A Good Choice

Parents of all pre-school children must decide the type of education setting desired for each child-public, private or home-school. My parents chose home-schooling. I have been home-schooled my entire seventeen years and have enjoyed every moment of it. I have nothing against any of the other groups, but I am very happy that I am home-schooled. My grandma was an elementary counselor for a public school in De Soto, Texas and she invited me to spend the day with her twice. The first time was in kindergarten; the best class I would ever attend. The second time was in the third-grade, which is the class I remember best. Now, I'm sure most everyone can remember something that happened in the third-grade. Going to a public school for the second time, I was able to see all the differences, which made a lasting impression on my life. From my experience, I realized that I would never enjoy public school and that I wanted to stay home-schooled for as long as I could.

Since I wanted to be home-schooled forever, I was very nervous when my grandma asked me if I wanted to go to school with her. I said yes, but wondered if I would later regret it. I hardly slept that night. As we walked down the hall towards the third-grade classroom the next day, I became sick with nervousness. Walking down the sparkling, sterile white halls with the same color tile floor, I could just feel all those kids' curious eyes examining me as my grandma escorted me to the classroom. We stepped into the brightly, decorated room and a young woman greeted my grandmother. Suddenly the nervousness went away as I stared at the smiling woman, whom I guessed was the teacher. She was a younger woman in her late twenties to early thirties with blond hair and blue eyes, whom my grandma introduced as Ms. Campbell. Ms. Campbell showed me around the classroom and I was so intrigued that I did not notice my grandma slip out of the room. Soon the room was filled with noisy, rambunctious kids trying to get to their desks before the bell rang; but the noise rapidly fell quiet as Ms. Campbell began class. Since the nervousness had left me, I was happy that my grandma had thought to bring me and was now anxious to see what would happen next.

After Ms. Campbell had introduced me to the class, she told me that the kids had to do their work and since I did not have any work, I could color. That suited me just fine. She gave me paper and markers and left me to my "work." As the students were doing their assignments, I casually glanced around. The students were sitting in desks with three-sided partitions surrounding them like they all had some sort of contagious disease. I thought about how different it was compared to my classroom. Since I was home-schooled, we did not have a room designated for school and just sat at the kitchen table. I did not have partitions enclosing me for which I