At the end of third grade, my parents pulled me out of public school.
I was a spacey kid. I was terrible at math, and I would spend my recess staring at leaves in the school yard and guarding the swings instead of playing with the other kids.
The middle school in my school district had a huge bullying issue at the time, so my parents decided it would be best for me and my siblings to be homeschooled.
My mother, a teacher, spent countless hours reading books to me and my siblings, attempting to teach us algebra and DIYing science experiments with us. When we weren’t learning at home, we were at a small, Christian university model school with other part-time homeschoolers.
Two days a week, I took classes in a building behind an old church in Watauga. The school, run by a group of homeschool parents, focused on providing a “God-first” education for struggling students or families concerned with negative influences and violence in public schools.
I wasn’t the stereotypical homeschooler. I studied hard, asked questions in my classes, and made some good friends. I loved that I could discuss my concerns and collaborate with adults on what worked in my education.
I had the freedom to choose my education, but not my self-expression.
The school was deeply conservative, and this was obvious in both the official school rules and casual conversations in classrooms and hallways.
The dress codes were strict, especially for the girls. My classmate in economics had a confederate flag as his phone wallpaper. My world geography teacher was fired, not because of the “secret Republican meetings” she consistently mentioned in class, but because she told my class that 9/11 was staged.
I had a partner in high school who, at the time, identified as a girl. We were very secretive, hiding the relationship from our families and most of our peers. It was difficult, keeping it a secret, especially during such a formative time in our lives where we should’ve been holding hands in the hallways and getting cheesy advice from our parents. But it was also exciting, getting to explore a part of myself that I buried deep inside of myself for so long.
It was devastating when I got the call one day that my partner’s parents had discovered the relationship and pulled them out of school in their senior year. The school committee, while they did offer to let my partner finish out their senior year, had helped create an environment where queer people felt unsafe to exist authentically.
Upon graduation, my class was given an ultimatum. Sign a waiver that states you believe everything this institution believes, including the sanctity of marriage solely between a man and a woman, or you can’t walk the stage. Most of us signed, of course. The document was not legally binding. What was the school board going to do, burn my diploma if I come out as gay in 20 years?
It felt ridiculous to sign because it was ridiculous. It felt like one last try at molding our minds before we all venture out into the heathen world.
This is a pillar of homeschool culture in America. In a world so unpredictable and polarizing, parents will do anything to feel some control over their child’s environment and beliefs. They believe that exposing their children to the world so early will draw them away from the evangelical lifestyle and expose them to harm.
I understand parents who choose to homeschool their children. How could I not? According to World Population Review, Texas has the second highest rate of school shootings in the U.S. since 1970. The horror of the Uvalde school shooting has left a deep scar on our state.
Parents are well within their rights to decide what sort of educational environment they want their child to grow up in. I only ask that when they do, they carefully consider the values of the institution they choose and the impact this will have on their children.
Will this school support your child as a growing, complex person who is forming their own beliefs about the world, or will it only educate children who look, act and believe a certain way?
If you choose to homeschool, make sure your choice is out of consideration for your child’s future, and not out of fear of the world.
