Educational

We more or less stumbled into homeschooling as I don't think that my mother ever PLANNED on homeschooling me. However, with the lack of 'acceptable' schools for me to go to and our perpetual moving, it simply made the most sense for me to be homeschooled.
We had very few 'classes', and the only one that was consistant were math classes (the one subject we both hated). I learned about fractions from cooking. I learned about all kinds of science stuff from the Children's Museum in Boston that we went to on a regular basis while we lived there. I learned about human sexuality from a wonderful little comic book written from a brother & sister whose parents are about to have a younger sibling. I learned about percentages calculating discounts at sales. Even with all the 'outside' learning, I did most of my learning from reading - I would get a textbook, read it, work with my mom on the exercises, do the test that came with the book, and move on. It was WONDERFUL. If it took me three months to 'get' long division - it took me three months. I wasn't rushed, pushed, failed, or in any other way made to feel that I wasn't living up to some sort of 'expectations'. If it took me two days to get through a science concept - I wasn't forced to keep 'learning' it because I was moving too fast for the curriculum. We just ordered the next level of books and moved on. I worked at about three different levels by the time I was 10 - college level for reading and writing, 8th or 9th grade for math, and 10th or 11th grade for science.
Being homeschooled encouraged a THIRST for knowledge in me. There were some things that I HAD to learn - but I wasn't limited in feeling like that was the ONLY thing I had to learn. If I was interested in something, we would go to the library, get a book on it and we would BOTH learn from it. I've realized over the past few months that I am a fount of bits of knowledge about all KINDS of things - and I think the freedom and flexibility of homeschooling had a lot to do with that. I don't think that kids in regular school have the time to have that kind of freedom because SOOOO much of what you learn in school you are forced to learn by memorization. I think the only thing I really memorized was the time tables, and even still I rarely used them. I learned to understand a concept, and from that understanding get the answer. So, nope - I don't know my time tables (except for the 2's and the 5's) but I can do simple multiplication and division in my head faster than most people can do with pen & paper - and sometimes even calucators. And math was my WEAK subject.
My transition from homeschooling to high school was a more or less seamless one. I was in a base level math class (Algebra I) but other than that I was in all high level classes. Educationally - even though I was in an accelerated college prep school - I didn't study all through high school and still ended up graduating as valedictorian. I can't even remember really WORKING hard on school work until I hit my senior year - and even then it was only math I was working on. I've never been too good at english grammar either, but my writing and comprehension skills were excellent enough that a little incorrect comma/semi-colon use was treated rather lightly. College was an entirely different story - but I think that going to school for the full 12 years wouldn't have made any difference as far as that went.
I also came to school with a very stable and settled self-image. I never really worried about peer-pressure, most of the time I didn't even really notice it. Up until 9th grade I was always my OWN person and judged that way. There were no cliques, no poplularity contests, no Jones to keep up with, so when I went to high school I KNEW I was different, but I never felt a lot of pressure to conform. I was never 'socialized' in the concept of group-think, and I think that almost balances the lack of social interaction before highschool.

I know that I definitely want to homeschool my children - or send them to a school that follows some of homeschoolings tenets (like a Montesorri school). The lack of social interaction can easily be balanced by allowing the children to participate in other activities, and I honestly can't think of any other regrets I have about being homeschooled. In fact, I'm QUITE thankful that I was homeschooled. I firmly believe that I would NOT be the 'acceptably quirky' person that I am today if I went to school for the full 12 years and I shudder to think of what I MIGHT have been...