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Hybrid Homeschooling: A New Blueprint for Real Learning · All About The Joy

• 0:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Hey everyone, welcome to All About the Joy.
• 0:02
  Carmen Lezeth: This is the private lounge, and my guest today is Chris Linder.
• 0:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Did I say your last name right?
• 0:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Because I always missed it.
• 0:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 0:09
  Carmen Lezeth: First, I want to say thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 0:13
  Carmen Lezeth: I appreciate it.
• 0:14
  Chris Linder: Oh, thanks for having me.
• 0:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, so I'm gonna just do a little background bio on you, and then I'm gonna get into some questions if that's okay.
• 0:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh, you tell me if I'm wrong, but um, you are an education reform advocate and the author of Homeschool Remix.
• 0:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, that's a guide that blends traditional classroom structure with the flexibility of homeschooling.
• 0:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 0:38
  Carmen Lezeth: You champion a hybrid strategy that empowers parents, especially in marginalized communities, to reclaim control over children's education.
• 0:49
  Chris Linder: Correct.
• 0:50
  Carmen Lezeth: That's the gist.
• 0:51
  Chris Linder: Yes, yeah, that's it.
• 0:53
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, and then I read on your website, which I want to share with people your mission statement, because I thought that was even more uh succinct.
• 1:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't even know if that's the right word, but we're gonna go with it.
• 1:03
  Carmen Lezeth: Um your mission is to empower parents with the tools and strategies needed to create a dynamic learning environment that combines the flexibility of homeschooling with the structure and socialization of traditional classrooms.
• 1:19
  Carmen Lezeth: So, my first question is how did this start for you and why are you doing it?
• 1:26
  Chris Linder: All right.
• 1:26
  Chris Linder: Well, yeah, that's a good question.
• 1:28
  Chris Linder: Um kind of a long story.
• 1:30
  Chris Linder: I'll keep it as brief as possible.
• 1:32
  Chris Linder: I started out um elementary school for me was uh a small charter school in Wisconsin.
• 1:41
  Chris Linder: We worked at our own pace in little cubicles.
• 1:43
  Chris Linder: Um I didn't see the inside of a traditional classroom until middle school and high school.
• 1:51
  Chris Linder: Uh so for me, education has always been uh a really self-directed, self-guided personal thing.
• 1:58
  Chris Linder: Um, independent learning has always been what I've what I've been doing.
• 2:04
  Chris Linder: Um my high school had a radio station, so I got into radio broadcasting.
• 2:09
  Carmen Lezeth: Um I can hear the voice.
• 2:11
  Carmen Lezeth: That makes sense.
• 2:12
  Carmen Lezeth: That makes sense.
• 2:14
  Chris Linder: And it's a little it's a little hoarse now, but you know, it's all good.
• 2:18
  Carmen Lezeth: It sounds great.
• 2:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Chris Linder: Um, but I I was lucky enough to have great teachers in high school and in college.
• 2:24
  Chris Linder: She taught me the importance of critical thinking, the importance of being able to write, to express myself, and to read.
• 2:33
  Chris Linder: Um I I loved literature and so on.
• 2:37
  Chris Linder: I was on the air in Knoxville, Tennessee, and I was bored.
• 2:44
  Chris Linder: I I want I had this wanderlust in my system.
• 2:48
  Chris Linder: And I was like, Okay.
• 2:49
  Chris Linder: What can I do that will help me see the world, still make some money, and then come back and I can do radio for the rest of my life and and and just be settled down.
• 3:00
  Chris Linder: Okay.
• 3:01
  Chris Linder: So I got a book called Work Your Way Around the World, and it said uh you can uh go to Europe and you know, or South America, and you can work in the fields, you can pick fruits when it's time to harvest and so on, and or you could go to Asia and you could teach English.
• 3:20
  Chris Linder: And I was like, I'm not a farmer, I'm not I'm not an outside person.
• 3:25
  Chris Linder: So let me let me see this teaching thing.
• 3:28
  Chris Linder: So I went to South Korea and I started Oh wow, yeah, I started teaching English in a language institute called uh Hagwan.
• 3:38
  Chris Linder: Um and wait, did you know Korean?
• 3:41
  Chris Linder: No, not at all.
• 3:43
  Carmen Lezeth: That's fantastic.
• 3:44
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, go ahead.
• 3:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry.
• 3:45
  Chris Linder: I had like $400 saved up from working radio.
• 3:50
  Chris Linder: I bought a ticket.
• 3:52
  Chris Linder: I I got to Korea and I was like, here I am.
• 3:56
  Chris Linder: Um didn't I I I learned a little bit of Korean on the plane on the way over there.
• 4:02
  Chris Linder: I got one of those uh you know lonely planet guidebooks.
• 4:06
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, this is while you're in college or right after college?
• 4:10
  Chris Linder: This is after college.
• 4:10
  Chris Linder: I'm just right after college for a couple of years after college, and you know, you don't make a lot of money in radio, but I was doing all right.
• 4:18
  Chris Linder: And I was like, let me go ahead and get this wanderlust out of my system and and do whatever I can.
• 4:25
  Chris Linder: Um, and so yeah, I did.
• 4:26
  Chris Linder: I wow uh I taught in Korea for two years um at a Hagwan.
• 4:33
  Chris Linder: Uh I taught college students, uh, some high schoolers, some older businessmen.
• 4:40
  Chris Linder: And for the most part, my students were taking regular college classes during the day, and then they come to our Hagwan either before their classes or after, like late at night.
• 4:54
  Chris Linder: I learned that students, even the high schoolers, um, would do this extra language learning um because they knew in the future that it would help them, you know, with the learn English.
• 5:08
  Chris Linder: And also they love learning English because of the American movies that were prevalent.
• 5:16
  Carmen Lezeth: So, you know, they wanted to learn our slang and idioms and I wish we in the United States would want to learn other languages, you know what I mean?
• 5:24
  Carmen Lezeth: But that's a whole other conversation.
• 5:26
  Chris Linder: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:27
  Chris Linder: And that's it's it's something like you know, a lot of uh there's a lot of differences between students in the rest of the world and students in America.
• 5:34
  Chris Linder: And that's one of those things that you know, if we'd you know open up our open up our minds and and let down the borders and just kind of you know look at other cultures and be curious about um other cultures, we'd want to learn their language, we'd want to learn how you know how they conduct their lives.
• 5:55
  Chris Linder: And that that would be awesome.
• 5:56
  Chris Linder: That would be wonderful.
• 5:58
  Chris Linder: But uh yeah.
