A Homeschool Soliloquy by Christa Swafford

Christa will be a senior this year. She has a great handle on Shakespeare and homeschooling:)

To stay homeschooled or not to stay homeschooled—that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of “real” high school’s drama,

Or to take arms against a sea of stereotypes

And, by opposing, end them. To stay home, to sleep in—

Oh joy!—and by our sleep to say we end

The grumpiness and the thousand natural shocks

That sleep-deprived, “real-schooled” flesh is heir to—‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To stay home, to sleep—

To sleep, perchance to learn. Ay, there’s the rub,

For after that sleep we must study what math lessons may come,

When our parents have not studied trigonometry for twenty years;

This must give us pause. Here’s the respect

That makes calamity of studying at home.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of trig,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud answer book’s contumely,

The pangs of a weary mother, the father’s delay,

The insolence of noisy younger siblings, and the spurns

That “real-schooled” friends have more time than I do,

When I myself might my quietus make

By calling Social Services? Who would the “above-average” label bear,

To grunt and sweat under impossible expectations,

But for the dread of giving homeschoolers a bad reputation?

The uninforméd public from whose bourn

No story of un-socialization can escape strengthens the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others we know not of.

Thus stereotypes do make cowards of us all,

And we would rather stay homeschooled than—horrid thought!—

Go to “real school.”

-Christa Swafford

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