i's homeskeweled

nope, none a dat fancy book-lernin for me.

s'ok though, i knowed the alfabet, i's can reed, do rithmetick, and i's the goodest speller in dese here parts. not to brag or nuffin. :)

(Ouch. That sentence was actually painful to write. I think I winced every time I didn't capitalize...) :P

When I tell people I'm homeschooled I get one of a few different reactions.

"Wow, that's awesome! I wish I was homeschooled..." (Or if they're an adult, I get "That's great! I wish I could homeschool my kids...")

"Yikes, that sucks... I'm so sorry."

Or they just nod their head read slow, smile cautiously and say, "Oh, that's nice..." :P

I think homeschooling, like pretty much everything, has its stereotypes. When we don't know a lot about something, we're bound to either play guessing games on how it really is, or take another misinformed person's word on it.

... Or we watch a lot of TV.

For a while, I got really annoyed at how homeschoolers are portrayed on TV (Ok, I still do, sometimes...), But now I'm able to laugh about it more. It's ridiculous how ridiculous they make us look. :P

So for those who aren't sure, homeschoolers aren't like this

... Nor are we like this

(Although, in 2009 we scored 37 percent higher than public schoolers on standardized achievement tests... ;)

And for gosh sake, we're nothing like this

Basically, we're like public schoolers in a lot of ways. Why? Because mostly these things aren't a homeschooler/public schooler thing... they're a human being thing.

We're all different. There's a wide diversity of homeschoolers out there. Some of them are strict, public-school-at-home homeschoolers, others are un-schoolers, others are somewhere in-between.

We aren't all anti-social. Actually, some of the most talkative people I know are homeschooled. It's not a homeschool thing; it greatly depends on an individual's personality. Some people are introverts, some people are extroverts, and you're going to find that just about anywhere. So come up and say 'hi,' it's ok. I'm not going to bite, and I know you don't.

We have "cliques." Well... in a sense. I think that people just naturally have tendencies to hang out with other like-minded people, so you get groups. We have the "techies", the "brainiacs", the "athletes", the "girlie-girls"... but I think the only difference here, is that these "cliques" aren't exclusive. That I've seen and experienced, homeschoolers seem to be more apt to welcome people into their groups, and we're not restricted to that group... we can bounce around and talk to everyone. :) People also aren't reduced to a mere title, and can be themselves more.

We live everywhere. Sure, if you ever somehow got stranded in a barren dessert outside humanity, I'm sure there'd be a homeschool family there that could help you out. ;)

But we don't just live in the middle of nowhere. Ironically enough, I live right by a high school.

We aren't child prodigies. Although homeschoolers seem to be a little more focused on academics than public schoolers are, that doesn't mean we're all going to win a nobel prize. And on the flip side, we're not idiots, either; I can count to ten and tie my shoelaces just fine, thank you. ;) Truth is... we have our weak subjects, and our strong subjects. I do pretty well with English, Writing, Spelling and Grammar; I'm not too keen on Math, Science, and History. Everyone I know, homeschool or public school, is the same way.

Anyway... there's my little rant. :) Probably majority of you who read this are homeschooled anyway. But hey, you can probably relate!