I didn’t play sports as a kid. I didn’t want to play them. I didn’t care about them.

My brothers both played baseball, though, and they were very serious about it for a while. So when the Times editor contacted me and asked if I could have a little statement about whether or not homeschoolers should be permitted to participate in public school sports (after all, we do pay taxes), I called my brothers.

“It’s stupid,” said the older one, Jake, now 22. “If you’re good, and you want to go farther, you can’t, because rec ends at fourteen or fifteen.” He added, “It’s a good thing Tim Tebow got to play at his high school even though he was homeschooled, right? But they had to go to court for that. We shouldn’t have to go to court. That’s ridiculous.”

The younger one, Gabe, who went to high school before he went to college, didn’t care as much. “Whatever. It’s not like I was gonna go pro…” He had been the star pitcher on his team at some point– I still remember his scowl of concentration, and how the moms went crazy when he threw the ball.

I dashed off the piece– the New York Times needed it in two hours. They needed a pic and a bio. Shit, I thought. I don’t have ANY good headshots! . . . → Read More: breaking into the public school to play sports]]> I was in the New York Times, recently, talking about homeschooling and sports. Which is not a topic I know much about.

I didn’t play sports as a kid. I didn’t want to play them. I didn’t care about them.

My brothers both played baseball, though, and they were very serious about it for a while. So when the Times editor contacted me and asked if I could have a little statement about whether or not homeschoolers should be permitted to participate in public school sports (after all, we do pay taxes), I called my brothers.

“It’s stupid,” said the older one, Jake, now 22. “If you’re good, and you want to go farther, you can’t, because rec ends at fourteen or fifteen.” He added, “It’s a good thing Tim Tebow got to play at his high school even though he was homeschooled, right? But they had to go to court for that. We shouldn’t have to go to court. That’s ridiculous.”

The younger one, Gabe, who went to high school before he went to college, didn’t care as much. “Whatever. It’s not like I was gonna go pro…” He had been the star pitcher on his team at some point– I still remember his scowl of concentration, and how the moms went crazy when he threw the ball.

I dashed off the piece– the New York Times needed it in two hours. They needed a pic and a bio. Shit, I thought. I don’t have ANY good headshots! I’m going to blow this whole thing!

The New York Times told me that “homeschooler” is two words. “Home-schooler.” That’s the way they do it. “But a lot of us combine them…” I said. It was hopeless. The editor did agree, though, to change the bit in my bio that she’d edited to “writing a book about having been schooled at home,” after I explained that it sounded weird to me that way. “Schooled at home?” That sounds like there were a lot of rulers and a chalkboard involved. And possibly plaid and argyle. Sometimes I fear we will never understand one another…

I sent the piece in. And then I told my mom about it. I read it to her.

“Oh, that’s not how it went,” she said. “We didn’t wish we could get into the school. I decided against even trying. Why would we want to use the school?”

“Jake wanted to.”

“Well, it’s a little more complicated…” She explained that some other homeschoolers in the area had tried to get involved at local schools, for sports or theater, or whatever else, and that it had been a lot of work and bureaucracy and red tape and politics and very little cooperation and fun and learning. She wasn’t sure why anyone would want to get involved in the schools. In fact, she was happy to avoid them.

“That’s the great thing about homeschooling,” she said. “We could do everything we wanted on our own. We didn’t need to rely on school. We formed our own groups.”

And we did. So many of them! Shakespeare and chess and science and magic tricks and poetry and book club and nature walks and historical fiction and ethnic foods and astronomy and just about anything we were interested in.

I never wanted to go to school. Not for anything. Not even to be in a club.

I want homeschoolers to have the option to use their local schools, when they need them, though. To me, it feels simple. You pay the school tax, you get to use the school.

And maybe for serious athletes, this is the only viable option.

But talking to my mom made me wonder if the question being asked was phrased wrong. If maybe the ideas behind it were skewed. The assumption is, of course, that homeschoolers will always need schools. That homeschoolers will try to get into schools, even after rejecting them. That homeschoolers want to use schools– that homeschoolers want to have it all.

Well, I think we do want to have it all. Who doesn’t? And who doesn’t want everything for their child?

But for all of the seriously athletic homeschoolers who discover at fourteen that they really do need access to a coordinated football team and the opportunities and resources it may introduce, there are probably a lot more of us, like my mom, and like me, who just aren’t interested. Who would much rather figure it out on our own than try to cut through all the red tape and squeeze ourselves into a system that has been eying us suspiciously from the beginning.

“Jake got more serious about music, anyway, at that point,” said my mom.

I remember him, up in his room, pouring over orchestra scores. He went to see the Philadelphia Orchestra perform every single week, getting a student discount. He played in the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra and traveled around the world with them. He was preparing to audition at all of the best conservatories. He practiced for hours and hours every day. And now he’s auditioning for all of the best graduate programs, after studying at conservatory for four years. His life is made of music.

Not that it had to be. Maybe he would’ve been a great baseball player. Maybe he could’ve gone to the top.

“Who knows,” said Mom. She seemed fine with the way it worked out. All of life is like that, anyway. You can cry about what could have been, or you can look forward.

I still felt sorry for younger Jake, though. He had been so dedicated to baseball. He would’ve liked being on a high school team. Like Bear’s brother, who really enjoyed it. He’s a consultant now,  not a pro baseball player. But maybe baseball was important for him. It’s hard to say what will end up helping you become who you want to be.

So in honor of younger Jake, I’m glad I argued for homeschooled kids and public school sports. And I’m also glad that I got to spend my childhood entirely independent of school. Thank you, Mom, for trusting yourself. For knowing we were fine on our own.

