Replies to '11/24 Great School Debate'

I was home schooled and briefly attended private Christian schools. I never attended public school, although my parents gave me that option when I was 16. Sometimes I wish I had tried public school just to have a fair comparison of all three venues. I am really only writing to respond to Nicole, the 26 year old who feels like a social outcast because she was home schooled. I can relate to what she is feeling. I always wanted to go to college but felt too intimidated. I finally went 3 years ago, I was 26. I will graduate this coming May and I will be almost 30.

What I want to say to Nicole is that it is a human instinct to blame our circumstances for our short comings. I know because I have been doing it for years. What I have realized, however, is that it is more an excuse and a justification not to take risks. When you call yourself a "social retard" you condemn yourself to that role. You do have the power to change this damaging thought process. No one wants to leave their comfort zone and face their fears head on. It is like starting up a new fitness program. Initially it hurts and you have to talk yourself in to it everyday, but eventually the pain lessens, the routine becomes automatic and you realize that change and growth is possible.

I have come to realize that I am not as socially challenged as I once believed. My parents were very shy, bordering on withdrawn, during their school years (they both attended public schools) and I have realized that my shyness is more a product of genetics than of being home schooled, as I once believed. Things are just not that black and white. Our entire environment shapes us into who we are.

The families belonging to my church all home school there children. Some are shy, while others are rather outgoing. It is not such a great mystery as to why. By looking at the characteristics of their parents it is easy enough to see a common behavioral pattern. I also know people who only attended public school who are so insecure with themselves that they will barely look me in the eye when they are talking to me. Are they socially retarded? How could that happen if they were exposed to other children everyday?

The bottom line is that you have no way of knowing how you would have turned out if you had attended public school. It is the easy way out to say if only this had happened or that had happened. You are only disabling yourself and clearly you are capably of so much more.