As I said in a previous post, while I can imagine how much of an upheaval it can be to go from being homeschooled to attending public school, I don't know firsthand.
So I turned to the members of the BuzzFeed Community who underwent such a change to share their stories — here are 19 of them:
1. "The first time I went to public school was in the 8th grade, and I hated how I couldn’t do ANYTHING without having to go through a long procedure or interrogation. Every time you wanted to go to the bathroom, you would have to fill out an online form that basically asked for your life story, and then show it to your teacher so that they could submit it and give you a pass. I always had trouble accessing the form, and one time when I asked my teacher for help, he couldn’t even find it. Instead of just letting me go, he spent about 10 minutes looking for that stupid form. JUST SO I COULD PEE."
"Another time, I got up from my lunch table to grab some plastic ware. After I got a fork, I started to walk back to my table, but then one of the lunchroom monitors called my name and made me walk back. She said, and I quote, 'Next time you do something like that without permission, there will be consequences.' All for getting a FORK. All a bully ever got was a slap on the wrist. So messed up." —areese
2. "I went to public kindergarten, then home school until I transitioned back to public school in 7th grade. The concept of studying was so foreign and hard to figure out. In homeschool it was just, here is your work complete it. I don’t remember taking actual tests. We would work on a concept until my parents felt like I understood it and then move on. I made it fine through high school but once I got to college without any concept of studying I had a hard time."
3. "I was homeschooled right up until I started going to community college in my junior year of high school. I had never had one of those 'I'm in school with no pants' dreams or whatever until then. Took 17 years."
4. "I'm from the midwestern United States. Switching to public school after being homeschooled was the worst thing to happen to me."
"I started public school in 5th grade. I had to start dealing with a rigid daily and weekly schedule that I had no say in, I couldn't vary my time based on what was easy and what I needed help with, it was harder to get help in the first place because the teachers were so overwhelmed with the number of students, I was quite literally FORBIDDEN from working ahead on things that were easy to me, and I had to navigate a whole mess of tween social mores just to get survive the day. Public school was so loud. It was boring and overwhelming all at the same time. If I could have been homeschooled my whole K-12 career I would have fared much better socially, academically, and medically (the stress of my life in public school brought on extreme depression, anxiety, panic attacks, and an eating disorder). I needed the space and flexibility to take each day and subject as it came, and that was ripped away from me in public school.
The worst part was that by the end of it all, I hadn't actually learned how to be a 'normal' student by the time I graduated high school. Because I had worked ahead when homeschooled, and still did well on standardized tests, teachers saw that I was 'smart,' my reputation preceded me into higher grades, and then teachers judged me when I started to slip academically in high school, which made it even harder to ask for help. I remember adults telling me at 10 YEARS OLD that I should look plan on an academically prestigious future in something like law. I ended up failing out of technical college doing gen eds. a couple of years ago. I'm 9 years out of high school now and I feel both failed and like a failure. Our school system is so broken.
I learned last year that I'm autistic. That would have been nice to know in 5th grade." —sas18
5. "In sports, the home-schooled kids were surprised that everyone else knew each other beforehand."
6. "I actually went to public school until the end of third grade, but then my family moved and I didn't go back until midway through fifth grade. So my culture shock definitely isn't as severe as other people on the list. But anyway, the main thing for me was all the pop culture references everybody was making. My family didn't really pay attention to that sort of thing, so I missed a year and a half of pop songs, everybody was doing this weird thing called dabbing all the time, they all knew online games I had never even heard of, and how the heck did everyone know the dance moves to Watch Me (Whip / Nae Nae)?!"
"Actually nevermind, people inexplicably knowing random dances is still a mystery." —abbikazoo
7. "I went to public school in 11th grade after being home-schooled since 2nd grade... It was TOO SLOW MOVING and RESTRICTIVE. The kids were nice and since I was new, I was a novelty. "Oh, you were homeschooled??... Did you get to wear your PJs all day?!?" they would ask. It was cool because I was allowed to hang out with all the cliques. Everyone seemed to like me. But, I hated the way the teachers had no respect for me. That was a blow! After being a part of adult conversations my whole life. They believed the worst in the kids if we asked to use the bathroom or were caught eating in the hallway between classes. I couldn't wait to get out of public school."
"I ended up getting permission to leave early with the seniors and then my final year, I went to college instead. I have good memories (of tormenting the teachers) — which we wouldn't have had time to do if the classes were short and focused. Each period has so much wasted time. In homeschooling you get all your work done in 3.5 hours." —mrsbican
8. "Being around so many people all of the sudden. It's noisy and too bright. Being herded like cattle from one class to another. If you're confused, you kind of just get left behind and suffer because asking too many questions angers the teacher."
9. "I grew up in Florida (everyone's tanned and pretends to have money, unless they actually do), and was homeschooled up until the fourth grade. At that point, due to family issues, I was put into public school. I had never realized just how dumb, how poor, how skinny, how pasty white, etc., that I was until I was around other kids on a regular basis. For the 7th and 8th grades, I went to a private school, and that was even worse. Not only was I weird for my poverty and flaws, but I was also insignificant, which even some adults pointed out. It's taken years (I'm 39 now), and I haven't completely gotten over this. It's better, but not completely gone."
