Can an Uneducated Teen Be Successful?

A young adult at Yahoo! Answers, who was homeschooled, is having trouble finding her way. She asked this question:

I was homeschooled from 7th grade on. 7ths and 8th grade my mom did with my brother and I. Highschool we did on our own, it was from Harcourt Learning Direct (used to be ICS, and Thompson Education Direct). I didn’t really understand anything because I hate reading so I just skipped to the tests at the end, almost flunked on Math but I cheated from my brothers books so I would pass. But I’m not really smart. Infact, even 6th grade which was public school I didn’t do good.

Am I doomed to be stupid with no job? How did the rest of you do that were home schooled?

Here was my answer to her, which she chose as the best answer.

In all honesty, this isn’t a homeschooling question. There are many just-graduated teens from public or private school who are wondering the same thing.

Also, there are enough stupid people with jobs out there, that it’s clear that intelligence is not an essential component to having a job.

A large number of very successful people in this world came from less-than perfect childhoods, and many were not good students (or were not traditionally educated).

So, what makes people successful?

1) They do not define who they are by their problems. Successful people define themselves by who they believe themselves to be. That’s why someone who doesn’t seem like she’s “all that” can do very well, while someone who is obviously talented can bomb. It’s all about how we perceive ourselves. You’ll have a hard time being successful if you continue to see yourself as stupid or uneducated. In other words, you have to believe in yourself before anyone else will.

2) Successful people have goals. What are your goals? Even if you have a Harvard degree, if you have no goals, it will be hard to find success.

3) Successful people keep on going. No matter what. You don’t have a degree, or knowledge, or ability? Keep going anyway. Don’t let that stop you. Keep learning, getting stronger, understanding yourself and your world.

4) Success does not get handed to you on a silver platter. Success doesn’t come from the outside, it comes from the inside. If that is true, then it doesn’t matter where you went to school. You’re out of school now, if you want to be successful and satisfied in your life, that’s your responsibility that you have to take seriously. Waiting for someone or something to give it to you will be a lifelong wait.

5) Lastly, successful people don’t whine. Seriously. Successful people don’t complain, blame people or things, or otherwise put negative energy out into the universe. If you want to be successful, you have to act successful. Whining about how you’re not smart or didn’t have a good enough education will only convince people that’s true and keep you in a constant state of wondering when you’ll be successful.

Very, very few people who are successful as adults will tell you that their young years were full of nothing but win after win. Successful people generally have gone through many struggles, and it’s how they pick their behinds up, brush themselves off, and start over, again and again, that makes them successful.

Given that, so long as you are alive, you always have the opportunity to have a successful adult life. It’s up to you.

Other similar posts:

Perfect Homeschooling, Regretting Decisions, and Curriculum Choice
Top 10 Tips for Deschooling

Chelsea Link, 18, Homeschooled, Accepted to Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, U of Chicago, and Northwestern

Chelsea Link says this about her extraordinary, yet relaxed, life: “I think I’ve had a pretty normal high school experience . . . just without the high school.”

Another interesting quote by Christopher Watson, admissions dean at Northwestern, “We haven’t changed the way we review applications, but the way home-schoolers are submitting applications has changed,” he said. “They’ve become very good at taking out the question marks.”

Perhaps it’s a combination of the two? Northwestern may not have changed it’s admissions process, but other universities have.

Congratulations Chelsea! Reading science magazines and playing music is a fine way to go through childhood.

Non-traditional Paths to a Career

I don’t usually think too hard about my kids’ getting into college or being prepared for a career. When the time comes, it’ll work out.

I am confident in this because of the realities of American opportunities, and because of knowing many people who have found success non-traditionally. In fact, I know very few people besides myself and my graduate school friends who took the traditional route to their success.

My dad, for example, dropped out of college to go into the military, and owned a business for 20 years. At age 50, he decided to sell his business and get his teaching credential.

He got his degree, taught for two years, then decided that wasn’t going to work, because he had to support his new wife and children. So, at age 54, he worked as a foreman for a large building company, without any prior experience in the field. At age 58, he decided it was too much physical labor and was too damn cold Colorado to be out in the snow every winter, and trained to be an AutoCad transcriber.

My dad is a great guy, and I love him. But he’s not a superman. He’s a normal guy who made the decision to follow his dream. And he could. Because this is America, and we have lots and lots of ways to reach our goals. (I have a lot of critiques of the US, but the opportunities here to pursue a new life are something I am greatly appreciative of.)

So, my kids. They won’t have any problem getting to where they want to go. They won’t be lost if they don’t do the A->Z trip that most kids take. In fact, they’ll probably have even more chance of success because they aren’t trapped by that path. They are growing up without rails, and therefore, without limits.

I was inspired to post this because I saw these two questions on AskMetafilter today which proves, once again, that success comes in many forms, and is always available to us.

Becoming a dentist at age 30 with no science training whatsoever.

Getting into grad school for economics with a 3.2 undergraduate GPA in architecture.

Homeschooling on Metafilter Garners Positive Response

My husband reads Metafilter like my dad used to read the paper. Today, my husband forwarded this link to me.

I am unmeasurably impressed by the discourse that followed after the initial question: Should my friend, who was homeschooled in a fundamentally Christian home, mention his GED on his college application? And how can he get a job?

This conversation could have gone in so many directions. The fine folks at Metafilter, chose to post clear, helpful and supportive responses.

