because of the decisions I am making now. His childhood is different for sure, but different doesn’t have to be bad thing. Thanks for this!
Im a homeschooling mom who wasn't homeschooled as well. I enjoyed this as well.
As someone who was homeschooled all the way, I can honestly say that's the best decision my parents ever made for me. Keep up the great mom!!
@@TheLifeofBowsersecond generation homeschooler here. Was the best experience.
How schooling was meant to be before factories
Same!!! It's not for the weak when you want to give yoru child the world and be successful. I LOVE being with my kiddos
I grew up like you, but it was interspersed with some regular classes. I am73 years old. My parents were very progressive for their time. We spent 5 years in Europe where my dad was working but had LOTS of travel time, so one weekend we would be standing in the Louvre and learning about art and the next week we would be in Rome studying the painting of the Sistine chapel. When we moved to Canada in 1963 I remember one day I was heading off to 'school' (the government required a certain amount of 'physical' attendance) and my dad asked me if I wanted to go to school that day or stay home and help him build a bedroom in our house. To this day I chuckle when I see a fishing sinker. It's what my dad showed me how to use for a plumb bob. My brother was taking classes in physics at our local university when he was 13 years old. He was an astrophysicist by the time he was twenty. We turned out fairly well adjusted but still don't fully subscribe to stringent regimens. Thanks for your video. But it's not for everyone. It's for more creative adventurous, self assured individuals.
I’m just going to say it right now: your education sounds like it prepared you INFINITELY more than most students from public education are prepared for adulthood and real life. And allowed you to take your passions and interest and apply them to the real world. Loved hearing about it.
This sounds so much better than I ever got from public school. Everything was hands-on, just like how you learn in the real world. You learned so many life skills. Your creativity and curiosity was rewarded.
I saw so many kids have their curiosity beaten out of them by school. In kindergarten, every kid wants to raise their hand to participate, but by the time they get to high school, it’s like pulling teeth to get any but a couple of students to ask or answer questions. And then they’re not even really prepared for the workforce at that point. Total failure.
I homeschooled my 2 sons for 8 years using curriculums for math and grammar, and joining with other families for science, history , art, and gym. Studied tide pools, then traveled to Pacific Coast to experience tide pools. Read about the westward migration via a road trip to Yellowstone. I loved homeschooling and I miss those days.
As a homeschooling mom of four, thank you for sharing this! This shows others that homeschooling is so much more than just learning. Look at all the amazing opportunities you were able to experience. I also feel that this sheds light on homeschooling children. I often hear “homeschoolers are not socialized” and that is far from the truth. My children have better social skills than some adults I know. My children have experienced so much with homeschooling, and I plan to keep those experiences coming! Yes! We have a curriculum, but I’m also like your parents. I host book club, bingo club, trampoline park meetups, and art classes.
I was homeschooled for religious reasons. I get asked a lot by peers and curious parents how I feel about it. My answer always starts with, "It can go REALLY right or REALLY wrong." I am so glad yours went well, and honestly it is so nice to be reminded that there are other success stories when the parents are educated, committed, and care about the right things.
Yep. Meet some homeschool kids who spend their days in science centers, museums, zoos, and learning history while researching monuments in historical towns.
Meet some who can't add or subtract or read at 8 because they're focused on "learning the bibl".
I love your point at the end about “educated, committed and care about the right things”.
I have a *very* interesting and unusual education and life background. I’ve done some combination of public, private, homeschool, and fairly early online school, and probably the best part of my school experience was spent at what was technically a public “magnet” school that was kind of a combination gifted & talented and fine and performing arts school.
I can’t sum this up easily either ugh. My comment was getting way too long because there’s a lot of unique factors at play in my story. So maybe to try and be more brief. My parents were older but were both by then retired teachers. I was a “gifted” kid who also had undiagnosed autism and collected a lot of misdiagnoses in my school years and the education system didn’t know what to do with a “smart” kid who also had a lot of issues.
That’s where homeschooling would come into play. I begged for it. Had a whole curriculum and while my mom and I both had big ideas most never really happened. Though I did start attending community college classes here and there from age 14 on too and I actually did really well with the kind of flexibility and choice college offered. But otherwise homeschooling was a mess. I could blow through an entire years worth of a subject (textbooks and workbooks and such) in a few weeks but had long spells of doing very little. So I tried returning to school twice. Got super interested in religion and wanted to become Catholic and that’s how I spent a short time at a Catholic HS.
I also tried this early online homeschool high school and it was full of students who, like myself, largely didn’t do anything but lay around the house online all day. Went to an event in my state for others who attended this online school and that was… interesting. lol. And later when I got all interested in Catholicism encountered religious homeschoolers in my community and I’d say most homeschoolers I met were painfully socially awkward and especially at that age often doing very little.