• 5:59
  Carmen Lezeth: So so you're in South Korea, you're teaching English, you're there for two years.
• 6:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Is your wonderlust done?
• 6:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Clearly not.
• 6:09
  Chris Linder: Well, kind of.
• 6:11
  Chris Linder: It was it was kind of the cure for that wanderlust wanderlust when um we had.
• 6:18
  Chris Linder: Um, there was, you know, not really recession.
• 6:25
  Chris Linder: This is before the the tech bubble burst, but there was kind of a a ripple, and in the rest of the world, the dollar began to um really lose value.
• 6:40
  Chris Linder: So I was making less and less money every day.
• 6:44
  Chris Linder: So I decided to come back, uh come back to the States, and also I was kind of homesick for certain things in America.
• 6:51
  Chris Linder: So I decided, okay, all right, my time is done here, came back to America, and uh I got back into radio, but then always had that teaching thing in the back of my mind.
• 7:02
  Chris Linder: So I was substitute teaching on the side.
• 7:05
  Chris Linder: I met my my wife, who was an elementary school teacher.
• 7:10
  Chris Linder: Oh, okay.
• 7:12
  Chris Linder: And she kind of got me like to see that, well, you're not really gonna make a lot of money in radio.
• 7:17
  Chris Linder: Maybe you should consider teaching as a fallback.
• 7:20
  Chris Linder: Um, so I got uh a degree in instructional technology and started teaching high school world literature.
• 7:28
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow, okay.
• 7:30
  Chris Linder: And my wife went on and and wrote books on uh on the common core and on uh using anchor charts in the classroom.
• 7:40
  Chris Linder: Um and we started doing professional development around the country for for teachers.
• 7:46
  Chris Linder: Okay, um, and then my my wife passed away.
• 7:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh I'm so sorry.
• 7:52
  Chris Linder: Okay, so I wasn't aware of that.
• 7:54
  Chris Linder: No, yeah, in 2016.
• 7:56
  Chris Linder: We had two kids, so they weren't homeschooled.
• 8:02
  Chris Linder: The homeschooling thing is something that that comes on a little bit later um because it actually comes on after COVID.
• 8:11
  Chris Linder: Wow, okay.
• 8:12
  Chris Linder: Like we were lucky enough to have you know great schools and everything.
• 8:18
  Chris Linder: And when I had brought up the idea of homeschooling, my wife at the my wife was like, no, you know, because there's this stigma around homeschooling that homeschool kids aren't socialized, they'll turn out weird or what have you.
• 8:30
  Chris Linder: And she was an elementary teacher, so she was like that's number 18 on my list.
• 8:34
  Carmen Lezeth: But go ahead.
• 8:35
  Carmen Lezeth: We're gonna get there, but okay, so you're already answering it.
• 8:39
  Carmen Lezeth: So there was a stigma, and your wife was like, No, we're not homeschooled.
• 8:43
  Chris Linder: Yeah, she was she was against it.
• 8:44
  Chris Linder: And I was like, okay, well, you know, because you know, she's in charge.
• 8:47
  Chris Linder: So um, but after COVID, when uh when we had to do remote learning, um I had one child who was thriving with remote learning, and my other child wasn't as uh comfortable with it, they really needed a uh a classroom environment.
• 9:12
  Chris Linder: What I was realizing was that uh even after COVID, um when my youngest child would have trouble with uh, for example, algebra.
• 9:24
  Chris Linder: I talk about this in the book when when they were having trouble with algebra, I was like, okay, well, I can help with that.
• 9:29
  Chris Linder: Right, you know, not realizing that algebra, algebra hasn't changed, but I guess my level of math has changed over the past few decades.
• 9:38
  Chris Linder: I was like, wow, this is this is pretty advanced.
• 9:41
  Chris Linder: This is like you know, I'm used to okay, X plus Y.
• 9:45
  Chris Linder: I get that.
• 9:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Exactly, but then they go all out, yeah.
• 9:49
  Chris Linder: Right, right.
• 9:49
  Chris Linder: So um, so I was like, okay, I gotta figure out because in the classroom, if you're not keeping up with the with the rest of the class, the teacher can only do so much.
• 10:00
  Chris Linder: Yes.
• 10:01
  Chris Linder: And if you fail, you just fail, and you know, you have to get put down a class or whatever next semester.
• 10:08
  Chris Linder: And I was like, okay, well, we're not gonna fail.
• 10:10
  Chris Linder: So I gotta figure out what I can do to supplement the education that they're getting in school with some home learning or something.
• 10:19
  Chris Linder: I found uh some homeschooling curricula that would help with algebra, and I sat with my child and we worked on it together, and you know, long story short, they passed algebra, and I was like, oh, you know, this is laughing because I cause because it sounds torturous when you said I sat with my child and went through algebra.
• 10:43
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh my, ooh, okay, but they passed.
• 10:47
  Chris Linder: But it wasn't, yeah, and it wasn't that bad.
• 10:48
  Chris Linder: And I didn't have to I didn't have to learn algebra.
• 10:51
  Chris Linder: That was the that was the the point.
• 10:53
  Chris Linder: The great part of it was I didn't have to actually learn it to teach it.
• 10:58
  Chris Linder: Right.
• 10:59
  Chris Linder: Um, I just had to guide them through it, which I I was okay with, you know.
• 11:04
  Chris Linder: Right.
• 11:04
  Chris Linder: And I realized that, okay, well, if I can figure out um what curricula, what curriculum to use with supplementing this, then other parents were probably looking for that kind of thing too, and maybe, you know, maybe they need help with that.
• 11:20
  Chris Linder: Um, and then the more I looked at what my my kids were studying in school, the more I realized that they're learning less and less of the important stuff.
• 11:33
  Carmen Lezeth: And what say that again?
• 11:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Wait, wait, wait.
• 11:36
  Carmen Lezeth: So say that again because I misunderstood something.
• 11:41
  Chris Linder: The more I looked at what they were learning in school, the more I realized that they were learning less and less of the important stuff.
• 11:48
  Chris Linder: They weren't getting practical life skills.
• 11:52
  Chris Linder: My daughter, I was taking her to, she was a senior in high school, I was taking her to work, and she asked me, Dad, what's a mortgage?
• 12:01
  Chris Linder: And I was like, to me, that's like the you know, the simplest thing.
• 12:05
  Chris Linder: But it's like, well, why aren't you, you know, you're not you're about to graduate high school and you don't know what a mortgage is.
• 12:12
  Chris Linder: Right.
• 12:12
  Chris Linder: We we have we're raising kids, and here I go on my soapbox again, but we're raising kids who are better equipped to handle an active shooter than they are to balance a checkbook or to apply for a mortgage.
