Here are excerpts from three of the essays in Real Lives--Patrick Meehan's "Ascent from a Nightmare," Ayanna Williams's "Fifty Pen-Pals," and Amanda Bergson-Shilcock's "Homeschooling is Another Word for 'Living.'" On the main page about Real Lives, you can also read shorter excerpts from Jeremiah Gingold's "Homeschooling for Peace and Justice" and Kyla Wetherell's "La Gringa y La Bicicleta."

from

Ascent from a Nightmare

Patrick Meehan, 16
Orlando, Florida

. . . . Another thing that bugged my mother was that I'd sometimes sit around and look off into space for what seemed hours on end. She would accuse me of wasting time.

But I was not wasting time. No. There is no such thing as wasting time. Whether in art or math or philosophy, important thoughts do not pop, fully formed, into one's mind. One must develop them bit by bit. I'm sure all the great thinkers have appeared to others to be wasting time.

That first year my life had transformed completely and I was reeling, trying to put it all in order. The first year out of the oppression of school is a shock to one's system. I suppose I can understand why it was alarming to Mom that I was spending so much time woolgathering and sleeping. But when you think about it, I had never before had such a block of time to call my own. There had been sinister "responsibilities" hanging over my head--always homework to be done, etc.

I was truly relishing my new-found opportunity to use my own mind one hundred percent of the time. I was not quite used to the idea of not doing something measurably valuable at all times, and I did suffer a bit of guilt. But I would say to any prospective homeschooler: don't let such pressures bother you. Woolgather with impunity. (Grace describes this phenomenon accurately in The Teenage Liberation Handbook. Reading what she said made my mother and me feel considerably better.)

By that summer, my "dreamy" phase was almost over. Natural talents and resources had come back to me, much in the way energy returns to a person after a long, restful sleep. I was on fire with new ideas, proof that my woolgathering had NOT been wasted time. I had simply been learning how to use my freedom--sort of like hostages must have to do when they are released.

That was also the summer that my mom finally found the time to sit down and really read through all of the back issues of Growing Without Schooling (GWS) that she had acquired, as well as through the stacks of books and articles on the subject of homeschooling. (Our thanks to Susannah Sheffer, the editor of GWS, for helping us find articles relating to older homeschoolers.) Apparently my circumstances were somewhat unusual: many homeschoolers have been homeschooled since an early age, untainted by the ill effects of the school system. Consequently, there is a lot of information for homeschooling younger children, and not so much about starting later.

It was a very relaxed summer, perfect for contemplation of the upcoming year. We had to make quite a decision, having completed eighth grade and facing the ninth. If I stayed out of school now, I would never be allowed to come back in, and it seemed I could very well end up locked out completely when it came to finding a job, college, etc.

Then again, I wasn't going to go back into what I had just escaped. I did not want to conform again to that diminished self. This is where GWS was most helpful. Several homeschoolers described what happened to them when they approached higher education. It was consoling to know that they were finding their way into the most prestigious colleges in the U.S...in fact, probably the most prestigious colleges in the world. And it was especially nice to know that universities were contacting Holt Associates (the publishers of Growing Without Schooling) asking how they could attract qualified homeschoolers. The numerous success stories were encouraging.

By the end of the summer we had come to our conclusion. Success or failure, I would be allowed to continue to homeschool. We all agreed that it would be better to take this chance rather than to plunge me back into almost assured doom.

The second year--"ninth grade"

At this point, my parents had the courage to hand me the reins of my own education. We shared the understanding that if what I was doing with my time didn't satisfy them, then we could fall back to using a tutor or at least a daily schedule. So with this security I was allowed to control my own life even more fully than in my first year of homeschooling.

I think the decision was wise. In addition to making my life a lot easier, it freed me to use giant blocks of my time for immersion in whatever subject seemed appropriate. It is much easier to lever knowledge or skill acquisition around when there are months available rather than hours. Having six or seven little periods every day, each focusing on a completely different subject, and often seeming at the time abstract and useless to the student, is like trying to roll around a boulder with hundreds of little toothpicks--some of which are only theoretical anyway. At the other extreme, where there is a whole year available for learning a single chosen subject, exceptional progress can be made. At least that has been true for me and for others who have commented on their self-education.

So school was out of the way permanently and, furthermore, I was in control of my own education. My parents had gone from "teachers" to "facilitators." Now the fun part: reach my goals!

My major goal was (and is) to get a job in video game design, specifically at the second of the two companies to which I had already sent my work samples.

I have never seen game design merely as a "trade," something about which I would read books and study specific information, and "learn." Rather, I think of it as an art form. Even the first year I could see that to be truly proficient in any field of design, I would need to incorporate into my thinking as much creative, useful knowledge as possible from many fields. There is no one tried-and-true method of being innovative.

