Pros to Homeschooling

Hey everybody!

Like I promised, today I'll be posting all of the pros/advantages to homeschooling! I've attended public, private, and homeschool, and I must say that homeschooling is by far my favorite!

• Homeschooling allows flexibility in schedule. If you're a night owl, you can do most of your work at night. Alternatively, if you have a lot of sports or extracurriculars during the day, you can get all of your work out of the way in the morning. 
• If you have special needs or are advanced in certain aspects of schooling, such as math or reading, you can adjust your schooling level to meet those needs. For example, if you're advanced in history, you can take a an honors/AP course. And if you need help in reading, you can take a course that is more basic.
• Distractions such as peer pressure aren't entirely eliminated, but they are reduced significantly because we tend to spend a lot of time either alone or with parent/tutor. Personally, I enjoy my time alone. It helps me focus on my schoolwork, and I feel I perform better alone.
• Kids who have been home schooled for over 2 years perform significantly better on standardized tests than our public/private schooled counterparts. Comparisons have also been made about how 6 hours of traditional brick-and-mortar is equivalent to 2 hours of homeschooling, suggesting that homeschooling is more efficient.
• Traveling becomes a bit easier, and because of this, homeschoolers can be more open-minded. This is because we spend our time with a variety of different people, as opposed to spending 6 hours a day with 30 kids our own age. We learn to converse with people of all walks of life.
• We get individual attention and help. If you need help at a traditional school, you have to ask a teacher who's dealing with 30 other kids. Conversely, if you need help at a homeschool, just ask a parent or your tutor! 
• Since most work is done during the day, any extra "home work" tends to be enrichment, after school projects, or fun activities. I know many of my friends who attend traditional school get loads of home work to take home, whereas I usually have more time for extracurriculars.
• Learning to be independent and manage our time is crucial to being a successful homeschooler. These traits are ones that will help successful students become successful adults.
• Honestly, one of my favorite parts of homeschooling is going to school in my pajamas. I love not having to spend time in the morning getting ready, I can just walk to my computer and start!

Hope you enjoyed! Until next time,

<3 Lucero

Cons to Homeschooling

Hey everybody!

Today I'm going to discuss the cons/disadvantages to homeschooling (I'll post the pros/advantages tomorrow!). While I find homeschooling very enjoyable, there are a few negative aspects to it.

• It's harder to join an academic program while being home schooled. A lot of home schools differ from public schools in how they keep track of grades. I experienced this while applying to PREP. Normally, they would have just contacted my school and requested a transcript. However, being home schooled, my parents had to contact both homeschool programs (I was using 2 at the time) and request my grades, which made the process a lot longer.
• Homeschooling isn't for everyone. Honestly, I enjoy being alone and getting to quietly do my own work. I work better without distractions. However, I know lots of kids wouldn't be able to take on the responsibility of being so independent and in charge of your grades. I also know that many teens my age wouldn't be able to take being around their parents for so long (but I'm okay, because I love my folks!)
• Stereotypes can get annoying. There seems to be this idea that all home schooled kids are anti-social, have mental problems, and are outright weird. I know for a fact this isn't always true, because I've met a lot of great, social teens who happen to be home schooled. However, I've also met my share of "typical" weird homeschoolers. It just gets very frustrating when people assume you're weird just because you're home schooled!
• You really have to branch out in order to make friends. If you move to a new public/private school, all you have to do is go to class and start talking to people. But if you move to a new place and you're home schooled, you have to start talking to neighborhood kids, join a new sport, a so on in order to meet new people.

Overall, despite the disadvantages I really do enjoy homeschooling and will talk about all the benefits tomorrow. :)

Until next time,

<3