• 12:25
  Chris Linder: Um, we're not teaching financial literacy in school, we're not teaching you know practical life skills, and and now we're not even teaching like black history or brown history, cultural history.
• 12:38
  Chris Linder: Well, not teaching, you know, fundamental things.
• 12:42
  Carmen Lezeth: We're not teaching American history, which is black history.
• 12:46
  Chris Linder: There you go.
• 12:46
  Chris Linder: There you go.
• 12:47
  Carmen Lezeth: We're not teaching anything that has anything to do with, yeah, don't get me on my soapbox.
• 12:52
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm gonna let you keep going.
• 12:53
  Chris Linder: It's being redefined.
• 12:54
  Carmen Lezeth: It's being redefined, right, right.
• 12:56
  Chris Linder: You know, you add that to the books that are that are being banned.
• 12:59
  Chris Linder: My my my youngest brought home a box of books from the library, from the school library, because they were like they're being banned.
• 13:08
  Chris Linder: Yeah, they were just gonna throw these out.
• 13:10
  Chris Linder: Um, it's it wasn't because they were banned, but because they might be banned in the future, right?
• 13:16
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, that's a shame.
• 13:18
  Carmen Lezeth: You know, I wanted to share something with you because you said something that was interesting about basic skills.
• 13:23
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not even talking about mortgage and balancing a checkbook and just emotional intelligence, you know, like we're not learning any of those things.
• 13:31
  Carmen Lezeth: But even in my own experience, so you should know, you should you don't know this, but I'm gonna share this with you.
• 13:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Most of my audience knows this.
• 13:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't have children.
• 13:40
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, and I consider that the blessing every day.
• 13:44
  Carmen Lezeth: I have, I love kids.
• 13:46
  Carmen Lezeth: I have way too many godchildren and um nieces and nephews.
• 13:49
  Carmen Lezeth: And I feel like that's that's what I'm the good auntie.
• 13:52
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what I am.
• 13:53
  Carmen Lezeth: But I think it's important because as the outsider looking at the struggles that I see parents go through, um, when it comes to education, is that's why I wanted to interview.
• 14:06
  Carmen Lezeth: That's why I wanted to talk to you, because I think this hybrid idea is profound.
• 14:10
  Carmen Lezeth: In my own experience, the way that I grew up, um, you know, I didn't have parents.
• 14:17
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I ended up getting through school.
• 14:20
  Carmen Lezeth: And I went to Catholic school, Catholic school.
• 14:22
  Carmen Lezeth: And I do this because it was, it's supposed to be better than the other schools, and it's not.
• 14:27
  Carmen Lezeth: All we learned was really religion, some grammar and English, and some math.
• 14:31
  Carmen Lezeth: We had some good lay teachers, but at the end of the day, when I got to college, which I did end up going to college, not because of high school, not because of the schools I went to, but because other people intervened and made sure I went, I found out that I didn't have the basic fundamental.
• 14:48
  Carmen Lezeth: I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I'm gonna, I didn't have the basic fundamental learning skills in order to succeed.
• 14:55
  Carmen Lezeth: And the first semester I was at college and I was studying all the time and I was trying so hard and I was failing every test.
• 15:03
  Carmen Lezeth: I was, and I and I was lucky because I knew people in the administration.
• 15:08
  Carmen Lezeth: I was, I was very lucky, and they got me tested because they thought maybe I had a learning disability.
• 15:13
  Carmen Lezeth: But I didn't have a learning disability.
• 15:15
  Carmen Lezeth: What I didn't have was basic skills.
• 15:18
  Carmen Lezeth: I got through the first 12 years in school without anyone noticing, and I went to, and that's why I did the quotes earlier, without anyone noticing that I didn't have the basic schools to make it through my freshman year in college.
• 15:34
  Carmen Lezeth: And so I bring that to you because I am I don't know, I might have to cut this all out.
• 15:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm a little embarrassed now, but no, no.
• 15:41
  Carmen Lezeth: What you're talking about, this hybrid situation.
• 15:45
  Carmen Lezeth: How do you think it would have helped someone like myself, or how do you see it helping?
• 15:51
  Carmen Lezeth: I think on your website you said marginalized.
• 15:54
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just gonna say poor.
• 15:57
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh also poor uh students.
• 16:00
  Carmen Lezeth: How does this help them?
• 16:03
  Chris Linder: I would say it's not necessarily poor students.
• 16:07
  Chris Linder: When I say marginalized, I mean students from black, brown, indigenous families, uh students who may be LGBTQ, students who are neurodivergent, students who are not, you know, don't fit in neatly to that that round hole that education is trying to jam these square pegs in.
• 16:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay.
• 16:34
  Chris Linder: So all of those all of those kids um who are not, you know, your your typical Dick and Jane mainstream kids.
• 16:46
  Chris Linder: Okay, that's families, and and that's that's actually the majority of families, the majority of families.
• 16:54
  Chris Linder: And it's because the educational system is is designed to really it's really designed to not um to not train and produce the best and the brightest.
• 17:08
  Chris Linder: It's designed to produce a workforce that knows how to follow directions and may read at a fifth or sixth sixth grade reading level, um, doesn't have critical thinking skills because that's not necessary to have uh a labor job.
• 17:29
  Carmen Lezeth: Um is that factual what you're saying?
• 17:33
  Chris Linder: It's factual and it's it's been the case for 125 years.
• 17:38
  Chris Linder: That's why the education system hasn't really changed.
• 17:42
  Carmen Lezeth: But isn't that sad that that's what we're training?
• 17:46
  Chris Linder: It's it's sad unless you're uh a member of the oligarchy and you're wondering, well, where am I gonna get you know uh more people to work?
• 17:54
  Chris Linder: Labor force.
• 17:56
  Chris Linder: Where am I gonna get uh bodies to fill my factories or my farms um so that you know I think an entrepreneur can make a lot of money.
• 18:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, but then why oh then that's why we make it so hard for people to go to college.
• 18:12
  Carmen Lezeth: That's why we make uh I just I just had a light bulb moment.
• 18:16
  Chris Linder: Yeah, and that and that's the truth.
• 18:17
  Chris Linder: And you know, once in a while, I mean, you know, statistic statistics are that, you know, once in a while a few will slip through the cracks and accidentally thrive, accidentally go to college.
• 18:31
  Chris Linder: But even that is becoming harder and harder now.
• 18:34
  Chris Linder: It's much harder to pay for college, it's becoming harder to get into college.
• 18:40
  Carmen Lezeth: No, absolutely.