The need to be as well-rounded as possible became apparent immediately when I took a closer look at some of the background graphics in a favorite video game of mine. One of the most important elements in a game is location. Unless the gameplay itself is truly captivating, and sometimes not even then, a game will just fall flat without a supporting environment for the various characters to inhabit. One might argue that it really wouldn't matter what the backgrounds look like as long as they get the point across (rock, ladder, stairway, water, door). But quite the opposite is true, and the broader the knowledge of the designer, the more challenging and exciting the game can become.

My computer had played an important part in my artwork, but the main problem with trying to develop artistically with a computer as the medium is that there is no program which can really sketch. I have found that to be able to approach professional-level computer graphics, one must already be able to draw. The machine is no substitute for that.

So I decided to take a break from the Amiga and go on a sort of art quest, looking for books of artwork that would inspire me. As a result, I developed a nice collection of relatively obscure volumes. I have never plagiarized, and I never will knowingly, but there is something inspiring about looking at good artwork. Observation refines one's style, though not necessarily one's technique.

The biggest artistic mistake that I had made during my first year of homeschooling concerned the exhaustive preparation of full, finished portfolios, which I then submitted to companies I hoped would employ me--at age thirteen! These portfolios were premature and took a great deal of time to produce. I should have been using that time to develop basic artistic skills. But that is what this kind of schooling is about for me: I make my own mistakes and I learn my own lessons.

As the second year progressed, though, my art abilities developed more and more. I also found time to expand my interest in architecture, something that has helped greatly with computer graphics.

So finally I again took a large number of my sketches and photocopy-edited them into a sort of booklet, which, with a cover letter, became my new portfolio to send to the game company. A good response came back. They said that they had no opening at that time but would like to consider me again after the first of the year.

As far as my formal, academic education went in my second year: I pretty much dropped everything, including math. Looking back now, at the start of my fourth year of homeschooling, I sort of regret this, but, then again, I doubt I would be able to draw as well as I can now, had I spread myself thin trying to do too much. Anyway, now that the art is under control, I intend to put all of my time into learning higher math. It might be better this way, since a real need for that subject has developed out of my life.

That second year I did stay with music composition. I was not making the progress that I would have liked, but I was acquiring a good familiarity with the subject. Perhaps the way I was studying was causing me to jump ahead of myself. (With Jamie, I continued to ask lots of questions and range far afield of the more normal learning progression.) I was never really satisfied to compose simple little pieces when my head was filled with more complex ideas. The baby steps were frustrating.

I was not taking piano usage at the time; I was simply working with the piano as a tool for composition. As a result, it was difficult to perform my own creations! If I ever have the opportunity, I would like to become a proficient player, as I have discovered that the most dramatic improvements in my compositional skills happen when I can sit down and play work that I admire. Something like counterpoint really has to be played to be appreciated, although its beauty lies in the cerebral activity of spacing the notes in correct relation to one another.

That was also my Year of the Book. I spent hours each day reading (and still do). Since then I have plowed through shelves of books. I started out with fantasy. I liked Piers Anthony's work but grew tired of it because Piers himself seems to lose interest in the concepts he starts with. His novels tend to descend into silliness.

From Piers Anthony, I moved briefly into Stephen King territory, and stayed there long enough to complete It, The Eyes of the Dragon, and The Stand. Plenty long enough. Among other things I really like King's characterization.

From there I went on to read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, an epic bit of Gothic writing, now a classic. (I highly recommend the first two volumes; ignore the third.) I continued with short stories by Franz Kafka and H.P. Lovecraft, as well as the Dune saga by Frank Herbert.

Of course the years' reading material has been peppered with the usual assortment of bizarre books. I have books whose topics range from musical anecdotes to feng shui to the study of unmentionable language. I have art books, math books, physics books, books on war strategy and philosophy. I sometimes joke that in lieu of a resume, I should photograph my bookshelves.

The first year I had been pretty much a hermit...by choice. The second year offered me much more in the way of a social life. I met several people through Justin Page, the one person with whom I kept in touch after my escape from school . . . .

*****

. . . . Regarding my ongoing interest in becoming a game designer: I talked to the manager of the company in California who had said that they wanted to reconsider me for possible employment in 1992. She gave me a good idea of what to submit.

I hurriedly put together an elaborate two-booklet portfolio of samples of the year's work. The first booklet focused on a special set of characters that I was, and still am, developing. The second was simply a compilation of drawings and paintings from my sketch collection (all with copyright protection, of course).

Several weeks passed. I got nervous and called several times. They said that my work was still being looked over and not to worry about it. They were interested, I was told, or they would have mailed me a rejection letter.

Sure enough, for the first time my work was actually returned to me with a very nice letter. They weren't ready to offer me a position yet, but they encouraged me to come see them the next time that I was in California.

