North Carolina School of the Arts | Hunter enrolled | dancer | New York

Eventually, Hunter enrolled at North Carolina School of the Arts and stayed in the state to help care for her two younger brothers after the divorce of their parents and the death of their mother soon after. To pay the bills, she opened a dance studio and later decided not to follow her dancer friends and seek a career in New York. Now, because she controls her work schedule, Hunter can give Caramy the care she needs.

Hunter, then, knows what it’s like to have a seemingly impractical goal. And she knows firsthand that homeschooling isn’t the haven for sloth that some critics make it out to be.

But even to her receptive ears, Blake’s complaints about school as he grew older seemed like garden-variety teenage grousing. And Mike was unsympathetic. “ ‘School is boring,’ Blake would say,” Mike recalls. “What parent hasn’t heard that?”

“School is a waste of time,” Blake would say.

“To you and every other kid,” Mike would reply. “Go back and do your homework.”

The complaints grew louder and louder, and soon they came with supporting evidence. Blake figured that he did just two or three hours of real work during his seven hours in the classroom. The rest was dead time that was just wasted, he said. He could be practicing his gaming instead. He could even make money at it.