Growing up home schooled all of my life is not exactly the best thing in the world: sure there is sleeping in, breaks whenever i want but I always had to depend on myself to get the work done. Even If I chose not to do my work I would still have to get the work done sooner or later, even if it meant forfeiting my summer. When most people hear that a person is home schooled they don’t always know what to think. Some people think that home schooled kids are dumb or stupid but that is where they are wrong.

Last year during the second semester in the seventh grade I decided to start public school (in the dead of an ice cold winter). My first day was horrible it was one of the most intimidating days of my life. The worst part of my day was lunch, the smell of the cafeteria, the loud noise of other students made the whole place sound like a zoo, talking and laughing I sat at a table by myself. Other students kept looking at me, as if they were waiting for me to screw up but not one of them would talk to me: I felt alone and unaccepted. After a week or two I got a few friends, not only fellow students, but teachers too.

I soon realized after a few weeks that I had a self motivation that hardly any of the other students had. I soon caught a grip of how things worked in public school and started to ascend to the top of my classes it was as if I was climbing mountain of success. For the whole year that I was there I earned straight A’s and got to attend the taste tantalizing straight A luncheon at the fiesta hotel and casino’s buffet. I am now in the eighth grade and taking all accelerated classes. My family supports me all the way in my education but mostly my mother: my mom is very proud of me and supports ever step I make and every essay I write. Now it is my mom’s turn to step down from teaching and start her new life with a new job. I hope she won’t be a nervous as I was on my first day.

I aspire to be a well renowned writer, author and possibly a professional photographer. Am I ashamed of being homeschooled? No I am not because I know that if I was never homeschooled I would not be the same person that I am today. Who am I? I am Devon Michael, I am a self-reliant youth, and I am a former homeschooler. Who are you?