(i found this picture in the same folder as the very “artistic,” very blurry ones i took of feet on the baseball field at one of my brothers’ games)

*  *

P.S. Originally, my piece in the NY Times ended with this: “Maybe there are people who think it was a terrible idea for Tim Tebow to follow his dream to play football. But they’re just being poor sports.” Poor sports! Get it?! I thought that was pretty funny and clever. It got edited out But that’s what blogs are great for! Sharing the lines the New York Times thinks are really, really corny

I was talking to Peter Gray, over at Psychology Today, about being unschooled. He was asking me some questions, and I was trying to answer. For a while, when people asked me about my education, I would try to point out the ways in which I am special. In case they thought that I might be a dud.

I am pretty special. I’m smart. I’m confident. Once my face was on AOL’s front page and all of Bear’s relatives saw it when they opened their browsers and then we were like, “You guys still use AOL? Seriously?” But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m saying is– I could brag.

Everyone can brag. There’s always something to brag about.

But the more I think about it, the really interesting thing about me is how little there is to brag about. How normal I am. How much my skills, at the end of the day, are skills that people have whether or not they spent their childhood in the woods or at a desk.

“I’m kinda normal,” I told Peter. “It’s pretty lame.” I changed my mind. “It’s pretty cool.”

I write essays about homeschooling and people always say, “Whatever! That’s not because of homeschooling! That totally happened to me!”

I’m sure it did. And in my case, it’s probably also because of homeschooling. But . . . → Read More: what part of me is the homeschooling?]]> Sometimes I really can’t tell what makes me different and what makes me similar. I can’t tell what part is the homeschooling and what part isn’t.

I was talking to Peter Gray, over at Psychology Today, about being unschooled. He was asking me some questions, and I was trying to answer. For a while, when people asked me about my education, I would try to point out the ways in which I am special. In case they thought that I might be a dud.

I am pretty special. I’m smart. I’m confident. Once my face was on AOL’s front page and all of Bear’s relatives saw it when they opened their browsers and then we were like, “You guys still use AOL? Seriously?” But that’s neither here nor there. What I’m saying is– I could brag.

Everyone can brag. There’s always something to brag about.

But the more I think about it, the really interesting thing about me is how little there is to brag about. How normal I am. How much my skills, at the end of the day, are skills that people have whether or not they spent their childhood in the woods or at a desk.

“I’m kinda normal,” I told Peter. “It’s pretty lame.” I changed my mind. “It’s pretty cool.”

I write essays about homeschooling and people always say, “Whatever! That’s not because of homeschooling! That totally happened to me!”

I’m sure it did. And in my case, it’s probably also because of homeschooling. But honestly, it’s nearly impossible to tell.

Because homeschooling isn’t something that’s separate from my life– it is my life. It informed everything I am. But after everything that I am being informed by this radically different kind of childhood, here I am, being sort of cynical and ambitious and not incredibly famous and sometimes totally down on myself and having gotten a nose job despite feeling beautiful as a girl and trying to figure out how I fit into this big, complicated city. The things that I struggle with are often the same things that my peers struggle with– and most of them went to school.

Interesting. Interesting how much we always want to focus on the differences. People have been trying to focus on my differences for my entire life. In what ways do I stand out? Does my education work? Can I function in society?

It worked. I can, and do. But as a result, I look a lot like everyone else who is functioning in society.

And when I get over the disappointment of not turning out immediately wildly famous or fantastically brilliant, I am glad. And I wonder what all the fuss is about.

Because if I could turn out just fine without a formal education, then maybe we should just be talking about why so many other kids don’t turn out just fine with one, rather than what about me might be weird.

(I’m not a good dancer, but I love dancing!)

*  *  *

A version of this piece also appears on the Huffington Post here.

Hello! My name’s Kayleigh, and I live in the United Kingdom; in the north of England, in a county called Yorkshire where it rains most of the time and has a lot of pretty countryside. I was home educated all my life up until the age of 16, and the awesome Kate has asked me to contribute to her blog to share my experience of what it’s like not going to school here in the UK.

The law in the United Kingdom states that children must be given a full-time education suited to their age and ability, whether that be at school ‘or otherwise’. So long as parents can prove their children are receiving a suitable full-time education at home, it is perfectly legal. Mostly, here in the UK we refer to what Kate calls unschooling, as home education. I’m not entirely sure why the term unschooling hasn’t caught on here too as it’s much less of a mouthful!

The education authorities for the local area are obliged to keep track of any home educating families they are aware of, and carry out regular home visits to ensure the children are learning. Here is where it sometimes becomes a little sticky. The officers that carry out these visits are generally the same people that carry out inspections on schools, so they frequently have . . . → Read More: Home Education in the UK: a report from a girl who lived it]]> This is a guest post from an awesome young woman who didn’t go to school in the UK. You can check out her blog here.

Hello! My name’s Kayleigh, and I live in the United Kingdom; in the north of England, in a county called Yorkshire where it rains most of the time and has a lot of pretty countryside. I was home educated all my life up until the age of 16, and the awesome Kate has asked me to contribute to her blog to share my experience of what it’s like not going to school here in the UK.

The law in the United Kingdom states that children must be given a full-time education suited to their age and ability, whether that be at school ‘or otherwise’. So long as parents can prove their children are receiving a suitable full-time education at home, it is perfectly legal. Mostly, here in the UK we refer to what Kate calls unschooling, as home education. I’m not entirely sure why the term unschooling hasn’t caught on here too as it’s much less of a mouthful!

The education authorities for the local area are obliged to keep track of any home educating families they are aware of, and carry out regular home visits to ensure the children are learning. Here is where it sometimes becomes a little sticky. The officers that carry out these visits are generally the same people that carry out inspections on schools, so they frequently have a very narrow view of how to determine if a child is learning. Particularly with unschooling methods, it’s not always easy for parents to provide documentary evidence that their child is learning what the government feels is appropriate for that age. How can you prove in written form that your child has a good knowledge of basic mathematics, when he or she only uses their skills in the context of some other task, e.g. baking, cooking, helping with the grocery shopping?

The local authorities have varying stances on home education, depending on what area of the country you happen to live in; some have been known to use threats of social services to return children to school, while others are extremely positive and open-minded, inviting families for regular coffee mornings to discuss how they can improve things! It really is a postcode lottery. I have even seen conversations take place on Facebook where parents recommend the best places in the country to move to if they want to have a good relationship with the local authorities!

