Teach Me

Home School Stigma On Homeschooling, Stigma, and the Future of Learning I grew up homeschooled. I remember begging my parents to let me attend public school halfway through my sophomore year. When I finally did, I tried hard to hide where I’d come from—my past felt like something I needed to keep quiet. “They’ll think I’m weird.” “They’ll assume I’m from some strict religious family.” “They’ll think I have social problems.” The anxiety ran deep. And I wasn’t the only one who felt it. The stigma around homeschooling has been around for decades. Many people still carry this idea that homeschooled kids are either socially awkward or raised in isolation by overbearing parents trying to keep their children away from the world. And truthfully? That’s not just made up. There is a part of homeschooling’s history that’s tied to that kind of thinking—where parents pulled their kids out of school not to educate them better, but to shield them from difference, from culture, from connection. Bu...