Kudos to the responders at Metafilter!

MIT Courseware for High Schoolers and Teachers/Parents

MIT has had its college level open courseware available for a while. Now, they are introducing a new set of online self-paced courses for the high schooler, or adults who would like to brush up on high-school level material.

Universities and Homeschoolers

This encouraging article suggests that universities are truly starting to recognize the strengths of homeschoolers.

This quote is what really sold me on the idea that yes, universities understand where homeschoolers are coming from, and why they are such strong candidates:

It occurred to [Russell Jamison, dean of the engineering school] that home-schoolers’ inquisitive, self-directed learning style — an educational model that often gets lost in the highly structured “problem-set oriented” environment of traditional high schools, he says — was particularly well suited to engineering. The school holds an annual open house for home-schoolers to get them interested in both engineering and Virginia Commonwealth. (One thing Mr. Jamison has learned, he says, is that when you plan a home-schooling event, the whole family shows up. At this fall’s open house, he included robot-building activities for elementary-school-age siblings.)

Now, how cool is that?

Free Online College Courses

MIT started the inevitable trend. Now, iTunes is jumping on the bandwagon. (If you have iTunes, just go to the iTunes store in the program, and select iTunes U.)

The iTunes classes are great for the visual and audio learner. Some are podcasts, others are videos of lectures.

Personally, these vids put me to sleep. Give me a book and a good conversation w/a pro over coffee. But hubby, when he saw this iTunes selection, he nearly lost it. “OMG, this is AWESOME!”

This is only the beginning. I’m tellin’ ya, the internet is changing education and the way kids think. Heck, it’s changing the way adults think. It’s changing the way we access knowledge.

HT: Mark

Who Benefits From Kids Doing Well in School?

Should the goal be for kids to do well in school, or to do well in life? What if they are doing well in school, but have no life? What if they are doing well in life, but don’t do well with school work?

What would it be like if there was no such thing as “success” or “failure” in school? What if school was purely to give kids knowledge and understanding, at whatever level they would like, and the students got to decide what that takeaway would be?

What if grades K-8 were ungraded, and assessments were done by the student themselves and the adults who worked with them, but the student was the ultimate decider of which topics to focus on?

Here’s one school that doesn’t give grades. Here’s another, and it’s a part of Yale.

Training Kids for College

This commentary about David Albert’s book brings up interesting insight on preparedness for college.

It suddenly clicked. The home-schooled child is ready for college. They’ve (parents) spent a life-time preparing them for it. We (homeschoolers) start now, instead of throwing them in same-aged groups force feeding curriculum down their throats. After a decade of school, we expect them (schooled kids) to arrive in college, excited, self-initiated, wildly excited to learn, passionate, innovative, creative and broad thinkers when we’ve spent their lifetime beating out every ounce of self-initiated learning out of them.

We, as a culture, value college preparedness in our teens. We speak of the importance of being able to take tests, and finish assignments and know how to write a college essay. But when do we speak of instilling a love of learning in our kids? In allowing them to know themselves and know how to create their own learning? When do we talk of how important it is that teens to enter college are still curious about their world?

Schools spend so much time (13+ years even) focussing on numbers, and assessment and meeting standards (that, by the way, are created without any input from the children who are expected to meet them), and when kids complain about how boring or uninspiring the work is, the most common response is, “Get used to it, that’s how life is.”

Life doesn’t have to be that way. College doesn’t have to be that way. And school doesn’t have to be that way. But the true esteem we give children is how well they are able to “get through” school despite all the intellectual pain and boredom they face. When, in the real world of college and work and life, that’s not what we want our kids to learn. Do we really want to teach our kids that the most important thing in life, the most valuable thing in life, is to just grin and bear it, and wait for the good stuff to happen later?

Or is it more important to teach our kids how to be passionate and curious about the world? And that college is not where the “good stuff” is, but an extension of what’s already good?

There are good things about school. And there are kids who really do enjoy the vast majority of what school offers, and then fly into college gracefully, ready to learn. But how many kids do this? Let’s be generous and say 10% of all high school students fly into college ready to go and are excited about learning. Considering that school is *supposed* to *specifically* train kids to go to college and be successful there, that’s not a very good success rate.

Homeschooling is NOT a specific strategy, in and of itself, to get kids prepared for college. What homeschooling is, however, is a very flexible learning tool to allow kids to live a life of curiosity, and which, if college is the goal, provide an excellent opportunity to prepare kids for the collegiate experience.

Another advantage for homeschooled kids in preparing for college is that there is no rush. A kid can start college at 15 or at 20, whenever he is ready. He can take community college classes while in high school and while having lots of time to pursue other interests at the same time, hence keeping a love of life alive while learning to cope with the demands of college classes.

If, however, homeschooled teens take the school-approach to preparing for college, and they spend all their time focussing on book study, whether or not they even care about the material – basically going through the motions to wait for the good stuff – how is that any different than sending a child to school to prepare them for college?

My kids, they are ready for college. Because, they are ready for anything. Every new experience, is a chance for exploration. Every new challenge is met with enthusiasm (well, unless it’s trying something green on their dinner plate, *sigh*). Basically, our kids don’t have to “grin and bear it” in order to finally get to a point in their lives where they can work on what is meaningful and useful for them. Isn’t that what being free and happy is all about? Isn’t that what we ultimately want for our offspring – a good, meaningful, purposeful, happy life experience?