PUBLIC SCHOOL TO ONLINE SCHOOL - WHY IT'S BETTER

I've spent my whole life in the traditional public education system: 12 and a half school years, 2,250 school days, 13,500 hours of my life in school. That means I spent approximately 1.54 years of my life, just in public school.

(In case you were wondering how I did my math. From kindergarten to 11th grade plus a semester. So basically I ended after my 1st semester of senior year. With 180 days dedicated to school and 6 hours of school dedicated to everyone of those days. Well of course I'm not a saint. I did miss about 200 days of school in my life... I'd say that is pretty reasonable.)

What if I told you

You can finish school as young as 13 to 14 years of age. 

(My Math: By taking a semester of school during the summer it accounts for 1/2 a school year since you need two semesters to = one school year. That means about 8 years for 24 credits. A full Diploma.) This plan is one public school year and a summer of 1 semester on online school.

Each online class is at average (for core classes) 18 weeks. Meaning 4.14 Months. An average public school year is 180 days or 5.91 months. However, public school's 180 days is weekdays. So If you add in the weekends, a true school year is about 9 months and some change. But you get the weekends and holidays off including winter and spring break.

The advantage of Online school doesn't just stop at less time to complete but instead also offers flexibility. My childhood friend, (Maddie) who I've known since I was three, has never went to a Public School. She has spent her whole life doing Online school and boy, can I say that was fun. I remember when I was little and she said she had to make a cake/pie.

 I said "why?'

"It's for school!" she retorted.

"You're in school... right now?" I blankly questioned.

"Why do you think we were playing outside?... That was my P.E.!" she stated.

I had never been so confused as we pieced together a chocolate crumple pie and tossed some Oreos on top. Her mother had simply said "Remember to read the directions" as she slipped away to her work as an Online school teacher. And we did. We read the directions and stuck it in the fridge to later consume... It was a perfect pie. That mud pie you have pictured in your head, is not correct. You would think 7 year olds would make a totally messed up pie/cake. But it wasn't thrown together. Because we read the directions, It looked exactly like the picture on the box.

I spent one hour a week, for 11 week and finished with an A

It was my Junior year and I decided to take a Senior class online, Economics. It was astronomically easy. I had an hour and a half of a free period ever other day in Public High school. A total of 7 classes and one free period. I was given (depending on the week) 2 to 3 days out of 5, that had my free or "personalization" period in it. I would only use one day out of the week, just an hour of my time and complete 2 to 3 assignments or Quizzes. Every week it was only 1 to 2 assignments that needed to be turned in. I was ahead in my online class. So much so that my parents got notifications when I didn't turn anything in for a week. But, I didn't need to turn it in because I had already done so the week before. Due to complications with my extracurricular activities, I didn't finished the course early but I did finish it in time like everyone else.

My Plan

For my second and last semester of school, I am doing Online school. Instead of taking seven more classes, I will be taking two (I will end with 24 credits). Instead of waking up at 6:50am and going to school at 7:30am. I will wake up whenever I wake up (Usually around 10:00am). Instead of coming home at 2:30pm, I will have already finish my school work and not have to worry about homework...

The only downside? Without Public School, There is a gap in my schedule. A gap to do something that interests me... but, its such a big gap and I don't know what to do. How sad is that? Forever school was my life. It consumed my day and it made me dumber. For the longest time, I wasn't learning anything in school. This may be complicated to understand but... I don't know when school became, "Wow I can't wait till we learn about the Egyptians" to "I can't wait till this class is over". It kills our thirst for knowledge. It replaces it with so much school work and -to do the things you want to do like: sports, clubs, hang out with friends or family- the only valuable thing you need to learn is time management. How do I quickly finish my homework so I can get back to actually living my life. We don't learn. We rush.