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The decision to enroll your child in a Christian home school program for K-12 home schooling can be a difficult one. Many times, the general public and the media misunderstand home schooling. Often, the best way to find out if a home school academy or Christian home school program is right for your family is to go to someone who has some experience with it. Jake Alabastro, a 17-year-old student, shares his thoughts on K-12 home schooling in the following article. Jake talks about some of the misconceptions about home-schooled students, as well as some of the benefits and advantages.
Home school not for everyone; works for me
By JAKE ALABASTRO
Last Updated: October 7, 2004, 06:51:56 AM PDT
I've been a home-schooled student for eight years.
Whenever I tell someone I'm home-schooled, I'm bombarded with questions that reveal people's misconceptions:
"Is that legal?" "Are your parents qualified?" "Do you take tests?" "Do you have friends?"
Some people tend to think that we home-schoolers are just sheltered kids who never get out into the world and have few friends.
Most of the time, these assumptions are wrong. I have plenty of friends and am involved in many extracurricular activities.
Some people even view home-schooling as weird and un-American because it goes against the norm.
Take last week, for example. In a government-funded mock terrorist attack drill in Muskegon County, Mich., home-schoolers were portrayed as terrorists planting a bomb on a school bus.
They were dubbed "The Wackos against Schools and Education."
The mock terrorist attack was meant as a drill to prepare Michigan public high school students to be ready in the event of a real attack.
Although Muskegon County has publicly apologized for the drill, to put home-schoolers in the category of terrorists is uncalled for.
To call us "Wackos against Schools and Education" is equally disturbing.
If Muskegon County wanted wackos against education and school, they should have chosen al-Qaeda instead.
To my knowledge, home-schoolers never have committed any acts of violence against public school students.
Nobody, including home-schoolers, likes to be stereotyped. We shouldn't be mocked because of the way our parents have chosen to educate us.
The truth is, we are not against public or private schools. We just have a different philosophy toward education.
Most home-schoolers believe home is the best environment for learning and parents are the best teachers for their children.
The fact is, there is no perfect education system, but I'm glad that my parents have sacrificed and chosen to home-school me.
There's nothing weird and un-American about that.
Jake Alabastro, 17, is a senior at Providence Christian Academy, a support group made up of Modesto-area homeschooling families, and is a member of The Bee's Teens in the Newsroom journalism program.
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