• 18:40
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's why I started, and I said I I was one of the lucky ones because I actually got the help I needed immediately and was able to work with the professors that were like like here's some simple things.
• 18:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Like I couldn't take timed tests.
• 18:58
  Carmen Lezeth: So if you if you said to me, Carmen, I want you to answer every question in front of me in front of the class, I was game, I could do it.
• 19:06
  Carmen Lezeth: But for some reason, there was that thing where it was timed, I froze, I couldn't remember.
• 19:10
  Carmen Lezeth: I so all of these little things.
• 19:13
  Carmen Lezeth: And I keep thinking, like when I was reading up on you, the ability to have had a one-on-one with a parent or an adult, or I mean, why don't you tell me more about what your program does before I start telling you what I wished I had?
• 19:29
  Chris Linder: Sure.
• 19:29
  Chris Linder: You know?
• 19:30
  Chris Linder: Um, I guess the big thing is we're not trying to change education, the educational system from the inside out.
• 19:38
  Chris Linder: Um my mission is to let parents know that while the system may not be working as well as it should be, ultimately the responsibility and the power to make a positive change for your young person is in your hands as the parent.
• 20:00
  Chris Linder: Um, and what hybrid homeschooling is, um let me let me back up.
• 20:07
  Chris Linder: What full-time homeschooling is, is saying, okay, I'm gonna withdraw my student from school and I'm gonna take on the burden of teaching them each and every subject at home.
• 20:18
  Chris Linder: And that actually works for a lot of people.
• 20:23
  Chris Linder: It doesn't work for a lot of people from marginalized communities, and I'm not, and again, it's not just poor communities, but like I know I'm I'm struggling with it just because I'm like everyone you just mentioned is poor.
• 20:39
  Carmen Lezeth: But I I get it because because are okay, I understand when when when you say marginalized communities, I guess I'm trying not to use the buzzwords that turn people off because people don't like to hear minority, marginalized, right?
• 20:51
  Carmen Lezeth: That that's especially no offense to my audience.
• 20:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, my audience tends to not be this group, so that's part of it.
• 20:59
  Carmen Lezeth: But the but aren't most marginalized people that we're talking about people that don't have tons of money?
• 21:06
  Carmen Lezeth: They might not be poor, they'll be maybe middle class, but they don't have the kind of money to have.
• 21:16
  Chris Linder: It's you know, single parents, yes, they don't have time to to to full-time homeschool their kids.
• 21:23
  Chris Linder: Even dual income parents, if they're both at work, they don't have time for full-time homeschooling.
• 21:29
  Carmen Lezeth: But but nobody's saying that full-time homeschooling is better than traditional school, right?
• 21:35
  Carmen Lezeth: That's not what you're saying.
• 21:36
  Chris Linder: It's it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
• 21:38
  Chris Linder: I mean, both in both cases, there's a lot, there's a lot wrong with the traditional educational system, but there's a lot right with it too.
• 21:46
  Chris Linder: Um, and with homeschooling, uh, it's great for a lot of people.
• 21:51
  Chris Linder: Uh, for some people, their their kids still isn't gonna get, you know, they're there are certain things that they're not going to figure out.
• 21:59
  Chris Linder: Teaching is hard.
• 22:01
  Chris Linder: And we learned this during COVID.
• 22:04
  Chris Linder: The professional teachers who went to school to learn the science of teaching, you know, they're actually doing a great job with what they're given.
• 22:15
  Chris Linder: But they're given on a daily basis, they're given, they're given 125 students, you know, 20 or 25 at a time, all with different personalities, all going through puberty, you know, all having their own issues, their own trauma that they're dealing with.
• 22:34
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, the ratio is just wrong.
• 22:36
  Carmen Lezeth: It's always been wrong.
• 22:37
  Carmen Lezeth: Even when I was in school, the ratio of teacher to students was too much.
• 22:41
  Carmen Lezeth: It always has been.
• 22:42
  Chris Linder: Yes, and they're just, you know, and it's just getting worse as they, you know, reduce funding to schools or bring in things like uh school choice or voucher programs, um, diverting tax money away from public schools, putting them into private schools, which can afford to be exclusionary.
• 23:02
  Chris Linder: Um, they can, you know, decide whether or not your kid fits their profile and should be admitted to their school and so on.
• 23:10
  Chris Linder: But um, but no.
• 23:13
  Chris Linder: Uh with parents, what they need to realize is um homeschooling, full-time homeschooling isn't for everybody.
• 23:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Right.
• 23:22
  Chris Linder: But traditional school and just leaving it up to the state to educate your student in everything that they need to know, that's not for anybody.
• 23:30
  Chris Linder: Because there will be things that your student isn't going to, your child isn't gonna learn in school.
• 23:38
  Chris Linder: Right.
• 23:38
  Chris Linder: You know, and it, you know, all you can do is try to identify those things and teach them at home with targeted home learning.
• 23:49
  Chris Linder: And that's what hybrid home learning is.
• 23:51
  Carmen Lezeth: This is what you do.
• 23:52
  Chris Linder: And so it's all about.
• 23:54
  Carmen Lezeth: So why don't we talk about what would be first of all, if people want to find out more about what you do, what is the website again?
• 24:02
  Chris Linder: It's homeschoolremix.com.
• 24:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Homeschoolremix.com, and I'll make sure to put that down at the bottom, but also for the audio, I just want people to hear it as well.
• 24:14
  Carmen Lezeth: What would be the first thing someone should do if they want to find out more about what you offer?
• 24:20
  Chris Linder: Look around on the site.
• 24:22
  Chris Linder: Um, we are in the process of building a community called the Seat Squad, which is all about support, educate, adapt, and thrive.
• 24:35
  Chris Linder: It's all about bringing together um families who are either just beginning in homeschooling or in homeschool veterans, uh, bringing them together with counselors and educators, and just building community through through homeschooling.
• 24:52
  Chris Linder: Because the one the number one reason people don't really homeschool is because if they get started, they're worried that they won't be able to have any support whatsoever.
• 25:08
  Carmen Lezeth: Um but you're not advocating just for homeschooling, you're saying, so you know what, can you tell me more about what a day in the light of your program would be?
• 25:17
  Carmen Lezeth: Maybe we should go there.
• 25:18
  Carmen Lezeth: So I understand it better.
• 25:20
  Chris Linder: Okay, so so hybrid homeschooling or homeschool remix, this framework is basically giving a parent, putting it back into their hands, the control of education, saying that you know what, leave your kids in school.
