Entry 24.4

When I think back to all the schooling that I have had in my life, it has been a rollercoaster. I don’t really remember much about elementary school up until I started 5th grade. I do remember that I was a terror though. I won’t say I was the problem child of my class, but I do remember getting a lot of notes sent home about my behavior in class. Why does 5th grade stand out in my mind? Because it was a major turning point in my education and in my life really. My parents decided to homeschool my brother and I.

When I was growing up, being a homeschooled kid was not cool. There were and I’m sure still are a lot of jokes about homeschool kids. But not the topic of discussion here. The change in my mindset about learning was transformed during those four years. Day one of homeschool is still burned in my mind. My mom handed me a sheet of the classwork that I was assigned for the day. And that was it. She expected me to just do it. No help, no direction, just go. I was lost. I was so used to having a teacher to explain concepts, guide conversations and help when I didn’t understand that I had no clue how to start. The first subject on my sheet was vocabulary. I remember sitting there for what seemed like an eternity trying to understand what the directions were telling me to do. I don’t even remember what the assignment was, I just know I eventually gave up and moved on. The next subject? Pre-algebra. I was on a roll. Two subjects and completely lost in the sauce twice in a row. After that, I shut my books, opened my window and was gone.

Well, suffice it to say that the conversation I had with my father that night wasn’t a pleasant one. I remember telling him that I didn’t need to learn any more math or vocabulary because I wasn’t planning on ever using it. Boy was I a young dumb idiot. The next day I found myself holding two lists. The one from the day before and the one for that day. As time went on though, I found it easier and easier to accomplish my work. I was learning skills that I would use for the rest of my life and I didn’t even know it. And it didn’t take long. Remember, I grew up when the internet was still young, slow and ChatGPT was even a thought yet. So, I had to find them the hard way. While turning pages looking for answers, I learned more than I was expected to learn. Within a month or two, what used to be a 7-hour school day turned into a 2-hour school day. And that’s about the same time that I learned despite what other people thought about being homeschooled, being homeschooled was awesome. I could start doing school whenever I wanted to as long as it was ready to be reviewed by the time set by my mom. We lived out in the country, so I spent my extra free time running through the woods, fishing, or practicing pitching (I loved to play baseball and was good at it until I tore my rotator cuff).

It wasn’t until I was headed into my freshman year of high school that I started to realize how influential those four years of homeschool were. I thought now that I was going to be in high school that school was going to be challenging. I was wrong. Despite being moved up to sophomore and junior classes in some areas, I was still bored. What took my classmates an entire class period to complete, I was done with in minutes. When I was reaching the end of my sophomore year, my dad asked me if I just wanted to take the GED instead of wasting time in school. I think my answer shocked him when I said I wanted to stay in school. In my final two years of school, I self-studied Calculus I and II as well as Trigonometry. So much for the kid who would never use math ever again. I also set up the computer lab for the schedule. My dad was good with computers and so I had learned quite a bit about it from him. We had a LAN in our house and were playing video games against each other from across the house long before the average computer user even knew what a LAN was. I had the opportunity to do some cool stuff because of those years being homeschooled.

Then I went to college for the first time. I definitely didn’t study as much as I did here at Methodist University, and I still walked away with a 3.83 GPA. That’s because all the time that I had spent in homeschool was teaching me those intangible skills that most college freshman were just beginning to learn. It’s not because I am overly intelligent. I just learned how to learn efficiently. Remember that kid who said he would never use math ever again? Well, he started out as a math major the first go around. That didn’t last long though. A few days later, I changed my major to Pre-Med. By the time we hit drop/add I was a Criminal Justice major. The first university I attended was also a fine arts institution. But I really didn’t pay all that much attention in the classes I didn’t really care about. And even in classes I did care about, I brain dumped information as soon as the test was over. It wasn’t until I started Police Academy that I learned how important it was to soak up every little bit of knowledge as possible. There the information could mean the difference in life and death or innocence and guilt. You never know when it is going to come in handy. When I came to Methodist, I had to set an end goal for myself to get myself through it. What I didn’t know was that it was going to be all my classmates who would ultimately get me through it. Despite not really having any interest in business (I wanted to major in Kinesiology), I made the conscious effort to pay attention in all my classes. I did my homework. I wrote my papers. I studied for every quiz and exam.

If you have read this far you must be wondering “Tim, what is the point?”. The point is that you must do the work. You have the opportunity to learn skills that you will carry with you for the rest of your life. Don’t take the easy way out. Remember the PGA’s definition of learning: “a relatively permanent change over time.” Using Google to pass quizzes and tests isn’t learning. Using ChatGPT to write your essays and papers isn’t learning. Cramming information so you can just throw it all back up and never remember any of it isn’t learning. Ignoring the information in the classes you don’t really care about isn’t doing you any good. You have an opportunity here to really set yourself up for success in the future. Take it from someone who has been in your shoes. I’m not telling you all that you must sacrifice every second of your day to school. In fact, I would tell you not to do that and miss out on all the joys of being in college. I just want you to understand that you can fool your teachers and you right now saying that your piece of paper at the end is still the same one that I have. You’re right. It is. But the people you won’t be able to fool is who you eventually work with and work for. A college degree doesn’t mean what it used to mean. According to Forbes.com, 52% of people with a college degree are either not in the field they studied or are underemployed. I don’t want you to be that person. I want you to be wildly successful. I am in my third career. I have worked with a lot of people who had college degrees and who didn’t. Some of the people I was most disappointed in were the ones who had a college degree and had none of the skills that should have come with earning that degree. I don’t want you to be that person. Don’t take the easy way out. Your potential is unlimited as long as you aren’t the one who limits yourself. Like my entry a couple weeks ago, it’s not always the knowledge that you gain that it the important thing, it’s the process of learning and applying that information that’s important. But you can’t apply knowledge that you don’t have. So don’t cheat yourself out of being a success. Study hard. In the long run it’s worth it, I promise even if you don’t think so right now.