I am a very determined person. The "next time" that I was going to be in California was right away. I arranged a meeting with them in late June, 1992. It turned out pretty well considering that by the time the hellish six-hour flight was over (I had been unable to sleep well for days prior to leaving, as well), I was so mellow that I could barely speak. My brother met me at the airport and I went to his home where I managed to eat a bowl of soup. I was feeling a bit ill.

My brother then called the company and got directions. On the way, he pulled the car part way into the parking lot of a dilapidated building that had half of a fiberglass rhinoceros sticking out of it and said, "Well, here we are." I am used to his jokes and that helped lighten me up a little. We drove on.

I had read an article about game design in a magazine a week prior to my trip, and was a bit apprehensive. There was that subtle feeling also of "Dear God, what have I gotten myself into?"

But when we got there my fears evaporated. I honestly can't think of one thing I didn't like. Not only was the company and the job ideal, but the location was excellent and the offices turned out to be very nice.

I was a bit too dazed, though, to really appreciate all this fully. In a way my lack of sleep helped, as I wasn't as nervous as I think I might have been otherwise. In fact, quite the opposite, I felt near comatose. I only wish that I had been more alert to answer their questions. I was so spaced-out that I probably couldn't have told them my last name without thinking about it.

Maybe it was a surprise for them to find out that I was fifteen years old. Maybe not. But they did not seem at all condescending. The "meeting" (I have yet to figure out whether it was actually a job interview) went on for about two hours. This was encouraging because they weren't required to spend that much time with me. They could have cut it short easily. I would have understood. They are business people and their time is valuable.

I flew home the next day in a kind of stupor. I don't know whether it was the jet lag, the excitement, the loss of sleep, or all three, but the whole stay in California had a sort of dreamlike quality about it.

As soon as I got off the plane I set about writing the paragraphs that they had asked me to prepare (I hadn't thought to bring any of my writing samples on the trip) and some notes of general thanks. I was, and continue to be, very grateful to them for taking their time to meet with me, and for their advice.

A few weeks later I received a letter declining to offer me a job but giving some good guidelines to follow and expressing interest in me for the future when I have completed art school. I really hadn't expected anything more. The trip was mostly for education's sake. Of course, I figured that if I could get a job in the process, great.

from

Fifty Pen-Pals

Ayanna Pearl Williams, 16
Idlewild, Michigan

Winter, 1991

Dear Letter Box,

I am a fifteen-year-old African American girl. I have four sisters and two brothers. I live in a very small town in the U.S.A. I am a homeschooler, but I have only been homeschooling for the past two years. We started homeschooling because of the many problems in the U.S.A.'s school system. I am very interested in the world at large, but especially Africa and Latin America. I enjoy reading, writing pen-pals, listening to short wave radio, cooking, and drawing. I would like to have my address read on the air for people who want a pen-pal.

Sincerely,
Ayanna Williams

It all started after this letter was read over the air on the Christian Science Monitor's radio program, Letter Box. I already had some pen-pals I'd gotten from Clonlara* and some from a multi-cultural magazine called Skipping Stones. My pen-pals from Skipping Stones were Nigerian, Indian, Cameroonian, and Mexican-American.** Even so, I wanted more pen-pals, and I'd written a lot of letters that were never answered.

I had no idea that my Letter Box letter would get so many replies! For about a month after it was aired, I got letters from a new person every day. My few pen-pals have now turned into over fifty correspondents worldwide. I have pen-pals on every continent except Europe.

Sometimes fifty pen-pals does seem a little overwhelming, but it is really interesting. I've found out a lot of new things. Most of my pen-pals are guys in Africa. I do have girl pen-pals too, though. One is a homeschooler who lives in New Zealand. And my best friend in the world is Denise, a Mexican-American in Colorado . . . .

****

....I have a pen-pal in South Africa in his forties who teaches people about my age. He writes long interesting letters and illustrates them. I have another pen-pal who is a native of Ghana, went to school for a year in Cuba, and now works in Libya. In Nigeria I have many pen-pals, one of whom is an eighteen-year-old Igbo:

The Christmas celebration was very dull this year in Enugu state. The reason was that many people moved out of the state since the creation of new states recently. During Christmas day everywhere was so dull that it looked like a ghost town. The masquerades that usually chase people around were nowhere to be seen. I went out that afternoon with my brother in our car. We drove to some of the places that are usually congested with people and masquerades, but no one was seen. Only a few people loitering around. Back home we celebrated happily with our family. After prayers, we dined on rice cooked with coconut juice, stew with chicken, and goat meat and some drinks. Celebrating Christmas in Enugu state is usually very enjoyable, especially when watching different masquerades passing by, sometimes chasing people around.