• 25:38
  Chris Linder: You can leave them enrolled either full-time or in some states they allow you to allow you to do it two or three days a week, and then figure out what they're not getting in school, teach that to them either, you know, an hour a day or a few hours a week.
• 25:55
  Chris Linder: And that way you're not devoting all of your time to homeschooling.
• 26:01
  Chris Linder: Um, you're bridging the gap, you're filling in what they're not getting in school with home lessons.
• 26:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I feel like what you might be talking about is getting parents back involved with also not just dropping off their kids in school, leaving it to the schools to try to teach them everything, and then expect them to come out perfect and ready for college or whatever it is their trade school or whatever it is they're going to be doing.
• 26:27
  Chris Linder: That's exactly what I'm saying.
• 26:29
  Chris Linder: That's exactly what I'm saying.
• 26:31
  Chris Linder: Like taking the responsibility of educating your kids and helping them to thrive, taking that on, partnering with your teachers, partnering with your your school district, your school system, and saying, hey, you know, it's not it's not parents versus teachers.
• 26:48
  Chris Linder: It's not who's gonna be the better teacher, it's how can we both cooperate so that our student can turn out the best.
• 27:00
  Carmen Lezeth: And not fall through the cracks and not end up in a situation, I mean, look it, I'm completely, absolutely blessed.
• 27:07
  Carmen Lezeth: I've had a perfect, wonderful life, right?
• 27:09
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't mean to make it sound.
• 27:10
  Carmen Lezeth: But when I think about the struggles that I went through, and if it wasn't for all the right people who stepped in, I would have fallen through the cracks because they didn't have those basics.
• 27:19
  Carmen Lezeth: And so what you're talking about is that if a parent is involved in their child's education and understands what they don't know, what their children are not learning, whether it's what is a mortgage, whether it's not understanding reading and comprehension or algebra, when you can see what your child is doing and not doing, you can give them a much better, stronger education so that they actually succeed.
• 27:45
  Chris Linder: Exactly.
• 27:46
  Chris Linder: Exactly.
• 27:47
  Chris Linder: And that's and that's really the whole point.
• 27:49
  Chris Linder: And the secret of it is you have to, as a parent, you have to model how to learn.
• 27:56
  Chris Linder: You have to let them know that you know what, I don't know everything, but we can figure it out.
• 28:04
  Chris Linder: I can, you know, read, I can research, I can ask questions.
• 28:11
  Chris Linder: If you can model that for your child, they'll be fine.
• 28:16
  Chris Linder: If you can incorporate critical thinking into everything that they do, whether it's schoolwork or or home lessons.
• 28:26
  Carmen Lezeth: So I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a question because I think we use these words and people don't know what it really means.
• 28:32
  Carmen Lezeth: What does critical thinking mean?
• 28:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, what do you mean by that?
• 28:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Can you give us an example?
• 28:38
  Chris Linder: Sure.
• 28:39
  Chris Linder: Um critical thinking is really what it looks like is you asking open-ended questions as a as a learner, as a person who is going through life, you need to ask questions like, why is this important?
• 28:54
  Chris Linder: Why is this happening?
• 28:56
  Chris Linder: What is the reason for this?
• 28:59
  Chris Linder: And then, you know, letting those questions, instead of just taking something at face value and going, well, I guess that's the way things should be.
• 29:08
  Carmen Lezeth: And and and it's kind of the because I learned what critical thinking was when I was in college.
• 29:14
  Carmen Lezeth: And that's way too late.
• 29:15
  Carmen Lezeth: But that's when I started, it's not too late.
• 29:17
  Carmen Lezeth: It's never too late to learn.
• 29:18
  Carmen Lezeth: But you can you can help your children so much better if you could take some of this information that we're sharing here.
• 29:26
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, here's the thing is critical thinking is also the difference between memorizing and actually understanding something.
• 29:33
  Carmen Lezeth: That's what it is for me.
• 29:35
  Chris Linder: Yeah.
• 29:35
  Carmen Lezeth: When you actually understand something, you are curious.
• 29:38
  Carmen Lezeth: You keep asking more questions.
• 29:40
  Carmen Lezeth: You go down that rabbit hole because you really want to fully understand it.
• 29:43
  Carmen Lezeth: And some of the things that I was doing, um, and I'm using myself as an example, not because I want to keep sharing every single personal thing about myself as we do my shows, but it seems to be part of what happens, is because I want people to people have an idea that everybody has this life.
• 29:59
  Carmen Lezeth: That they have and it was so easy, or it was like whatever, everybody has a struggle.
• 30:04
  unknown: Sure.
• 30:04
  Chris Linder: And when I love the fact that you're making the connections because that's what that's what critical thinking is.
• 30:10
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes.
• 30:10
  Chris Linder: You know, being able to, you know, here's a fact.
• 30:13
  Chris Linder: And then you making making a connection to your life.
• 30:16
  Chris Linder: That's what it that's what it's all about.
• 30:18
  Chris Linder: So yes, please.
• 30:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Well, because I want people to relate to it too.
• 30:21
  Carmen Lezeth: I think people need to understand that everything isn't magical.
• 30:25
  Carmen Lezeth: But if you're just memorizing things, if you're just hearing somebody else say it and then you're regurgitating it, you're just repeating it.
• 30:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Hmm, we can talk about that on another level, but and you're not fully understanding it in all the layers, you're not being a critical thinker.
• 30:42
  Chris Linder: That's fair enough.
• 30:43
  Chris Linder: And unfortunately, that's an epidemic that uh that all you have to do is look at the news and you know where that gets us if we're not critical thinking.
• 30:55
  Chris Linder: If we're just listening to uh sound bites and bumper stickers, you know, we're not going to think about when someone tells us what they consider to be a fact.
• 31:11
  Chris Linder: We're not going to or alternative facts.
• 31:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Please don't feel hesitant unless it's up to you.
• 31:16
  Carmen Lezeth: You don't have to feel hesitant about getting into politics at all because this is your interview.
• 31:20
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm just saying.
• 31:21
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, because I know where you're going with this.
• 31:23
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, for me, and and we do have an you can't help but go with go there, you know?
• 31:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, you can't help it.
• 31:28
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, that's part of the other reason why I wanted you on the show is like it's so important to be an educated human being.
• 31:35
  Carmen Lezeth: And if we can understand that children need that at the beginning, and how can you figure out different ways?
• 31:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I feel like a lot of parents use, and and again, as an observer, an observer, use school as a babysitting place.
• 31:52
  Carmen Lezeth: They don't understand the value of getting a good education.
• 31:57
  Carmen Lezeth: You're gonna find out later on if you don't take.
