Alright. So maybe that's not a big secret.
Pretty much every single person that lives in this small little town that I was born and raised in knows that. Not mention countless others that I have met in my lifetime, and now even those that I haven't met.
It's not something that I am ashamed of. I'm pretty proud of it, really.
"So what's to be proud of?" You might ask.
Allow me to tell you my story.
I was enrolled in a public school for the very first year of school, commonly known as kindergarten. My mom dropped me off every morning and picked me up after lunch every afternoon. The occasional odd job or late errand caused one of my grandmothers to pick me up.
In the true spirit of "cause and effect", the sight of one of them picking me up instead of my mom caused the contents of my stomach to affect me in ways that I didn't care for. Neither did the janitor on duty. But I couldn't help it. I was terrified.
As a young child, I was somehow convinced that my mom would walk out of the school one morning and decide she didn't want me anymore, so she just wouldn't come back. Or what's worse, she would be rushing back to pick me up, have an accident and die. Thus would be the reason my grandma was there to get me.
(I never seemed to take in to account that my grandma looked so happy to see me. I guess you don't think about things like that when you're 5.)
Thankfully, none of the above ever happened outside the deep corners of my mind, where these thoughts ran wild from the ages of about 4 to 12. Just for the record, no. That isn't why I was pulled out of school.
(I'm getting there. Don't get your panties in a wad.)
To this day I can still remember some things about that class; My teachers name, some of my friends faces, field trips, a Valentine's Day party, and the very first boy I had a crush on holding my hand in the hall. I remember losing my first baby tooth there, but I don't remember actually "learning" anything there. We played games, looked at books, colored and took naps. Basically, it was daycare.
Even at the young age of 5, I was more of an outcast than a social butterfly. Shy, backwards, didn't express myself well.......all the ingredients of a nerd. I had one girl that I felt close enough to talk to, so I deemed her the honor of being my best friend. (She was so lucky.) For this next part of my story, she'll need a name. So, we'll refer to her as "Little Miss S".
STRIKE 1:
Little Miss S, being my best friend as she was, entitled her to my full attention. I sat next to her at lunch, we played together at recess.....you know. The full package. Another part of the package, is my full protection. In other words, if you picked on her, you picked on me. Plain and simple. I just felt it was my sworn duty to defend her honor to the death......or the principals office, which was worse. I really can't tell you what made me feel that way, because I was really, really shy. I guess I've always been one to love deeply, and I don't like people hurting those I love.
One day at recess, the richest girl in my class (or possibly the school) decided to start picking on Little Miss S by forcing her to turn over her candy. The rich girl threatened Little Miss S by saying there would be no more friendship between them if the candy wasn't handed over immediately. So, Little Miss S handed the mean rich girl her candy and then proceeded to sit down on the sidewalk and cry like a baby. As I stood there watching, I grew madder and madder. The next thing I knew, I was walking towards that rich bully with the intent of smashing her nose in! In the end, though, my nerves won out, so instead of actually hitting her, I just stood there threatening her, just as I had seen her threaten Little Miss S not 5 minutes before. To this day I don't know where the teacher was when the rich girl was threatening my friend, but I know where she was when I was threatening the rich girl. Right behind me.
My little adventure cost me a time out with the teacher for the rest of recess, a trip to the office, and a call to my mother for "fighting on the playground". I think this was one of the first times my parents realized how school was changing me. Don't get me wrong, my parents didn't have a problem with me finishing a fight, but trying to start one was another story. After that episode, I returned to my normal personality of shyness, and basically tried to stay out of everybody's way
STRIKE 2:
I don't know how they do things now, but at that time they grouped 5 to 6 kids all together at one little table so we could socialize and keep each other company. I never seemed to be able to get along with the kids at my table. Just when I would start to get used to some of them, the teacher would move me around. When we would go to another classroom for music, to the library, or at lunch was the only time I would see Little Miss S, and so I hardly thought that was fair. But I dealt with it. The thing that I never understood was why I was always seated at a table with 2 or 3 boys who would all take turns sitting under the table for half of class. Maybe I should take this opportunity to explain that, my mother, wanting a daughter for the many years that she had, always wanted me to look girlish, so I wore a dress to school every day. I was told some years later why the boys were always sitting under the table, and why I was constantly being moved. So much for being shy.
STRIKE 3:
While I was being shuffled from table to table, as told in the story above, I learned some interesting things.
I learned about a little girl who could cry and get whatever she wanted, a little boy who "fibbed" to his mom about breaking a glass, and I learned a lot of new words that I had never heard before. But I thought "Hey, if these other kids are doing this, I can too."
So I was at home one day, playing, and I asked my mom to play a board game with me. She said she would in "just a minute". After about 5 of these minutes, I was getting impatient. Here she was, doing laundry of all things, when she should be sitting on the floor playing with me! After she walked passed me for what seemed like the hundredth time, I was just plain angry. And then it happened. I said something my classmates had told me to say in a situation like this;
"Where the he** do you think you're going?"
One phrase. One.....teeny.....tiny question. That laundry basket dropped out of my mom's hand like it was on fire. She spun around and gave me "the mom look". (If you've never received this look, I don't know whether to feel sorry for you or tell you how lucky you are.)
Once I saw that expression on her face, I was sure I'd get one dickens of a spanking. Instead, she came toward me, got down on her knees, and asked me where I had heard that phrase. When I told her I had heard it at school, she kind of relaxed. Then she explained to me some of the things that were NOT OK to say, and why. I'm pretty sure that's the day that it happened. That was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I'm sure there were other incidents that made my parents decide to pull me out of public school, but these are the main 3 that have stuck out in my mind. But let's face it, they're reason enough.
Homeschooling isn't the weird, cult-like situation that you may think it is. In fact, I would just about guarantee that you've met several people that were/are home-schooled, and if they didn't tell you, you would never know. Grant it, there are other kinds of people that can give homeschooling a bad name, and those are the "stereotypes". Don't judge all home-schoolers by these people. We are not all created equal.
Every year after I was pulled out, my parents would sit down with me before they paid my tuition and ask me if I wanted to return to public school. The very young years that I mentioned earlier, I probably stayed home for the wrong reasons. I was scared of being left, so I decided to stay home. Once I got in to my early teens, I'll admit, it was hard to let go of all those old fears that I had clung to for so long, but I did it eventually. I don't think it helped me to have people constantly nagging me to be someone I wasn't, either. But it happened on almost a daily basis. There weren't too many people homeschooling in my area when I was doing it, so I was really one of the outcasts. To a certain degree, I'm still there. But there's one difference between now and 15 years ago;
Now I like being an outcast.
I hope you all enjoyed hearing my story, because I certainly loved telling it. If you feel like it, leave me a comment. I would love to know what you think.
Until next time,
Nikki
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