Latest / Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson / One Acre Wonders – Outdoor Schooling, Autism Support, and Equine Wisdom with Catherine Ward & Nicole Jones | Ep 30 Equine Assisted World

Transcript

One Acre Wonders – Outdoor Schooling, Autism Support, and Equine Wisdom with Catherine Ward & Nicole Jones | Ep 30 Equine Assisted World · Equine Assisted World with Rupert Isaacson

• 0:00
  Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
• 0:05
  author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
• 0:08
  Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
• 0:12
  thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
• 0:15
  I have a request.
• 0:16
  If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
• 0:22
  It really helps us get this work done.
• 0:24
  As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
• 0:27
  And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
• 0:31
  equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
• 0:35
  If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
• 0:40
  com.
• 0:41
  So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
• 0:47
  Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
• 0:49
  With me today, . I've got Catherine Ward and her daughter, Nicole Jones,
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  who together run a pioneering place in Houston, Texas called One Acre Farm
• 1:01
  where they do all kinds of miracles.
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  So the reason why I want them on the show is a lot of us think of equine
• 1:10
  assisted stuff happening in large rural areas where we have a lot of space.
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  One acre farm is just that, and it's within the city limits of Houston,
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  and it's a bit of a groundbreaking concept and it shows what really
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  can be done with very little.
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  So any of you think, well, I haven't got enough space.
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  You kind of need to hear a little bit how Catherine and Nicole maximize what
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  they've got and achieve results that are frankly, quite breathtaking with kids.
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  So welcome to the show.
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  Catherine and Nicole, please tell us who you are and what you do.
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  Catherine Ward: Hey, Robert, thank you for having us.
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  We're, we're quite honored and excited to be with you.
• 1:53
  I'm Catherine Ward.
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  We live about 35 miles north of Houston in Porter.
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  I own and run one acre farm.
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  And it started probably in 1999.
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  Our very first class was how to Raise Chickens in Your Backyard.
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  Because of our location where we are while we're kind of rural, we're set in a
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  very urban or very suburbanite type area.
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  And so there are a lot of, a lot of women that live in neighborhoods that wanna have
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  four or five chickens in their backyard.
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  And so that was our, our goal to kind of kind of get started there.
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  Then we started classes for Homeschoolers and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
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  And then fast forward to from 1999 to 2016 when we met you and then
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  got our certification in Horse Boy Method and Movement Method and
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  added that to all of our programs.
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  And then fast forward to 2021 and we opened an outdoor farm school.
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  And so now with all of the programs that we have from kids aren't in
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  play, our Sensory Saturday, our private autism sessions and our
• 3:04
  elementary farm school and our early childhood farm school, we service
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  about a hundred to 150 kids a month.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Impressive.
• 3:14
  Thanks.
• 3:15
  Okay.
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  Nicole, who are you?
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  Yeah.
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  In this
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  Nicole Jones: so I'm obviously a daughter of Catherine.
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  I'm a mom of two and my two kids come with me to the farm school that we run.
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  I was a horsey kid.
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  I was homeschooled all the way through.
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  So, I was homeschooled on a farm.
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  Very similar to how a lot of the kids that we work with today are
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  being schooled and had a lot of interaction with animals growing up.
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  A lot of autonomy to my day.
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  A lot of movement involved in my homeschooling and education growing up.
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  And so currently I am the early childhood teacher at this school.
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  And then also Catherine.
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  I co-create curriculum together for things that we're doing on
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  the farm and for other people who are interested in, in curriculum.
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  But a lot of what got us, or at least got me to where we are with the school
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  now was the homeschooling background.
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  A lot of the horsey stuff growing up.
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  And then I was also an a, b, a therapist early on in my, teaching
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  days I wanted to become a teacher.
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  I got into a BA therapy but very quickly realized it didn't sit right with me.
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  I was there for about two years and just felt like there was something missing.
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  I, I loved getting to have the relationship with children and
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  being able to be one-on-one with kids and grow that relationship.