• 32:01
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry to be so mean about it because I know you seem nicer about it, but I feel very adamant that I see so many kids falling through the cracks because their parents are not involved at all.
• 32:12
  Carmen Lezeth: There's no adult involved in their schooling.
• 32:16
  Chris Linder: Yeah, it's it's a shame.
• 32:17
  Chris Linder: It's just it's sad.
• 32:18
  Chris Linder: But yeah, that's that's exactly right.
• 32:20
  Chris Linder: Parents need to really, I mean, it's easy for us to sit here and say, oh, parents need to learn to do this, parents need to do that.
• 32:27
  Chris Linder: But when you're working a full-time job as a parent, the last thing you want to do is say, wait, you mean I can't I can't just leave my kid at school and and trust that they'll learn.
• 32:40
  Chris Linder: I have to do it myself.
• 32:41
  Chris Linder: I have to do that myself too.
• 32:43
  Chris Linder: And it's it's tough, it's hard.
• 32:45
  Carmen Lezeth: I look at, and I have very I have zero sympathy because I am the meanest person.
• 32:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Here's the thing: I made a choice not to have children.
• 32:54
  Carmen Lezeth: There are pros and cons of that.
• 32:56
  Carmen Lezeth: You made a choice to have children, there are pros and cons of that, but there are responsibilities as well.
• 33:02
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, and I only say it because of my situation, the way I grew up, and and I am gonna keep bringing it back to that is I I could have easily fallen through the cracks and I didn't.
• 33:13
  Carmen Lezeth: But there are so many other people who had a worse beginning in their lives than I did, right?
• 33:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Even though we all have our story, but they didn't get the luxury that I got that people were there to just make sure I walked on through no matter what.
• 33:29
  Chris Linder: Right.
• 33:30
  Carmen Lezeth: It shouldn't be a chance, it shouldn't be that we all need to do our part to take care of the children around us.
• 33:36
  Carmen Lezeth: And I think that's the other part of it too.
• 33:38
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, this is me doing my part for all children.
• 33:41
  unknown: Okay.
• 33:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Like having Chris on the show is another thing I'm trying to do.
• 33:46
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, let me ask you this question.
• 33:48
  Carmen Lezeth: There are concerns like from um homeschooling advocates about your program.
• 33:53
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you say to them?
• 33:56
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, you've kind of already touched on it a bit, but what's like the sound bite you want to give to people who are saying no, no?
• 34:04
  Chris Linder: People who are people who are against homeschooling or people who are for traditional homeschooling.
• 34:11
  Carmen Lezeth: So yeah, so I have two questions, but I guess we've already talked about let me let me let me start over.
• 34:17
  Carmen Lezeth: How do you answer critiques from traditional homeschoolers?
• 34:20
  Carmen Lezeth: They say it's too structured.
• 34:22
  Carmen Lezeth: There's um some feel hybrid models mimic private school too closely, or curriculum control and some hybrid setups, the program, not the parent, chooses the curriculum and the assignments, which can feel restrictive.
• 34:37
  unknown: Sure.
• 34:38
  Carmen Lezeth: That's a better way to ask that question.
• 34:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I apologize.
• 34:40
  Chris Linder: No, no, and I I totally understand what uh what I've done with my framework is made it so that you you're not locked into a specific program's curriculum.
• 34:53
  Chris Linder: I think the flexibility and freedom of curriculum is really key, especially for, and I know we we keep saying this, especially for marginalized communities, um, for black students, brown students, and so on, who need to see themselves reflected in the subjects and topics, things that they study.
• 35:16
  Chris Linder: Um, they're not gonna get that in your standard textbooks off the shelves.
• 35:22
  Chris Linder: Um so you have to be creative as a parent to actually just you know look for and adapt lesson plans and curriculum that that reflect you and your culture, your own culture, as well as a diverse uh overarching culture that you're able to give more of a perspective on.
• 35:46
  Chris Linder: So I push back on anybody who's saying that uh a hybrid homeschooling is restrictive as far as curriculum or restrictive as far as structure.
• 36:01
  Chris Linder: Uh the structure comes from the traditional school.
• 36:05
  Chris Linder: You as a parent um use that for structure, but you also are flexible enough to do whatever fits your unique needs in your family, you know, for that for that homeschool part.
• 36:23
  Carmen Lezeth: Can you give an example of how culturally like how culturally significant you might infuse something in a subject that your child might need that would not be in a traditional, I don't know, whether it's algebra or history.
• 36:39
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, history would probably be the easiest one, right?
• 36:42
  Carmen Lezeth: So you would use a history book and they would be talking about, let's say, the Confederacy or something, right?
• 36:49
  Carmen Lezeth: Or they'd be talking just about civil rights or whatever it is, sure.
• 36:53
  Carmen Lezeth: And you would give the other lens, but where would you get that information if you're not fully?
• 36:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I mean, anyways, you see what I'm trying to get at.
• 37:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:01
  Carmen Lezeth: Because here's the thing.
• 37:03
  Carmen Lezeth: I want you to explain it to white folk.
• 37:04
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm gonna say it is my show.
• 37:06
  Carmen Lezeth: You see what I'm saying?
• 37:07
  Carmen Lezeth: Because they hear the buzzwords and what do you mean?
• 37:10
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you mean?
• 37:10
  Carmen Lezeth: So, what do you mean when you say that?
• 37:13
  Chris Linder: Luckily, we have the universe at our fingertips now with computers.
• 37:20
  Chris Linder: Um, even and I know that this is a very divisive word, AI.
• 37:25
  Chris Linder: Um, I love it.
• 37:27
  Chris Linder: There's no reason, right?
• 37:28
  Chris Linder: There's no reason for you not to be able to have information about whatever subject you're teaching, or whatever subject your student needs to get this help in.
• 37:43
  Chris Linder: If you're uh obviously with history, um and be before I go any further, if you're going to use AI to devise lesson plans and and so on, double triple check your sources.
• 38:00
  Chris Linder: AI is notorious for hallucinating, and you know, it's basically crowd-funded, you know, okay.
• 38:08
  Carmen Lezeth: But does homeschool remix and the community you have there would help with that?
• 38:11
  Carmen Lezeth: So let's say I was like, okay, I'm teaching my niece about history and I don't know enough about what happened, whatever.
• 38:19
  Carmen Lezeth: I don't know.
• 38:20
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, I can go to your website and maybe what happens?
• 38:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I go to your website, I can contact someone.
• 38:27
  Carmen Lezeth: How does it work?
• 38:28
  Chris Linder: Go to the website, you can you can get a copy of the book, Homeschool Remix, which basically outlines the framework.