The attitude of the general public towards home education is a little more positive than that of the local authorities – or maybe the public are just more polite about their preconceptions (probably the latter). In my experience, the majority of people I’ve met have been curious about my education, rather than outright dismissive, although I won’t deny I have heard some rather negative comments as well.

There are almost as many different methods of home educating in the UK as there are families that home educate – as, I would imagine, in the USA. There are very few families that do so for religious reasons; the most common reason is simply a lack of faith in the school system or the structured method of teaching in schools. My mother decided to home educate me and my younger sister partly because of negative experiences in her childhood and those of my two older sisters, but also partly because of her growing disillusionment with the schools themselves.

Consequently, my experience was a very unstructured childhood. The only formal lessons I had were private tutoring in maths (because I’d rather wrench my own arm off with a spoon than have anything to do with numbers, and that feeling remains with me to this day), and my many ‘out-of-school’ activities such as dancing and horse riding. We were constantly acquiring books and more often than not I had my head in one of them. I would also spend a lot of time simply playing with my toys; I realise now that my poor mother must have been worried that I wasn’t actually ‘learning’ anything, but we both know now with hindsight that I was learning in my own way.

There was, however, a very active local community of home educating families. We would frequently get together to go on organised trips to local museums and sights, or hire out rooms and arrange all sorts of interesting things. We once had a local archaeologist come in with some specimens he had unearthed himself, which led to me deciding at the age of 9 that I wanted to be an archaeologist. Unfortunately, I later felt rather conflicted, as the following month the archaeologist’s wife came to visit with her collection of snakes, and I struggled to work out how I could combine a love of archaeology and raising snakes into a career. Training snakes to assist on digs? It was a challenge that took some while to overcome, and I eventually gave up and discovered horses instead.

So. Horses. Sorry, I still get a bit distracted when they’re mentioned, my eyes cloud over with visions of black stallions galloping across a hillside or something equally poetic. At the age of 16, I left the world of home education and went to college to study horse management. I should say at this point that the UK ‘college’ is not the same as what I understand it to mean in the USA; that is, the US colleges are our universities, while our colleges generally offer courses in academic and vocational subjects to 16-18 year-olds. I made the choice not to go on to university, however a lot of home educated young people (I feel old saying that) do go on to study for a degree. In my experience, not many of them go straight to university from being home educated; a lot of people go to college at 16 to take the exams usually required, however there are others who take distance courses in order to gain the necessary qualifications.

I often think that, had I attended school instead of being home educated, I would probably have gone onto university simply because it was the conventional path, regardless of whether it was the right thing for me personally. I am grateful that my unconventional upbringing has encouraged me to question the options available to me, rather than simply doing whatever is ‘mainstream’ – and I have applied this to all areas of my life. I am not afraid to admit that I had a brief period in my early teens where I desperately wanted to fit in (oh puberty, I’m so glad you’re not a part of my life any more) and was reluctant to discuss home education, always wanting to be the same as everyone else. That set me back for a while, however I am pleased to say I have now turned myself around.

So, at the ripe old age of 24, I now work in an office job answering complaints. It’s not hugely exciting but I tell myself I get to use my writing skills (not that I think the customers notice), plus it pays the bills and then some. When I finished college at 18, I figured I would rather go out into the world of full-time work straightaway than go to university, particularly as I was feeling a little directionless and wasn’t sure what I wanted to do – might as well earn some pennies in the meantime! I definitely think I made the right decision; I’m not in a huge amount of debt, plus degrees over here have become hugely devalued due to the sheer number of people graduating every year, so there are people doing the same job as me who have had to study three years to get it.

While I still haven’t figured out quite what I want to do for a career, I’m ok with that; I have a fulfilling life outside of my job and I have a few possible ideas germinating in my mind which I intend to put into action in the near future. My experience of home education or unschooling has helped me to develop my creativity and imaginative thinking; and, most importantly, I am never ever bored!

“That’s the supply closet,” explained Bear.

“Just like I imagined,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly true, because the skeleton was wearing a hat. I couldn’t have predicted that.

He pointed at various doors and windows. “That’s where I had calc.” “That’s where I had bio…no….that’s the art room. Stools mean either science or art.”

He showed me where he used to hang out, on this low, concrete wall, in a little courtyard. And here, on the steps. And here was the library, and the enormous sports’ fields and the enormous pool. It was like a compound, where people might live for decades without leaving. They might play football and baseball and volleyball and water polo (wait…unless that means horses), and stay forever.

“It has everything!” I said, impressed.

It was the most time I’d ever spent at a high school.

We checked out the middle school next. There were anti-bullying signs everywhere. Pasted to the windows. “We don’t tolerate bullying here!” “Are you being bullied? Here are some things that bullies do:…”

“Kids get mean in middle school,” said Bear simply. “Everyone knows that.”

Everyone does know . . . → Read More: going to school with Bear]]> Bear took me to see his middle school and high school. This is out in California, in the Bay Area, where we spent Christmas with his family. The schools were composed of lots of long, low buildings– a series of ranch houses, bumping into each other at interesting angles. We started at the high school. Through a window, I saw a skeleton.

“That’s the supply closet,” explained Bear.

“Just like I imagined,” I said. Which wasn’t exactly true, because the skeleton was wearing a hat. I couldn’t have predicted that.

He pointed at various doors and windows. “That’s where I had calc.” “That’s where I had bio…no….that’s the art room. Stools mean either science or art.”

He showed me where he used to hang out, on this low, concrete wall, in a little courtyard. And here, on the steps. And here was the library, and the enormous sports’ fields and the enormous pool. It was like a compound, where people might live for decades without leaving. They might play football and baseball and volleyball and water polo (wait…unless that means horses), and stay forever.

“It has everything!” I said, impressed.

It was the most time I’d ever spent at a high school.

