beau-angelle

[beau-angelle]

ABOUT ME

hiya!! im 15 (sophomore in hs), pretty stressed with some of my classes (will def talk ab it on here)

Interests: animated movies, cats, frogs, rats, mice, reading (mostly romance but I'm not picky), gaming, movie watching in gen, and plants

i play overwatch 2 (ps4), im pretty shit but Im trying to get better. trying to get better at studying, so if you have any tips send them pls!!!!

mostly will reblog but I'm gonna try to post at least once a week. wtvs on my mind ill post.

ill mostly be posting for myself fyi!!!

#abt #new to tumblr #looking for moots #looking for mutuals #looking for friends #new friends #be my friend #say hi if you want

[beau-angelle]

remember wgen the eggplant emoji meant …. well … *blushes and runs off* **a crow pecks at phone and sends this post**

jdjdicoockgkrkr <<crow message

[beau-angelle]

currently in the bathroom at dillards

#scared #i hate dillards #help #sos

[beau-angelle]

look at my cat hehe

#brown cats #catlover #cats #hes so cute omg #kitty #cute cats #my cat son

[beau-angelle]

[beau-angelle]

[beau-angelle]

went on r/cigars for some reason and found the hardest pic in existence

looks like an oil painting

[beau-angelle]

most underrated scene in american psycho is when patrick is about to strangle that guy but he just thinks patrick is trying to fuck him and starts trying to kiss him back and patrick gets so homophobic that he just leaves

[beau-angelle]

the way monkeypox is being branded as not really an issue and only affecting men who have sex with other men, is honestly so heartbreaking. did we not learn anything from the 80s AIDS crisis?

[beau-angelle]

normalize this

[beau-angelle]

i go to jupiter to drink more soup with her

[beau-angelle]

walt when he’s manipulating jesse is like a mastermind liar but when he’s lying to his family its always shit like “ohh sky you should’ve seen him comin’ throufh, it was freddy fazbear, and i went outside to say hi but oh he scratched my face and thats how i got this scar”

[beau-angelle]

Amanojaku vs Sage by Naufaldreamer

[beau-angelle]

[beau-angelle]

[beau-angelle]

how is anyone supposed to sleep. in these temprachures

[beau-angelle]

I'm trying very hard to reconcile my own personal instinct to recoil from people being encouraged to try homeschooling with my own knowledge that the American education system is designed to be inconsistent, abusive, and beyond substandard. I do completely understand why people want to pull their children out of it.

But as someone who fell into the cracks between Homeschool and Formal education, I sincerely caution parents seeking to homeschool their children to be very careful in how you go about it

There are laws governing who can and how you can homeschool that differs from state to state. In some places, you can be any ol' Joe Blow off the street, pull your kids out, and teach them whatever you want. In some, you have to have a background in education, or you have to teach a specific curriculum. And in others, there's a mix between the two extremes.

Sometimes you have to keep and send transcripts, and if you continue the process through to "graduation", there may be no standard for issuing a graduation certificate that they can use in the future as proof of education. My diploma that tells employers I have the minimum education in the US was printed off of Google in 2009.

In Louisiana, at least in the late 90s/early aughts, all you had to do was let the school board know you intended to provide education at home, register a "school name" and then re-send that registration each semester.

I was pulled out of school in the year 2000, iirc, following a move from New Jersey to Louisiana, where I was actually significantly behind due to the differences between the grade curriculum in each state. In NJ, I was learning the times tables for the first time, and in LA, we were supposed to be dividing fractions. And then, Katrina hit, and we moved around a decent amount, and for the years between 2005 and 2009, I think I just didn't exist as far as the educational system was concerned.

I was a fat undiagnosed neurodivergent queer biracial kid with heap loads of trauma, and the struggles I experienced within the formal education system were absolutely hugely informed by those aspects of my existence. I was being bullied for all the reasons, struggling with my neurodivergency that made all my schoolwork so damn hard, and my family -- already fairly outside of the societal norm in a number of ways, while fitting in perfectly well in others -- did not have and was not provided with the resources to effectively ensure an accessible and consistent form of education for me.

The education system in the US is not just one type of failure, and taking it into your own hands, in my experience and the experiences of many other formerly homeschooled adults, may not do more than give your child a new form of educational trauma.

I cannot do more than the most basic addition and subtraction in my head. I do not have a comprehensive understanding of American, let alone worldwide, history. Science? I got nothing. People talk about learning from the "School of hard knocks" but no, really, I had to learn a lot of practical life skills and knowledge through fucking up and hoping for the best until someone was kind enough to help me out.

(If you've been here on my blog for more than a minute, you might think to yourself, "Reyah, that's still true" and sweet honey baby darling, you're not wrong lmao)

I am lucky enough that my parents are very educated people, were always willing to talk about things with me, and I learned concepts very well through discussion, so I was able to pick up a lot of the skills and knowledge I needed to survive as an adult essentially through social and cultural osmosis. But there's a lot that I missed out on, and struggle as an adult to rectify. (And I'm not even going to pretend that there isn't a lot that I had to unlearn.)

So instead, I exist as someone failed by the educational system in a country that, in my opinion, nearly deifies diplomas to an unhealthy degree (no pun intended), and there's a lot of trauma tied up in that.

To make it super clear: College websites give me panic attacks, and there was a period of time where I absolutely browsed those sites as a form of self-harm. (I no longer do this, I promise)

And I want to be incredibly clear that I am not saying that our children should simply continue to be suffering under these incredibly abusive systems, or that you shouldn't give homeschooling an honest to goodness attempt. Especially if the public system is unsafe for your child.

I don't blame my parents in the slightest for the situations we were in during my childhood because I can pinpoint the specific systems that failed my family every step of the way. Education, healthcare, employment, housing -- none of those systemic failures are the personal fault of my parents doing their best in a country that was not designed to actually help people in need.

I also cannot say that I would have been "better off" staying in public school. Maybe I would have been in some aspects, and worse off in others. I know several recently-dropped out young adults that did so due to a hellish combination of abuse, bigotry, insufficient or outright being denied accommodations for disabilities, and more. I can't say that I would have had a better experience than them, or even a particularly different one, if I had remained enrolled.

I have a good friend, only slightly older than me, who had a very similar experience to mine who is now a college professor, and is still unpacking the traumas of his experiences. I cannot sing his praises enough -- he's probably the main reason I feel remotely confident talking about this at all, let alone in a public forum. I have a lot of personal shame wrapped up in my lack of formal education, and his ability to be open about his schooling history has greatly informed my own to an incredible degree.

I hope that talking about my own experiences with homeschooling will give parents the opportunity to avoid putting their children through similar trials to mine, whether by seeing the pitfalls early enough to detour or by seeking other means to provide safe and accessible education to their children.

If homeschooling is something your family is genuinely interested in pursuing, I would ask that you seek to work with local teachers, your libraries, mental health professionals, and seek out the experiences of homeschooled adults. Especially from those who have similar difficulties to your child.

Most importantly: Listen to your kid, and if they can't advocate for themself, for whatever reason, you need to be prepared to step in for them. (Even against yourself, sometimes.)