Eagle McMahon is a Senior at West River Academy. Here he shares his experience homeschooling: how he learned to read, his “Notebook” method of planning his studies, and becoming a professional disc golfer.
Homeschooling has been the greatest gift of my life. Many kids dream of being homeschooled and I have been able to pursue this lifestyle my entire life. It has given me so many opportunities that I would not have had if I had sat in a classroom all day. I have gotten to spend a lot of time with my family, giving me special relationships with my father and grandparents. My father and grandparents are my homeschool teachers. This opportunity has given special perks over the years. For example, this past year I traveled across the USA and competed against the world’s best professional disc golfers.
Homeschooling is based around me being able to structure my studies around my interests and create my own schedule. The main lesson it has taught me is that you do not just learn from school, you learn from everything.
My learning process has always been relaxed and fun. I have never felt pressured or stressed about learning. Because of this, I am calm and confident when I have to take on tasks. I attribute this to my loved ones for being positive and supportive of this lifestyle.
Going way back in my memory as far as I remember, when I first started off as a pre-homeschooler, I had many interests that jump started my education. I was into Legos, Transformers, and trains. I always dove deep into my hobbies and fully engrossed myself in my interests. I would collect every Transformer, know all of their names, and transform them in a flash. A fond memory I have of these early days is when my dad and I built a landscape for my toy trains. It had tunnels, elevation, and bridges for me to put toy train tracks on. One day we spent all day making a train track that went throughout the entire house. I learned to take things to a different level while having fun! My family was always there to help me learn about my interests and support me in any way they could.
During my early years of academics, I remember going to bookstores and picking out school workbooks. Every time I finished a workbook, which was about every six months, we would go back to the bookstore and get the next grade. My father used a method called the “Notebook.” It was a composition book that he used to schedule my school day. My schedule usually included things like; two pages of math, two pages of science, two pages of reading/writing, exercise, goal setting, and organizing. I looked forward to my new tasks every day. Completing these tasks gave me a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence. We still use the “Notebook” method to this day, and it is still effective as ever. I plan on using this technique for the rest of my life as my daily to-do lists.
My greatest homeschool experience is when my father took me on a trip to Hawaii. I was nine years old and it was after my mother passed. He claims he used this time for bonding and setting our new life and education in motion. We spent eight weeks of the winter from January through February to get out of the cold winter. We spent five of the eight weeks on Maui and the other three weeks on the Main Island. At the time, I barely knew how to read. One of my father’s main intentions of the trip was to teach me how to read. I spent a lot of time reading and being read to. I remember the first book I read, “Fantastic Mister Fox” by Roald Dahl. It was a perfect first book to read for a nine year old, because it was fun and captivating. We made learning to read fun by reading on beautiful beaches under the sun. Once I got a hang of reading, I read one book after the other, completing four Roald Dahl novels in the next eight weeks.
After the Hawaii experience, I realized how special homeschooling was. My education from ages ten years old to present has been unconventional and different than most others. For one, I have been able to pursue my love for cooking and nutrition. My mother and father have raised me a vegetarian, so food has always been a big thing in my life. My grandmother has always made delicious food and I saw her as an inspiration to cook food myself. Since I was at my grandparent’s house a lot for school, I had the opportunity to cook almost every day. I was a natural in the kitchen, had a knack for spices, and knew how to season food. My grandfather was so impressed with my cooking skills, that he started to ask me to cook instead of my grandmother.
Another passion of mine is buying and selling. At the time, I was really into mountain biking. It was a great way to get out in nature and exercise. However, I enjoyed buying bikes and re-selling them so I could upgrade to a better bike. In the course of one year, I bought and sold nine bikes. The first bike I bought was $200. The first premium bike I bought was $1100 and the last one I bought was a $5000 bike I got for $2500. I used the bike for a year and then re-sold it for more money.
The way I earned the money was by working with my father and buying and selling these bikes on craigslist. I was obsessed with selling items (I still am). I also sold random house hold items and valuable frisbees I collected from playing disc golf. I got very good at dealing with people and negotiating because I was doing it on a daily basis. I have learned through this to buy, sell, trade, and use craigslist which are all valuable things that I will use the rest of my life. These experiences have inspired me so much that I want to pursue a business career.
I am most proud of what I have done in disc golf. Disc golf is like standard golf, except instead of hitting a ball into a hole,you are throwing a frisbee into a suspended metal basket. When I was 9 years old, my father’s friend introduced us to the sport. At first we liked it, but just thought of it as a simple game. The more we played, the more we got involved. We played almost everyday. It was a passion we both shared and I learned a lot on the courses. I learned discipline, focus, patience, and how to control my emotions. This sport is still teaching and helping me grow to this day.
From the time I started playing disc golf up until now, it is still very much a part of my life. I have reached professional status, make money doing it, am ranked one of the top players in the world, and have five sponsors that support my game and my travels. I have traveled all around the United States to compete against the best players. This next year will be bigger and better than ever. I will be going to Sweden and Finland to compete. Disc golf is one of the fastest growing sports in the world and I am fortunate to be in on the ground level. The growth of the sport is creating more opportunities to make money. I won $1545 for winning a state tournament!
