Home School vs. Real School: Not Mutually Exclusive

People often think that you either have to be physically at a school to learn or you're home schooled; there's no alternative. My opinion: that's not even remotely true. Since for many of you the days of potentially being home schooled are far over, you believe that doing work at home means catching up on reading or doing projects, but it should be much more than that. Jim Rohn once said, “Formal education will make you a living; self education will make you a fortune” and it couldn't be more true. If you want to truly excel in the world, you're going to have to be independent and try to learn the things that aren't being taught by your professors and the textbooks that will be valuable to you in the future.

If you're in a job interview, don't expect your potential employer to ask you to draw the graph that appears on page 153 of your Economics textbook, but do expect them to ask them your opinion on the housing crisis. A website called Academic Earth is being deemed as the “Hulu for education” by Tech Crunch and after checking it out, I have to agree. They have videos from some of the top lectures and speakers from around the world. There are hundreds of resources out there that will help you learn about things in your field of study, and outside if you choose to broaden your horizons. Watching videos from FORA or from the TED conference won't just enlighten you on technology, but also on many other issues that may change the way you think.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I believe it's more what you learn outside of the classroom than what you learn inside of it. I'm not knocking what you are learning inside of the classroom, though. That stuff is important too. But don't forget that home time shouldn't just be about working on your given school assignments. Maybe it's time to reconsider some home schooling.