I think it’s especially hard to homeschool older kids and I actually do know a good number of successful folks who did some degree of homeschooling in the early years then went to a more traditional school. I think there’s something big to be said too for broader community engagement which is clearly something Meshach’s parents got right in a huge way.
I am a couple deviations from typical all around so I can’t speak to what works best for every or even most people but I loved the magnet school I attended (which would take a whole longer thing to even explain how that school worked) and thrived in college. In fact, at some point I learned I could get my GED prior to turning 18 (weirdly wasn’t awarded the actual diploma until then but was able to test at 16, I think) so I did that and then pursued college full time during what would’ve been the second half of my junior year of HS.
I think having greater flexibility and choice was big for me and probably for a lot of those poor homeschooled teens that are just stuck in their rooms online all day. And I needed the place to go and the variety of teachers and even social stuff that college campuses provided. That’s where the whole homeschool co-ops and social groups and things are fantastic when they’re utilized. It’s very easy to fall into a kind of inertia when you’re just at home all day. Heck as a physically disabled adult, I think that’s still very true at any age. And it can get hard for parents and kids.
(Perhaps should make this its own comment but eh). Curious what your experiences were like, especially into your teen years?
Either way I rather have 18 years of my life not sitting in a hard chair with people I don’t know who aren’t teaching you anything but your peers bad habits . 🤷♀️🥴 homeschool is a blessing you got your life on your terms not the governments to be a paycheck in a seat for them! Imagine that experience and still coming out not knowing anything 😂 count your blessings !
@@toysruskid5074nothing wrong with that at all . I think it’s about the perspective of the parents . Some believe that wisdom starts with the fear of the Lord which means if their kids know God first then everything else will follow (including teaching math etc ) . But others believe that having kids that can read at 3 years old is the goal or equates to a success future for the children . So it all depends on the morals or beliefs of the family I think .
I homeschooled our 4 children. No regrets. All 4 are healthy, productive adults raising amazing kids themselves.
Having experienced bullying for as long as I can remember in school and until I was 15, homeschooling sounds like an absolute dream. It's funny how people worry about no socialization when homeschooling, but it was the bullying I experienced while "socializing" at school that left me with crippling social anxiety, to the point that I have serious problems today as a middle aged adult. Now I don't go out at all and I don't socialize at all because of that. But bullying and its long life consequences are never brought up or as criticized as homeschooling a kid? Dude, that would have saved my life... School fucked me up
Hi, I watched lately a documentary about bullying. It was shocking and the kids were so much in pain. I truly hope you find a way to heal from your trauma. Take care. They are people who can help you. Ask for help! Have you seen interviews of Dr Peter A. Levin?
@@fab302 Idk about Dr. Levin but I'll check it out ty
I experienced bullying in school as well and it has left negative impressions on me to this day. That part of his video where he said he felt a little left out when he first went to college because he had never been in a classroom and was unable to share in the collective "trauma" of school with the other kids, I thought how lucky he is and he has no idea! And I felt glad for him that he never had to experience that.
This was like a "greatest hits" list of all my favorite aspects of having been homeschooled. When I was in middle school, I was really struggling to be even just INTERESTED in math (I was 100% a books and reading girl lol) so my mom found a math book that taught scale using floorplans and architecture, because I was really into dollhouses at the time. We also had a homeschool gym, and put on plays with kids in our group, and did martial arts classes, went on local field trips together, etc. I did go back to public school for high school, because there were opportunities that public school offered that I wanted to participate in. I wanted to do theater, and I wanted to do foreign exchange, and being so self-directed through my early schooling gave me the tools to go after those interests when I was older. I wouldn't trade it for anything. :)
As a homeschool mom I LOVE the information in this video. I too have my children in homeschool gym, they are also take enrichment classes at a microschool that I teach at. There are so many cool homeschool activities at the library and at the museums! I’m a single mom and homeschool can be done as long as you have support. I built my support system and I’m ever so grateful. ❤
I was homeschooled but it was more like they threw a book at me and told me to read. To hear how engaged your parents were actually brought me to tears. I wish I had something similar. I am thinking about homeschooling my own kids because I dislike our school system but have been questioning if I lack the skill set. I want to be involved and encouraging just like your parents had been and am realizing more and more how important getting out into the community is for a child's development. Just from this video I got a few ideas I never would have thought of to make learning fun! Hopefully you'll share more detailed accounts of your favorite activities in different grades and maybe touch on some of the frustrations you had as a kid growing up homeschooled/what you would have done differently.