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  But being a 19, 20, 20 1-year-old teacher, I was just still not knowing
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  much and not being in the field very long.
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  It just wasn't sitting right with my spirit, the things that I was being
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  told to do, and feeling like the, the happiness of the children and the
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  joy of early childhood education was just taken out of what we were doing.
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  And it all was very clinical.
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  It, it didn't have this while we were building a relationship with kids.
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  It just didn't have that, that.
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  Fun aspect you would expect.
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  And you know, we, I was working with children who were nonverbal who were poop
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  smears, eating their poop all the way, you know, that might be a morning student.
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  And then an after Stu afternoon student was someone who could read
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  and write and talking verbally.
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  And so putting those two kids in the same class together, it was
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  just, there was a lot of disconnect.
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  And didn't, although I was working for a very highly regarded a BA
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  clinic, I just felt like it just, it wasn't sitting right with me.
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  And so not too long in the field and just feeling like this isn't
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  right, I need to find something else.
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  I found Montessori education very happenstance, and so I was
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  completing my college observation time in different, you have to go to
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  different schools and observe classes.
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  And so I picked a Montessori school to go see 'cause I just never heard of,
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  heard of it and wanted to see what it was about and walked in and was just, in
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  10 minutes I was like, this, this is it.
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  This was the thing.
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  It was so similar to how I was homeschooled as far as the kids
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  could walk around the class and pick things they wanted to do.
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  There was interest led learning.
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  They could move around, they could go outdoors.
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  They had this open space to their day of, all right, I can pick
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  and choose what I want to do.
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  And the teachers would pop in and out as they were needed and help direct the kids.
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  But it was, they had so much autonomy to what they were able to do.
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  So, that night I went home, decided I was gonna get training in Montessori.
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  I got certified the very next year.
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  I went through my one year internship and 500 training hours
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  or whatever, and got that done.
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  And then went into Montessori education.
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  A couple years into that is when Catherine and I went to temple Grandin's speech
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  and found you and then added this whole, whole other aspect added to, oh my gosh.
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  Here's where, you know, while Montessori education was originally based in
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  helping kids with special needs, there's this whole other aspect of the science
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  I didn't understand, and that Dr.
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  Montessori was also trying to understand and, you know, the neuro
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  neuro pathways that are formed and all of that with movement.
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  Anyway, so we had all that added to it, and then COVID happened, you know,
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  we were doing some, we were doing some sessions with families, but then
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  COVID happened and a lot changed with everybody, and Catherine and I decided
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  you know, this might be the time we want to start something at one acre farm.
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  And we did that.
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  So I left my Montessori teaching job.
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  We went into this together and it's been really great since then.
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  We just, we just keep on trucking.
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  Right.
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  So you,
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  Rupert Isaacson: you started Nicole with special ed and as in America, as we
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  know, a lot of people are funneled into applied behavioral analysis, A, b, A, and.
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  You know, like many of us, you found it restrictive.
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  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Coercive not joyful.
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  Then you found Montessori which is much closer in line with the
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  autonomy you've used that word.
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  I want to return to that word.
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  And why is autonomy important that you'd experience, you know, homeschooling
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  or being homeschooled in nature?
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  It's interesting that you were homeschooled because you know,
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  Catherine, you have been a teacher in the regular school system, right?
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  Yes.
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  So can you talk us a little bit through your background and career?
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  How did you as a regular teacher then decide, well,
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  actually I want to homeschool.
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  And then how have you brought those two things together into one acre farm
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  where you do have a school structure, but of course you're now using I.
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  Montessori movement method and other modalities, you know, altogether.
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  Can you just talk us through that trajectory, please?
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  Catherine Ward: Sure.
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  I could, let me go back a little bit.
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  So I was born in Texas, but raised in Louisiana.
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  My mom remarried when I was very young, and it was a very unique upbringing
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  because my, my father, my stepfather was one of the richest men in town.
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  So we lived in a huge mansion, but in our back acreage was all this livestock.
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  So I was kind of raised in a farm, like farm lifestyle.
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  I was also given that word a lot of autonomy with being
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  able to take care of animals.
