Lisa Gagarina
Lisa Gagarina is a 17yo homeschooler who speaks 6 languages. She was born in Russia, raised in Switzerland and Hong Kong, and now spends a lot of time in Mexico learning Spanish. She is a tutor and a very supporting sister to her younger homeschooled siblings.
This is her journey from her point of view.
My road to homeschooling was pretty bumpy and adventurous. Initially my parents didn’t plan it at all, they were both working and we moved places and countries every 3-5 years due to their work.
I was born in Russia, but pretty soon we moved to Switzerland, where I started Geneva International School, fully in French. At first it was very challenging, but later I fell in love with the language and it was a pleasure to speak it and live in French part of Switzerland.
When we moved to Hong Kong I struggled at first to learn English, I had a lot of resistance. It helped that for the first year I was a French school in Hong Kong. In my journey, I became fascinated by the structure and beauty of my new language and went as far as learning Middle and Old English.
Of course, I studied also Mandarin and after a while I became interested in Japanese which I learned for 4 years. While I was in love with reading and learning languages my school time became not a happy one: there was too much pressure to excel in all subjects, even those I had no interest in, some bullying and the teachers were not always supportive.
So, at the age of 9 my parents decided to homeschool me and it was the best decision: I started to enjoy learning again, I could choose my program, all my tutors and teachers were lovely and I still had time for art, miniature sculptures, yoga and ballet. As before I was an avid reader and enjoyed choosing books I was interested in (so different from the mandatory list in the school).
Soon my younger sister joined me on the homeschooling journey and I could share my experience with her. Often, we watch together with her and our mum a video about history, geography or a movie based on classical novels which I read, then we discussed it and were writing a review or a continuation of the story. That was fun and I enjoyed writing more and more and ended by taking classes with a journalist, a friend of our family.
Around 2 years ago my family started to spend a big part of the year in Mexico, where we joined an educational center primary serving homeschoolers. After 10 months there I passed exams in a national educational office in Spanish and received a local school certificate. I still need to complete 1 more level of those exams to be able to enter a university if I decide so.
During my study in the educational center my writing skills came useful to create podcasts, articles in their newspaper and posts for social media. I’ve got several rewards for my articles and help with the book they were writing.
Because of my proficiency in several languages, I was asked in the educational center to teach my peers English, French and Russian. It was an interesting experience which I decided to continue and has been doing so about a year.
At the moment I’m tutoring privately 10 students from 8 to 17yo, online and in person. I prepared 5 students to enter international schools of their choice or pass one of language tests required for their education. Recently, I created my own writing course of 6 sessions to help my students express their thoughts in a beautiful manner, create coherent and concise essays or posts.
I’m still an avid reader and love historical novels and autobiographies. At the moment I’m comfortable with my work, I already earn an equivalent of an average salary here while teaching 3-4 hours a day. That leaves me time for my own studies and hobbies.
I’m very grateful for my homeschooling journey and I hope to support others who follow the same path.