--Chionye Alisigwe, Nigeria, 1/20/92 . . . .

*****

Socialization

. . . . It seems that some people worry that I won't get socialized. I have only been out of school for one year. If they were going to socialize me, I should be pretty socialized after eight years. What is this thing that I am supposedly lacking? It couldn't be working with other people. I was always under the impression that you should look at your own paper. It couldn't be to communicate. At my school you were not supposed to talk in class unless you were called on. "Talk at lunch, recess"--then you sit quietly for three hours. It surely isn't to obey, they couldn't really believe you would do some of the things they tell you to do, like not talking unless you are acknowledged by the authority....I can do all the above when I choose. I can't figure out what socialization is, and if I did, would I want to be socialized? . . . .

****

Work

. . . . This summer I am working on a project to record the history of Idlewild as told by the people who lived it. It involves talking to elderly people and videotaping, and is paid for by a job training program funded by the school district. (The program assigned me to the Idlewild library, and the library designed the actual project.) I spend at least three hours each day at the local meals program in Baldwin. Old timers come to spend time with their friends and eat. They tell me about Idlewild in the fifties. I find it fascinating hearing their stories. I heard one story, for example, about coming to Idlewild fifty years ago with a suitcase, a box, a little girl, and a greasy bag that used to have chicken in it. This job is more interesting than most I've had.

I like to listen to the elderly talk to each other about growing up in the days of big families, home grown food, and even homeschooling! One lady told me that when she was growing up there was no school to go to. They were taught arithmetic, reading, and writing at home by mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and any other adult around. They tell me if I stick around they will learn me something. They also tell me that it is a good thing, what I am doing. And they say I should talk to some really old people before they die or forget what they know.

from

Homeschooling is another word for "Living"

Amanda Bergson-Shilcock, 16
Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

When I was eleven years old, I became tired of people asking me the same questions about homeschooling over and over again. So I put together a pamphlet that answered those questions once and for all. Part of it went like this:

Q. What's the best thing about homeschooling for you?

A. Two things. Being able to have lots of freedom and liking to read. Most kids I know who go to school hate reading.

Q. What's the worst thing?

A. The worst thing is when I feel like playing with a friend and my sisters aren't home and my brother's asleep and my homeschooling friends are busy and all my other friends are at school, then I really feel like if I had been going to school I wouldn't be sitting at home not having anybody to play with.

Q. Do you have a regular schedule for doing your work?

A. If you mean, do I have Math at 9:00, English at 11:00, Lunch at 12:00, no. If you mean, do I have to do certain work every day (or every week), yes. For example, Mom says, "Amanda, I want you to practice your violin for 15 minutes before noon." If it is 9:00, I know I can start anywhere between 9:00 and 11:45.

Even though one of the best things about homeschooling is that you can be relaxed about your schedule, there are lots of times when I do have to schedule. Both my parents and my brother and sisters lead busy lives, so if I want time with them, I usually have to schedule it ahead of time, such as this: Early one morning I go to [my younger sister] Emily, who is working in her office, and say, "Em, want to come play dolls with me now?" She says, "Well, I have a violin lesson soon, then later I go over to Gabriella's house, so I'll play dolls in between." Or, maybe, I'm working on the computer, and my Dad comes up to me and says, "Amanda, will you help me take apart the treehouse?" I say, "Sure, but first I have a phone call I have to make, and then I have to empty the dishwasher." Dad says, "OK, see you in about 15 minutes."

Q. What do you do when you want to know something and your parents don't know the answer?

A. There are several things that I can do. One is we have a fairly large library in our house, so I could go there and look it up in the encyclopedia, or in some sort of book which I think might hold the answer. Another option is to ask a family friend who I think might have the answer. Another thing I can do is ask one of my siblings.

Q. Would your parents let you go to school if you wanted to?

A. Yes, I've always had that option and about once a year my mom or dad asks me, usually in September, "Do you want to go to school this year?" I usually say, "Not this year." Sometimes I say I'll think about it, because right then I'm thinking, "Boy, I would have some really neat classes if I went to school." Then I think, "But what about always being on the teacher's schedule...," and I say no.

Q. Do you consider yourself a social outcast?

A. No. My view is that I have plenty of friends my own age, and also many younger friends. I also feel that I have some friends other kids don't have--adult friends.