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  And my mom was very down to earth and even though we lived such a
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  lavish life or we had access to that kind of wealth she raised me in a
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  very down to earth type mentality.
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  So I'm very grateful for that.
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  So that I think came to play later in life also, which, we'll,
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  we'll see the interconnection.
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  So then I came back to Texas in 1987 and then started college.
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  Well, I take that back.
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  When I was in New Orleans, I had.
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  I started college and my first major was psychology.
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  No, my first major was marine biology, and then I changed to psychology
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  and then I changed to pre-med, so I wanted to go into medical school.
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  And then we moved to Texas.
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  I finished all of my pre-med and got accepted into UTMB of Galveston
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  under their physical therapy program.
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  And they had only had out of, you know how many hundreds of applicants.
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  Only 30 were accepted.
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  And so I was accepted and right then before deciding to go to
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  medical school, I changed my major again and went into education.
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  And so I had to start my college pretty much all over again.
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  Went into education and graduated in early childhood or with elementary
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  pre-K to eighth, early childhood and reading specialization and
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  and my love of farm animals and teaching just kind of combined.
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  So when I was married, we had a little bit of acreage and then Nicole was
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  born to me and then her sister Kristen.
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  And it was even with my public school teaching.
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  So after graduation, I did teach in the public school system for a few years.
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  I taught kindergarten, first grade and third grade.
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  And then once I had children, I thought, oh my gosh, I don't wanna be away from
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  them and I know what the system is like, and I know that they are gonna be in this
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  white room for eight hours that I was in.
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  And so it became a philosophical and somewhat of a faith decision because I
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  also felt like, eight hours away from us.
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  That I, I wanted that influence on them spiritually and in their
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  faith and in their philosophy.
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  So the decision to homeschool was made.
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  I left teaching and then I, we homeschooled the girls their
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  whole career for homeschooling.
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  And, and as Nicole referred to, it was a very relaxed atmosphere.
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  We spent hours and hours outside and it was kind of naturally within me
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  to wanna follow their interest and follow what they were interested in.
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  And, oh, I'm so, I have so many squirrel moments.
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  It's like, oh, look, there's a bug.
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  Let's go look at that bug.
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  So we, their, their homeschooling was very casual.
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  Of course, we had some regimented things like, you have to learn math.
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  But for the most part because both of the girls were interested in horses, I made
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  sure that they could get horse lessons.
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  And so while we couldn't afford those types of things being on
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  one income we traded our work.
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  So we would go and muck stalls.
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  I think one of the places we went had like 23 stalls, and we would go every
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  day and muck in the morning, 23 stalls so that my girls could have lessons.
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  And then we borrowed horses from other people so that they could
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  then learn how to ride barrels.
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  And we were very fortunate that other people were willing
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  to work with us like that.
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  So both of the girls were, were able to follow their, their interest with horses.
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  Rupert Isaacson: So you are, you are there homeschooling, you are
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  trading your work for writing lessons.
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  You are doing it somewhat faith-based, but also because you just don't
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  want to be away from them.
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  I've got a question, which is that you, you, you mentioned having grown
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  up very wealthy, but then you are now a one income family where you need to
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  trade mucking out for horse lessons.
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  If you're a listener, you go, Ooh, what happened there?
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  What happened in that story?
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  Where'd the money go?
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  And how come you didn't sort of end up with that entitled attitude that you might
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  have ended up with, you know, growing up with, with, with money when the time
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  came that you didn't have money anymore?
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  Talk.
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  Talk us through those.
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  What's the missing bit of that story?
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  Catherine Ward: So, I mean, the first loss of money was when my mom
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  subsequently divorced my stepfather.
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  And so then there, that family unit was no, no longer connected in that split.
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  They did split the business.
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  They had several businesses.
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  We had car dealerships.
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  They built homes.
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  They had a boat shop.
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  He was into real estate, so there were all kinds of things within the, the many
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  different cookie jars that were in there.
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  And so, my mom had to start off as a single mom with myself and my sister.