Just because you homeschool doesn’t mean you have to do all the instruction. There’s grants that provide funding for individual classes. Look up Ocean Grove. There’s also other parents who teach classes. I taught an in home Spanish class for kids. We did cooking, songs, music, stories, theater. We all had a blast and parents were very grateful. There’s so many resources out there once you start looking. Don’t give up! ❤
For sure, you need to be part of a homeschooling group, preferably with at least 10-12 families and at least 20 kids...though with a smaller group you can go to age 10-11. The problem is that at about age 11 and again at about age 14, kids need to "expand their worlds" to include many more people. If you can't do that, kids will insist on expanding by going to school. That's what happened in the small homeschool group my family was in.
But even if you homeschool just to age 11, it can be a wonderful experience and get your children off to a much better start than they'd get in most schools.
What you need more than a "skill set" is excellent curricula. I recommend Engelmann's "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", RightStart Mathematics, and Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting. For other subjects, check out the Timberdoodle Company catalog , and a curriculum called Layers of Learning.
And make a "Learn About List" by asking your child "What would you like to learn?" -- and then make it a priority to help your child find good, enjoyable ways to learn about the things on the list (tackle just 1 or 2 things at a time).
Homeschooling can be wonderful, and a great way to keep your kids healthy, happy, and thriving in relationships with parents and siblings! I hope you'll give it a go!
Every kid that I have been around who was homeschooled was more social!
As a home educator I was dreading watching this as I thought it would be a homeschool bashing video but it was really great! You did a great job of outlining your experience and it sounds like your parents did a great job in creating a rich, varied and valuable experience.
This is a great example of how homeschooling should be, both parents involved, children should have this good learning environment
I was homeschooled as well, I was a visual learner and my highly rated school district failed me. I fell behind and instead of trying to work with me they gave up on me, I was treated poorly. My mom pulled me and spent thousands of dollars on lesson plans and visual E learning subscriptions and it really turned my education around. Grateful for her.. To this day I sometimes face rude comments and jokes when I mention that I was homeschooled. It's really pathetic how narrow minded people are, it's not black and white. My best friend was homeschooled and we did hands on learning, if we were learning about Native American culture we would physically meet Native American people and listen to their firsthand experiences. I didn't appreciate it as a kid, but I sure do now.
Thank you for posting this! I'm a current homeschool mom who is homeschooling my children in a very similar way that you described. It's always great seeing adults who were homeschooled and seeing the end result. It really makes me feel motivated to continue down the path that we're already going!
Found this randomly and really enjoyed. I’m a homeschool mama but was public schooled so hearing this all was amazing and helpful. Also though dang your parents are AMAZING! My take away: say yes to your kids ideas!
I home schooled my daughter for two years, she returned to school and was years ahead of her peers and found most people utterly boring and the teaching mediocre so we’re back to home schooling again. Parents, don’t be afraid to home school your children, they gain much more at home then sitting in a classroom being taught by teachers who do the job to be paid, not because they care.
They probably DO care but during the Reagan years, standardized testing was implemented and there became less of an emphasis on critical thinking skills and screwed up public education forever after with all the ciriculum geared totally towards taking the test. That made things worse when they played politics with education. Another prime example was No Child Left Behind in the early 2000s.
@ I’m the UK and I’m telling you teachers here do not care. I’ve worked in the education sector and have had a teacher throw a small children against the wall, strangle a child and the verbal abuse is simply the norm, I’ve even had my child handed over to me at the end of the day with no skirt on just her tights so I’m telling you teachers here in the UK do not care, they teacher to pay their bills that’s it.
up until now I've only seen videos by people who were homeschooled complaining about it. I'm glad to have found this one, now I feel seen.
That fact that you did dual enrollment at 16 is a testament to your education. Well done to you and your parents. 🎉
This is actually pretty common for homeschoolers. I'd say most kids are able to dual enroll at 16 in homeschool groups. It's one of the big draws to homeschooling in high school.
This was my childhood too! Second generation homeschooler here. So glad you had a positive experience.
The more I learn about developmental health and traditional education (public or private, even in the higher ranked countries), the more appealing homeschooling becomes. Especially in the past few years, with all the online resources available. The upsides of traditional are social, but a different kind than normally espoused. If anything, homeschoolers seem socialized in a healthier manner than traditional schoolers, with strong self-advocacy and boundaries. Exposure to different kinds of people, especially the kinds of people that their parents disagree with and even disapprove of, is a huge benefit for growth and development, as well as avoiding bias or pigeon-holing of skills and knowledge. Once I think up an alternative way to get that, I'm sold on homeschooling.
We've been homeschooling now for almost 3 years. We experienced a really awesome public elementary school that we left for me to teach at a ultra conservative Christian school where my kids had to attend if I taught there. I also have experience teaching in schools located in low income communities. Our first year homeschooling, was us just trying to figure things out so we hadn't really discovered all that was out there yet. The second year brought on many amazing opportunities for my kids to develop relationships with others of different beliefs, lifestyles, and upbringing. We got involved in a youth theater that offered homeschool theater and we perform for the local elementary schools once a week. At first, my son (now 16) did not want to go but I asked him to complete one semester of homeschool drama and then I would let him choose if he wanted to continue. He did choose to continue and now does shows with the mainstage theater (same theater group as homeschool but also in the afternoons and for public shows). He is also interested in joining their competition team. We also do private music lessons in the same building and they have awesome mentors in their adult music teachers.
