My Literacy: Being Homeschooled and What Comes With It.

This podcast features Esme Conway and her guest, Avrie Vergara, discussing their experiences with homeschooling. They talk about why they are literate in homeschooling and how it has shaped them. Avery shares that transitioning to public high school made her realize the differences between homeschooling and traditional schooling. They both discuss the stereotypes and judgments they faced from others. Despite some disadvantages, such as feeling underprepared for a 9 to 5 job, they embrace being homeschooled and plan to continue developing their literacy by pursuing their interests. They hope listeners learned something new about homeschooling. Welcome to my podcast. This is Esme Conway and this is my guest, Avery Vergara. This podcast is about our literacy, which is being homeschooled. First, I want to talk about why we are literate in being homeschooling. So Avery, why are you literate in homeschooling? Well, I was homeschooled up until high school, and so it was just a part of every aspect of my life. And I also reflected a lot on how it's affected me and how I've carried it in life. Yeah, I agree. I think that being raised homeschooled and also being raised knowing a lot of people who are homeschooled and being around that gave so many different perspectives. So I think that that is a huge part of being literate and being homeschooled. So Avery, what was a pivotal moment in your homeschooling experience that furthered your literacy and being homeschooled? I would say my first day of public high school, which was also the first time I'd ever gone to public high school, gave me the most perspective on homeschooling because before that I hadn't really thought about the fact that I was homeschooled or how it had impacted me. And when I went to public school, I was quickly aware of the differences and how everybody else was raised. I would definitely have to say the same. I think that going to public school in high school was definitely probably the biggest moment that furthered my literacy because it made me realize that there was just so many different experiences and so many different ways that people reacted to authoritative figures. Like I had never really had a teacher tell me I couldn't use the bathroom because it was my mom teaching me. And I think that that really made me realize that I had so much more autonomy over myself from being homeschooled than people who had a more traditional learning. Yeah, it's not necessarily that I didn't respect authority going into high school. I just felt like there was, to me, it felt like there was more room for conversation with authority figures. Whereas when I saw my peers in high school, they were told they couldn't go to the bathroom and they just said, okay. Whereas I would have fought back a little bit more just because I respected myself. And I grew up with way more autonomy than my peers did in high school. So when you did enter public school, were there any judgments that you had to endure from the individuals that you met there in high school? Yeah, I think that there's definitely some stereotypes, obviously, with homeschooling. And I would like to believe that I proved people wrong and so it never really affected me. But people just assume that you're weird and antisocial as a homeschooler. And I really loved being able to correct people in high school. So it didn't impact me too much, but there definitely were some judgments. What was your experience with people's opinions going into high school? People just honestly made small comments, probably, about it. Because I didn't know some of the basic things that you would know going from middle school into high school. Like the correct formatting for an essay, like MLA or whatever. The biggest one is Cornell notes, I remember. Someone was like, do you not know what Cornell notes are? And I was like, no. And honestly, I just thought that was weird. Because I felt judged. But it didn't really bother me because I still academically succeeded. Even though I was, I guess, behind. And speaking of social interactions, people definitely do assume that you're antisocial from being homeschooled. And I think that it was also nice to prove people wrong. Because I'm a very social person and I had a lot of interactions with people when I was homeschooled. And not only kids, and also adults. And that really helped me with socializing with teachers or anyone else who was not just my peer. What would you say the privileges or the disadvantages are for being homeschooled, in your opinion? In mine, I see way more privileges. Honestly, I don't have too much negative things to say about being homeschooled. And the privileges, I would say one is just naturally having way more autonomy over myself. And I feel like that's given me a better ability to speak up for myself in all situations. Even if I feel like there's an authority figure over me. And obviously in a respectful way, but I just have more ability to do that. Because there's always conversations with my teacher, because my teacher is my mom. And I would say for disadvantages, I'd say that public school sets you up for the classic 9 to 5 job. And it sets you up for being a worker in society. And so in high school and even now in college, I feel a little underprepared for that. For just the constant grind. And having less time for what I want to do. And that's been a bit of a struggle. But you can work through it. I would say in both cases, you have very different experiences. But one of my favorite things about being homeschooled. One of the privileges that I experienced while being homeschooled. Was that I got to kind of set up my own curriculum for learning. And learn things that I was interested about. And learn them in a more engaging way for me. And it really fit my learning style a lot better. Because I could kind of have a say in that. And when I went to public school, obviously one of the things that was different was. It follows a very strict curriculum. That you can't really have a say in. And it doesn't match everyone's learning styles. So then one of the disadvantages would be. Kind of what Avery said. Like high school is very like work, work. Like you don't really know. It's more structured. Like you can't really decide. Or like have a say in what you want to learn and how you want to learn it. And that was definitely hard for me to adjust to. And still is. So do you embrace being homeschooled? And how do you plan to develop your literacy further? I embrace being homeschooled like every day. And I probably it's one of the parts of my identity that I embrace the most. I think one way that even now I try to embrace it more. Is just by finding what I'm interested in currently outside of school. And in college it's a bit easier to do this. But like really identifying my current interests. And then like seeking them. Like oh I want to be better at drawing. And I practice drawing or something like that. Yeah. I would definitely agree. Definitely agree. So how do you plan to develop it further? I know I want to homeschool my kids. And then I'll know how to homeschool. And not just know how to be homeschooled. Yeah. From a different perspective I'll definitely homeschool my kids. Yeah. If I can. Thank you for listening to my podcast. I hope you enjoyed. And I hope that you learned some things that you didn't know about being homeschooled.