A School for Two: A Character's View on Homeschooling
The story “Homeschool Insider: The Fighting Pterodactyls” by Ron Carlson is about a young girl that has transferred from regular schooling to homeschool. She speaks of the tale as she learns at home with her sister as a classmate and mother as a teacher. In the passage entitled “Homeschool Insider: The Fighting Pterodactyls” the speaker in the story views the homeschooling experience as a lonely ordeal. In the beginning of the passage, the speaker says, “But there was something sad about knowing we didn't exactly have any rival schools,” the speaker feels secluded from other people and interaction with people her grade. Not only does she not have any friendly competition with other people,
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When the speaker talks about things that are similar to public schooling, she talks about them in a way that makes it seem as if is a bit different after all. For example, “Mrs. Yollstrom (our mother) put her in detention, and we both were unable to leave the kitchen table all day long,” in regular school, that doesn’t happen often, but the reader is lead to believe that this is the way homeschooling is. She also talks about the prom in an obscure way, she writes, “Joylene cried quietly for a while which was kind of like the prom anyway,” and while that is not the entire truth, the writer makes it seem as if this is normal for her. The passage speaks of a lonely experience in homeschooling, by speaking of the seclusion of their home compared to regular school, and talking about how her mother, uncle, and sister are the only people she interacts with on a school day.The speaker in Carlson’s piece “Homeschool Insider: The Fighting Pterodactyls” feels lonely after transferring from public school to homeschooling with her