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  And so she, in the divorce, she took over one of the boat shops.
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  And over the next few years, she became one of the most renowned
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  boat dealers in the United States because she was a woman and she grew
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  that one business into three more.
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  So she took it from one location to two more locations and and kind of became
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  a millionaire in her own right Then.
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  During that time, very sadly my sister was killed in, in an
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  airplane crash, a private airplane.
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  And that, that completely changed our family completely overnight.
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  To watch my mother grieve.
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  So deeply.
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  And then to watch my, my grandparents in their own grief, but then having
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  to help support her and support me.
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  And you know, when you look at your life as a timeline, my whole
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  life until the birth of my two daughters, my life always had that.in
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  my timeline is that was the anchor of my life before my sister
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  died and after my sister died.
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  And, and again, until Nicole and Kristen were born, that's how I measured my life.
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  And, and it did forever change us.
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  And it forever changed our outlook as a family and our connection.
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  During that time with my mom having a boat shop or a boat dealership?
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  There were a few there were a couple of of injuries that happened.
• 15:08
  You know, like when you go to a boat show that's in a huge arena
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  someone tripped and fell and cut themself and of course sued her.
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  And then there were some other injuries.
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  And so those lawsuits just totally demolished the business, right.
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  It, it just destroyed the business.
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  So we lost money.
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  Then she got out of the business and decided to go into real estate and then
• 15:30
  she made herself a millionaire again.
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  And and during that time, a lot of people and friends wanted her to co-sign
• 15:38
  for their own businesses and she did.
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  She was very generous.
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  And and then those would flop and so she lost all of it again.
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  And then that was when we decided in 1987, you know what,
• 15:50
  I'm gonna go back to my roots.
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  My mom was, would say this, I'm gonna go back to my roots.
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  Let's go back to Texas and I'll go back to teaching.
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  'cause she had been a school teacher before.
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  So we came back to Texas and she went back to teaching.
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  And then that's when I was entering college shortly after that.
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  Rupert Isaacson: Got
• 16:06
  Catherine Ward: it.
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  And then, and then the lifestyle was just a very middle s middle class lifestyle.
• 16:10
  And then when I got married, the same thing, just middle class.
• 16:13
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 16:14
  You, you mentioned I mean, it, it's very interesting 'cause it gives you multiple
• 16:17
  perspectives on life, you know, to go from growing up wealthy to losing it all.
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  To intense grief to having, to making it again, to seeing a business
• 16:27
  how business can be destroyed.
• 16:29
  You know, and this is something which I think, you know, a lot of business
• 16:31
  owners in America live justifiably in fear of that day that somebody sues
• 16:37
  you know, business friendly country, but also business friendly for lawyers.
• 16:41
  Sadly, you know, it, it, it can wipe people out, but it certainly,
• 16:45
  I think, gives you an interesting place of empathy where you can say,
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  well, no matter who you're dealing with, I've, I've lived that lifestyle.
• 16:55
  And at the end of the day, I know what's important.
• 16:57
  You talk about faith-based, obviously for my non-American listeners, you know,
• 17:02
  when you're listening from a European perspective and you hear about, you
• 17:06
  know, Christian homeschooling, one thinks of, you know, armed compounds
• 17:11
  in the woods and you know, ex extremism basically, and people being you know,
• 17:16
  homeschooled so that they won't learn about Darwin and that sort of thing.
• 17:20
  But your way of teaching at one acre farm is in no way like that.
• 17:27
  So when you talk about faith I'd just like you to, to talk
• 17:31
  about how, how you guys consider yourselves Christians and how that.
• 17:39
  Works in an interplay, not just with science teaching, but also
• 17:43
  with, you know, what values are.
• 17:46
  You know?
• 17:47
  Because again, many of us in, in Europe, we have a, a fear of religious
• 17:53
  extremism because all our history is learning about religious wars and
• 17:58
  witch burnings and things like that.
• 17:59
  I'm like, well, we don't wanna go back there and we don't
• 18:01
  want that kind of extremism.