One other way my kids have met others in our community is at our local board/card game store. There are game tables set up and people play everything like Magic, DnD, and Pokémon.
My son was also permitted to play in the band at an Episcopal school in our area and he had met and formed relationships with others who hold different beliefs than what we grew up with.
There are so many opportunities out there 😊
I was homeschooled 5th-12th grade and I’d say I had a pretty negative experience, both of my parents worked full time and I was put in charge of schooling without being taught or managed, I didn’t really get socialized and meet groups of people and I was a really lonely kid, when I got to meet people my age at a youth group I was like a deer in headlights when it came to making friends lol. This guy seems to have had a wonderful experience and I’d just say get involved with homeschool groups regularly so your children can grow up with a group their age, be on top of their curriculum. As long as you do that I think homeschool could be great
I've been homsechooled my entire life (I'm graduating HS this year and going to college), and I loved being homeschooled, and if I'm blessed with children in the future, I defeintly want to homeschool them. It is an endeavor of love, but I respect and admire my mom so much for taking the time to creat such a fun and educational learning environment.
HUGE kudos to your parents! I agree that homeschooling was a very good fit for your personality, but I'm beyond impressed with how motivated and engaged your parents were in providing this environment for you and your siblings. Though I guess it also wouldn't have been possible if there hadn't been a network of other homeschool families close by.
I have two kids in elementary school and I'd not be able to do this. I mean, I work while they're in school, so this wouldn't be possible anyway, but I'm a very quiet introverted person, who needs time to herself to recharge, and being a teacher/mentor all day on top of trying to be a good parent would exhaust me.
Then again, I have ADHD and so does my oldest daughter and getting her to focus on things is very, very hard so I'd need to be an extra awesome teacher as well. Which I'm not. We get into fights during homework time quite often...
Your parents really nailed what home schooling SHOULD be like to be a better alternative to traditional schooling I think.
Greetings from Germany, where homeschooling is actually illegal because the state doesn't want to risk people messing it all up with their kids education wise. Which is a fair point, too imo, but your example proves that it can be great if parents are fairly well educated, know stuff about being a teacher/how learning works, have a plan and a supportive environment.
Thanks for this very interesting insight into your childhood!
Hi . I am a mom with ADHD from germany as well. Homeschooling my canadian kids in canada now.
One good thing about homeschooling is it doesn't take all day. So the regular school is harder for adhd as homeschooling and: medication is key and physical movement and breaks in between. Like a walk in the forest or playing in the garden.
School is definitively easier in canada and USA than in Germany at the "Gymnasium" and its understandable that it's not allowed there but unfair because some kids that are bullied for years have no other choice than to endure and keep going to the same school for years instead of homeschooling for a year.
This is so great. Thanks for sharing. My 5 kids now ages 13-22 are so happy they are or were homeschooled. We did/do things similarly to your parents. Only we are Christian and not Buddhist.😊We also have had to move several times with my husband’s job and homeschooling was great as we would move mid year and didn’t have to worry about missing things/ settling into new public or private schools.
I did feel like I was failing at times, but by God’s grace the ones with college goals got in everywhere they wanted and with scholarships.
Similarly to your family, the library was/is one of our best resources. Bags of books and the kids devoured them.
We kept up in math, and they could read and writing/grammar middle school.
But they had/have so much time to create together and learn together freely. We did history and science and literature, etc here and there or everywhere at different times. Language farmed out to instructors online and started early college/dual enrollment classes to cheaply get college credit and meet high school goals at once.
Sooo many community options to socialize with others. Whether it be other homeschoolers or the community (public school, private) at sports/dance school at night. Field trip groups have been a fantastic way to learn naturally.
I feel so blessed we had/have this opportunity to school at home or in the world.
🌎
My kids’ first public school test was the PSAT as well. They did as well or better than most their age.
Glad your experience was also great. I look forward to God-willing seeing some of my grandkids homeschooled and find the joy of learning with them.
It's clear you enjoyed your childhood and educational experience. We're homeschooling our kids. I'm a scientist and engineer and my husband is a programmer.
My kids go to homeschool gym too. I organize a science club. Another mom organized a cooking club. The library has a drawing club.
We homeschool very similarly to your experience. So do a lot of families in my community. My kids are thriving.
They had been in public school in early elementary. There were so many safety issues that we decided to homeschool. We soon after found out that their education was lacking SO MUCH, especially hands-on anything. We try to do hands-on experiments and experiences for as much as possible.