We checked out the middle school next. There were anti-bullying signs everywhere. Pasted to the windows. “We don’t tolerate bullying here!” “Are you being bullied? Here are some things that bullies do:…”

“Kids get mean in middle school,” said Bear simply. “Everyone knows that.”

Everyone does know that.

I was struck by the menu over the lunch window, which was outside, because it’s California where apparently you can eat lunch outside every day, like in a fairytale or something. There were so many dessert options on the menu.

“Wow,” I said. “You could have ice cream every day, for lunch.”

“Yup.”

“Wow. If Jake had known about this, he would’ve gone to school.” Jake is one of my brothers. He used to go to synagogue on Shabbat for the dessert at the oneg (social time) after the service.

It was hard for me to imagine kids eating ice cream for lunch every day. That would be really unhealthy. It was hard to imagine it, because it seemed like they didn’t get to make that many other decisions. They had to take the same classes (Bear told me there weren’t that many electives in middle school), and they had to be in the same place every day. But they got to decide whether they wanted a hot dog, a hamburger, fries, and/or ice cream, every day. Interesting.

“That’s where the kids who did drugs sat,” said Bear, gesturing to a shaded spot (I refuse to say “shady”) around the corner of a ranch building from where he’d sat outside, eating his ice cream for lunch.

“Drugs?” I said, confused. “This is middle school.”

He smiled. “Drugs,” he said.

And I said, just like a lame adult, “Didn’t anyone tell their parents?!”

He shrugged.

“Kids aren’t doing drugs in middle school,” I said. “What are they, like, twelve?” I was a little proud of myself for knowing, like I always am when I can guess which age corresponds with which grade level.

Bear wasn’t interested in arguing with me. “They did drugs,” he said.

“What kind of drugs?”

He was walking past the druggie section of the middle school, towards a sign that read “No tobacco No alcohol No drugs No skateboarding.”

“Probably mostly just pot.”

“OK, good.” Good? Whatever. I let it go. Kids will be kids. I guess.

I looked around. It was not a bad place. But it was hard to imagine getting up in the morning and going to the same place, every day, as a kid. It was hard to imagine spending years here, and then years at the high school complex, the way I’d spent years at college. At college, almost every day, I thought, “I’m gonna get out of here. I’m gonna go somewhere nicer.” I didn’t go to college at a very pretty place. It wasn’t actually even as pretty as where Bear went to middle school. But I also didn’t like the feeling of being stuck in what seemed like a sort of artificial world of college-tagged buildings full of identical flimsy chairs with flip-out desks. I wasn’t crazy about the food options. Actually, by my second year, I wasn’t into the ice cream in the dining hall anymore. It tasted funny.

I tried to imagine little Bear, walking between these buildings, going to class. I could almost see him. I wondered what he was feeling.

“Not my best years,” said grownup Bear. “I was pretty much a loser.”

How can you be a loser when you’re twelve?

By being chubby and having lame friends and playing nerdy games, he explained. Oh. Right. Of course.

“You know,” said Bear, as we walked off into the sunset through one of the middle school’s athletic fields, “I get it how people are offended by you.”

I laughed. “Thanks.”

“I mean, by your life– by not going to school.”

“Yeah?”

“You invalidate them. I spent so much time here. What if I didn’t need to?”

“You didn’t.”

“I know. Exactly. But when you admit that, you feel like you wasted a lot of time. So you don’t want to admit it. You want to believe that it was worth it.”

I nodded. I am never surprised anymore when people are angry at me for not having gone to school. Maybe in their place, I’d be angry, too.

Or maybe I’d just be sort of nostalgic, for all that ice cream.

Sometimes I’m reminded.

Over Thanksgiving, which Bear and I spent at my parents’ house, I was going through some old stuff. A wooden trunk, brimming with watercolor paintings, cloth-bound journals, felt boots I’d made, and the slender, bleached  deer jawbones I’d found in the woods.

I used to imagine, as a child, that a portal might open up in the forest, and I could step through, into another world. In that other world, I might meet wandering mages and disgraced royals, passing through the great forest in belted tunics and doe-skin breeches, carrying staffs and swords and hidden daggers. Wearing talismans with strange symbols.

The trunk in my childhood bedroom is a little like a portal. Opening it, I was overwhelmed. I stepped back into another world. I remembered, all at once.

I had such a weird childhood. So weird that sometimes my mind works really hard at making it appear normal. Occasionally, it succeeds, and I am able to think of myself the way I think of other people. I was a kid. I liked boys. I got in fights with my girlfriends. I tied my sheets together and climbed out my window. Like everyone else. OK, maybe not everyone does that last thing. But still. I was dorky. I read fantasy novels all day. I went to college like everyone else. I got good grades. I went out into the adult world of New York City. I worked. . . . → Read More: magical childhood]]> Sometimes I forget how magical my childhood was.

Sometimes I’m reminded.

Over Thanksgiving, which Bear and I spent at my parents’ house, I was going through some old stuff. A wooden trunk, brimming with watercolor paintings, cloth-bound journals, felt boots I’d made, and the slender, bleached  deer jawbones I’d found in the woods.

I used to imagine, as a child, that a portal might open up in the forest, and I could step through, into another world. In that other world, I might meet wandering mages and disgraced royals, passing through the great forest in belted tunics and doe-skin breeches, carrying staffs and swords and hidden daggers. Wearing talismans with strange symbols.

The trunk in my childhood bedroom is a little like a portal. Opening it, I was overwhelmed. I stepped back into another world. I remembered, all at once.

I had such a weird childhood. So weird that sometimes my mind works really hard at making it appear normal. Occasionally, it succeeds, and I am able to think of myself the way I think of other people. I was a kid. I liked boys. I got in fights with my girlfriends. I tied my sheets together and climbed out my window. Like everyone else. OK, maybe not everyone does that last thing. But still. I was dorky. I read fantasy novels all day. I went to college like everyone else. I got good grades. I went out into the adult world of New York City. I worked. I tried to find my way. There. Normal.