• 18:02
  We sometimes see that coming out of the USAA little bit.
• 18:05
  But knowing you as ideal, I know that's not you guys at all.
• 18:09
  So talk to me a little bit about how you weave your, your faith into what you do.
• 18:15
  'cause I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's useful for us on the
• 18:18
  European perspective to consider this.
• 18:21
  Catherine Ward: I, I think for me, I've gone through some transformations through
• 18:25
  the years and I would say that there was a time that I was very tunnel visioned in
• 18:30
  that my philosophy was the only philosophy and, and or, or that the tenets of it are
• 18:37
  a hundred percent the only way to think.
• 18:39
  But then ironically, as I got exposed to the world, it was actually an
• 18:45
  aha moment when I was at your ranch in Elgin at a training for Movement
• 18:50
  Method and Horse Boy, where I met all these people from all over the world.
• 18:55
  Here at the ranch and we were all learning Movement Method and Horse Boy
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  and, and I had gone there with such.
• 19:03
  A thought process that, that I was, I had already prejudged all these
• 19:08
  people before I had ever even met them.
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  And I was now surrounded by people that were so highly intelligent and all
• 19:15
  had their own philosophies or faith.
• 19:18
  But the, the common thing that I saw was kindness.
• 19:23
  Kindness and unconditional love, which are the tenets of Christianity.
• 19:28
  But I saw them, I saw it in people that I would've never pinpointed as
• 19:33
  being the evangelical Christian type of western Christian that we have.
• 19:38
  And that opened my mind to wow, there is, to me, it became a universal
• 19:44
  truth in my heart, that kindness is of the utmost importance.
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  And so I came away from that and I started to do studies on
• 19:53
  ancient religions and stuff.
• 19:55
  And, and I found that through some of the, the, the basic first religions and
• 20:00
  even Native American, that the common tenant through all of that one is that
• 20:04
  they all believe there is a creator of whatever, whoever that creator is, at
• 20:08
  least they acknowledge there's a creator.
• 20:10
  And then second to that was just kindness and unconditional love.
• 20:14
  And that I feel like every day when I wake up, that is what drives me every
• 20:19
  day is to just to be kind to people.
• 20:22
  And and I believe that as I see my daughters, both of them as adults,
• 20:26
  that they have such huge, kind and compassionate and empathic.
• 20:31
  Empathetic hearts.
• 20:33
  I'm, I'm just very proud of them for, for being that way.
• 20:37
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 20:38
  It's, you know, I think what often gets lost in, in religion is spirituality,
• 20:44
  you know, because of course, as soon as you, you have a, a church or a temple or
• 20:48
  whatever one wants to call it, usually have a bloke, you know, standing there
• 20:52
  with a jar that you can put your money in and it sort of goes from there.
• 20:56
  Whereas of course, yes, one's relationship with the divine is one's
• 20:59
  relationship with the divine and.
• 21:01
  If there's a Christ message out there, I think as you say,
• 21:03
  it's, it's love by neighbor.
• 21:04
  Catherine Ward: Well, you had asked how we deal with that today at, at the school.
• 21:07
  Yeah.
• 21:07
  Yeah.
• 21:07
  And so, we're not, we're not a faith-based school.
• 21:10
  We don't advertise ourselves as such.
• 21:12
  And, and I think that was a decision that Nicole and I made from the very beginning.
• 21:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 21:17
  That we did not want that, that, not that we were turning our back
• 21:20
  on anything, but that that is not what we wanted as defining us.
• 21:24
  And that we wanted to have an eclectic group of people and kids because we wanted
• 21:29
  the, like-mindedness to be what is the goal of those parents for their children.
• 21:34
  And we wanted, and those people can come from all walks of life
• 21:37
  if the goal for their child is to be outdoors and to be free from
• 21:42
  institutionalized type classroom.
• 21:45
  And so we made that very conscious decision to not advertise
• 21:48
  ourselves as faith-based because believe me, in this area I.
• 21:52
  Where we are.
• 21:52
  It, it, it could have flourished even that way.