Q. Do you ever go anyplace outside your home?

A. This definitely has something to do with the question, "Do you consider yourself a social outcast?" but it also evokes a different answer. The answer, of course, is yes, I go lots of places outside our home. I do a slide presentation with my dad when we go to conferences and I have several slides of gatherings of homeschoolers and school kids alike doing fun stuff--taking sleigh rides in the snow, making apple cider, going on a long nature hike, camping out--lots of fun things. I go lots of places. One thing that really helps me be able to do that is my volunteer work at St. Edmonds Home for Crippled Children with my sisters Emily and Julia and my mom, Susan, and my volunteer work at the Lower Merion-Naberth Watershed Association with my sister Emily. I also volunteer at the Schuylkill Valley Nature Center. I'm what they call a teaching volunteer. On Wednesday mornings I go out there and teach a bunch of school kids. What we do is we go on a trail and answer their questions as they go along and stop once in a while for a game or an explanation or something like that.

I wrote that pamphlet five years ago. I am now sixteen, and still homeschooling. Some of the questions people ask have remained the same over the years, and some have changed. I want to highlight four misconceptions which crop up quite often these days:

1. That all homeschoolers homeschool for religious reasons. This is not true. Many homeschoolers do, but the number is far from being the whole of the homeschooling community. My family does not homeschool for religious reasons.

2. That the only teachers homeschoolers have are their parents (or parent). This, again, is not true. Especially after one reaches high school age, there are many subjects the parent may not feel comfortable teaching. For example:

Last year, when I was a high school "freshman" (I put this term in quotes because I try not to place myself in a specific grade level), I discovered that the vast majority of people my age were receiving exposure to biology. Well, my parents were no more prepared to teach me biology than to fly to the moon! So, Mom swapped services with another homeschooling family we know. She worked with their ten-year-old son on English and math, and the mom, a former high school biology and college nutrition teacher, taught my sister and me biology and beginning chemistry. There are countless other examples of this kind of process throughout many homeschoolers' lives.

In addition, many homeschoolers, including myself, often work independently, without any need or desire for formal or even informal teachers. For instance, last fall I decided to teach myself to touch-type. This was not an out-of-the-blue decision; Dad had been telling me for years what a difference it would make in my work. (Before, I did one of three things: 1) I typed my stories out myself with two fingers before I sent them on to Susannah, my writing mentor, 2) I wrote them out by hand and trusted Susannah to understand, or 3) I sent her a dictated tape, which she would then transcribe.)

Anyway, I was full of excitement but had no place to start. I finally remembered an instruction book a friend had given me, and I dug it out. It was pretty old; it talked about returning the carriage at the end of each line, and about good erasers--the rubber kind! But the keyboard is one thing that hasn't changed, so the book still worked for me. I spent several late nights resisting the ever-present urge to look down while I learned the keyboard, and then continued on with some very tedious exercises. (If you don't believe me, try typing "Sue was a sure bet to see the silly seed setting races" over a whole page!) Finally, I had had enough. I decided the rest of the exercises were good for hopeful secretaries, not me, and spent the rest of my practicing time on real things like writing letters. Of course, I did some backsliding--no method is foolproof, and at times it was so much easier to slip into my old, comfortable system that I succumbed. I'm still not the fastest or most accurate of typists, but in my humble opinion I'm not so bad.

3. That a homeschooler goes to "school at home" (and therefore never gets out of the house), complete with a school desk, the Pledge of Allegiance, countless worksheets, and a rigid schedule. Well, this is certainly true for some homeschoolers, but my gosh! If you showed this to many of my homeschooling friends, they'd cringe and say, "This is why I LEFT school!" Needless to say, that is not at all how my family homeschools, and I'll show you examples a little later on of just how we do homeschool.

4. THE MOST WIDELY HELD HOMESCHOOLING MISCONCEPTION OF ALL TIME: That homeschoolers will never become "socialized." I would say that one hundred out of every hundred people who ever found out I was homeschooling asked me this question in one form or another. This is what I usually say to them:

"Well, you know, a lot of people ask that question. I actually think homeschooling offers better options in some cases than schools. For instance, in a school setting, one is likely to find many people of one's own age range (say, within two to three years), but with middle schools and high schools in separate buildings most of the time you never even see people significantly older or younger than you. I count myself very lucky to have, in addition to friends my own age, many close adult friends, and a good number of younger friends."

I also want to point out that a lot of my schooled friends have difficulty relating to their younger siblings. They don't usually ask questions about their days, attend their sports events, or just generally spend time with them. Why? First of all, they are separated from them for seven hours a day, five days a week. Second, they are taught by their friends that it is uncool to be close to their sisters or brothers. (However, I do not mean to generalize here. Many young people have perfectly good relationships with their siblings.) . . . .

***

ACADEMICS

. . . . I do algebra with my aunt, English and history on my own, and I have studied various other subjects at other points in my life. I usually decide what I want to learn, how I want to learn it, and when and with whom I do it. I have always had a strong interest in reading and writing, so I have never, not once, been assigned a book to read or a composition to write. My parents and I have tried to keep fairly on top of what my "peers"* have been learning (actually, we use the phrase "being exposed to"). For instance, as I mentioned earlier, in ninth grade, we discovered that chemistry and/or biology is commonly taught, along with a foreign language. Sometimes I make an effort to do roughly the same thing as the schools, and sometimes I just choose to forget about it. I never work under deadlines or schedules except for those I set myself. My parents believe that, for example, knowing a smaller chunk of algebra well is better than memorizing the whole book, chapter by chapter, and having it all disappear come June . . . .

