Community : Meet Our Students
Tami Lane
Age 19
Salem, Oregon
As the only child of a retired father and a mother originally from Japan, Tami Lane didn't spend much of her childhood in one place. With the time to travel and relatives to visit outside the United States, she and her parents were away from home so much that a brick-and-mortar education didn't make sense.
The Lanes, from Merritt Island, Fla., chose homeschooling for their daughter beginning in kindergarten, first using a primary-education correspondence school to provide curriculum and guidance. When it came time for a secondary education, they turned to Keystone National High School.
"[Homeschooling through Keystone] allowed us the freedom to travel, which I loved," Tami said. "I was able to earn a solid high school education that prepared me well for college -- without being tied down to a particular place."
Keystone, a fully accredited, independent study program serving students in all 50 states and around the world, offers at-home, self-paced study and education to more than 20,000 students each year.
"By homeschooling, I was able to study wherever we were," said Tami, now 19 and a freshman at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., where she is on a four-year Alumni Honors Scholarship. "It was a tremendous learning opportunity to see some of the world."
Tami and her family lived on a sailboat for five years, beginning when she was 5 years old, the year her father retired from Gulf Aircraft Maintenance Company. They sailed to the Bahamas and wherever else they wished. Before that, she recalls living in Abu Dhabi (in the United Arab Emirates) and Bahrain. The family made frequent trips between the United States and the Middle East via Europe.
Throughout her elementary and middle school years, Tami and her parents would spend two months of every year with relatives in Niigata, Japan, where she attended the local public school during their stay. "It was interesting -- I picked up some of the language and learned a lot about the culture from those trips," said Tami, who is now studying Japanese in college and plans to make it her major. Although she had never taken a Japanese language class, she learned enough of the language from her mother and her travels to begin with the intermediate level course in college.
During her high school years, Tami would devote 9 a.m. to noon of each weekday to her Keystone schoolwork. After a lunch break, she'd put another hour toward her studies.
"I'd vary the subjects and study what I felt like working on, to keep it interesting," she said. "If I had a trouble spot, I could work on it until I figured it out. I didn't have to stop and lose my train of thought."
Tami appreciated the layout of Keystone's materials, as they were "very easy to follow and understand," she said. Her father, who has a mechanical engineering background, helped her when needed with math and science courses. With everything else, "I helped myself," she said. "Every now and then" she had questions for Keystone instructors, who provide guidance using telephone, email, electronic bulletin boards and online chat. "I'd call or email and they'd respond right away," she said. "They were very helpful."
In the afternoons, she would report to her part-time job teaching gymnastics at a community center. She also enjoyed studying piano, hanging out with friends, reading, surfing the Internet and watching movies. "I definitely had a lot of spare time, which was nice," she said.
Tami's favorite Keystone courses were Art History, World Geography and English, but perhaps the largest lessons she learned were in independence, responsibility and time management, she said.
"I'd vary the subjects and study what I felt like working on, to keep it interesting," said Tami. "If I had a trouble spot, I could work on it until I figured it out. I didn't have to stop and lose my train of thought."
"When I would procrastinate, my parents tried to let me make my own mistakes. If something would fall through the cracks, it was my problem to fix," she said. "I learned skills that are very useful in college."
Tami is discovering all that life has to offer at the small, liberal-arts college she attends. She's taking four classes and an extracurricular karate course, which provides a welcome break from her studies. She's living on a "wellness floor" of her dorm, where students commit not to drink or smoke, and she's made lots of friends. They enjoy sitting in the hall, talking and studying, as well as exploring the town of Salem in their free time.
She said friends from college "don't take me for a kid who's been homeschooled, because they expect homeschoolers to be socially withdrawn." Although she describes herself as "somewhat quiet," she's very social, too. "I'm independent, but I also really like being with people," she said.
After finishing a double major in Japanese and maybe business, she wants to earn a graduate degree in business. After that, time will tell what career she pursues, but she's thinking about international business -- because it would include travel, foreign language and exposure to other cultures.
As for her parents' choice to homeschool her through Keystone, she said it was the right one. "It allowed us the freedom to travel, which I loved," she said. "I was able to earn a solid high school education that prepared me well for college -- without being tied down to a particular place."