• 38:36
  Chris Linder: But yes, join the community, um, post in the community, ask questions, say you need help with it's a little bit uh it's similar to a Facebook group, but people there are are you know they've gone through it so they can help you with it.
• 38:55
  Chris Linder: And I guarantee you, if you have this question, there's other people that are also wondering the same thing, and somebody has solved it with um history, for example.
• 39:07
  Chris Linder: Um, one of the things that I like to uh suggest as a curriculum is um a book.
• 39:15
  Chris Linder: It's actually a curriculum called Woke Homeschooling.
• 39:19
  Carmen Lezeth: Okay, that's gonna turn off every single person listening.
• 39:22
  Carmen Lezeth: But you know what?
• 39:23
  Carmen Lezeth: No, it shouldn't.
• 39:24
  Carmen Lezeth: I love it.
• 39:25
  Carmen Lezeth: I love it because I always say this all the time.
• 39:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Like they're just abusing the word woke in all the wrong ways.
• 39:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, I would rather be woke than not woke because that means I'm sleeping.
• 39:35
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, anyways, go ahead.
• 39:36
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry.
• 39:37
  Carmen Lezeth: We need to say that I'm like ding ding ding ding ding.
• 39:39
  Chris Linder: I get that.
• 39:40
  Chris Linder: That's one of those that's one of those words.
• 39:42
  Chris Linder: But again, with the power of language, we can't let words that mean one thing be redefined as something opposite, and that's exactly what's being done.
• 39:52
  Chris Linder: With and now they're they're demonizing DEI.
• 39:56
  Chris Linder: Well, they've been doing that, right?
• 39:58
  Chris Linder: Critical race theory, which is nothing nothing about what they describe it as.
• 40:04
  Chris Linder: And they're trying to demonize woke.
• 40:07
  Carmen Lezeth: And well, it goes back to being a critical thinker, right?
• 40:11
  Carmen Lezeth: It goes back to being someone who doesn't just look at the surface of things and actually digs deep and understands and I always say the nuance of things, you know.
• 40:23
  Carmen Lezeth: But it's so much easier to just have stuff thrown at you and just believing it because he said it or she said it than to actually go through it.
• 40:34
  Chris Linder: And there's so much stuff being blasted at you on a daily basis from people of authority, which makes it worse.
• 40:41
  Chris Linder: It's it's it's what he realized that as a Republican, what they need to do is just throw all these different things at you, and you don't have time to react.
• 40:55
  Chris Linder: You don't have time to really think each thing through.
• 40:58
  Chris Linder: And you know, you may be you know focusing on you know the the $200 million 90,000 square foot ballroom, and that will that will take your focus away from the fact that there's armed and masked men kidnapping American citizens off the street.
• 41:18
  Chris Linder: That's right, you know, and and that's going to distract you from the Epstein files, right?
• 41:25
  Carmen Lezeth: Which is really all we all want is the Epstein files right now at this moment.
• 41:30
  Carmen Lezeth: Because now he's made it.
• 41:31
  Carmen Lezeth: No, no, come on, because now I didn't care at all before all of this, but now that he's made it such a big deal, I want to see it.
• 41:39
  Chris Linder: But let me go back to the All we really want is is someone to just take the the veil of ignorance off of the entire country, yeah, and so we can start singing brand new day, like at the end of the whiz.
• 41:55
  Carmen Lezeth: I know, right?
• 41:56
  Chris Linder: Oh, I would love to know the wicked witches, you know, Evelyn has gone into her big toilet.
• 42:02
  Carmen Lezeth: No, I know, I know.
• 42:03
  Chris Linder: That's what we really want.
• 42:04
  Chris Linder: We want an end to this.
• 42:06
  Chris Linder: Whether it happens in November of next year or two years later, or you know, I want an end to this now because I'm tired.
• 42:14
  Carmen Lezeth: It's true.
• 42:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes.
• 42:15
  Carmen Lezeth: But but here's the thing while all this is happening, while people are, you know, being upset about words they don't understand because they're not using critical theory, like, you know, um I'm sorry, critical thinking, like DEI or woke or whatever, what's actually happening is your children are the ones who are losing out because they're not learning anything.
• 42:36
  Carmen Lezeth: They're not figuring it out, they're not getting the education that they need to get.
• 42:41
  Carmen Lezeth: And that that scares me.
• 42:43
  Carmen Lezeth: I also want to give a shout out to teachers because what I also love about you is um you have a lot of love for teachers, of course.
• 42:51
  Carmen Lezeth: Now I understand even more so why.
• 42:54
  Carmen Lezeth: Uh, but I do think at some point we need to have the conversation when we have sanity back.
• 43:00
  Carmen Lezeth: Teachers need to be not only paid well, but supported.
• 43:05
  Carmen Lezeth: Like, and I mean supported not just also financially, but I remember, and I don't remember much about my mom, but my mom at one point was helping, she was a teacher's aide, along with being a housekeeper.
• 43:17
  Carmen Lezeth: So she would go into the schools and act as an assistant to the classroom.
• 43:23
  Carmen Lezeth: And and the only reason why I would know is because Catholic school would have all these holidays, right?
• 43:28
  Carmen Lezeth: And I would have to go with her.
• 43:29
  Carmen Lezeth: So I we I either go with her when she was housekeeping or when she would go to the school.
• 43:33
  Carmen Lezeth: They don't have that anymore, right?
• 43:35
  Carmen Lezeth: They don't have the help that teachers need.
• 43:38
  Chris Linder: They do have teachers' aids.
• 43:40
  Chris Linder: Um, but again, because of the the the funding and budget cuts that are rampant, a lot of districts can't afford to to to hire as many teachers' aides as they as they would have in the past, right?
• 43:54
  Chris Linder: So yeah.
• 43:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Wow, it's been so great to have you on the show.
• 43:59
  Carmen Lezeth: We haven't even gotten through the second list of questions, but um, let me just ask you one last one.
• 44:05
  Carmen Lezeth: What's next for you?
• 44:06
  Carmen Lezeth: What do you see as kind of the legacy of this program, or what is the next steps for you and your organization?
• 44:14
  Chris Linder: I've got to figure out, we have to figure out a way to make education go viral.
• 44:24
  unknown: I love that.
• 44:26
  Chris Linder: Trying to figure out how to change people's minds, parents' minds, families' minds, and again, it doesn't matter what color or anything like that.
• 44:37
  Chris Linder: Just for them to realize that it's gonna take a while for us to A, figure all this, all this stuff out, and B, fix it after it's done, after that brand new day arrives, there's gonna be a lot of things to fix.