***

English

. . . . As I stated before, I do English on my own. This includes writing and editing both fiction and non-fiction. I taught myself to touch-type earlier this year because my hand got too cramped from always writing, so now I use my old battered typewriter, my dad's Macintosh, or faithful pen and paper, depending on what time of night it is. My best work is done at one or two a.m., a time I could never stay up to if I had to be up by six to catch a bus for school!

Since I read very widely by choice, I have never had to read a book--in fact quite the opposite, my parents are continually dragging me away from my books! This is another area in which I feel closer to adults than my peers, since many of them seem as if they never want to (or have time to) crack a book. I always try to be sympathetic when I hear them say, "I have to read forty pages tonight!" but sometimes it's hard.

With my adult friends, in particular a former Head Children's Librarian, I often discuss the problem of not having enough time to read! Since Patti, the librarian, and I get together once a week to catalogue books for Open Connections, my parents' family resource center, we use the opportunity to gab about the newest books (children's, young adult, and adult) and the best authors, and to swap books.

(Open Connections is a one-room, 1000 square-foot building next to our house which has housed, over the last fourteen years, an ongoing morning program for children ages four to nine, various courses taught by my father and others on homeschooling and related subjects, and numerous homeschooling gatherings, programs, etc.)

This past year, Patti and I attended a two-week adult continuing education course at a community college near us. It was called "Writing for the Children's Market." This came about because Mom, who had been looking for a course of some sort I could take, sent away for a catalog of courses from a college. She looked through it, I looked through it, and both of us spotted the same course. It featured a "well-known children's author." Also, it was only two sessions long, which seemed good, because I thought, "If I hate it, I'll only have to go one more time!"

Anyway, it turned out to be an interesting experience. Vivian (the teacher) was a semi-well-known children's non-fiction writer. She knew a lot about agents, contracts, publishers, and how to get a book published. She also seemed to know a lot about how to sell a publisher on a particular book. However, she didn't seem to know much about what children want. She advised not stretching children's vocabulary, and made some large, sweeping statements having to do with what children liked to read. (She seemed to think she was referring to all of the readers in the world under age eighteen, while I am of the opinion that she was talking about her perception of those readers.)

I did get some ideas out of the course, but I was disappointed by the total lack of creativity shown by my fellow classmates. Some had brought manuscripts, and what they read aloud was boring, adult-oriented "children's" literature. I think that one of the reasons I was (am) so critical of the course is that my parents taught me never to believe that just because a person happens to be standing in front of other people and lecturing, that doesn't necessarily mean that she/he is an expert.

Another new area of my homeschooling has also developed from cataloging books with Patti. I am now accompanying Patti to local schools to do booktalks. This is when a school hires a bookstore owned by friends of Patti's to do a bookfair. The store tells the school that included in the cost of the bookfair is Patti (and now me), who will come to the school a day or two before the bookfair opens and review some of our favorite books for the students. Patti and I get together a week or so beforehand. We plan out which old favorites we're going to do, and which new books we must read before the bookfair, so we can decide which of them to use. We try to do books that kids are not familiar with, and also books with exciting plots, so that we can stop at a suspenseful point in a review, and say, "If you want to know what happens next, go to the bookfair and buy the book!"

We usually do elementary and middle school bookfairs, but now that I am part of the package, Patti's friends are sort of using me as bait for the high schools--i.e. if we do your bookfair, we'll have the kid's point of view! Some adults seem to have this notion that kids are another species, or are from another planet or something, and therefore they, the adults, couldn't possibly know what the kids will like. So these adults are very excited about having the kid's point of view. (Conversely, of course, there are those adults who think that kids are too stupid to choose their own books.)

Anyway, much as I enjoy doing these bookfairs, every time I leave the school building after I do one, I feel a gust of relief. I think part of it is sympathy for the kids still stuck in there, and part is relief that I'm not stuck in there, and another bit is that I am recovering from the teacher-y atmosphere: marching in a line down the hall, the teacher's pet going to get things for her, the chatter of some teachers while we're trying to work, the cute-talk: "Now, Johnny, sit down and the nice lady will explain it all to you."

