Hiya! I’m AJ! I’m a homeschooler now and a golfer, but I was in traditional school till 6th grade… So, I have had the “best of both worlds!” For those who knew that reference… you are officially awesome! But anyhoo… My favorite grade was pre-K for obvious reasons … I mean, C’mon! Who wouldn’t want to sit around, eat goldfish, and have recess… ALL DAY! When my mom switched from working at a college to full-time Learnabilities, I was like, “Great! Now you can homeschool me!” For. The. Record. I was totally kidding. So, yeah, ‘several years later’… TA DA! I’M STILL A HOMESCHOOLER!
OK, so don’t get me wrong or anything, I was really nervous for the big switch of traditional school to homeschool. Would I get to have friends? Would I be challenged? Would I get to have a prom? (cause that’s what we girls worry about), but in truth, I think that was one of the best NOT SERIOUS ideas I’ve ever had.
Now, I would like to take this moment to apologize to my mom for being a slightly ‘difficult’ student. You see, during the final stages of my career as a traditional schooler, I felt behind in school; my grades weren’t where I wanted them to be; I had massive amounts of test anxiety and really bad academic confidence (I really am pretty awesome otherwise), and of course I was a tweenager, so there’s that fun little added tidbit… But for time’s sake, let’s just say I was a hot mess… So… Sorry, Mom. Alright… Now that we got that origin story out of the way, we can finally get to the high points of my background.
Because I was now homeschooled, I was able to travel with my mom and present around the country, which allowed me to see how much teachers care about students. My first presentation was when I was 11 years old… This was just before I was homeschooled actually… I rocked it! I then continued to present with my mom as a mother-daughter duo, which meant that I was a national presenter by age 12… Pretty sweet, huh?
I feel the need to point out that I am not bragging, I just wanted to share something that I am super excited about with you. And to answer that question flying around your brain right now, and that baffles me… To. This. Day… How can I present to an auditorium of 200 teachers yet can’t hold a conversation with a guy to save my life?
So… That’s about it for now… I can’t wait to share little hacks and tricks I’ve learned in my ‘wise’ fifteen years and to hopefully hear your thoughts and ideas as well. So, as my greatest honor, and with no further ado, let’s get this hopefully comedic, sarcastic, enjoyable, mutually beneficial, amazing, crazy (and any other synonym for rocking) adventure started!