Grown Without Schooling
By
Peter Kowalke
An adult unschooler interviews his
peers to find out what they are doing and thinking now.
Chatting with . . . Sarah Smith Seris, age 28
 Wanted: My Place in the World
When I was in college, I thought that I
really wanted to do political campaign work. I studied political science
and worked on a few campaigns, but found campaign work seedy and kind of
disturbing. I had been working at a therapeutic horseback-riding center,
so after I finished college, I worked there full-time for one year until
I discovered that the University of Missouri had a public administration
program with a public policy emphasis. So, I started my Master’s degree
and finished that in 2004. After graduation, I ended up working at a
substance abuse facility, where I was hired to do program evaluations
and internal auditing. I continue to work at the therapeutic riding
center, too, where I’m a volunteer instructor – that’s one of my escapes
in life. The other thing I do that I love is work as a swim coach. I’d
just like to be a swim coach some day, but that’s not financially
feasible. In a richer area maybe I could, but I’m quite fond of
Columbia, Missouri.
Accidental Job
They basically created a job for me at the substance abuse not-
for-profit. I think this happens to homeschoolers a lot. I met the
executive director, we had a really great conversation and later she
just called me out of the blue: “I’m coming up with a job description
you might be interested in.”
Not-for-profits have this problem in which they’re constantly seeking
to diversify their funding. Four years ago, 80 percent of our funding
came from the state. Well, the state cut our funding in half. So, we
write grants. But, you don’t really get a grant funded unless you’re
going to think of a great new program. So, then you end up with about 15
different programs running from the same organization. You need a lot of
interconnectedness, some reflection on ultimate goals and that kind of
thing. I think that the executive director was looking for someone who
had a good idea of not-for-profit structure to tie it all together.
That’s why I was hired. And I’m doing a lot of that when I’m not
troubleshooting the printer.
There was no indication when I was hired that I was going to do tech
work, but now I’m their network administrator. I came across as knowing
a little bit about computers, and I helped write a grant in December for
$15,000 of new tech equipment, and we got it. We bought a new server, I
learned how to build the server and now I wire network cables and
troubleshoot servers. It was a total accident.
Learn Now or Fail
Let me tell you, I’m really glad that I was homeschooled because my
job is one of those experiences where you either learn really quickly or
fail. I think that having a creative learning style, and being very
comfortable trying new things, was necessary for me to take on the
networking job. I definitely bit off more than I could chew. When the
server failed for the first time, I was like, I don’t know how to do
this. I’m not a computer person. What is a RAID array? I don’t get this.
Then, by two o’clock in the morning, I finally had it all figured out.
Now I’m pretty comfortable doing routers and whatnot. But it definitely
isn’t my favorite thing in the world – especially when I’m up all night.
Passion Required
I don’t hate my work by any means; I’m very happy there, and I like
the people I work with. But, unlike coaching and the therapeutic riding
center, I’m eager to leave every day. I literally count down the hours
until I teach at the therapeutic riding center. I think that because
work is where most of our life is spent, we should have that kind of
excitement about going to work. I’m not sure my current job is the best
fit, though.
I think school really prepares people for the workforce. School prepares
a lot of people for jobs that aren’t really that great, but that’s what
they do day after day because it is what our society has prepared them
to do – be little worker bees. Kids are going to school and doing what
the school wants every day whether they like it or not. They do it even
if they hate what they’re doing. It was different for me, coming from an
environment where learning is a constant process and you have
unbelievable flexibility. When I started my job full-time last year, and
started working eight to five, I felt like I was in a cage. Honestly, I
almost had panic attacks. Not because I hated what I was doing, but
because I had never been trained for that kind of life.
I never want to be one of those people who is depressed on a Sunday
night because I know Monday is going to roll around. I don’t want to be
that person! I know so many people like that.
Work as its Own Reward
Life really is what you make of it. I’ve made my job at the substance
abuse not-for-profit a really good thing. It is not what I want to do
for the rest of my life, but it fulfills my needs now. I’ve definitely
made a difference to the organization, even if it just is the tech grant
I wrote that allowed everybody to get a new Dell with Windows XP Pro on
it. That was a huge change; the counselors do their assessments
literally in half the time, so now they spend more time counseling
clients. Even if I don’t love my job more than anything in the world,
I’ll respect what I did if I leave and feel that I left with a good
legacy. There’s the homeschooler in me talking: No use doing something
if you can’t do it right!
I was talking with my best friend recently, who also was
homeschooled, and we had this conversation about how so many people we
know who went to school are slackers. So many people we’ve worked with
just are going through the motions and don’t really try. I try to do
everything well, even if I don’t like it. I feel it is incumbent on me
to do well, especially if it affects other people. She had the same
reaction. We were wondering if this is a product of our homeschooling. I
guess we won’t know until there’s a quantitative study of grown
homeschoolers.
Peter Kowalke grew without schooling. He is a journalist and
the producer of “Grown Without Schooling,” a documentary about grown
homeschoolers and the lasting influence of home education.
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