There are three popular ways to gain an education: public school, private school, and home school. Out of all three, public school is the most popular. It has many opportunities that are important to most teenagers like being social with peers, extracurricular activities, and chances to get out of the house. But is public school the only way to have all of these wonderful opportunities? Of all three, homeschooling is the best option for gaining an education. Homeschooling may not be as popular as public school but it has many more perks than disadvantages. It not only gives a more flexible schedule and provides opportunities to grow closer as a family, it also can have the same advantages that students in the public school system like: social interaction, extracurricular activities, and chances to get out of the house — that is, if you join a homeschool group with other homeschoolers like you.

When you’re home schooled, your schedule will be able to work with your day (and your family’s), not anyone else’s. You can wake up when it best suits you, if that’s at four in the morning or noon, it doesn’t matter. If you do better at doing school in the evening than in the morning, go ahead. It’s your schedule! Everyone works at their own pace and does their best in different environments and times. If you want to get ahead in school, do it. If you want to take a week off, go right ahead. No one is stopping you from scheduling school the way you want to. You can pick up where you left off after you get back from vacation or a wedding or a funeral or whatever! Be mindful, though, that education is still a necessity in life, so be responsible in your flexibility and don’t take it for granted.

Not only does homeschooling provide a flexible schedule, but it also gives opportunities for your family to grow closer together. The extra time spent at home can result in the family interacting with one another more frequently than if you were in public school. That means more conversations at the dinner table (three meals a day), and sometimes you and your siblings can share subjects, no matter the age differences. History, for example, can be fun when you participate together, so can Spanish and even P.E.. A close family is important in anybody’s life and public school takes away those opportunities to be together.

Some public school kids who don’t know a lot about homeschooling always try convincing me that public school is better because of the social interaction they receive. Also, they argue that extracurricular activities will get you out of the house, and that they don’t want to be “cooped up”. Is public school the only way to “get out of the house”? Being home schooled has more opportunities than most people realize. There are home school groups all over that offer extracurricular activities, social interaction, and opportunities to get out of the house. In my home school group there are over seventy home school families that we interact with constantly, at what we call Report Day, and also at Harlingen Homeschool Academy (HHA), where you can take classes together of your choice. We even have boy basketball and cheerleading, and many other activities. So homeschooling not only has a flexible schedule and provides opportunities for your family to grow closer together, but it also can give what most teenagers want the most: interaction with others, extracurricular activities, and chances to get out of the house.

Homeschooling is what you make of it. It can be very inconvenient if that’s what you want it to be, but you can make anything seem negative. You have to look at homeschooling as an opportunity, not a chore, because even though it may seem to be tedious at times, it is worth all the advantages in the end.