Peter: So Sarah you told me earlier that you've been home-schooled, it sounds really interesting, I've never met somebody who's been home-schooled, so could you tell me a little bit more about your experience with it?

 

Sarah: Yes, absolutely. Well I'm the youngest of four children, so I was the last one to come up being home-schooled. But my father decided to home-school us as soon as it became legal in our state. And for me it was a very different experience than my older siblings. I think when they were younger my father did more of the formal teaching, like at all once, like lecture style. But by the time I came along, he didn't do that anymore. So my learning predominantly came from books. And I remember even as young as second grade, like doing all of my work by myself. One of my favorite aspects of it when I was like in second and third grade is I could do all of my work on Monday and then have the rest of the week to play, didn't have to do any work.

 

Peter: Wow! That sounds really nice. How come your parents decided to home school, what was important for them?

 

Sarah: My older sister had a lot of problems in school and they were in the principal's office like every day. And so that's initially what made them start thinking about it. And from there they made the decision and so all the rest of us were home-schooled after that.

 

Peter: Wow! That's fascinating. Tell me, the fact that you were home-schooled, did that make any difference in terms of making friends with other people in the neighborhood or were there other families that home-schooled children too that you could be friends with?

 

Sarah: Yes, there were some families that we were close friends with, that we vacationed with and did everything with growing up. For me, personally, the social aspect wasn't huge because I'm more of an introvert. So I like to be alone more than my other siblings. But we were all very involved in different things, my brother in many sports and my sister and I in ballet and I played in an orchestra, and I took piano and violin and sang in a girl's chorus. So I was around other children my own age all the time.

 

Peter: Right. Yeah, it sounds pretty busy actually.

 

Sarah: Yeah.

 

Peter: So could you tell me, what's a typical day in home-schooling, what does it work like? What does it look like?

 

Sarah: It's pretty much just self-study. So I guess what most people envision as like homework at the end of the day, that's just your school day, is just working through different books, different activities, so mainly textbooks. It's very different now though. People who are home-schooled now, there is all sorts of groups and like online and videos and different things. But because I was home-schooled in the 80s, it looked very different than it does now.

 

Peter: Okay. So how did your father ... did he work as well and did he work and home-school you or was that his main thing, to home-school you?

 

Sarah: My father owns a radio station and he has a manager for that radio station, so that allows him to not have to be down there very often. But when he did he would just take us with him to work, and so we'd do our work wherever he was.

 

Peter: Wow, that's pretty cool!

 

Sarah: Yeah.

 

Peter: And all four kids would do their homework and go through their textbooks by themselves, things like that?

 

Sarah: Yes, we were all very self-motivated, so.