But it’s surprisingly easy to forget the way it actually was.

The way I dreamed. All the time.

The way I lost myself so naturally in worlds inside my mind-- so much so that I could see the whole world, outside my mind, as full of magic and potential. The way I could be alone in the forest for hours, drinking it in, imagining rich scenes and later writing them and painting them and drawing maps and crafting outfits. The way there was so much room, just to be, and so much room to be anything I felt like.

My childhood, it sometimes occurs to me, was incredibly spacious.

There’s something about fantasy novels and scenarios that really appeals to a lot of kids. Especially kids who don’t fit in. I dated a nerdy  guy who by then was getting his PhD, and he told me about how, as a kid, he’d gotten picked on a lot at school. His skin was a different color than a lot of his peers in the neighborhood. Sometimes, he got beaten up. He told me that he used to walk the perimeter of the school’s fenced-in yard at recess, making up stories in his head and repeating them over and over. The stories were about great kings who lived in a Tolkienesque world of good and evil and dramatic mountain ranges. He felt like these kings were his friends. He felt like these stories were the only thing that got him through the day sometimes. I know a girl who is still obsessed with dragons and fairies, even though she’s in her mid-teens now. Her peers think she’s incredibly weird. Over the years, I’ve watched her embrace the weirdness, dressing defiantly in fantasy costumes, defining herself as a freak who doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She can’t very well just become a normal girl now. It’s too late. Everyone knows she likes dragons too much. Recently, she had to change schools because things got so bad socially.

(it wasn’t just me….some of my friends loved to dress like wandering princess warrior mages, too)

The dorky kids can LARP and play D&D, but I’m not sure I would’ve been one of them, if I’d gone to school. Like I’ve said before, I’m not sure how dorky I actually am. My guess: not very.

But I was lucky. Disappearing into my fantasy worlds wasn’t weird and dorky and lame. It didn’t mark me as a freak or prove I couldn’t cope. No one even had to comment on it. And so it quietly made me who I am, without me having to defend it or fight for it or be cut off from it in a lurching transition to normalcy. I didn’t have to choose.

(I spent hours following this dragonfly, to get this shot)

Because there was so much time. There was time for studying the Civil War and reading historical fiction and hanging out with friends and competing in piano competitions and composing music and cooking dinner with my brother, and there was also time for magic. For letting my mind wander. For letting my breath get taken away by the sweetness of nature– the mystery of the forest, the promise of the horizon.

I forget sometimes– here in New York City, where I have learned to elbow expressionlessly through throngs of people on a subway platform, wait in a forty-minute line at Trader Joe’s without wincing, read all of my books on my phone, in transit, and keep my lovely long white curtains closed, because outside the window there is another brick building rather than distance. It’s not that I don’t love this place. I love it more than I could ever have imagined. I love the complicatedness, the history packed into every square foot, the compromises that people make automatically that make them more interesting, the sense that most of us really want to be here, the sense that we’re in it together, the rumbling subway ride to see so many nearby fascinating people and things. But sometimes I forget the way I used to be able to interact with a stream, for hours, alone, letting my mind play.

Often I am tangled in self-doubt and sharp-toothed ambition. Come on come on come on, says the voice in my head. Succeed!! Make something of yourself! Do it now! Get ahead!

I forget that I am, essentially, a dreamer. That I always have been.

The proof is in that trunk.

I opened it, and as Bear wandered off, a little bored, I stared inside, and I remembered.

I asked her for a bio and here is what she wrote: I am a 19-year-old nomad. I left my home town three months ago, where I used to teach partner dance with my dad, study what interested me and live life. After Istanbul I plan to go to Beirut to continue learning Arabic. As I travel I like to focus on language, dance and food. My blog is http://twyladill.blogspot.com/.

I asked her to tell us a little bit about her life, as a traveler and an unschooler. This is her guest post:

My first night in Istanbul was a little overwhelming. I had committed to renting a room there for the next two months. But of course I explored the rest of the house.

The living room – converted into an art studio for my land lady – smelled of old cigarettes. The warped white walls were laden with paintings in all stages of completion. The floor was splattered with paint, and tubes of acrylic rested peacefully on . . . → Read More: notes from an unschooled world wanderer]]> This is a guest post. I met Twyla a couple months ago, when she came to NYC. And then, last month, we both happened to be in London at the same time, so we hung out there, too. I would hang out with this girl anywhere in the world. And I might have to, if I want to see her, because she is always somewhere new. When I think of everything right about unschooling, I think about Twyla.

I asked her for a bio and here is what she wrote: I am a 19-year-old nomad. I left my home town three months ago, where I used to teach partner dance with my dad, study what interested me and live life. After Istanbul I plan to go to Beirut to continue learning Arabic. As I travel I like to focus on language, dance and food. My blog is http://twyladill.blogspot.com/.

I asked her to tell us a little bit about her life, as a traveler and an unschooler. This is her guest post:

My first night in Istanbul was a little overwhelming. I had committed to renting a room there for the next two months. But of course I explored the rest of the house.

The living room – converted into an art studio for my land lady – smelled of old cigarettes. The warped white walls were laden with paintings in all stages of completion. The floor was splattered with paint, and tubes of acrylic rested peacefully on a stained wooden shelf.

In my room a creaky bunk bed (missing its top bunk) pushed up against the garish green wall. Luckily I like garish colors.

When I did my laundry, I flooded the bathroom because I didn’t put the drain tube in the toilet.

One of my housemates is an actor, the other a journalist. Nice guys, although neither of them speak English.

As I sat at the cluttered table in the living room listening to guttural Turkish banter between the people I just met and would now be living with, I wondered if it was illogical for me to be drawn to this place. Will I survive two months of this? I started to think of all the alternate options. Maybe I will just stay for one month, then travel around Turkey. Maybe I will find another place to live. My mind skipped through possibilities like a flat stone thrown from the beach.