• 21:55
  But how I speak with, with our kids, 'cause I'm the teacher of
• 21:58
  the elementary ages seven to 10.
• 22:01
  And, and so we really delve deep in our subject matter
• 22:05
  is all of a animal husbandry.
• 22:06
  So like, let's say we're talking about chickens, we're gonna do the parts
• 22:10
  of the body, the digestive system, reproductive system where did they
• 22:13
  originate, how did they migrate?
• 22:15
  And so we interconnect geography and history and all of the
• 22:20
  subjects but studying chickens.
• 22:23
  And we'll talk about DNA and we talk and especially in the reproductive system.
• 22:28
  And, and then a lot of times I'll, I'll.
• 22:31
  Tell the kids, there are two basic ways to look at the world.
• 22:35
  You have one, one belief system that believes that everything
• 22:39
  was created by a creator.
• 22:40
  And then you have another that believes that everything was
• 22:43
  happenstance through evolution.
• 22:46
  But, and I tell 'em this is not where we discuss or debate that what
• 22:50
  I want y'all is I want y'all to see how they can both be interconnected.
• 22:55
  There are, there is science that supports both, and we are going to stay
• 23:00
  open-minded and look at the development of chickens or goats or whatever from
• 23:04
  that perspective and see that there's probably bits of truth in both of it.
• 23:10
  And, and I want them to kind of just become their own independent thinkers.
• 23:16
  And the parents have always been very supportive and very
• 23:19
  appreciative that we approach science in, in that way with the kids.
• 23:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 23:24
  I mean, you talk about the need to, this word autonomy has come up and
• 23:29
  of course autonomy is an intellectual process as well as deciding what I
• 23:33
  want to do from moment to moment.
• 23:35
  Nicole, why do you feel autonomy is so important in the development
• 23:41
  of, of a human talk, talk, talk, talk to us about this.
• 23:45
  Nicole Jones: I think this goes back to as I was writing some things down as my
• 23:48
  mom was speaking, because her and I, I, it's been a while since we've talked about
• 23:51
  this subject, so I think this is good.
• 23:53
  I agree with a, a main goal of mine is to let kids be able to think for themselves
• 24:00
  because the, the systems that we put them through, tell them how to think,
• 24:05
  tell them what to do, tell them when to do it, and then they come out of the
• 24:08
  system and they don't know what to do.
• 24:11
  They don't know how to start a business.
• 24:12
  They don't know how to balance their, their bank accounts.
• 24:14
  They don't know how to take care of animals that like these basic human.
• 24:19
  Just everyday requirements that we have as, as adults that my friends at
• 24:23
  30 still don't know how to do because they went through the public school.
• 24:26
  Like just those things that if you don't know how to do something, that
• 24:30
  you can go and figure out how to do it.
• 24:32
  So having that self-directed autonomy that homeschooling gives you, that farm
• 24:35
  schooling, gives you that movement method.
• 24:37
  Those types of based educational methods give you it.
• 24:41
  It doesn't matter what walk in life you're going to do, if you want
• 24:44
  to change careers or if you, you.
• 24:46
  Decide to take a left turn somewhere.
• 24:48
  If you have those skills in, okay, I can do this and figure it out because I've
• 24:52
  had the autonomy and the practice of I want to start lemonade stand, or I want
• 24:56
  to figure out how I can afford to keep a horse for the year, you know, those
• 25:01
  kinds of things then you're gonna be able to succeed in, in just about anything.
• 25:04
  And I think it's important to start that very, very young.
• 25:07
  I teach the kids ages four to seven and these little four year olds, and
• 25:11
  sometimes we have three year olds they're feeding the animals themselves.
• 25:14
  They come and tell us like, that animal's poop looks different
• 25:17
  today than it did yesterday.
• 25:19
  Or do we need to check and make sure it's sick?
• 25:21
  Like, just those observational things that we have lost being out of nature.
• 25:25
  And so being, basically being able to, to allow kids to think for themselves
• 25:30
  and be those independent thinkers and autonomy with your day gives you that.
