When I first started this project, I actually wanted to talk about holistic methods of

treating illnesses. I kept ending up at cultural differences, like how ancient Chinese methods

developed and why people think herbal tea is so much better than scientific, proven antibiotics. I

thought all of that was a load of BS (partially because I am opposed to that train of thought) and

so I tried a new route.I didnt agree with the methods and I doubted their effectiveness, and so I

tried a slightly different route and thought about proven methods. I ended up at vaccinations, and

why/hhow they cause autism, and why people believe it, (even though that has been disproven

and the scientist has retracted his papereven though the scientist has since revoked his false

evidence, and that it hasnt been actually proven). I kept going in that route, even though

vaccinations are a forbidden topic. I got to how refusal to vaccinate is not allowed in public

schools, except for valid religious reasons, and even then, it is sometimes not allowed. I then

wondered how people who choose not to vaccinate (even though its detrimental to them and

society, even though it increases risk of infection,) keep their children educated. Its the law that

kids need some kind of schooling. I reached the conclusion that many of them homeschool their

children. I was curious as to that works, since public schools are very regulated.? I researched

that, and that was the beginning of this journey.

Before I even began the inquiry part about finding connections between sources and

creating new questions based on those sources, I made a bulleted list of potential things to talk

about in this inquiry, since I didnt really know what I was supposed to do., because I didnt read

the instructions on how to complete the project before starting, so. I thought a good starting part

was to brainstorm many topics under the umbrella of homeschooling, and then go from there.

One of the first things I came up with was if homeschooling was a quality education or not,

because parents, the usual teachers of homeschooled students, are not certified teachers, nor
experts in every field. For example, no parent can teach their children higher level math, like

calculus, as well as a ton ofdetailed US history, on top of analyzing Shakespearean literature, and

biology, and advanced Spanish, and world history, and statistics, and chemistry, and in-depth

psychology, and the list keeps going. more specialized subjects.

I work at a daycare sometimes, and the kids there range from 6 weeks to 6 years. Kids

start kindergarten around age 5, and sometimes parents decided to homeschool their kids. When

children aged 6 come in and theyve been homeschooled for a year and change, often times its

evident that theyre not developing socially on par with what they should bethe children have

some differences than those who have been in public school. The homeschooled kids oftenkids

who have been homeschooled dont always pick up on non-verbal social cues from others, and

those same ones stay primarily to themselves or their siblings, and more often than not, theyre

not good at sharing.. Occasionally, theyre not good at sharing with other children theyre not

related to. This isnt to say all homeschooled children are like this, just from my experience with

younger kids. Not all homeschooled kids Ive met are like that either. I was thinking about

homeschooling, and this popped into my mind. Do older homeschooled children suffer from

social delays like what Ive seen in younger kids?

Then I began thinking about how homeschooled kids go to college, since t. They cant get

a bachelors degree from an accredited college or university at home. I was partly curious as to

how their college careers went, from a social aspect, but mostly on how they get into college. I

know many schools require years of a foreign language, and a fine arts class, along with other

critical classes, like up to a certain level of mathsuch as going through four years of math. Do the

parents teach this, or do they go to classes? How do the parents prove that their children are

actually learning? I then got to thinking about standardized testing, and how that factors in with
homeschooled children. Since theyre not at a traditional school, theyre not being taught how to

take tests like the SAT or ACT. Do they still take those tests? Does that allow them to be in a

drawing for scholarships?

On the topic of standardized testing, I began to think about how the actual tests work. Are

they a measure of intelligence, or rather of test-taking abilities? Colleges seem to think that it is

among the best predictors of how well a student will do in a college setting. How do people

study for it? Theres such a variety of potential topics that could be covered on the test, and its

hard to study for a test that the test-takeryou doesnt even know what might be on it.

I kind of went on a tangent here and was thinking about how people learn, since I had

been thinking about studying. I was thinking about Pavlovs dog, and how he learned through

classical conditioning. In my AP Psych class, we learned classical conditioning along with

operant conditioning, and so my mind went there to operant conditioning next. Does punishment

and reinforcement really help? Then I began to thinking ng about instincts and reflexes. Like

how fight or flight worked, and how people overcome instincts and reflexes. I hit a dead end

here, and was nowhere near homeschooling, which is okay.but I was making a path of questions.

