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instruction, and they found a good way to remedy the situation. Some parents hire private tutors or "swap" lessons with the parent of another child so each parent can teach his or her strongest subject.

Most importantly, home schooled children are taught how to learn. Unlike their public schooled counterparts, these students never spout tired excuses like, "but we haven't gone over this!" They do not expect to be "spoon fed" information or constantly entertained. I tried to teach my college students that the text is their primary source of information and the lecture is merely supplemental. Home schooled children already know this. I do not believe they necessarily have "better" character than publicly schooled students, but they do have very different expectations, and that gives them an academic advantage. They expect to put in an effort and learn most of the material by reading, because that is what they have always done. For home schooled students, education has always been an active endeavor, a process of learning rather than one of being taught. Many college students appear to view a professor as no different than a hairdresser. Like a woman in a beauty shop chair, the students sit passively and expect me to do all the work. They paid their money, and they expect to walk out the door having been transformed without any effort on their part. Home schooled children view college as a studio or workshop. They may receive guidance, but the end product will be of their choosing and its quality will be a function of their effort and aptitude rather than mine.

More and more professors are coming to the same conclusions as I have, and some of them are on admissions boards or scholarship committees. When they see that an applicant was home schooled, they will envision a competent scholar rather than a half-literate religious zealot.

Learn more about this author, Raven Lebeau.
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