The part that makes me the saddest is when, at the beginning of a booktalk, with dozens of enticing books on our display tables, the children sit quietly, as they've been told to do. Patti finishes her introduction, and tells them that they may pick any book they see and she or I will talk about it. But they usually continue to sit, until one brave soul raises a hand. Patti picks up the book, opens it, and begins to talk. When she finishes, a sort of pandemonium breaks loose, with almost every child in the room straining to raise her hand the highest, to yell his book's title the loudest.

The reason I find this initial passivity so sad is that I can see, with my own two eyes, how no choices ("Johnny, you have to stop reading NOW. It's time for music class.") and fake choices ("Would you rather have your science test before your math sheets, or after?") affect children. They begin to believe that they are incapable of making their own decisions, or that they're not old enough or whatever. I see that continuing right down the line until I get a tenth-grader at the library who can't decide which of two almost identical reference books she should xerox from. "Which is better?" she asks me.

"They have the same information," I answer, "They're both recent; they both have good pictures. They're very much the same."

"Yes, but which should I copy?"

You see? How I wish that every child could have the same freedom I've been lucky enough to have: reading, writing, playing, working--when I want, and yet retaining a sense of family duties and commitments.

Just one more note before we go on to something else: I am not maligning the teaching profession. There are a good number of smart, well-educated (notice I am not saying "well schooled") teachers out there who really try to help their students learn. Unfortunately, there are six times as many who are overworked, underpaid, never-really-wanted-to-be-teachers-anyway, often-ill people out there whose last concern is to help children learn. It is those that I have trouble with.

I am also continuing my work with Susannah Sheffer, who is editor of John Holt's Growing Without Schooling magazine. Since I was ten, I have sent Susannah my writing and asked for her comments. Less frequently--since she's near Boston and I'm near Philadelphia--I've spoken to her over the phone. This all started when Susannah was attending college nearby and working at Open Connections. I saw Susannah taking down some dictation for a little girl attending the morning program and, since I already thought of myself as a writer, I asked her if she would take down some dictation from me too. She agreed.

Susannah had already been around our house for quite a while, helping my dad with the homeschooling newsletter he was putting out, and helping with the morning program at Open Connections. I knew that she was a writer, and that she was heading up to Cambridge, Massachusetts when she graduated, to work at Holt Associates. (Holt Associates is the organization founded by well-known educator John Holt, which publishes the bimonthly homeschooling magazine Growing Without Schooling.) A short time before she left, I asked her if it would be OK if I sent her some of my writing to comment on. I had really liked her comments as we worked together on my dictated work, and I was hoping she would do the same through the mail.

Several months later, she came to visit us. While she was there, I exclaimed over how nice it was to work with her in person again. Mom picked right up on that. She said to me, "Why don't you call Susannah once a week or something? That way, you could still send things through the mail, but you would also get to talk with her personally, and clarify things if you had to." I thought that was a great idea. We investigated, found a (relatively) cheap time to call, and agreed that I would call her at the specified time each week. Susannah went back to Boston, and we began what became a weekly (or sometimes even twice-weekly) ritual. In the past few years we have gone back to using the mail most often, with phone calls only occasionally.

Susannah offers suggestions for improvement on not only such mundane things as grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but also on such things as historical accuracy. Plus, she makes clear, constructive criticisms: "I think you need to be clearer here--is Mary saying that she hates what her father did, or that she hates her father?"

Susannah offers several things that are difficult for me to get from other people in my life. First, she is not my mother or my sister. Therefore, she is not constrained the way they sometimes are by feeling they should say a story is "nice" just because they're family. Second, she knows when to stop; she doesn't tell me so many things at once that I am overwhelmed. Third, as a writer and as an editor, she knows where I'm coming from. She asks insightful questions and offers her interpretations of what I'm trying to say.

Here's one example of how we work: I received a letter from Susannah saying that she liked a poem I was working on, but thought I might want to reconsider some of my line breaks, since most people, when reading a poem, will stop, if only momentarily, at the end of each line. She suggested that I read it aloud to myself and see whether I agreed with her. So I did, and decided to change some of the line breaks, but to leave some the way they were. This is a great example of our work together: I send something, she reads it, she writes to me about it, I read her letter, I follow (or don't follow) her suggestions, I send her the revised work, and we repeat the process.

Susannah can work with me in a way that most school teachers can't work with their students. Obviously, this is largely due to the fact that she and I are working one on one, and school teachers often have to work with fifteen to thirty students at a time. Also, I lead the way with Susannah: I decide what I want to write, when I want to write, what to write about, and how I want to do it. (As I said before, I use pen and paper and a computer. Sometimes, though, when a story is coming so quickly that I can't think clearly enough to write it down, I just tape-record it and send it to Susannah, and she later types it up for me.)

An offshoot of this work is that Susannah recently wrote a book of her own, Writing Because We Love To: Homeschoolers at Work (Heinemann-Boynton/Cook, 1992). In the process of writing this book (which concerns Susannah's apprenticeships/relationships with young writers, including me), Susannah sent me drafts of the manuscript, asking for my input and suggestions. I thought it was neat that she was asking for my input!