I left these ideas to settle while I did homework for other classes and went on with my

life. I watched thewas watching the news one day, and saw that Betsy DeVos was voted into

Secretary of Education by the Senate. First of all, sheShe has stated that she doesnt care if her

department gets shut down. She advocates for school choice, which is basically, in laymans

terms, taking money from public schools and sending it to private schools, while not changing

the prices of private schools. That would affect the quality of education in public schools. Also,

shes never been a teacher, nor dealt with student debt, so that affects her perception of

schooling. I was thinking how much I dislike her, and I dont even have children in the school.
world. Would parents decide to homeschool their kids because theyre afraid of what she might

do? Would she reinstate common core, or leave it?

I then read the instructions on this project and figured out that what I did wasnt the right

way to do it. It was a good starting point, just not the whole process. I thought I had already done

most of the work, and I was wrong. I had to make a prezi, and that in itself was awful. Im not

technologically gifted, and I got too frustrated with prezi too many times, since I dont know

how to, and I got frustrated often. One I figure it out, I started with two main questions on

homeschooling, why do people do it, and how does it works with college.

I started with why people decide to homeschool, and found a study by the US Department

of Education. From there, I asked whether or not homeschooled children have social problems,

since they are often schooled alone. I also asked whether or not parents were educated enough to

teach their children, since they are not teachers themselves. I found that, often times,

homeschooling parents will join forces with others to help teach their kids together and

betterbetter. After that,. I asked then how kids develop compared to those in traditional schools,

which connected with whether or not homeschooled kids have social issues. I found a source that

says otherwise, and that many homeschooled kids would join soccer teams with each other, and

parents would share teaching resources. Since they are not in school, I then thought about how

they are regulated, since its required by the law that children are schooledthe law that children

are in school. From that question, without another source sparking interest, I came up with the

question on how the development of children who are homeschooled is measured.

Going along the path of how it is regulated, I found an interesting source. It didnt talk so

much about regulation from the government, but how parents regulate it, and what typical

homeschool days are like from different families. I then wondered if homeschooled kids are ever
put into traditional schools, and found a source that says usually they are. Homeschooled

students who are now adults now spent an average of 6-8 years out of traditional school. I then

began to think about the implications of that, and I wondered what those adults lives are like

now. However, I couldnt find anything on that, and reached a dead end.

I wondered how the development of homeschooled kids is measured, and one source

really stuck out to me. It was how to decide what level of instruction to give the students to help

them excel. I then wondered about the opposite, if instead of helping children excel,

homeschooling parents are neglecting their children. I found that some adults ended up reading

at less than a 5th grade level. I went on to the question about their current lives, which lead me

into another dead end.

Going back to the beginning, while talking about how it works with college, I came

across another good source. It was a collection of data from Ohio admissions officers, and how

they decide whether or not a student is able to excel at their school, talking about standardized

tests being indicative of their future, and how often times, homeschooled students do better than

traditional students in a college setting. I made a connection here to an earlier source. I also

asked why doesnt everyone homeschool if its so great. I called this a dead end, because I

couldnt find anything of substance. All I found was that homeschooling isnt for everyone, and

with very little factual information, but mostlyre from anecdotes and opinions.

I tried to be critical while researching these articles, and I think I did a good job. I know

that homeschooling is a sensitive topic and many people are strongly opinionated about it, and so

I was prepared to run into many biased blog posts about it. I was surprised at how few I actually

found, but I was asking more intricate, specific questions than a lot of bloggers write about. They

often write about their experiences and the materials they use, and that was not the focus of my
research. Most of my information was somewhat scholarly, with some coming from studies done

by researchers. I used many primary sources, and few secondary, as because the secondary

sources often put in their opinion while synthesizing the information.

The path of inquiry was a difficult journey, because my topic did not have many reliable

and unbiased sources. I couldnt find the answers to a lot of my questions, and each question was

related in some way. Because of that, I reached many dead ends.