Throughout my school years, I moved around often. I had tried 6 different schoolings before I decided to get my GED at 17. My first 6 years were spent in a religion based private school. There were around 50 students total from 1st grade through 12th. My 6th grade year was “homeschooled”, in reality I just spent all day with my mom doing no school work. I had to repeat my 6th grade year in the original school. In my 7th grade year we moved a few towns over and I transferred to another private school. My 8th grade year was my first in a public school. I stayed in that school system until my 11th grade year, when we moved to yet another town. It was then that I decided to leave school all together.

I was bored in all of the school settings I went through. I felt that I wasn’t learning fast enough, and that I was being held back by the different curriculums in all the different schools. Being in a small private school, with all the students in one room all day long together we all become close. I think this taught me how to empathize with others, but it also gave me a lack of socialization skills. My school was also my church, so aside from my home life this was all I knew. Being with the same people every day doesn’t give much practice on how to act in “the real world”. My school also had a major focus on religion. We started each day with prayer, middle of the day we had some sort of “chapel” Bible reading, and then the teachers prayed at the end of the day before we left as well. We also had one-on-one help with our school work since it was such a small school. The teachers were always readily available to me if I needed help. I had great grades throughout those first 6 years. I was independent in my learning abilities. I could do my own work and when I was finished I could move on to something else or just relax for the rest of the day. When I transferred into the public school system, I was overwhelmed at first. My grades started dropping, mostly because I was so excited to be around hundreds of other students daily. I learned how to act in a public setting, I even learned how to order my own food during lunch. Something my mom did for me for years because I was too shy to talk to