By Jeffrey Brown
Two weeks from today, I will sit my last exam for my first semester studying computer science at Waikato University. To date, I only have two qualifications: grade three in musical theory, and levels 2 and 3 in business computing that I got from Te Wananga. The Wananga course I did was incredibly basic, to do with things such as how to use Microsoft word etc. and had I tried to enter university on the basis of that I would have been laughed out the doors. The acting dean was quite a jolly person. I gained discretionary entrance to university largely on the grounds of the scholarship exam set by the UoW that I sat in September l ast year, in which I placed 6th out of around 60 students, a feat I never could have accomplished had I gone to school.
My mother, Cally, asked me to write an article about the new beginning I have made this year, in order to show to worried parents that an unschooled child, with no qualifications to speak of, can in every way equal one who has attended school for thirteen years.
Two and a half years ago, I decided it might be fun to teach myself to program. So we got out a programming book that my brother had borrowed off a friend many years ago and that we had forgotten to return, and I sat down to teach myself. Almost the only thing I learned from that attempt was that I shouldn’t try to teach myself. A few weeks later, however, while I was practicing with the brass band I was in, Cally was talking to the same friend who lent my brother that book, who had daughters in the band as well. Cally had mentioned that I wanted to learn to program, and he offered to teach me, suggesting that I go to his house and he’d help me out. He continued to teach me for the next two years, and bullied me into sitting the scholarship exam. Most of my friends at uni are jealous of the fact that I was taught by the lecturer who, despite not lecturing in a single first year paper, is probably singularly the most popular lecturer among first year computing students. I would never have had this chance had I gone to school.
One thing that my unschooling education did lack was maths. I stopped learning maths when I was twelve, and other than at uni have hardly picked up a textbook since. This resulted in me having to take Preparatory Mathematics, the university’s most basic maths paper, in order to catch up. Certainly, had I gone to school, they would have forced me to take maths through all those years; however the reason I stopped learning maths was because I despised it. I can’t imagine anything worse than being forced to do maths for an extra six years, when I have, at uni, learned as much in six months. In fact, one of my friends who attended a private school says that he wishes he’d taken the same paper as me, instead of the higher level one, because he struggling so much with it.
A big worry about homeschooling is that children will lose out on social skills, and will have trouble adjusting to “real life”. My response to that would be that I have met many people at uni, people I already consider to be good friends. The month before university started I attended the Global Game Jam, in which a whole lot of people get together for forty-eight hours, eat pizza and make games. It’s the kind of idea that some people love, and everyone else winces at. I teamed up with three others to make a game, two of whom are now first years with me. Together we’ve made many other friends, and quite frankly I couldn’t be happier.
Contributed by Jeffrey Brown
Republished with premission from the THEN newsletter
