If you’re reading this magazine, you are likely part of the public school system, but many of our students do not attend public schools throughout all of their education. In fact, St. Patrick’s Catholic School and other religious-based schools educate a great number of students in our area. Additionally, a home schooling community allows students a unique education. Parents home school for a variety of reasons and sometimes the parents send students to public school in order to help them actively engage in higher level classes and activities during the student’s high school years.

Homeschool
by John Giesey & Trustin Dinsdale

Within our generation, laziness is a prevailing concept. This is why coffee, weekends and pajamas are a type of holy trinity with a false prophet of procrastination promising that it can get done later. As such, it is common for homeschooling to be related to sleeping in, taking easy subjects, frequent breaks and extensive use of pajama pants, but this is a common misconception, as many homeschool families are hard-working, invested, and their kids are set up for successful academic lives, as well as social. Homeschooling is an alien concept to most people. The lack of understanding can lead to people disregarding homeschoolers as properly educated, when that is often not the case.

“I have assignments and tests and stuff just like in public school. She checks the answers out of an answer book then averages up the scores and that’s my grade. It counts for credit too. It’s not always at home, like last year I took an online math class at Liberty University in Virginia. Right now, I am in AP Physics, German 3, US History, American Literature, Practical Drafting and Pre-Calculus,” Barry Holland, a 11th grade homeschooler said.

“I feel like being homeschooled allowed me to be immersed in lots of different real life environments all the time, not only growing me as a person and developing my character, but broadening academic opportunities and things to shoot for. Being home during the day I learned to manage my own schedule and time in a real, day to day life environment. I learned to balance relationships of every age, not just those in my age group. I was involved in homeschool co-ops, theatre, music, and other groups, broadening my learning beyond schooling at home. It kept my perspective on life beyond just the day to day high school life, and showed me what I’d be aiming for outside the classroom, whether college, family, business, or relationships,” Meg Riefer, a now-graduated homeschooler said.

There are numerous different reasons as to why parents decide to homeschool, but it is often because it’s what they believe to be best for their family and their child.
“The initial decision was when my son was in first grade in public school. We saw disturbing behavior in him that we weren’t demonstrating at home. There was all the trouble of getting up so early and getting him to school. We also didn’t like how we never saw him until late in the afternoon, and even after that he would have homework. There wasn’t enough time to correct the behavior we had seen in him so we just decided that having him at home would give us more access to our son and more opportunities to teach him what we think is important for us to learn,” Mary Brigham, a Rolla homeschool mom, said. “I never planned on it. But it kind of started when my son starting reading at four, he went to a montessori pre-school in Kansas city and has a late birthday. So by the time we moved here he was supposed to enter Kindergarten he was six and had been reading for two years. I didn’t want him to begin being lazy or unmotivated and to be a smart kid in school who’s lazy, so they just try hard enough to get by and rely on their intelligence, then they never really learn how to work hard then they just fall behind when the going gets tough. I wanted him to love learning for learning’s sake and not for an A or to do well,” Amy Koenig, another Rolla homeschool mom said.

Another major pro of homeschooling is the excellent community in Rolla, which offers lots of programs for kids to go out and make friends as well as learn and grow who they are.
“There’s a couple different home school groups.The biggest one is CHESS, but that’s not really a group as much as a network for homeschool parents to go out and meet others, share and learn tips and all kinds of stuff that makes the whole process easier. But the group usually does a fall play and a Christmas party just as a chance to get kids out and socialize. So there’s lots of things for kids to do, drama in the fall is particularly popular. You can join through its website. It’s ten dollars a year and it mostly operates through volunteers stepping up and saying they want to do this field trip or event and then they get it scheduled and there you go. There’s probably a hundred families in it,” Koenig said. “On an ongoing basis we have stuff like Awana, we do homeschool P.E at the center, they all have different likes and interests, so my kids have done scouts, horseback riding, lego club and team, dance, we go to a VBS every summer and stuff like that. We do try to do stuff that will satisfy their interests and make sure it’s something they like to do,” Brigham said.