I seem to be constantly surprising myself with the choices I make. When I left home months ago I was looking forward to traveling with no plans, seeing what experiences I ran into. But, when I got to Turkey I started to feel constricted by the unplanned nature of my life. I spent more time waiting for some sort of inspiration to come to me, rather than going out and doing something – anything. And then I realized I want plans. I want something to do every day that makes me fulfilled and happy. I don’t want to wander aimlessly through this gigantic cultural hub of a city. And I want to learn the language.

If I have learned anything in the unschooling environment, it is that I have the ability to do what I love, what makes me happy. And I have the right to shift what I’m doing whenever it starts to feel constraining. There is no need for me to keep up appearances or continue on a path that doesn’t suit me in order to prove anything. Because I don’t have anything to prove.

My schooling journey, which led to unschooling, hasn’t been straightforward; I started in Waldorf school, homeschooled for one year, was in public school for five years, did online school for two weeks and concluded with two months of alternative school before I decided it was time to follow my own interests. When I decided school wasn’t where I wanted to be, I was 16 and thankfully my dad was supportive of my choice. My mom was skeptical at first, but I did my research and convinced her. Now she has seen me in the world as an unschooler and she supports me one-hundred percent. After leaving school I didn’t plan what I would do instead, but I knew I wanted to spend my time doing art; at that point in time designing and sewing clothing and purses. As far as I can remember, sewing (and going to the gym) were my main activities that year.

The following year I spent six months traveling in Europe with my sister and my dad, teaching dance. The idea to travel solidified just days before my dad was scheduled to leave for Italy on a three-week biking trip during the summer of 2009. My dad, my sister and I decided it was time to travel together; I was 17 and itching to be on my own, but this would be one of our last chances to travel as a family. That morning we were sitting on the ferry boat talking about how we could make travel work for us. We decided that finding a storage place for free or relatively low cost was the key. When we got home a woman from our dance classes had left a voicemail on our machine, and it turned out she had an almost empty barn, relatively weather proof, sitting on her property, which we could use in exchange for dance classes. We took the first load from our house to the barn that afternoon.

At the end of the summer the three of us hopped on a plane to Norway, spending a total of six months in Europe over the next nine months. Traveling in close proximity to my family was wonderful and tough at the same time; luckily we get along really well. We made lasting connections with many people, stayed in over 50 homes (we only stayed in a hotel one night out of the six months) and have a few great stories to tell. This trip sparked something in me; I knew I wanted to seek adventure and new cultures on my own.

And recently, I have embarked on the solo journey I dreamed about. Even though my goals have changed since I first had the idea to travel, halfway through my year of studying Arabic at Edmonds Community College. My initial thought was to spend a week or two in Turkey before going to the Middle East, a good way to transition cultures. But, the week has expanded and contracted multiple times over the course of the past months.  I start an intensive Turkish course on December 5^th at the Dilmer language school. Every day I learn a few more Turkish words with the help of my room mates; when I asked for a pastry in a little shop the other day the man behind the counter answered me in Turkish, I guess my accent’s improving too! Unfortunately, I had no idea what he said when he answered me, but that also will change in a matter of time.

I have found a state of contentment. My apartment is conveniently located in the middle of Istanbul. My roommates, landlords and all of their friends are artists and creatives; I have known them for a week and feel completely comfortable with them. I especially love my landlady’s laugh; she’s 31 and laughs in short, gruff bursts. I’ve started doing art again – I painted for nine hours yesterday. I joined a gym today, with yoga and other classes. The warped walls in the living room are starting to feel homey and I enjoy watching the progress on the construction site next door; luckily they don’t work at night. I found three natural food stores near me and bought brown rice and rose hip tea. I am starting to make a life here. Even though I will leave in two months, I am going to live these moments to the fullest.

At the end of January (when my Turkish visa is up) I am going to Lebanon, to study Arabic in Beirut for three months. I will create another life there; An apartment, friends, and an intensive Arabic language course. But by then, who knows what other adventures I’ll have thought up.

Through unschooling I’ve learned that, in a sense, I create my surroundings. But “unschooling” to me is only the absence of school. I am not (nor was I before) looking for something to replace the daily tribulations I encountered in school. I am simply living life. Anything I want to learn is at my fingertips because I know how to go out in the world and seek knowledge. I know how to ask questions. I know that if I want to be independent I need to support myself; and if I support myself in a way that’s fulfilling I will be infinitely happier. I know how to have meaningful relationships and I know how to communicate effectively. I know that sometimes I have to experience hard things, and that’s part of learning. I also know that I will continue learning because to stop learning is to stop living. And all of this, I learned in the last few years while I was not ‘forced’ to be in a classroom.

Life is a learning experience. The most important thing is to keep learning; in whatever way fits best.

An editor from a little homeschooling magazine had asked me for article pitches. The circulation was small. She wanted something basic and general. Something about what I’ve learned from homeschooling. Some challenges. Some triumphs. Something encouraging for parents who are doing this now.

I sent her a pitch. I proposed an article called “How homeschooling made me different.” It’d mostly be about how homeschooling taught me to be comfortable being myself. And it would also discuss some challenges, like how some of my relentless ambition stems from wanting to prove myself, as a homeschooler. I was not, for the record, looking forward to writing the article. But I try not to turn down homeschooling publications. I reminded myself that this is the stuff I write because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s going to advance my career.

And then she sent me a rejection letter. The piece was not a good fit for her publication.

I was so surprised that I laughed aloud. Wait. What?

Here I was, pretty sure she would take whatever I proposed. Wondering if I should just say no, since the magazine wasn’t going to be able to help me out.

I wrote her back. I never do that. A rejection is a rejection. That’s the business. Believe me, I’ve gotten plenty of them. You don’t talk back. You move on.

I asked her what was going on.

And then she explained why she’d rejected . . . → Read More: I am too negative about homeschooling]]> I just got a really funny rejection letter.

