Hacking Education: My Journey into Homeschool Options

I’m on a mission to discover more about home-based education options. My son isn’t at that point just yet, but I want to know how things work and if this is something my son would like to do. At the end of the day, choice is the most important thing for me. So, my homeschooling research began.

First, let’s go back in time. At first glance, I wasn’t a terrible elementary school student and had plenty of friends. Like many kids, I began receiving the occasional bullying and/or mocking from my classmates. In short, I begged my mom to be home schooled. In the end, I won the argument.

Being homeschooled was terrific. I paid attention to what I was doing.  I exercised more because I wasn’t afraid of everyone teasing me for whatever reasons get thrown at you in Phys.Ed.  My grades increased almost overnight. The downside to being homeschooled? Trying to have a social life.

I spent so much time with endless reading material and quizzes that I never had time to actually go outside and interact with people. I didn’t experience the ‘real world’ situations that I thought a homeschool education would create.

My grades improved significantly, but did my experience in social settings?  Not so much.  In fact, I still saw the same people I would have had I attended traditional school. I wasn’t enrolled and didn’t participate in any extracurricular activities like I would have liked because it wasn’t required in my homeschool program. Looking back, I wanted to learn an instrument or feel a part of something bigger.

I was watching a TED Speech given by Logan LaPlante, which made me an advocate for home education even more.  Logan talked about how his parents took him out of traditional school. In his eyes, it was the best thing to happen to him.  Logan called home schooling: ‘hack-schooling’ – learning how to be healthy and happy creating a life versus only ‘living’. To Logan, a ‘hacker’ are those people who ‘challenge and change the system to make it better’. A hacker mindset can change the world and, to Logan, he has the opportunity to use his homeschool education to look at things differently and change the world.

In the end, having homeschooling as an option is the type of flexibility my family needs. I learned some handy skills when I was homeschooled, including how to work independently. This rigor gave me the encouragement to take online college courses and thus, create a fulfilling career telecommuting. Having experienced both styles of learning helped me work solo, but also part of a bigger team – and I want my son to experience these options, too.

Fortunately, we have time to sort out the best education option for our son. The beauty of the world we live in? Change. Things are always changing and I’m sure there will be another educational development to sort out. Until then, going to take it day by day, hacking my own solutions for my family.

If you think about it, we are all hackers in our own way. Which makes life that much more fun!

Shawna Nielsen

Assistant Project Manager