Private School
by Theodora Leventis

There comes a time when some parents debate on whether or not their children should attend public school or private school. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but in the end, it depends on which is best for the development of a child educationally and spiritually. Private school students consistently score better on standardized tests than public school students, and it is possibly because they put the main focus on education rather than political matters or possibly because of the socio-economic make-up of the private school body. The curriculum rigor at Rolla’s St. Patrick’s school may be partially responsible for its academic strength. The grading scale is ten percent higher than that of the public school. With a 69 percent for an F and a 92 percent for a B, the scale sets the academic bar much higher than is utilized at Rolla’s public schools.

“[St. Pats] definitely pushed me more. I feel like I have a really nice educational basis from it, and whenever I got to public school, everything got so much easier. It was like slacking. [The material] was the stuff that everybody [in public school] was learning too in the same grade, it’s just that [St. Pats] went more in depth with it and [the teachers] made us do a lot more things than what my public school friends were talking about,” senior Rachel Crowley said.

Though private school may be stronger academically, public school provides more options in courses and activities. Since public school is so branched out, students have more opportunities to find themselves and what they enjoy. Students may follow their own desires and do what interests them as individuals.

“[In] public school, we have a lot more options of classes we can take. At St. Pats, we had to take the same classes as everyone in our class. And public school has a lot more people and it’s fun to be social. We had a lot more religious oriented activities throughout the day and at public school we don’t have those, [which is] not a bad thing,” Crowley said.

There have been concerns about whether or not public schools should offer religious-oriented classes. Some people state that having religion classes significantly shaped their spiritual views while others claim it hasn’t made an impact at all.

“I don’t think St. Pat’s really shaped my views of religion much except that religion doesn’t have all the answers. You spend so much time studying that you can’t help but question it at times, and that rarely anyone ever really believes everything in their religion,” Senior Drazen Gonzalez said.

Children who are raised with certain religions don’t necessarily keep them once they get older. Some people keep their faith while others place their faith in the “people who are there to help, and not in the God who allows people to suffer from disease and abuse of any kind.” To some families, religion is not important in raising happy, healthy and moral kids.

“I feel like if I went to public school as a child, I probably would be a lot more religious than I am, because at St. Pats, they seemed to shove all the beliefs at you instead of letting you find yourself and what you want to believe in. I feel like it’s really cool in public school that everybody gets along like, ‘Oh that’s cool if you believe that.’ But at St. Pats they’re like, ‘Oh you need to believe this.’ And you have to do things even if you’re not their religion. If you were a different religion you could go there, but you still have to go to [the same religious activities],” Crowley said. “The moment that I realized that I was not happy with that religion was in sixth grade. We were in religion class [and] we were talking about suicide. And our religion teacher said that all suicide victims go to Hell. And my sister had committed suicide, so I started crying and then she was like, ‘Except for your sister, Rachel. She has a spot in Heaven. And I was like, okay, not for me anymore. So I feel like they say certain things unless you want to hear certain things, but you can’t just change religion just because someone wants to hear something else.”

Whether or not religion classes make a difference in people’s beliefs, the more information the better. Learning about the different religions doesn’t hurt. In fact, there would be less hypocrisies if more people were educated on the different practices that exist. Catholic school has good and bad aspects depending on the person’s view. For some it is a better experience than for others, but in the end there is something to gain.
“I know that religion wouldn’t be as important to me if I had gone to public school. St. Pats gave me a foundation for my faith and because of that I take the Catholic faith seriously,” junior Katherine Frisbee said, “Overall, I would say I had a great experience at St. Pats. I made friends that have stuck with me through everything. I received an education I am proud of and I grew deeper in my faith. I am happy that I was able to attend St. Patrick’s for my primary education.”

Frankly, there are both sides to how one can view private school and public school. In the end, it ultimately comes down to what the person feels is more beneficial for them. Each person grows differently and takes away what they will from experiences.

“I’ll admit there were times I did want to leave St. Pats. I got into my fair share of troubles there. But I am glad I stayed. I don’t think I would be doing as well as I am now in school if it wasn’t for St. Pats pushing me,” Gonzalez said.