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Nov 30, 2009
Undergraduate / Homeschooling and Autistic Brother - prompt 2 [4]
Ok guys, here's my answer to prompt 2, I hope you like it!
On a cold day in November 2005, I walked out of an office proudly
carrying a puffy white envelope that had some weight to it. Inside was
one thing I am proud I was able to achieve: My high school diploma.
Homeschooling was hard, at first I would see my teacher, Mrs. Irvan once
a week, but I did so well that eventually became once a month. This was
because I learned critical thinking, in a sense that my focus was to
start with what I knew, but try to learn as much as I could. I never
wanted to follow the beaten path, my inspiration was to be creative, and
a question I constantly asked myself was if I could do better. I not
only met the goals that I was asked to, I exceeded them.
Naturally, I was a little apprehensive about the homeschool process. I
achieved wonderful grades - all straight A's, but I wanted a taste of
the real world. In order to graduate on time, it was necessary for me to
take college classes while in homeschool. Soon I was writing reports on
art history, making speeches in front of classmates in my college speech
class. When my astronomy teacher asked us to tell him what we had
learned as the only question on the final, I ran out of paper. Finally,
I had not just proven myself to my teacher, but to myself as well,
spectacularly.
The ability to learn on my own also made it easier for me to teach
others. My brother Walter is autistic, and while his doctor and the
school believed that he lived in a world of his own, I discovered one
day that he was very interested in what I was doing at my computer. I
decided to experiment by setting him up with a computer of his own; It
took me a while to pass on the values that I learned from teaching
myself, as practically everything I knew about computers (typing,
programming, web design), I had learned mostly on my own.
Today, when I'm doing something my brother finds interesting, he asks me
"What are you doing?" If he hears a good song on the radio, he'll ask
for the name of it, so he can look it up on the Internet; through me,
he's built up his own music library. Sometimes, I hesitate to think
about what he's capable of doing, because obviously he's just as bright
and capable as I am, meaning you never know what to expect.
Since I have introduced my brother to computers, even the doctors agree
that he is a much higher functioning person than they had ever imagined.
He doesn't scream anymore, he talks, and enjoys learning new things on
the Internet. Someday, I hope that everyone will see him as normal as I
am, and I will consider that the greatest accomplishment in the world -
one that I helped make happen.
Ok guys, here's my answer to prompt 2, I hope you like it!
Homeschooling Classes and Autism
On a cold day in November 2005, I walked out of an office proudly
carrying a puffy white envelope that had some weight to it. Inside was
one thing I am proud I was able to achieve: My high school diploma.
Homeschooling was hard, at first I would see my teacher, Mrs. Irvan once
a week, but I did so well that eventually became once a month. This was
because I learned critical thinking, in a sense that my focus was to
start with what I knew, but try to learn as much as I could. I never
wanted to follow the beaten path, my inspiration was to be creative, and
a question I constantly asked myself was if I could do better. I not
only met the goals that I was asked to, I exceeded them.
Naturally, I was a little apprehensive about the homeschool process. I
achieved wonderful grades - all straight A's, but I wanted a taste of
the real world. In order to graduate on time, it was necessary for me to
take college classes while in homeschool. Soon I was writing reports on
art history, making speeches in front of classmates in my college speech
class. When my astronomy teacher asked us to tell him what we had
learned as the only question on the final, I ran out of paper. Finally,
I had not just proven myself to my teacher, but to myself as well,
spectacularly.
The ability to learn on my own also made it easier for me to teach
others. My brother Walter is autistic, and while his doctor and the
school believed that he lived in a world of his own, I discovered one
day that he was very interested in what I was doing at my computer. I
decided to experiment by setting him up with a computer of his own; It
took me a while to pass on the values that I learned from teaching
myself, as practically everything I knew about computers (typing,
programming, web design), I had learned mostly on my own.
Today, when I'm doing something my brother finds interesting, he asks me
"What are you doing?" If he hears a good song on the radio, he'll ask
for the name of it, so he can look it up on the Internet; through me,
he's built up his own music library. Sometimes, I hesitate to think
about what he's capable of doing, because obviously he's just as bright
and capable as I am, meaning you never know what to expect.
Since I have introduced my brother to computers, even the doctors agree
that he is a much higher functioning person than they had ever imagined.
He doesn't scream anymore, he talks, and enjoys learning new things on
the Internet. Someday, I hope that everyone will see him as normal as I
am, and I will consider that the greatest accomplishment in the world -
one that I helped make happen.