Your experience sounds great. It's inspiring and hopefully it helps people understand that kids thrive when encouraged to dive into things they love.
Not going to lie, hearing this it's no wonder you've grown up to be this enterpreneurial! It's definitely worth to put out there that homeschooling isn't just about extremely religious parents wanting to teach something contradictory to school curriculum, but it can be a path that educated parents choose to give kids better environment for learning than conventional school, which while better than not being educated at all, can often stifle the natural process of learning by having too much structure too early.
And I speak from experience of growing up in public school. I don't think I'd have been better off homeschooled since my parents didn't have any teaching expertise and couldn't have pulled it out in the same way yours did, but being in school system kind of drained me out of my curiosity about things that weren't mandatory in elementary and middle school, since there was quite enough mandatory stuff to tire me out - and I think it stifled the joy of learning to a significant degree, leaving me out without any real clue on how to do more than "do what boss says" and survive, which now is a struggle to overcome if I'm gonna make my own business someday.
Thank you so much for this reflection! My hope is to dispel some of the myths around homeschooling and show the many ways that it can be done!
Yes, this is very much a collective experience for the majority of kids who went through the conventional school system. I seriously can't remember the last time I was actually excited to learn anything. Also, the conventional school system doesn't adequately accommodate neurodivergent kids. One other thing to mention, is that if you create an environment of fear and punishment for not learning something a specific way, eventually, it dumbs you down, because you don't want to learn anything because "learning" induces anxiety and you're already worn out to begin with because of too much structure and a high workload.
It doesn't have to be like that in the ordinary school system. I think, you can have good experiences there, too.
❤I caught the passion to homeschool my girls after they’d been in the classroom too long and one of them wasn’t having it. Your story is so inspiring! To any parents considering it: do it as early in their school years as possible. Run with it like this family did, and enjoy every minute of it!!!!! I would definitely do it from kindergarten if I could go back.
Personally, I never had an issue with engagement or motivation for learning despite being raised in a public school system that wasn't really about that. I did struggle in school sometimes just generally not being interested in certain topics, but otherwise I (got lucky?) was and am very self-motivated to learn about things that weren't covered in school as well. I remember I spent a lot of self-directed time at the library and was a voracious reader and still spend a lot of time crafting things and reading. My mom also read a lot and did teach me some sewing, but largely I just happen to like to try things. I think what public school (and my parents to some extent) did unfortunately give me was a fear of failure, and this often crops up in fighting myself in undertaking projects because of not wanting to "do it wrong." Despite that, I have managed to teach myself sewing, knit, crochet, replacing car parts, repairing drywall, replacing electrical outlets and lighting, and building furniture. I still research events (current and historical) and occasionally read through peer-reviewed research papers in things I'm interested in, though I no longer really produce a report or presentation or whatever for them. I recognize that this is outside the norm. Often it seems that other people my age completely lost all interest in reading, or hobbies, or learning something new and just kind of wait for someone to tell them how to do something and never go seek it out on their own, and it's really kind of heartbreaking to realize that at some point they've lost all their passion.
Honestly, I don't think my parents could have managed homeschooling me, but I'm so happy to hear that sometimes it is done well, because I do hear a lot of horror stories about homeschooling by parents who...really had no business. Sorry for rambling, but I guess it's good for engagement?
Homeschool mom of 10 years here! Loved hearing your story, thanks for sharing a positive home school experience! I pray that my 4 will all have a similar reflection at the end of their journey.
I loved your enthusiastic description of your homeschooling experience! My family also homeschooled in an informal way, and not for religious reasons. Life was a bit different for us, because I have only one child, and he was more introverted than you seem to be. He enjoyed group drama classes and informal soccer days, chess club, and lots of time playing video games with other homeschoolers. It was a great time in my life, and it worked out fine for him. He is now 40 years old (married, no kids, two dogs). He is a brain surgeon in a teaching hospital and he has paid off all his college and med school debt.
All I have to say is WOW!! I wish I was homeschooled!! I definitely want to homeschool my future children!! Thank you for sharing!!
I truly hope this video blows up, you are a prime example of why homeschooling can be a perfect alternative to normal education, we are homeschooling our 2 boys and we're just starting out, and everything you say in this video that we've encountered so far is true! my boys are both incredibly social and love meeting new friends and usually tend to be more emotionally mature than their peers, and we feel its because of the time and effort that we put into them, we nurture and appreciate them all through the day, and give them far more time than a teacher that's got 30 kids to deal with ever could, both me and my wife grew up in the public school system and despite having pretty decent childhoods when it came to school life, we decided to give it a go specifically because we knew we could give them a lot more time and a school ever could, homeschooling is a joy for the parents as well as the kids and providing we can keep them testing above or on average to their age we will keep it up till they are adults! thank you for sharing this, its truly inspiring!