An editor from a little homeschooling magazine had asked me for article pitches. The circulation was small. She wanted something basic and general. Something about what I’ve learned from homeschooling. Some challenges. Some triumphs. Something encouraging for parents who are doing this now.

I sent her a pitch. I proposed an article called “How homeschooling made me different.” It’d mostly be about how homeschooling taught me to be comfortable being myself. And it would also discuss some challenges, like how some of my relentless ambition stems from wanting to prove myself, as a homeschooler. I was not, for the record, looking forward to writing the article. But I try not to turn down homeschooling publications. I reminded myself that this is the stuff I write because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s going to advance my career.

And then she sent me a rejection letter. The piece was not a good fit for her publication.

I was so surprised that I laughed aloud. Wait. What?

Here I was, pretty sure she would take whatever I proposed. Wondering if I should just say no, since the magazine wasn’t going to be able to help me out.

I wrote her back. I never do that. A rejection is a rejection. That’s the business. Believe me, I’ve gotten plenty of them. You don’t talk back. You move on.

I asked her what was going on.

And then she explained why she’d rejected me. I was too negative. Not encouraging enough. I was not happy enough about having been homeschooled. I was talking about challenges too much. I was not celebrating what the Lord had given me.

Suddenly the Lord was involved, and he sounded like he might be pissed at me.

He might be pissed that I wasn’t appreciative enough of the great gift I had been given.

Well, hang on. I am very appreciative! I wouldn’t have changed my childhood for anything!

Actually, I couldn’t believe that someone was accusing me of being too negative about homeschooling. That is literally the first time that has happened. Too positive is what I usually get. Too eager to defend it.

I told her that I am positive about homeschooling, and she said she’d be happy to read some other pitches from me. But it feels different now. I’m annoyed that she’s not letting her readers hear from someone who isn’t only saying that homeschooling is absolutely perfect. Isn’t it better to tell the whole story? Isn’t it better to be able to believe in the good stuff, because you’re comfortable acknowledging the not- so-good stuff, too?

I hate the idea of a dialogue about homeschooling that’s whitewashed, purified, and devoid of real experience. That’s exactly what we DON’T need to have.

So here. Here are the things about homeschooling that were negative:

1. I didn’t meet a ton of boys my own age, so I dated kind of icky ones.

2. I got really, really cocky for a few of my teenage years, and thought that I had to be the best at everything I tried to do. Which was emotionally tiring.

3. I respected my parents so much that when my friends had problems with theirs, I ALWAYS took their parents’ side. OK, I’m not sure how negative that really was, and I’m glad for the respect I had/have towards my parents. It was just kind of awkward.

4. I didn’t get to eat enough dessert because my mom is a health nut.

5. I really do feel like I need to prove myself. It’s important to me to succeed in obvious, markable, typical ways. This isn’t true for homeschoolers. It’s true for me.

6. I picked an unconventional path, which makes obvious success harder sometimes. I picked that path because I learned as a homeschooler that I didn’t have to do the same things as other people in order to have a good life.

7. I expect to have a happy life. I expect it a lot. I had a happy childhood. I wasn’t often bored. And I have high standards for my life now. Sometimes they make things harder.

8. I sometimes don’t know how I’m supposed to be as a girl, like I wrote about in the last post. Because I didn’t grow up with lots of other girls the same age. This might not be negative.

9. I can’t think of very much else. Wait. I’m still mad at my mom for not trusting me enough to stop making me do math. We have different ideas about homeschooling that cause tension. And that’s totally because I was homeschooled.

OK, I’m done. That’s it for now. The truth about homeschooling.

Now I have to decide what to write back to that editor.

I did not grow up around a lot of girls my own age. I grew up around plenty of people. I feel like I always need a disclaimer. Like, “I WAS SOCIAL, DON’T WORRY.” I was social, don’t worry. I mean, I liked people, I was fine around them. Sometimes I liked them less or wanted to be by myself more and so I did that, but in general, being around people was fine. It was fun. They were not all same-aged girls. None of them were particularly mean. It wasn’t at all clear who was the prettiest, or who was trend-setting. We all looked different in some ways and similar in others. We all liked different kinds of clothes, but sometimes we wore similar ones.

I don’t have a conveniently simple narrative about my social past. Sometimes I can’t remember who I was. And then it makes me a little uncertain about who I’m supposed to be now.

My history doesn’t have a template. It’s all over the place. Is “crazy weird homeschooler” a template yet? Yeah, maybe.

I . . . → Read More: Ack! I don’t have a social template! I might be anything!]]> These days, I’ve been hanging out with some seriously cool girls. Girls who have clearly always been really pretty. Girls who have probably always had a lot of friends. Girls who may or may not have been mean. OK, a few of them have admitted it: they were mean girls. And then a few of them have that classic dork —> cool girl story, and they’re sticking to it.

I did not grow up around a lot of girls my own age. I grew up around plenty of people. I feel like I always need a disclaimer. Like, “I WAS SOCIAL, DON’T WORRY.” I was social, don’t worry. I mean, I liked people, I was fine around them. Sometimes I liked them less or wanted to be by myself more and so I did that, but in general, being around people was fine. It was fun. They were not all same-aged girls. None of them were particularly mean. It wasn’t at all clear who was the prettiest, or who was trend-setting. We all looked different in some ways and similar in others. We all liked different kinds of clothes, but sometimes we wore similar ones.

I don’t have a conveniently simple narrative about my social past. Sometimes I can’t remember who I was. And then it makes me a little uncertain about who I’m supposed to be now.

My history doesn’t have a template. It’s all over the place. Is “crazy weird homeschooler” a template yet? Yeah, maybe.

I had friends my own age, and I felt pretty popular, but there wasn’t a real context for popularity. I felt pretty and potent and funny and outgoing.

And then later I went to college, and I was pretty sure I was nerdy, since I studied a lot and wanted to do well and liked talking with professors.

At that point, it became apparent that nerdiness was still, tragically, somewhat separate from pretty-popular-girlness. I mean, really. Just like a movie. Just like a stereotype.

