Freedom of Speech in Cyber School

There is almost no face to face contact between students and teachers in cyber school. This can come in handy often.

First of all there is a disconnect, but this disconnect then allows the work to be done for yourself instead of the teacher.

In school I would often do certain projects or topics in reports to impress the teacher. Often times it wasn't even a conscious thought, but instead just the teachers constant influence when I would be writing that would cause me to choose subjects with them in mind.

Now, since I don't know enough about my teachers to choose topics based on them, I've started to choose topics and projects based on my interests. The other awesome thing about this is that I can choose what I want to do.

At the moment I am 16 which means I have started to think of heavier topics in different places of thought like politics, relationships and especially religion.

More specifically, Christianity; Christianity takes quite a lot of thought, patience and focus to follow. So it would make sense that when the curriculum asks me to right a narrative about an experience in my life I choose getting baptized, the first time I accepted God into my heart or giving the message at youth group one night.

Was I in an actual public school I would stay very far away from any topic dealing with religion because it's sort of a taboo. Also if you write a paper based around Jesus being the true son of God and hand it in to your Jewish teacher, it may not go over very well. Not that they wouldn't grade it fairly, but you do have to still spend the whole rest of the year in their classroom. That could get pretty awkward.

In cyber school I can hand in my controversial paper, and I don't have to see the teacher's reaction on their face as they read and grade it.

Most every paper I have written so far is on Christianity or my true opinions on certain things. Sometimes they even turn into near rants, but I am always very pleased with them afterward because I fully agree, support and feel the emotion and thoughts on the papers as I read it. Whereas before, my public school papers would have been very dry, people pleasing and boring.

Now I don't write anything offensive like "____ is stupid" or "_______ is a total complete waste" But if I give solely my opinion based on facts and other ideas to back it up. And that is really something to keep in mind. You can be controversial in your writing in cyber school, but never rude or offensive.

Writing these thoughts and opinions out in a more structured way is not only fun, but has also helped me a lot. Now instead of a bunch of odd, jumbled up thoughts in my head I have more complete ideologies and opinions on subjects that have given me more confidence to share my actual thoughts on different controversial subjects with others and allowed me to grow as a person. No matter how cheesy that sounds, it's true.

So get your back-up keyboards ready because in cyber school you'll be typing like crazy!

There are many pros and cons to cyber school, and you have many questions. Can you play sports in cyber school? How do colleges look at cyber school? Is cyber school right for me? Get answers to all of your questions and more at Cyber-School.org