• 25:33
  And it doesn't mean that we just let kids go and run around and
• 25:36
  do whatever they want to do.
• 25:37
  You know, there's a boundary to, okay, you wanna throw mud, that's fine.
• 25:41
  You can't throw it at other kids, but you can go throw mud at the fence and
• 25:44
  you can figure out how far you can get it and who can get it farther?
• 25:46
  Who can, does this mud stick to the tree?
• 25:48
  Does it not stick to this tree?
• 25:50
  And so we kind of approach everything with that.
• 25:53
  And that's based in, in our movement method training and horse boy
• 25:56
  training that we did years ago, it, it really kind of pieced together
• 25:59
  things that we were already doing and experienced and found very important.
• 26:02
  And just was that final piece to, to make it all connect and make sense.
• 26:07
  So,
• 26:07
  Rupert Isaacson: well you used the word connect, so Yeah.
• 26:09
  I mean, it, it's a well-known thing within.
• 26:12
  Psychology, as you guys both know, autonomy and connectedness, right?
• 26:17
  That's always those, those seem to be the two fundamental human,
• 26:20
  psychological, social needs.
• 26:22
  We need enough autonomy that we feel self-actualized and we need enough
• 26:27
  connectedness that we feel supported.
• 26:29
  Connected.
• 26:30
  And why would that be?
• 26:31
  Well, we're herd animals.
• 26:32
  At the end of the day.
• 26:33
  We're pack animals, we're middle tier predators.
• 26:37
  And our only way of being top predator is by talking to each other and strategizing.
• 26:41
  And the moment one of us ends up two autonomous, actually out on a limb,
• 26:46
  well, that's when the hyenas get you.
• 26:48
  But of course not enough autonomy.
• 26:50
  Well then there's no innovation.
• 26:51
  And it seems that because in a hunting and gathering society, there are
• 26:58
  more opportunities for connectedness than there are for autonomy.
• 27:02
  In, in our evolution, our social evolution autonomy has been a bit of
• 27:06
  a, sort of a luxury, a novel thing.
• 27:08
  So we tend to seek it out in the same way that we seek out sweet foods or
• 27:11
  fatty foods, because in the wild, those are in somewhat short supply and they're
• 27:17
  nutrition packed and energy packed.
• 27:19
  So we're gonna gravitate towards those.
• 27:21
  Now we've, you know, got a society where that's kind of all that's on
• 27:26
  offer and it's killing us, but we're still, we have a genetic drive for it.
• 27:31
  Like we have a genetic drive for autonomy.
• 27:34
  But one of the things which we can often see is that.
• 27:38
  Too much autonomy, oddly enough, can also stand in the way of happiness and success.
• 27:44
  And you, you know, the, when the kids are working out what they
• 27:48
  wanna do, how they wanna spend their time, and making these decisions.
• 27:52
  You also, of course, are having to teach 'em about connectedness.
• 27:54
  How do you work with a group?
• 27:56
  And specifically how do you seek out mentorship?
• 27:58
  How do you know what you don't know?
• 28:00
  And go and find out about that, you know, as you need it.
• 28:04
  Talk to how, how do you, how do you foster that in kids?
• 28:06
  I, I'll go back to you, Catherine, and then I want to come back to
• 28:09
  you as, as well, Nicole, on this.
• 28:11
  So the autonomy part?
• 28:12
  Yes.
• 28:12
  Let's talk about the connectedness part.
• 28:15
  Catherine Ward: Well, I think far autonomy there, you can gain
• 28:19
  greater autonomy by the more.
• 28:22
  You learn, the more skills you have then give you more
• 28:25
  independence for other things.
• 28:27
  And so as the kids come in we of course train them on the, the routines of what
• 28:34
  we have to do for caring for the animals.
• 28:35
  So in our outdoor school, it's a five hour school and the first two to two
• 28:39
  and a half hours is spent outside.
• 28:41
  When they arrive.
