The one major difference between homeschooling and ppublic schooling is that in home schooling you are allowed to be more creative at your convience rather then goign through the mundane government institutionalization provided for you in public school.

It doesnt matter how you learn that 1 + 1 = 2 so long as you learn it. Since you moved to homescholling you have acquired some freedom in how you learn – think outside th ebox that the government re-education camps provided for you and see what is really in front of you – have fun with it

Your OCD has nothing to do with your ability to learn – you are not being challenged and so you become bored with the lessons provided – since they are so easy for you – you aught to just rip right through them and move on to something more stimulating and challenging to you.

Stuck in a rut – now thats a nice analogy – what happens when your car gets stuck in a rut – the tires just spin and you go nowhere because you have no traction – if you stay in the car and just keep stepping on the gas you go further into the rut as the muck is thrown out the back – to get out you need to put something under the tire to built up traction so that you can move (stones, logs whatever)

Since your in this educational rut, reading and re-reading (stepping on the gas) doesnt help any – what do you have in your arsenal that you can throw under the tires and get some traction??

~You started in April…not sure where you live but school was out for my son’s public school in May! So you are probably ready for a break.

~Some children take longer to deschool than others. When I started homeschooling my children (my son is back in public school after 1 1/2 years of homeschooling but my daughter is still homeschooled) it took a few months to get into the groove of things. I tried to the traditional method of homeschooling instead of deschooling a while and it didn’t work at all!

~You need to explore unschooling (or child-led schooling….basically you do whatever and it’s considered schooling because you are learning of some sort), traditional method (where you run your homeschool very similar to public school hours and structure), and the eclectic method (the one I finally fell into…it’s a combination of different methods!)

~Find what works for you! My daughter is ADD and seems to study better in the evening times so what I have done is from 10am til 1pm she unschools…I can care less what she does during that time (she has 4 gardens so it’s usually something to do with them!) and then from 6pm – 8pm we have a more structured time where we do math and whatever else I feel she needs to work on so that she keeps up with others her age…she still has to take a state test once a year just to show where she’s at. My son works better on his own so what I did was just make a list of what he needed to accomplish each week and if he did it all in one day then the rest of the week was his!

~As far as going to college, if you aren’t ready then you need to talk to your parents. If you start before you are ready then there’s a good chance you won’t succeed because you will be burnt out on schooling, which it sounds as if you already are! In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with taking a couple months to situate yourself and get going in the right direction….saying that my son has also stressed the desire to start college at about your age….so we’ll see what I say then! 😛

Good luck to you!

Do you have difficulty concentrating on or following through with things you do for fun? If you don’t, your OCD is not the problem (if you do, it might be, or you might have ADHD).

You also may need more deschooling time (unschooling is another form of education entirely). Some people need up to two years before they’ve fully recovered from the arbitrariness of school and are able to find their own motivation.

E-mail me if you want to discuss this further!

You really may need more time deschooling – with my son, who was 6 when we started homeschooling, I took about 4-6 months. During this time, I let him pick what he wanted to learn about – dinosaurs, baseball, dump trucks, whatever, and we learned all about that until he was ready to move on. Eventually, I started moving him into a more “formal” curriculum. He’s now in 5th grade and chooses to school year-round.

You may also need to work with more interactive methods if traditional textbooks don’t really do it for you…websites, CDRom/DVDRom based curriculum, audiobooks, that sort of thing. Don’t give up on the textbooks altogether – you’ll need to know how to work with them for college – but it’s ok to get away from them somewhat. There are some great math curriculums that are DVD-based (Teaching Textbooks, VideoText Interactive), and your lit studies may be more doable if you have an audiobook to listen to or read along with. There are also science texts that include CDRom supplements and MP3s of the text, that may help you as well.

You can do it – it’s just a transitional time right now. Let yourself learn to enjoy learning again – you’ll be amazed at how quickly things will come to you once it’s enjoyable!

1) homeschooling- the practice of obtaining an education at home, or the practice of educating your child at home.

2) Unschooling- a specific type of homeschooling that is child led instead of parent led. The child decides what to study and when to study it, the child can enlist the parents help to set goals, a plan of study, etc. But the child is the one who decides what he or she wants to study.

Some parents combine unschooling with other methods of homeschooling, for instance, a parent might require the student to study math, reading, and writing, but unschool subjects like science, art, P.E., history, etc.

If you are totally unschooling, why would you have to “force” yourself to do the work? And why would your parents be pressuring you to go to community college?

You said maybe you need more unschooling time; I am not sure what you mean by that. Do you think you need more time to decompress after leaving school? Or do you think you need more study time?

Regardless, if you are unschooling and you want to study the subjects you are studying, but just have trouble staying motivated, maybe you should express that to your parents and ask them to keep you accountable. That would still qualify as unschooling because you requested the oversight.

Many people need accountability to stay motivated, I know I do. That is why I don’t unschool my kids. If I have difficulty staying on track without a deadline and accountability, I don’t feel right about expecting m kids to. (That is not to say that unschooling never works, just that I don’t think I would feel comfortable with it for my family. I know it works wonderfully for some families.)

If you are not unschooling and are just not getting your homeschool work done on time, the answer I would give you is similar to the one I gave if you are unschooled. Talk to your parents and lay out guidelines of when and how much you need to study. Have them set consequences if you don’t stick with these guidelines.

Unschooling works great for self starters, and it can even work well for those who have trouble being motivated, it’s just that if you struggle with motivation you might need to request accountability. If your parents are not open to holding you accountable then you might find that community college works well, just needing to come to class and pass exams may be all the accountability you need.

Hope that helps.

15 English

15 Math

15 History

15 BREAK

15 English

and then relax a bit. Good-luck!!!!

http://www.unschooling.org/

http://www.unschooling.com/