And then I went to grad school in Manhattan, and I started to think that I wasn’t nerdy enough, because I couldn’t keep up with the genius boys in their sweatpants who had long ago mastered formal logic and memorized Descartes. But I also wasn’t girly enough, because I suddenly had no fashionable clothes at all and I was wandering the streets, looking for just one pair of cute affordable boots. Just one, please. They started at $200. (I didn’t know the city very well back then. There’s a DSW in Union Square).

And now here I am— a writer. I have a few cute outfits. I have a new group of friends. And my friends have many more than a few cute outfits.

Sometimes I am abruptly awkward around them. I stumble over my words. I realize that I have not spent very much time in a group of girls my age. I realize that this might be the in-crowd. I feel a little like an imposter. Sometimes I am funny. I put on heels. I am outgoing. I feel a little like I belong.

“God,” says someone, “Remember middle school? So stupid. I was part of this group of girls…”

I don’t remember. There was no group of girls. I didn’t learn what being a girl was about from a group of other girls. Which might be why I’m still not sure.

Yesterday, one of my new friends said, “You seem sort of feral sometimes— like you’re fine doing things differently.” She added, “That’s a compliment. Are you taking that as a compliment?”

I was. But I was surprised. Am I doing things differently? Sometimes I don’t notice. I’m just doing things. I don’t think I ever learned very well what things I was supposed to be doing instead.

(I thought this was an incredibly cool look, at 17. Not sure my peers would’ve agreed. Or, um, anyone.)

OK, I don’t want to be totally morbid, but the article reminded me of unschooling. And I realize that I shouldn’t even be writing about this, because it’s way too easy to be like, “Oh, so, unschooling is like parenting a kid who’s going to die? Because you don’t care about your kid’s future at all?”

No. Not like that. But I thought of those kids in the Race To Nowhere documentary, who were saying stuff like, “I know I’m supposed to be good at all of this, but I don’t know why…I know I have to get into a good college and then get a good job. But I don’t think it really matters if I’m happy.”

Parents are always saying, “The only thing I want is for my child to be happy.” And that might be true. I don’t know– I’m not a parent. I’ll probably look back at this when I’m a parent and think, “You did not know anything about anything.” But it seems to me that even if parents only want their kids to be happy, they are often talking about future happiness. As in, their kid will be happy because of all of the hard work that led . . . → Read More: people are confused about happiness]]> My cousin just sent me this article, and it was so beautiful I had to share it here. Emily Rapp writes about her relationship with her terminally ill son. She asks and answers the question “When your child doesn’t have a future, how do you parent?”

OK, I don’t want to be totally morbid, but the article reminded me of unschooling. And I realize that I shouldn’t even be writing about this, because it’s way too easy to be like, “Oh, so, unschooling is like parenting a kid who’s going to die? Because you don’t care about your kid’s future at all?”

No. Not like that. But I thought of those kids in the Race To Nowhere documentary, who were saying stuff like, “I know I’m supposed to be good at all of this, but I don’t know why…I know I have to get into a good college and then get a good job. But I don’t think it really matters if I’m happy.”

Parents are always saying, “The only thing I want is for my child to be happy.” And that might be true. I don’t know– I’m not a parent. I’ll probably look back at this when I’m a parent and think, “You did not know anything about anything.” But it seems to me that even if parents only want their kids to be happy, they are often talking about future happiness. As in, their kid will be happy because of all of the hard work that led to the success that led to the happiness.

People are clearly confused about happiness. That’s why professors at Harvard are always writing new books about it, and those books are always becoming bestsellers. That’s why the New York Times has so many articles about it. That’s why we all talk about it. We’re trying to figure it out. What the hell is it? Is it the same for everyone? Is it totally different? Do we have to work for it? How hard? What does that work look like? Do we even recognize it when we have it? Is it completely obvious? Does it involve delicious food? Or should we diet?

We all want to get to happiness, but we don’t seem to know how. But somewhere along the line we collectively decided that for kids, getting to happiness meant putting in a lot of years of effort first. Starting with the right preschool.

In her essay about love and parenting, Emily Rapp writes about how incredibly fulfilling just being with her toddler son can be. I know all about this, because it’s still one of my mom’s favorite topics. She always loved to just be with her kids. To see what happened. To play.

Sometimes I catch myself getting seriously stressed out. I wrote about one time in particular here, on my other blog. I’m ambitious. I’m one of those people who has a hard time with weekends sometimes, because I want to get back to work. Maybe because as a kid, weekends were the same as every other day, and I was always busy with something I cared about. I get worked up. I think, “I’m not doing enough! I have to succeed!” And then I look at my husband and I think, “I have love. I have this whole other person, with a face, and ears, and big shoulders, and he loves me and I love him and I am so incredibly lucky to have that in my life.” And it occurs to me that this is the only thing that can ever really matter.

And then I forget again. Because that’s life.

But nonschooling is about reminding ourselves of the things that matter. Reminding ourselves that no one is really sure how to get to future happiness,  and no one is certain how much certain kinds of success contribute to it, but I think things might be better for everyone if we just spent more time being happy now. Kids, too. Kids’ time and happiness is valuable, too.

(There is a time and a place for dieting– but sometimes you just need a banana split to make you happy. I know I do. I had a dream about one the other night. Not even kidding)

They’re interested in it enough to leave hundred of comments under my recent Salon.com piece about how awful I am. I haven’t read any of them, but people keep writing to me to talk about how angry the comments make them. Or how sad. And a lot of these people are homeschooling or unschooling parents. Sometimes, when I get a piece about homeschooling published, it feels like everyone is out to get homeschoolers. Which is weird, because I never ever feel that way otherwise.

“Don’t read the comments!” I begged my parents. But they did anyway. I’m glad they’re tough people.

Anyway, everyone wants to read about homeschooling, even if it makes them furious. Even if  they hate me.

Maybe that’s OK. At least they’re reading? At least they’re reading.