• 44:54
  Chris Linder: But meanwhile, our students are getting older, our students are going to you know reach 12th grade and graduate.
• 45:03
  Chris Linder: So we can't pause education.
• 45:06
  Chris Linder: We can't you know hope hope that, well, maybe in the next five years we'll decide that the Department of Education is actually important.
• 45:15
  Chris Linder: Well, maybe we shouldn't get rid of it.
• 45:19
  Chris Linder: My goodness.
• 45:20
  Chris Linder: You know, we have to take uh the the control of education back from the institutions and into the hands of families.
• 45:32
  Chris Linder: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Chris Linder: And and it has to be a it has to be a fundamental switch in people's heads that they realize it's education is way too important for my kid to go without it, and it's my responsibility to make sure they get it, and it's my responsibility to make sure that they're equipped when they graduate to go through with critical thinking, to be able to have choices after they graduate of what kind of job they want.
• 46:04
  Chris Linder: Because, like I come down on you know, the educational system pouring out, putting out labor, you know, laborers as is that that's the goal of it.
• 46:15
  Chris Linder: And there's nothing wrong with being a laborer, there's nothing wrong with working in a factory or in a field.
• 46:22
  Chris Linder: Um do what you want to do, do what you like to do, but you should have a choice.
• 46:29
  Chris Linder: Your your kids should have a choice as to what they want to be, and it shouldn't be that you know the administration or whomever decides that, well, because your student is fill in the blank, they're only good to be a laborer, or they're only good to have this kind of job or that kind of position, or you're talking about to get into college.
• 46:56
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:56
  Carmen Lezeth: You're you're talking about real wealth.
• 46:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm not talking about money wealth, you're talking about the wealth of choices, the ability to make a decision.
• 47:03
  Carmen Lezeth: I have one nephew who is deciding, along with his parents, not to go to college, but instead to go to trade school and learn to become an electrician because that's what he wants to do.
• 47:15
  Carmen Lezeth: And I thought it was so brilliant because he's thinking about the future and AI and what he really wants to be doing.
• 47:23
  Carmen Lezeth: And it's like, but he has a wealth of choices because his parents have been so involved in his education that the choice not to go to college and to go to trade school is wealth.
• 47:36
  Carmen Lezeth: That is a wealth of a choice to be able to make along with his parents.
• 47:39
  Carmen Lezeth: So and very smart, really smart, especially with AI, yeah.
• 47:45
  Chris Linder: With the whole 10 years ago or 15 years ago, we wanted everybody to learn to be coders.
• 47:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Yeah.
• 47:51
  Chris Linder: You know, but but now it's like, well, yeah, maybe maybe actually working with your hands is a is a good choice.
• 47:59
  Carmen Lezeth: Is a good choice, especially if that's what you like to do.
• 48:02
  Carmen Lezeth: But again, you're not gonna know that if you don't have and I I'm gonna say this one thing.
• 48:06
  Carmen Lezeth: I think the relationship between parent and children, like their children, is so important.
• 48:12
  Carmen Lezeth: And people think that just because they have children, they actually have that relationship.
• 48:18
  Carmen Lezeth: And part of what you're talking about is you have to care about your child's education.
• 48:23
  Carmen Lezeth: It's like and and I internalize that.
• 48:27
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes, yes, I'm a little envious of it.
• 48:29
  Carmen Lezeth: But I think that's what that's what I got from reading about you and learning about you was like we need to care more about what's happening with our children when it comes to education and not hoping that uh a teacher who is trying to take care of 75 children um is going to teach them everything, no matter how great that teacher is, you know.
• 48:49
  Chris Linder: So it's not like it is in the movies.
• 48:53
  Carmen Lezeth: No, not well, not at all.
• 48:54
  Carmen Lezeth: No, but um, but Chris, thank you so much for being here.
• 48:57
  Carmen Lezeth: I appreciate it.
• 48:58
  Carmen Lezeth: I hope you'll come back and maybe we can have you come back with uh the rest of the crew if you'd like to do that.
• 49:04
  Carmen Lezeth: Um we could talk a little bit more and see.
• 49:07
  Carmen Lezeth: They all have children, so I kind of like that I had this special time with you because we could have this conversation.
• 49:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, but that might be something if you were willing to do it.
• 49:17
  Chris Linder: You know, I'm totally willing.
• 49:18
  Chris Linder: Yes, yes, let's do it.
• 49:20
  Carmen Lezeth: So, everyone, um, remember it's Chris Linder.
• 49:22
  Carmen Lezeth: The name of the website is homeschoolremix.com.
• 49:26
  Carmen Lezeth: What's the name of the book?
• 49:27
  Chris Linder: Uh, the book's called Homeschool Remix.
• 49:30
  Carmen Lezeth: You can find it on the website.
• 49:31
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, and what else?
• 49:32
  Carmen Lezeth: I'm sorry.
• 49:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Yes.
• 49:39
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, I'm gonna start saying that more often actually to support your local bookstores because that's true.
• 49:44
  Carmen Lezeth: We really do need to.
• 49:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Um, what else were you gonna say?
• 49:47
  Chris Linder: Uh our community is called the seat squad, and it's it's called that because we practice folding chair homeschooling, which is basically finding free and low-cost um resources to to use while hybrid homeschooling.
• 50:04
  Chris Linder: Um, and it comes from the Shirley Chisholm quote if they don't find if they don't have a seat for you at the table, bring a folding chair.
• 50:12
  Chris Linder: Yeah, bring a folding chair.
• 50:14
  Carmen Lezeth: Oh, that's great.
• 50:15
  Carmen Lezeth: I was trying to figure out how the folding chair came in.
• 50:18
  Carmen Lezeth: Got it.
• 50:18
  Carmen Lezeth: That's great.
• 50:20
  Chris Linder: There's a bunch of ways for you to spend a whole lot of money homeschooling, but if you're smart about it, there's no reason why you have to spend a lot of money.
• 50:30
  Chris Linder: A lot of money.
• 50:31
  Chris Linder: Yeah.
• 50:32
  Carmen Lezeth: Check out the website, get in touch with Chris, and um, yeah, thank you, everyone.
• 50:36
  Carmen Lezeth: Chris, thank you so much.
• 50:38
  Carmen Lezeth: And remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy.
• 50:41
  Carmen Lezeth: Thank you, everyone.
• 50:42
  Carmen Lezeth: Bye.
• 50:45
  Carmen Lezeth: Thanks for stopping by, All About the Joy.
• 50:48
  Carmen Lezeth: Be better and stay beautiful, folks.
• 50:50
  Carmen Lezeth: Have a sweet day.