A teacher is, by definition, one that instructs. Simple. A parent is defined as someone that acts as a father or mother. Also simple. It gets fuzzy for everyone when the roles are merged together. Not every parent is cut out to be a teacher, just as not every teacher is fit to be a parent. I stand in awe when I meet someone that can do both. What gets even fuzzier is when the heads of a church are allowed to set rules for a home, therein changing the school environment for a homeschooled child. Homeschooling requires the parent to develop two relationships with a child. When a parent has trouble doing that, the child gets to decide whether or not they care about one, the other, or both relationships.



My mother couldn't teach, and frankly my mother didn't want to teach. As strict a woman as she could be, and as scary as she could be, her ability to relay knowledge wasn't as great as it needed to be. She gave it her best effort, despite being forced to teach by my father. This wouldn't be an issue for me, as I had roughly five years of base education with previous teachers. I would manage on my own, rushing through the curriculum each week, then devoting my spare time to the Internet, where sites like Khan Academy would teach me the things I wanted to know. My siblings, however, suffered miserably. Each of us are several years apart, and my youngest sister would be diagnosed with ADHD shortly after we began the madness of homeschooling. When she just couldn't comprehend the material, she was punished. Being punished, she would overthink the material, not get it, then start the circle over. Then, when she would finally arrive at a public school, around age 12, her learning capabilities/disabilities really started to show. She now has special education teachers, and is getting the education she deserves.

To give clearer details on what 'homeschooling' meant for us, I'll share some history. At age nine, my family and I moved to Ardmore, Oklahoma, where we would attend a budding Independent Baptist church. The pastor, with the church only just getting started, got it in his head that he'd start up an 'academy,' sort of like the one at my previous church/school. This would work by allowing the parents to pay for the curriculum and for what was essentially a church's handling fee. That entailed the pastor's wife managing the grades of the students (me, my siblings, her children, and another family's children) each week. The pastor and her were available to the teaching families (and, to their credit, actually had the capability to help), but the act of sending your child to tutoring was seen as harmful to my family's pride, or at least that's how my father saw it. His image in the church was, and is, more important than devotion to his family.

Everywhere I went, I'd hear the same things. The religion I was surrounded by was ridiculed, and my schooling always followed. We were asked questions like. "Why aren't y'all in school?" by a cashier, or a doctor. Phrases such as, "Aren't you worried about their social skills, when they get older?" were asked by complete strangers. "They just don't get it," said the father of the other homeschooling family. He was referring to the day a relative had called and complained his daughters weren't getting a proper education, now that they'd been taken out of public schooling. The phrases stuck with me through those years, like a dunce cap. My father wasn't worried, and he should have been.

Of course not every homeschooling situation even comes close to mine; I get it. Also, I realize the majority of the issues that came with homeschooling were due to my religious upbringing, and not the schooling itself. Those two were inseparable for me, though. I wasn't allowed friends unless they went to our church. Meaning, I could socialize, but spending the night was out of the question. Besides, those neighborhood friends I did manage to meet would see me as the weird kid that schooled from home. At least that's how it felt, then, as a child who felt like the weird religious, homeschooled kid. This is where my social anxieties would bud. I spent the majority of my teenage years kept away in my room, hiding from my family and the world.



The whole point of my being homeschooled was to shove me closer to the church's plan for my life. A few years into the church's development, they had established an 'institute' with printer paper degrees and a class schedule that coincided perfectly with their services. Students of their [homeschool] academy were highly encouraged to immediately jump into the institute. It was so encouraged that even the idea of going to another Baptist college shook them. My father, pastor, and youth pastor practically jumped out of their skin when I told them I wanted to attend Longview Baptist Temple, a faith-based college several hours away. I didn't want that; I never wanted to go there, but saw little else for my future. I looked at Longview as an escape from the horror that the church had become.

That's the biggest issue I have with my homeschooling experience. Aside from it hindering my sibling's ability to learn and grow, religious homeschooling doesn't prepare the student for college, or any real world activities. Its one and only goal is to give the student the minimum amount of knowledge. With the minimal knowledge, the child's mind can be shaped to believe what the church services will teach. And when those two things are combined, the child feels smaller than I can even describe. It creates a world where fantasy is reality, and sinners (normal, everyday people) need help. My first two years of college felt like hell to get through, socially, despite how amazing they were. I went from being told I had to find meaning in everything to learning that the world genuinely doesn't care what you do. That messed with my head for a while.

I left religion when I left that church. They said I "ran away from God" and dragged out sending the public school my transcripts, which is what encouraged me to dropout and join a secular institution, where my grades and social skills are excelling. Based on my father's behavior, and love for something that made me miserable, I haven't spoken to him since. That's the takeaway. I don't know when, or if, I will speak to one of my parents, because of the way he chose to raise me. Do I wish things were different? Maybe. I mostly just wish people would understand that religion isn't good once you force it onto people, especially when it involves your child's education.