My kids will be dumb, rejected by their peers, unable to get a job, go to college, or function in society as adults. They will miss out on prom, as well as all the other joys that normal kids get to experience…All these are thoughts that ran through my mind while making the decision to homeschool our three children.
My own qualifications as a teacher also weighed heavily on my mind. I don’t have any particular academic strengths. I never was, and never had the desire, to excel in school. In fact, I hated it so much that even in the late 1990s when the dogma of, “you have to go to college to get a job and succeed” was experiencing its climax, I happily chose to not take a single college course immediately out of high school.
Despite my best efforts in unshackling myself from my own conventional education, I still harbored many insecurities about taking the plunge into homeschooling. It’s one thing to make choices for myself; it’s quite another to make them for a small child. These thoughts weighed heavily on my mind, despite the fact that I can’t stand “the state,” and have proven quite successful in life by doing the exact opposite of what my teachers and school councilors advised me to do throughout my life.
Sit down, listen, and shut up. The universal lesson in any classroom you have ever stepped foot in.