His parents were both elementary teachers
As a homeschool Mom with a preteen, our lifestyle is very similar to yours and it is entirely and beautifully inspiring to hear your story. Thank you.
As my daughter gets older the natural need for structure has come into play as it did for you. We discuss what she wants to pursue or learn. We have homescho meetups and classes. We encourage creativity at every turn and do things as a wholistic project as you described. Life skills, living life together, learning how to schedule and organize things, do the thing you want to do. Wonderful
I love that you have all those pictures and videos from your homeschool years! We've homeschooled for 8 years now (also not for religious reasons) and I hope my kids have memories of childhood like you do. My oldest is 14 now and I'm trying to keep it fun still. Thanks for sharing!
My son sounds like you so much when he comes up with ideas on making a camp, cooking for people, he so creative and hands on.
I hope you thank your mom every single day! I have a really hard time getting everything in place to let my kids do everything that they want to do. My kids have crazy ideas that I don’t even know how to let them implement.
Wow….i am a new homeschool mom, I have a 1st grader and a 3 year old. You have opened my eyes! I feel so lost about what to do…..am I doing enough? Is reading every day, and walking in the woods talking about what we see enough??? From your video so far, I have learned that what I am doing is enough for now, and you have given me ideas on how to build on what my children are interested in, and all the learning that comes from that. I also learned that I need more people! You had a wonderful community of adults and other kids around you to get all this cool stuff done! If there are any homeschoolers here in the comments living in Baltimore, MD, let’s connect!
I feel like the homeschoolers here in KC have a hard time connecting and forming groups like this. I would love to see these activities and groups start to form here as well!! Otherwise, having homeschooled my now 20 year old successfully, I would say it has been the best experience for our entire family!
You gained a subscriber. Long time homeschool mom here. Thanks for some great ideas!
This is AMAZING!! It's so great to hear about a homeschooling experience in a positive, non-religious atmosphere! I homeschooled our 2 sons (now in their 30's, one is actually an elementary school teacher) in the mid 1990s thru 2000. So, approximately 5 years. My idea of homeschooling was very similar to what you describe: mildly structured, interest-led, project based, creative, flexible and also included homeschool co-op activities. It was .WONDERFUL experience which I am so happy that we had together!!❤❤❤
I have so many memories like these, although I did go to "school", but there was no curriculum and we had no school books, just a huge school library. My school followed the ideas of Célestin Freinet's "Modern School Movement". Instead of our parents facilitating our projects, our teachers did. Every so often, the whole school would meet in the sports hall, some students presented projects they had, other kids could decide to participate, and a teacher would mentor the project. Most of the time, we would be working in small groups of mixed ages all over the school building at whatever project we were busy with. We sold homemade jams, went to the seaside for a week, printed a "book" on the printing press, invited the school parents to a Morroccan school supper, built climbing apparatus for the playground, and so much more.
This is so awesome! Thank you so much for sharing this incredible story. I’m homeschooling my 3 kids and my eldest, who is 12, definitely wakes up at the crack of dawn to finish all her academics super quickly so she can spend the rest of her day on her passion projects-right now it’s video editing, music, and book binding. She also never wants to go to school because then she wouldn’t have time to do all these “extras.” 😅 My homeschooled kids think it’s hilarious when people think we have no social life-we spend so much more time with friends and out in the world than their friends who are in traditional school. I hope my kids come out of homeschooling feeling this galvanized.
Your parents obviously did a great job in raising you and your siblings! You’ve ended up confident, motivated, intelligent, happy, driven, creative….all the things you want for your child! ❤
Thanks so much for sharing your special childhood experiences! Your parents especially mom was amazing for supporting you to actualize so many of your idea. Love it.
My mother was also very supportive of me, never put a limit but did everything she could to fulfill and support my ideas…
This video inspires me to also support my three boys when they have ideas to actualize.
Your parents must love you so much. Your parents rock!
This is awesome! I just started to homeschooling this year and this just reassured me I’m on the right path!
Children are capable of so much! It's pretty awesome. And home-school can be a great experience with the right parents and children.
You mention that "it wasn't perfect" (makes sense because nothing is) and that you were painting a very rosy picture (make sense if your general experience was positive), but then you only mention that you felt left out for the first few weeks of college because you couldn't relate to the negative public school experiences that some of your college-mates had. I did laugh a little at that.
Honestly this sounds like a dream! This is how Home Ed should be! I don’t have children and not planning on it, however if I did this is what I would love to do. I studied Home Ed at University and I fell in love with it. If done correctly I really think it is perfect for some children.
Congrats, all in all, I think you gained a lot from your experience. I think any child can get excited and creative, if they have support and motivation from adults. And the freedom/time to "go for it"! Again, congrats and thanks for sharing.
