Matt Preston
09/10/2013
Section 1: Wall Street Journal Counter Argument
Counter Argument to “I’m Homeschooled-Hold the Pity, Please” “I’m Homeschooled-Hold the Pity, Please” is an article that was published in the Wall Street Journal September 9, 2013. What is interesting about this article (besides its content) is the author, who is a high school sophomore, by the name of Veronica Andreades. She explains in her writing that teenagers have asked her why her parents homeschooled her. They also suggested that she must not have any friends or that she is socially awkward. Ms. Andreade’s point in this article was to disprove that shadowing notion that homeschooling is bad, and to show that in fact, homeschooling, has proven more beneficial to her life than what public schooling had to offer. This article jumped out to me more than the other opinion articles in the Journal due to my similarities with the author. Veronica is a minister’s daughter who is homeschooled. I was also homeschooled through the sixth grade and my dad has been a minister since I was born. The second reason this article stood out to me was that I disagreed with the majority of the article even though I had gone through most of the same confrontations she wrote about with fellow teenagers. In agreement with Veronica, homeschooling can give you a competitive edge in that, you can study without the limitations of your class. The statistics typically show that homeschoolers receive higher grades than those who attend public school. Alternatively, all the interviews I have had so far have not involved the hiring manager looking at my past test scores, but instead, asking me questions to learn how I act in that particular social situation. Every interview has also involved a discussion of my time management and how I remain to be efficient with a full-time job and work. Once I was