Being Cyberschooled, Part 2

I'm back! In case you missed last Friday's post, I talked about the pros of being cyberschooled. This week, I've got the cons of cyberschooling. Are you ready? Actually, the bigger question is if I'm ready. Seriously. The School Loyalty Police might hunt me down if they read this.

Okay, not really, but let's just be honest with each other here. Every form of schooling has its drawbacks. Whether you're homeschooled, cyberschooled, or go to a public or private school, there are going to be some good parts and bad parts. Some forms work better for some people.

Anyway, that's all to say that just because I'm talking about the cons of cyberschooling, it doesn't mean I hate the system. Although it isn't perfect, it's something that works well for me, and I enjoy it. Although, between you and me, sometimes I wonder how I'd handle going to "real school." I'd probably get in trouble. A lot.

With that out of the way, the three major drawbacks of cyberschooling are after the jump!

Explaining What a Cyberschool is (Over and over...)
If I had a dollar for every time I've had to explain what cyberschool is, I could probably pay for my first year of college. If I'm really in a rush to move the conversation along, I just tell people it's a lot like homeschooling. It's not exactly correct, but they'll usually just ask me if I like it and I'll say yes and we move on. If I'm not in as much of a hurry, I go into a deeper explanation of something like, "Yeah, it's like doing public school, but at home on my computer. I have online classes I have to be in at certain times, I have real teachers I'm responsible to..."

And this kind of goes along with it, so I'm going to throw it in. Once I've explained that I do a public school at home, some people pretty much assume I'm like the stereotypical homeschooler who sits at home all day in front of a computer and has no form of social interaction with anyone else. If I say, "Yeah, my friend from school was telling me..." I get weird looks. Someone usually asks, "Wait, I thought you were homeschooled?"

Sigh. The job is never done, I suppose.

Snow Days
For a cyberschooler, there is no such thing as a snow day. If it weren't for the local school districts, I'm not even sure if we'd know what it meant. I say this as a joke of course, but it is partially true. I have never, ever, ever had a snow day. Never. If there's three feet of snow outside, that's irrelevant. As long as we have electricity and internet, I'm gonna be working on schoolwork.

Distractions
I admit it, I check my Facebook news feed multiple times during my Spanish lesson. I also do a billion other things that distract me from the task at hand. Sometimes while I'm working on an essay I'll have a conversation with myself that goes something like this:
"Oh snap, um... what's a synonym for 'incredible?' I guess I'll have to look in the online thesaurus..."
"Well while I'm on the internet I might as well check on my newsfeed."
"I wonder if there's anything new on Pinterest."
"Oh that's right! I was going to post something on Instagram for Throwback Thursday!"
"You know what? I'm hungry. I'm going to go get a snack."
"Wait... wasn't I working on something?"
And before I know it, half an hour's gone by! Sometimes, I really just need to close my internet browser and get my essay or whatever I'm working on done. It's not easy, really. It takes a lot of self control to avoid something as tempting as the internet.

So, those are my three biggest drawbacks of cyberschool. How about you? What do you like about your school system? Are you homeschooled, public schooled, cyberschooled, or whatever? Let me know in the comments, and I'll see you all here next Friday!