As a person who was in both public and private school, this was very interesting! Thanks for sharing, Meshach. May the algorithm gods bless you!
i came in thinking that this would be so boring but this is such a good childhood to have grown up in ,, the projects that you did reminded me some of my elementary/middle school projects but like 100 times cooler
This was encouraging and inspiring! I'm a homeschooling mom, and I loved hearing about your experience. Every homeschool doesn't have to look the same. Every family can have different goals and methodologies, even for each child in their family, and this is why homeschooling freedom is so important. Thank you so much for sharing your story!
I’m a Teacher Assistant in an Australian primary school. I work with students with extra needs. All 4 of my own children went to the school I work in, so there is a real connection for me. I have been interested in home schooling. This came to me after my children finished school. I often work with my students in my version of home school style. I loved your video. Your experiences show me that being home schooled has encouraged and allowed you to think more freely about your world. 🙂
Thank you very much for this video, this is what I visualize for my kids, I am homeschooling them and my firstborn is only in kindergarten. I want to make sure I do this right, I wanna hear more homeschooling stories like yours. I love how you say “cool” to many things you’ve done and I also think it's cool but I was a teacher and most kids nowadays have different descriptions of “cool”.
This video was such a fun watch! I work in education, but I didn't have a ton of knowledge about homeschooling (other than when people do it for religious reasons), so it was really cool to hear about you having a fulfilling educational experience with it. I especially loved the film making you were able to do. Thanks for making this video!
I was homeschooled my whole life as well, and hearing your stories reminded me of some of my weird and often hippie adventures in homeschooling! I also did movies with my friends, though most were unscripted, and we scripted one but never got around to filming it (sad but probably for the better lol).
My family and I have definitely received a lot of criticism for homeschooling, but I'm glad I got to have those experiences. I had friends and still talk to some of them. I also recently graduated with my Bachelor's in Science Summa Cum Laude, so I know my early schooling did not fail me as some predicted it would
Thanks for sharing your story!
Thank you for sharing this I homeschool my daughter and also run classes similar to the ones you attended as a child. I often wonder how she will look back on her childhood experiences and I’m so excited now for her to be able to look back on these memories😊
Hey, fellow home-schooled compatriot here. It's nice to hear good stories from anyone who has actually gone through it. :)
Wow sounds like your parents did an amazing job! What a great way to learn through projects and experiences. Great video!
I don't often encounter people who had the same sort of approach to home schooling as our family. We had so much fun!
Thank you so much for sharing your story!! This is so like my story too! I got to do so many different hobbies, adventures, small business ideas. And when I started community college, I was in love with learning!! Sometimes I struggle with that feeling of being an outsider. It’s very hard for me to understand why a person would go to college if they don’t want to or pour their energy into something they don’t care about. But I have to remind myself that they weren’t told, “sure, let’s record a full length album and promote it locally” or “sure, let’s convert the laundry room into a darkroom since you’re into photography”. It’s a mindset that is amazing, but the self-limiting consume-don’t-create culture will try to squeeze it out of you for the rest of your life. Anyway, this video was really therapeutic for me. Thanks again.
This is inspiring. Thank you for sharing your experience. As a homeschool mom, I hope that I can help foster an environment of learning like your parents did. I also hope my creative son can feel like he can do the things he dreams of doing and creating. This was a very refreshing perspective to hear!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have a 4 year old and I want to homeschool but I have no idea what to do but I love your mentality of “just do it you can do it”
Love this. My oldest is in school, I personally hated school but loved to learn. I’m absolutely not pushing him in any direction but I’m monitoring his attitude and will give him options. This is an amazing testament of how it can be done.
From the Netherlands... You have great parents! They are amazing! I respect them for the childhood they gave you and your siblings. What a beautyful memories you have from your childhood!
hopefully the yt algorithm gonna make this blow up. 🔥. awesome video excited see where u are in a year
This was great! I am homeschooling my 3 kids.
I knew very little about homeschooling when I decided to pull them out of public school and start this so I love seeing adults who homeschooled and hearing about their experience. Thanks for sharing.
I loved hearing your story of growing up homeschooled. I have had 6 kids over a 20 year span and we have experienced public schooling, homeschooling and unschooling! It's hard to know which decision was the best or even the right one. Your perspective and attitude on your upbringing is unique and wonderful and you seem to be an intelligent, creative and balanced person. Thank you so much for posting this video and sharing your story. I look forward to watching your movies!
As the homeschooling mom of 2, this was so inspiring!! Thank you for sharing your story. I question my ability to do for my kids what your parents did for you, but you inspired me, and I have learned that that’s the one thing that can motivate me to keep pushing forward on this journey. So again, thank you!
All you described actually sounds quite exciting and is eye opening. The fact that you can look back and still experience that joy is encouraging for anyone looking to homeschool.
This is the first year of homeschooling our kids (1st grade and pre-K). Hearing your story was the encouragement I needed today. Thank you so much.
