In elementary school, touching grass was easy for those of us who had recess and PE built into our day-to-day, but what about kids who had a less conventional education? Homeschoolers have a unique experience with grass-touching…or lack thereof. Ella Smith and Georgia Kerrigan have the story.
This story originally aired as part of our WNUR News Touches Grass Special Broadcast.
KERRIGAN and SMITH: Homeschooling.
MAGGIE ROSE BARON: I think sometimes people would imagine that like, I was like, strapped to a chair and like locked in my house and not allowed to leave, which is definitely not the case.
CHRISTIAN JOSEPH ENGLERT: I would get asked: “Why doesn’t your mom let you play with the other kids?”
FATIMA SULLIVAN: People are like, “Oh, you were homeschooled, you’re like so normal.”
[Footsteps through grass and chirping birds sound effect]
SMITH: What does it mean to touch grass? On the most basic level, touching grass means going outside. Reconnecting with nature. For some, this might mean seeing the sun instead of just their LED strip lights, or having a human interaction that doesn’t take place within a TikTok comment section. Theoretically, homeschooling allows kids to do everything from the comfort of their own home. Who needs to touch grass when your classroom is your bedroom?
KERRIGAN: What’s it really like to be homeschooled? To find out, we talked to 4 Northwestern students who experienced this unconventional way of learning, for vastly different reasons.
GUTIERREZ: I was homeschooled in that I was part of like, a touring production of a show.
ENGLERT: My mother decided to homeschool. She valued it because it was going to let her have a more direct involvement.
SULLIVAN: Sixth grade through 12th grade, I was part of a charter slash independent study program.
BARON: My mom really did not like the idea of like, first graders being in school for seven hours a day. She thought it was really unnecessary.
KERRIGAN: While reasons for homeschooling may vary, some say homeschooled students have one thing in common: they weren’t properly socialized…right?
GUTIERREZ: If you’re traveling around with people, like, you have to be friends with them or else you’re not going to have friends. I had, like, one consistent best friend through all of this. And then, when I got back home she would just, like, integrate me into whatever new group she was in.
KERRIGAN: That’s Gabby Gutierrez, a freshman theater major. She performed in productions throughout her childhood, most notably, Matilda the Musical. Because of this, her schooling consisted of 5 to 6 hours of independent worksheets and activities that aligned with the curriculum of her public school back home. She shared a tutor with her castmates, of various ages, in whatever space was free, usually, a hotel room or rehearsal studio. She says her friend group was dependent on the fellow actors she was traveling with at the time.
GUTIERREZ: It was a little bit weird because we were all in different grades, so it was just a mismatched group of people.
SMITH: Christian Joseph Englert, a Chemical Engineering junior, was homeschooled from kindergarten until arriving at Northwestern. Coming from a friend group made up entirely of homeschooled kids, Englert believes that their unique backgrounds made it more diverse.
ENGLERT: It takes a little bit more work, but boy are the rewards definitely surpassing what you might get otherwise. There was the guy that had, like, lived at a farm basically, and had like, dairy fresh from like cows.
SULLIVAN: I mean, you see your family, but, you need to see friends and like, you need to get out of the house.
SMITH: Fatima Sullivan, a Viola Performance freshman, says she had to create her own community of friends. For her, this consisted of people she met through extracurriculars, and other students in her independent study program.
SULLIVAN: We would do like Zoom Hangouts, or also plan in-person events, like bowling or things like that. But you definitely have to be more proactive, and it’s hard sometimes.
KERRIGAN: Maggie Rose Baron, a Medill junior and a self-proclaimed introvert, doesn’t mind how homeschooling from 1st through 5th grade impacted her social life.
BARON: I spent a lot of time obviously with my family, with my twin brother. I think having a twin– it was like I had, like, a best friend the whole time. ‘Cause like, I didn’t have those friends that I would see every day. Friends like came in and out. I did a lot of sports growing up, so that was mainly how I, like, socialized with people, but it was definitely a lot different ‘cause it was like, I didn’t have as many friends, as many social outlets as kids who went to normal school, but I don’t think that it set me back.
KERRIGAN: But what happened when these homeschoolers were released into what we non-homeschooled students may call, ‘the real world’? For Baron and Gutierrez, middle school was not just a time for navigating prepubescence and new locker-ownership status; it was also their first time consistently going to in-person school.
BARON: Coming into seventh grade, it was very odd, because I basically knew nobody. I did not have a lot of friends at the beginning. I think, when all was said and done, it was not terrible. Like definitely could have been a lot worse.
GUTIERREZ: I didn’t know how to interact, especially in like a public middle school, like, those kids are ruthless. I had my friends but also like, I just didn’t interact with a lot of other people as normally as other people did. After being homeschooled, I feel like I had to relearn, like, social skills and like, how to be a regular teenager. It’s so different being a theater kid and then being a person. Me and other former child actors, we like to say that like, we gained consciousness like a couple of years after.
[“Revolting Children” from Matilda the Musical]
SMITH: While Baron and Gutierrez went to in-person school before coming to Northwestern, Sullivan and Englert were thrust into college life after solely homeschooled learning. So what’s it like to have your first in-person learning experience since elementary school be in a college classroom?
SULLIVAN: I think homeschooling prepared me really well for that independence and like, kind of autonomy. Also knowing my limits.
ENGLERT: You come in with the assumption that everybody else is coming with different backgrounds, different skill sets, and that really helps with the imposter syndrome. Because imposter syndrome lives and dies by the fact that you assume everybody comes from the same place and that you are uniquely being challenged.
KERRIGAN: Perhaps those of us with doubts about the social skills of homeschooled kids should take a page out of Gutierrez’s script.
GUTIERREZ: No matter what your background is, like, we could all be friends and kiki together.
SMITH: Englert learned that at a young age, and he’s still bringing that attitude to navigating college life.
ENGLERT: In the words of Miss Frizzle, which sometimes counted a science class early on: “Take chances, make mistakes and get messy.”
KERRIGAN: So, do homeschooled kids touch grass?
SULLIVAN: What do you mean exactly?
GUTIERREZ: Uh– Um! God. No…but! They can if they surround themselves with normal people. I’m trying to be normal!
BARON: Yes, so much!
ENGLERT: We eat grass. I’ve been a very proud Redditor and League of Legends player. So no, touching grass is for losers.
SMITH: So, maybe homeschooling is the perfect chance for some grass-touching. Maybe it’s not! After all, the grass is always greener on the other side.
[Magic School Bus theme music]
SMITH and KERRIGAN: For WNUR News, this is Ella Smith and Georgia Kerrigan.
Attributions:
Elements from iStockPhoto and Canva.
Music by Pixabay and YouTube.
Revolting Children (Full Song) | Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical | Netflix