When she sent me the manuscript, I was very busy, and I didn't get to discuss it with her as much as I would have liked. In reading it, though, I discovered so many things that I had unwittingly taught Susannah. For example, she wrote about how my thoughts on the old "write about what you know about" theory had affected her. I had told her, when I was in the process of writing a teenage romance story (as an experiment), that if she had told me only to write about what I knew about, I would be in sore trouble because I, a homeschooler all my life, was writing a story about a girl who went to school! However, I told her, it might have been appropriate for her to question me if that was all I was writing about. Maybe then it would have been time for me to ask myself why I wasn't writing about homeschoolers, or even why I wasn't writing neutral stories where school intrudes little, if at all.

I think one of the reasons I was writing about schooled kids, and why I was writing "neutral" stories, was that I felt in my non-fiction articles for homeschooling magazines, I was already writing about a homeschooled child--me! I also think that since the vast majority of children are schooled, I was unconsciously writing for them, assuming they'd want to read about schooled children. (Don't ask me why, with my background, I thought that!) Also, as I discovered in the writing course Patti and I took, my personal view of traditional or non-traditional is slightly skewed. (We did a short assignment on baking chocolate-chip cookies, and I wrote what I felt was a non-traditional story. But since I was unthinkingly deviating only from my family's tradition--my father always bakes the cookies in our house--I had the mother do it in the story, and my piece accidentally ended up traditional.)

Another thing I think Susannah learned from me was that dictating really is writing. Most adults don't think of it that way--they see it as "telling a story" or something, but they fail to see the equivalence of the businessperson who dictates letters, or the author who uses a tape recorder or even that well-known invention, the Dictaphone. I think dictating is just another form of writing: we went from oral history (a form of dictation), to hieroglyphics on stone, to stick and papyrus scrolls, to quill and inkwell, to pencil, to fountain pen, to ball-point pen, to typewriter, to word processor, and now some of us are back to dictation. Nobody says that the woman who chooses to use an old typewriter instead of a new word processor isn't really writing. I think that since this condescending attitude toward young people's dictation is so prevalent in our world today, Susannah had never really considered it until I and other young writers brought it to her attention.

For any young writers who are looking for a mentor/writing apprenticeship (or any kind of apprenticeship, really) I would say five things: First, don't work with anyone you're not comfortable with. Find someone else. Second, if you're having trouble finding what you want, put the word out among everyone you know. You never know whose uncle's sister-in-law's daughter is an established writer who would be happy to help a just-starting-out writer. Third, take a writing course at a community college, at summer school, anywhere! If you go where the writers are, you'll have a better chance of finding one to help you. Fourth, write an ad and put it in a homeschooling newsletter, or newspaper, or church paper. Or put a poster at your library, at the supermarket, at a college, anywhere! Fifth, when you do find someone, stress that this is an experiment. You don't want to be locked into something anymore than they do! Try it for a month, or six weeks, or whatever, then reevaluate. Good luck!

Finally, if you are looking for a volunteer position, apprenticeship, or other work situation, don't limit yourself to places with established youth programs. I've worked at many organizations, volunteering my time. I began at a nature center when I was eight, and this turned out to be the hardest place of my volunteering career to get into. The staff was used to seeing large busloads of school children on field trips, and those kids, tired and restless after a long ride, would often run, jump, be noisy, and generally enjoy themselves on their own terms during the staff-led tour. Therefore, the employees were more than a little skeptical about having an eight-year-old volunteer. (All of the other volunteers were adults, most in their thirties and early forties.) My Dad and I met with the head of the volunteers and another top staff member, and at the end of the meeting they were still somewhat unsure. I was finally allowed on a trial basis after one adult volunteer (whom we knew) agreed to "sponsor" me. She drove me to and from the nature center once a week, and worked with me on most of the things I did. These included leading school groups on tours and assisting at various festivals (for which I did research on different subjects--e.g. Easter egg dyeing using natural dyes). I worked at the nature center for several years.

After that, I worked at a home for physically and mentally handicapped children, a local environmental group, and the library. All of these positions were enriching, exciting, and fun. If you are interested in volunteering at a local organization, start by getting as much information as possible about what you'd be doing. Many organizations have strict rules regarding what a volunteer may or may not do, particularly if the person is under age eighteen. Suggest a trial period; try to find someone already volunteering there who can sponsor you; problem-solve with your contact person to try to find a way. Sometimes you can even volunteer out of your own home, helping with mailings and such. People are often wary of a child or teenage volunteer, but once they see that you're a responsible person, they'll probably come around. If you are genuinely interested, you can find a way.