As someone who went to traditional school, I had similar experiences but in a more sheltered/less real way. We started a restaurant but the teachers bought and prepped all the ingredients. And I remember being so excited to be a waitress only to be crushingly disappointed when I realized it was just a self-service buffet style for the parents.
We had colonial day but it was mostly arts and crafts - no real interaction with animals or farm work.
And my friends and I would try to go exploring behind the school but got in trouble because we were caught in an area where adults couldn’t see/supervise.
As a kid everything was sheltered and filtered, so in my late teens I had rly bad anxiety because I felt entirely unprepared to tackle the real world. We should raise all kids like this guy - trust them more to take initiative & do hard things in youth
This was an amazing video, most people have such a low view of homeschooling, but this is living proof of the amazing things that can be learned. Perspective is everything in life, I actually think you learned a lot more than most children going to school, unless their teachers are really creative and teach in a more fun and interactive way. It’s always important to realize there is more than one way to do something and still reach the same destination. Your schooling I feel was amazing and your parents were amazing too with all the effort and support they gave to you.
Thank you! Being a homeschool mom this helped me so much! ❤
Thank you for sharing this insightful video
There are many videos on YT about curriculum reviews and how to homeschool from a parent's perspective, but this is the first detailed video I have seen from the homeschool student's perspective
The field trip, hands on based learning is like what i do naturally with my 3 year old! I love that this is a real teaching method!
My mom (who wasn’t homeschooled) homeschooled me and my 5 sisters up until 7th grade. I believe it was the best education I could have gotten. I went to private school for 2 years in junior high, and then went to public high school. I was leagues ahead of public school kids. And homeschooling allowed me to learn so much more than just the subjects taught in regular school
This is very relatable to me as someone who grew up homeschooled. I wish more parents were able to give their kids this experience. It's easier nowadays because there are a lot more resources out there, which makes me happy.
This was so fun to watch! Im homeschooling starting in the fall and this got me super pumped to see what dreams my kids bring to fruition during our schooling years. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Thank you for making this video! You did a great job capturing the "alternative" homeschooling experience. I had a very similar upbringing, though I was raised by a hippy quaker single mother. Fortunately, she was highly motivated and had put herself through college to secure a good job in STEM long before I was born.
Like you, I was never enrolled in a traditional school from K-12, and my first formal exam was the SAT-I didn’t take the PSAT. At 16, I started taking general education and trade skills courses at my local community college. Then, at 18, I transferred to a four-year university, where I earned two bachelor's degrees in four years. Now, I'm a graduate student in engineering, and I credit my mother’s open-minded approach to my upbringing for fostering my love of learning and passion for a sustainable and equitable future.
Fellow home learner here and now homeschooling my kids - what a unique challenge!
I grow up going to school and plus with my grandparents my grandparents had a farm and I learned so much by just helping with everything around the farm and now that I don’t have farm for my kids they are raising differently. Opening a restaurant is an awesome idea and I love how your parents were so supportive of any plans you had. I never had that as a Childs. Thank you for making this video. Learned so much even gives me some ideas to plan for summer for my kids.
I don't know how I came across this, but I'm so glad I did! Thank you for sharing this. I was also homeschooled all the way, grew up around a lot of other homeschoolers and have seen the range of the good the bad and the ugly. But I feel like the stories that you hear are always the extreme ends of either unattainably high achieving or those who used the name of homeschooling to cover abuse/neglect. In my experience what you've described is somewhere about the average of most normal homeschool experiences.
I love this video, I always thought that I would homeschool my kids and now I definitely know I want to. You seem like such a cool and level-headed person. This video made me think a lot about myself and the way I move through life. I am a physically disabled black girl that lives in Canada and all my life. I've been told I couldn't do the things I wanted to do and honestly I think that's what paralyzed me into believing that I am not worth anything and that I cannot do anything where you are doing things that I can only imagine I would do so. Thank you for being my inspiration and teaching me that I can do anything I set my mind to ❤❤😊
As a homeschool parent who wants to provide that easy love of learning, this was so inspirational! Thanks for sharing!
What an amazing learning environment you had, your parent sound like supportive and loving parents x
Thank you for such a beautiful example of what homeschooling can be. We are in our 18th year of homeschooling. It's been the best decision of my life. My adult children now refer to their childhoods as magical. They are very successful adults. I love how you showed how social we are. I am a lot like your parents. I have started so many little clubs or co-ops and I have made just as many friends along the way as my children.
I homeschool my children. This video made my heart so happy. You hear so many stories and complaints about homeschooling and homeschooled kids but if you plan well it’s really such a great experience. My kids are not socially hindered at all and can talk with anyone and hold a conversation. They are well above grade level on math, reading, science and grammar. I’m so proud of them and I always encourage other families to homeschool if they can. ❤