Homeschooling through High School-Tolerance

     I saw this article,  "Why Homeschool Teens?" by Elizabeth Smith, and it spoke volumes to me. Many of the reasons she states  are reasons why we (our family) continued to school at home through High School.  The rationale bears up under the strain of the “commentary from experts” (read: brick and mortar school parents who know better than you) that one hears about why one should send teens to “Christian school” or “Private School” or “Schools good enough to get your kid into Harvard.” (Hmmm.)

     Now,  I remember the commentary when the kids were little about what we were “doing” to our kids…and how “socialization” was important (Never a concern about academics, right? But hey we’re only talking about school, why be concerned about learning?).  After a while, folks leave you alone, assuming that you’ll “get it out of your system” and eventually the kids will go to school (perhaps after 4th or 6^th or 8^th grade, right?) and they will turn out more normal, God willing, with not too much damage done.

      Eventually, you get the questions like, “So, what are you doing for High School?”--- Meaning “What school are you sending your child to?”…because after all, you can’t POSSIBLY school them for high school at home! 

I mean, REALLY? How are you EVER going to manage to teach Calculus! And the local Christian school is SO much better! AND they’ll be able to do more –(be more?)-  NORMAL high school things! (Gasp! What about the PROM!)---

Then, frankly, you just do it. It raises eyebrows. It elicits head-shakes. 

(They KNOW you’ll quit, because you CAN’T possibly DO High School at home, right?)

And then your kids do weirder things. 

They learn. They write and do math and history. They engage in intelligent conversation.

They start college classes while doing High School at the same time.

They enjoy Shakespeare. 

They get taller and can carry on conversations with other “normal” teens (though there are still some conversations they don’t know how to take part in…because, well, there are some things that are only learned in brick and mortar schools).  

They volunteer more and help more and are happy to do so.

People rely on your weird homeschooled High School students when help is needed, because, hey, the kids are reliable.

They graduate from High School…at whatever time is right for them…be it early, on time or a little later. And they have graduation ceremonies. (Personal ones.)

Almost just like their brick and mortar school peers.

OH, and if it’s necessary for their future, they’ve even learned Calculus.

Whodathunkit?

     In a world of acceptance for those who do things "differently," we chose to do things differently and we don’t find a whole lot of acceptance. But perhaps we find some tolerance. After all, what are they going to do about our choices? They are too busy with their kids running from sports to tutors to college tours to have time to pay too much attention to us. That's a good thing.

      I will admit that I still come short of rolling my eyes at people who look at us funny. Because I know that I too need to strive to accept those who do things differently than we do. When will they ever learn? And when will I?