Thinking about the homeschooling family who frequent my library and who pulled their teen son out of public school because they wouldn't accommodate his learning disabilities. For context I am in the American South, that mythical land where the education system is so bad that it's not anyone's personal fault that they never learn anything, because they're so helpless and stupid.
Anyway, they were doing basic math and reading and writing at home and had their standard curricula for that, but their project for a year and the reason I saw them every week for a year is that he was learning about 1 country each week. They would get three books, one about the country's history, one about her food, one about language (if possible) or travel (if not). They would read select chapters from all three (he rarely cover-to-covered them, especially if I didn't have books meant for young readers about a particular country, as our collection for such matters is often 'not great buddy') and make up a worksheet of basic facts and history at the end of the week, when the family would also cook something form the cookbook together to eat for dinner.
South of the USA. Public library with books that were not ideal. He didn't even read the whole book if it was too big. They didn't even go looking for the books themselves, they went to a local building with free services, asked a worker there to find them the books, and went home.
You can learn about the world around you! It can be fun and delicious! Your local librarian will not say a word if you want easy books and no one will ever know if you don't read the whole thing! If you have been waiting for a parent or teacher or pastor to tell you what to learn, REBEL! GO LEARN ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND YOU ON YOUR OWN!
