Unschooled Student Experience at Hampshire College

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Hi, my name is Anna. I'm a student at Hampshire College and in this video I'm going to interview Tabita who is also a student at Hampshire College. Tabita was homeschooled and we're going to discuss how Hampshire is uniquely suited for students who come from a homeschool background. My name is Tabita DoujadI use she/her pronouns, I'm a div 2, 1st year and I'm working on a lot of different things. But all of them are poetry, photography and cultural studies related and they all intersect. What were the primary reasons your family began homeschooling? first grade is when I started homeschooling kindergarten is when my family decided. I was having a hard time finishing projects on time. I would be like drawing my turtle and taking my time and having so much fun and you know, getting in a state of flow at like five and then the teacher would be like, okay, time for recess. No, I'm doing my turtle. So it was kind of like, I would come home frustrated pretty much every day. When your family began homeschoolingwhat was the academic approach that your parents used? Yeah, Well it's the one I remember using from like maybe first or second grade on until like maybe end of middle school with Oak Meadow. So it was pretty much on track with whatever the public school or you know, maybe Montessori schools would be doing, I struggled with it the whole time. And then my mom was like, okay again, she needs to do what she wants to do. So she found unschooling, which is what I did through high school. I totally designed every single day.Would you consider yourself a bookworm? Did you like to read a lot?Yeah, I was such a bookworm, all I wanted to do all day every day was read. I don't even, I don't know what age I started reading, but it was pretty young I think. And um, I read the Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie. Yeah, I think, Boxcar Children, I was obsessed with. When I was probably 14, I decided I didn't want, I wanted to like to monitor my own screen use like transition to more healthy habits. But that also coincides with the rise of unschooling in my family where I was like told that I could do whatever I want with my time, anything at all. And so I was like, oh, okay. If I could design my education, I think I want to live my life. And so yeah. I love that. So it feels like the unschooling, reading, all of that really led you to come into Hampshire. I still have this feeling, um, wanting to do whatever I want. Um, and really questioning like why like some of the more rote logistical requirements. So I do, yeah, I do feel like I carry that kind of unschooler spirit with, but I don't know, there's a lot. I got really into cultural anthropology, like listening to podcasts and stuff and also in photography, Really into photography when I was 14 and since then have been interested in poetry was always a part of my life. And so those things, I mean have been abiding interestI'm still studying them in school. So I think when I figured out that I was interested in cultural anthropology, it was like, oh, it's coincided with this other realization that like so much of the world is made up by humans and my world. I mean structures. And so it was really a liberating thing to study. And I understand that there are structures in place that I can do certain things to get a degree. Most of the things that I have to do here line up with my desires. That's really rare in a school. I can tell like I'm so glad Hampshire has survived this far. Thank you so much! thanks for having me!