Missing the Mark: Adventures in Leaving Homeschooling

Lockers slamming, a sea of backpacks and unfamiliar faces rushing through packed halls, and the overwhelming anxiety of not knowing where D wing was located...if ever there was a fish out of water, it's a homeschooler jumping headfirst into the shark-infested waters of middle school.

When I decided I wanted to have friends that didn't live in books and go to school "like everybody else," I don't know what I was imagining. A movie set, maybe, populated with people falling over themselves to meet the new girl. When I walked in for the first time and saw the painted cinderblock walls, dingy florescent lighting, and a lingering smell of floor wax and gym socks, I tasted fear. This place would eat me alive. How would I remember where all these classes were located? Let alone make it there in the space of a three-minute passing period.

I had been homeschooled from kindergarten through 7th grade. The culture shock of entering the local school for 8th grade was more than I was prepared for.

I wasn't a complete hermit: I'd taken music and gymnastics classes with some of the other students. I knew faces from 4-H and church and Girl Scouts. But here there were hierarchies I couldn't even begin to fathom. It wasn't clear-cut like during the county fair, where Sheep Barn peeps were shunned by Horse Handlers. I couldn't parse the dividing lines between which groups were which. And where did I belong?

I wasn't yet part of ANY group. Would I hang out with the D wingers, artsy types? Be a band nerd? Show choir soprano? I wasn't cheerleader material, not with my general clumsiness and height. And for sure, no coach would have wanted me on their sports team.

Where it was painful to the point of physical discomfort was gym class. They played games I was expected to understand, whose rules had been passed down over years of elementary school recesses. I was completely and utter lost. The only game I was vaguely familiar with? Dodgeball.

Unfortunately, our gym class was frequented by two multiple-year-drop outs, guys who towered over the gym teacher, and whose aim was powerful. And accurate. Silly me. I didn't realize the objective of dodgeball was actually to get out BEFORE you became the sole target of their wrath. As my coke-bottle glasses flew across the gym, I questioned the wisdom of leaving my cozy bedroom study area for what was turning out to be the violence of reality.

Then there was archery. Whose grade depended on your accuracy at the target. I managed a bullseye...in my neighbor's target. Oops. That was a solid C. (I guess they only failed you if you injured someone?)

Little by little, I would find excuses to slip to the back of the line. I'd suddenly need to tie and retie my shoes. Fake a cough. Feel weak. For the entirety of that 8th grade year, I only went to the front of the line ONCE. Bless that gym teacher. She had to have noticed. But perhaps I earned her pity after that fated dodgeball game.

The rest of the year was fine. After a few weeks of being a complete fish out of water, I learned the ropes. I memorized my class schedule. Made some friends. I never took to gym class, but by the end of the year, I was part of the school of fish, all swimming in the same direction: towards the bigger ocean of high school. All of us a little scared of seniors, those sharks! But excited, too.

If I could go back in time, I'd tell myself to worry less. That throwing yourself headlong into something, even if you do it poorly at first, is better than hanging out on the sidelines. Gym class could have been more fun if I wasn't so worried about making a fool of myself. Nowadays, I tell my kids when they're facing good but scary changes, be it a first day of school or a new camp: Try to make friends early: don't wait around for someone to notice you. Notice them instead, say hi, be kind. It's okay if the dodgeball hits you. Get knocked down. Get up again. And keep swimming, okay? You've got this.