I plan to keep pursuing this and possibly get involved with the business and marketing side of the sport. This passion of mine has brought out my adventurous side and has taught me some valuable life skills. I have learned to book my own flights, plan out my finances, and be resourceful without parents around. Now that I am recognized as one of the top players, I have my own YouTube channel and I do my own video blogs of my travel experiences. As a result, I have become interested with film production and photo editing and it is one of my senior courses.In reviewing all these years, I have realized how proud I am of my alternative education. It is a unique way of life that most people do not understand. I have never been in a traditional school setting or classroom. The benefits of being a homeschool student are outstanding. I have learned many important life lessons through every day tasks and living life. My closest friends are my family and they have all taught me so much; from my father exercising with me, my Grandfather teaching me science, my uncle giving computer tips, and my grandmother with everything. I would not change the way I have done anything. My classroom is life, everyday, all the time. Only a homeschooler would know how great it is.
I believe the freedoms that come with Homeschooling have helped me experience more than your traditional student. My classroom one day is in a coffee shop, the next day the library, the next day a hiking trail, the next day a museum, the next day the disc golf course, and the next day Hawaii. School is living my life and pursuing my interest and goals with all my heart. The enjoyment of learning and growing does not have to be a task.
Homeschooling has enabled me to live in a way that allows me to be myself. Although traditional schooling may be good for others, I do not believe it would have been for me. I am forever grateful to my parents for choosing this lifestyle for my education.
The whole homeschooling lifestyle has been the greatest gift my parents have given to me. Now that I am almost ready to graduate and move onto college to start pursuing a career, I believe I have some ideas about what I want to pursue in the future. I am planning on studying business and marketing because of my resourcefulness and talent in dealing deal with people. I would eventually like to own my own business. I have taken inspiration from others who have created that for themselves. It seems like owning your own business closely relates to homeschooling in so many ways. If you are a business owner, you can shape your own schedule, be the boss of yourself, and create what you want.
I am already set up for that lifestyle because of homeschooling. All my experiences over the years from collecting, buying, selling, traveling, being creative, and developing a disc golf following has set me up for something big in the future. If I were to create a business involving disc golf, I feel as if I would already have a mass amount of support and many options. Homeschooling has taught me to set goals and go get what you want and what you need. If I need to learn something or get something done, I know how to go about doing it.
I have many goals I want to achieve this year and beyond. As a homeschooler, I have been taught that there are no boundaries and that you are allowed to think outside the box.
Humans are capable of great things and all it takes is persistence and the ability to follow your dreams. I want to live a very prosperous life full of happiness and confidence. I expect to achieve that because of who I am as a person. Everything that I have learned and my experiences have taught me that with passion and hard work anything can be done. If I have the right mindset, I believe I can do anything.”
Martial arts has helped me learn many things as well: from balance and a bit of Korean, to morals such as honesty and integrity. The martial art I am learning is Tang Soo Do. The people at the studio are all really nice and excellent instructors willing to help someone who wants to learn. Tang Soo Do is an important part of my life, and I plan on continuing it as long as possible. The atmosphere of encouragement and support from those at the studio is unique in the Tang Soo Do community, and is something I carry inside of me even when I am not there. I hope to some day pass on the traditions of Tan Soo Do. Through Tang Soo Do I have been able to improve my leadership skills by leading the students in various warm-up exercises and by helping some of the lower-ranked students improve their forms and techniques. This has also helped me to gain more confidence in myself.
I was eleven when I started 4-H. At first I wasn’t sure whether I would like it or not because it seemed more like an activity my sister would enjoy. After the first few years, though, I started to really enjoy 4-H. Although our club wasn’t very big I still met quite a few people and had numerous opportunities to participate in community events. During my time in 4-H, I learned a great deal about animals (that was my club’s specialty), volunteer work, and how to work with groups of people. I even got some awards in the process. One of the more difficult things I did in 4-H was volunteer at the fair’s Petting Zoo. While it was frustrating at the time because of the high number of young kids, looking back on it I felt it was enjoyable and quite a learning experience in crowd-control and keeping the cavies (guinea pigs) safe. The animals I raised were cavies. Many people in the club had rabbits, cavies, and poultry (chickens, ducks, and turkeys). I had two cavies. Though other people in the club had more animals, I still learned the responsibility of animal ownership. I was also able to participate in fun community service projects through our club, such as: making no-sew fleece blankets for a children’s shelter, designing cards for soldiers, making holiday cookies for the fire department, and sharing my cavies with children at petting zoos.
I picked my son up from rock climbing on a Wednesday just before he finished out the fall semester. “Vinnie,” I said, “It looks like you are going to fail some of your classes. Dad can probably help you figure out how to pass them, if you want. But, more importantly, I want you to know that there are other ways to become an educated person. Maybe this way isn’t working for you. There are other options for you. I don’t know what is happening for you at school, but we can do things differently. If you want to talk with me about options, we can get some dinner and talk.” To my complete surprise, my son started talking. He admitted that he was about to fail, and talked about how even though he was interested in the subject matter, he just couldn’t bring himself to comply with the assigned work. He described how the work felt arbitrary, and how he felt insulted by the “busywork” of school. He didn’t want to do the things they wanted him to do. I told him that we could consider a variety of options, and that we as a family would take the winter break to decide what would be the best option for our son.