10. "I went to a private school for high school which was pretty small and I adjusted fairly easily but there were definitely some wild things to deal with."
"1. It was wild to have to learn at a set pace. At home, I would breeze through work years above me in English and history but definitely had to slow down for math. At school, I was SO bored in half of my classes and actually tried to get myself moved up my first year and then struggled pretty hard when my Algebra II class just moved on even though I DID NOT understand.
2. I got so sick so many times. I was a pretty well-socialized homeschooler and was involved in lots of activities and events but there is nothing that can prepare your immune system for the absolute cesspool of germs that is a high school. Another homeschooler in my year got so sick he actually dropped out halfway through the year.
3. Waking up to be in class at 8, well-fed and in uniform... That was a tough transition. All teenagers should be able to sleep past 8." —gmcealj
11. "I was homeschooled, but had a local homeschool group that did extracurricular classes, sports, etc, so the social aspect wasn't that big of a deal to me. For me the biggest shock was the lack of computers and knowledge of how to use them in public schools 20+ years ago. I did most of my homeschool work on the computer and to this day I still get treated like IT everywhere I go."
12. "I was homeschooled until the 10th grade, luckily a moderately small school so I only got lost a couple times but, having raging mad social anxiety, the hardest thing to me was getting used to so many people, not knowing how anything worked at all and being too afraid to ask strangers for help. I only had a few panic attacks the first year but luckily I made some amazing friends who were able to help me out throughout the years. It was definitely a struggle, especially being an introverted person who spent most of my life around eight other people max and had 0 social skills, but I learned to adjust to it. Still not a people person but I think it was good for me to learn how to socially interact with people I don't know, something I didn't know how to do before."
13. "Not knowing how to play games in gym class. I was only out of public school for about a year (as an 8-year-old). My parents made sure my brothers and I did PE. like family soccer, baseball, etc. but apparently, within that year kickball became a thing. When I was up to kick I kicked the ball (pretty well) but i ended up catching the ball and eliminating myself. So embarrassing."
14. "I think in like 7th or 8th grade our class got a new student who had been homeschooled. I’ll never forget almost getting in trouble for having to explain to them how a Scantron test worked…during the test."
"They otherwise were perfectly normal and socialized and we hung around the same after school clubs and whatnot." —substantialappeal512
15. "I went to public school in elementary school, but was pulled out to homeschool in 5th grade due to my parents' fanatical, conservative religious views. I didn't return to a public education setting until I went to a public university and boy was it a shocker."
"Going from church 4x a week, never swearing, no boyfriends, to being surrounded by boys, professors who swore in class (gasp), and being able to do what I wanted with my time and make my own decisions was both liberating and terrifying. It's been 4 years and I have left my parents' views behind me, have a loving and progressive partner and a great group of friends. But the first year or two was rough. I had to learn years of social skills in a very short time period and conversations were very awkward, especially when I talked about my home life." —autasticdork
16. "The loss of autonomy, accommodation. I’m very nearsighted and I was always being interrogated or reprimanded for moving closer to see, using a magnifier, or increasing font sizes."
"Also, just how catty and mean people really are. I thought it was a joke, but people really do bully me for being different (autistic)."
17. "I was homeschooled for 6th grade and 7th grade while living overseas and then I went to a very small homeschool co-op type school with like 28 students, K–12, in 8th and 9th grade. I moved to the US my sophomore year and went to a huge public high school. The amount of people was definitely a shock, but I'd say that seeing how other girls dressed was a bigger surprise for me. So many wore high heels to school and were waking up way earlier than they had to so they could wear a whole face of makeup to school. To each their own, but I thought it was wild."
"The lack of respect for the teachers and, inversely, the lack of respect many of the teachers had for the students was baffling as well. I did have some really wonderful teachers who genuinely tried their best to encourage their students, but there were still always students who were rude and didn't do anything they were asked. To this day I'm still not sure what they were trying to accomplish..." —sarahschindler89
18. "I was homeschooled until my senior year of high school, when I went to a community college and then transferred to University. So I was never in a proper K–12 public school. But I will say that I thought the difference was going to be much bigger than it really was — I'd always built public school to be this huge life-changing difference — but it turns out that sitting in a classroom and learning from a professor is exactly what it sounds like. You sit and learn. Pretty boring once I got used to it tbh."
"One difference was definitely how easy it was to make friends though - there were just people everywhere - and in college everybody (pretty much) wants to be friends. So that was cool. Now, I'm about 10 days from graduating and getting a teaching certificate so wish me luck!" —amyecheek5
19. And finally, "I was homeschooled until I was 12. The two biggest culture shocks for me were: 1. How much permission you need for everything! I couldn't believe you had to raise your hand to talk, or to go to the bathroom. 2. Religion. I was raised without religion and I genuinely thought that religion was a thing of the ancient past, and that it was something people just thought about casually. I was so surprised to discover that people actually believed in God and that church wasn't just for funerals, book sales, and cookouts."
