Masuk Free Press

In 2004, Tina Fey’s cult classic Mean Girls came out. The film focused on Cady Heron, a sixteen-year-old girl beginning her first day in a public high school after being homeschooled for her entire life. Throughout Mean Girls, Cady is depicted as completely oblivious, missing obvious social cues and pop culture references. While Mean Girls used Cady’s naivety for comedic purposes, it also perfectly depicted the common belief that many individuals share about homeschooled kids; that they are isolated, inexperience loners with no social skills. But is this stereotype actually true?

A stereotype is defined, at least according to the Oxford Dictionary, as “a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.”

Stereotypes can form in multiple ways from things such as biases, assumptions and oversimplifications. Human beings like to categorize people and objects, really anything, based on past experiences or subconscious judgment. However, exceptions to these categories always exist. Most people would think of the color orange when they hear about carrots, but purple and white ones exist. That’s why stereotypes are always incorrect; what is traditionally common, such as an orange carrot, is not the only thing to exist.

Homeschooling has a multitude of  preconceived notions behind it. One of the most common beliefs is that parents are these kids’ sole teachers.

“I’m what is called unschooled,” said Oliver Khost, a sixteen-year-old homeschool student from New York.  “So, basically, my entire life I’ve been in small, tight-knit groups of kids, and we all kinda decide what we want to learn. I go to this spot in Manhattan called SpringBoard, where I take these college-level classes. I get to pick what I want to do, and there are no credits, but there are teachers.”

Unschooling isn’t the only method of homeschooling. Ian Mckee, a fifteen-year-old homeschool student from Connecticut, described his experience as pretty similar to what most believe to be true.

“I’m usually taught by my mother, with some in-person classes, and a lot of me teaching myself,” said Mckee.

The differing situations could be a result of location. Homeschooling has become a lot more widespread in the United States, especially after 2020. With how diverse the USA is in terms of landscape, homeschooling takes on a number of forms.

“I live in a city, so I’m going to have more opportunities than a person that lives in rural Wisconsin,” said Khost.

While some kids’ environment matches the stereotype, like Mckee’s, others have completely different situations like Khost’s. Homeschooling is a spectrum of circumstances.

“I thought most homeschooled kids were taught by their parents, and are probably more awkward and antisocial,” said Karolina Jaworska, a Masuk junior. 

Homeschool kids being “awkward”, “antisocial” or weird and naive, is another common conception held by many. This belief is shown in movies like Mean Girls or Dumb and Dumber: When Harry Met Lloyd, but it’s an complete oversimplification.

“From what I found, homeschoolers are more than capable of communicating with people, especially adults. Because what public school has done is normalize adults as authority figures, and what I found is that public schoolers are more nervous to communicate with adults since they see them as authority figures. But with homeschoolers, they are able to more freely communicate with not only adults but with other kids,” said Norah Jensen, a seventeen-year-old from New York. 

Other kids in the community found the opposite to be true, and found communication and conforming to be more difficult.

“The stereotypes of homeschooled kids being weird are completely true,” said Mckee. “Most of the kids I met don’t know about certain words that public schoolers know. I didn’t know what ‘wtf’ was until I was thirteen.”

“Everyone’s weird,” said Maia Sindelar, a fifteen-year-old homeschool student from Connecticut. “I met people in public school who are also weird. Being weird is subjective. There’s no one definition on what makes people weird, it’s a case-to-case scenario.”

Kids that experienced homeschooling and later went to a public school have expressed that they felt they were not held back with their schooling.

“I went to a public school in New York City for a few months during 6th grade. I had a few friends there, they were relatively mainstream and sorta adopted me. I wasn’t completely alone, and had no issue with making friends. Public school just wasn’t for me,” said Jensen.

“I don’t think the transition was too difficult for me,” said Isabelle Tiska, a Masuk alumni. “I had attended public school for the majority of my time in elementary school, and was later pulled out to be homeschooled, so the transition back was relatively easy.”

There are always exceptions to what is expected. Homeschooling itself is an exception to what is considered the norm, with only around five percent of the American population being homeschooled as of 2022, according to the National Household Educational Survey. Stereotypes are always bound to form; it’s a part of human nature to make assumptions and categorize people. But that’s why it’s crucial to try to reach out and correct these assumptions. Homeschool stereotypes aren’t based on biases or discrimination. They are simply based on a lack of knowledge.