• 28:42
  We both, the early childhood, Nicole, what Nicole's over and the elementary,
• 28:46
  they're given, you know, an hour or so of time to just roam the farm,
• 28:50
  go play, connect with their friends.
• 28:53
  This is at the start
• 28:54
  Rupert Isaacson: of the school day.
• 28:54
  Catherine Ward: This is at the start of the school day.
• 28:56
  Right.
• 28:56
  The
• 28:56
  Rupert Isaacson: sort of zero hour, if you like.
• 28:58
  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
• 28:58
  Yeah.
• 28:58
  So it's a rival and it's time for them to transition from
• 29:01
  being home to now being here.
• 29:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:03
  And, and they're excited.
• 29:05
  I mean, they're social creatures, so of course they want to see their friends.
• 29:08
  And so we allow that.
• 29:09
  And I.
• 29:11
  We know from experience and from also our, our, our both of our backgrounds
• 29:15
  and our trainings both formally with, with college and through movement
• 29:18
  method and so forth, that kids, kids' brains just need time to, to adjust.
• 29:24
  So we give them that time, their freedom in the morning,
• 29:27
  and then we kind of regroup.
• 29:30
  And at the beginning of the school year, and then as the the months go
• 29:33
  on, we're teaching them the skills of how to care for the animals.
• 29:37
  They're given farm jobs.
• 29:38
  Each child is given a farm job.
• 29:40
  When they reach up to elementary age, they're put together as teams.
• 29:44
  And so now as a team, they have to do a farm job.
• 29:47
  And it might be actually scooping poop, scooping the horse poop,
• 29:51
  putting it in the compost pile.
• 29:53
  And then we have another compost pile where they have to dig it and
• 29:56
  fill up manure bags because we sell manure to the community to make
• 30:00
  money back to help pay for the food.
• 30:02
  With the, I'll let Nicole speak about her early childhood kids.
• 30:06
  I didn't, I I don't wanna step on your toes, Nicole.
• 30:08
  The, there is a lot of poop talk because we have so many animals
• 30:13
  and there's a lot of poop.
• 30:15
  Yeah.
• 30:15
  And, and, but with that, they learn how to observe animals.
• 30:20
  Poop lets them know immediately if an animal is sick.
• 30:24
  And, and so then we're able to tend to the animals.
• 30:27
  The the skills of, of how to administer medications, how to, how to muck stalls,
• 30:32
  how to just all the things that go surrounding taking care of the animals.
• 30:37
  But then we also give them skills on orienteering.
• 30:40
  With compasses.
• 30:42
  We let 'em we let 'em use tools, we let them dig holes, we let them be dirty.
• 30:47
  And then within our, oh, and we Nature Journal, we encourage them to do nature
• 30:51
  journaling, and then whatever subject matter we're learning, we try to
• 30:56
  encourage them to go find more things out.
• 30:58
  Like if we're talking about the chickens, well then they'll do some
• 31:01
  observations with chickens or go and just hang out in the chicken
• 31:04
  pen and have some interactions.
• 31:06
  So there's all of that gets connected.
• 31:09
  And then as their skills grow, well then they, they actually
• 31:12
  gain more independence.
• 31:13
  So by the time we get to later in the school year, well,
• 31:16
  they have more independence to go do projects on their own.
• 31:20
  And Nicole, you'll have to remind me, there's someone that has said that
• 31:24
  I may mess up the quote, but where you allow children to do dangerous
• 31:27
  things carefully, is that it?
• 31:31
  Nicole Jones: Danger, allow children to do dangerous things.
• 31:35
  I don't, no.
• 31:36
  Catherine Ward: Carefully ca
• 31:38
  Nicole Jones: basically, it's, it's if they're doing it safely.
• 31:40
  Yeah.
• 31:40
  Like if they're doing it with enough caution, let them
• 31:43
  try, let them take the risk.
• 31:44
  Yeah.
• 31:44
  Is the.
• 31:46
  Catherine Ward: That's one of the things that, that we got.
• 31:48
  I think also as, I think it's Richard Lu, it's either Richard Lu or Peter Gray.
• 31:52
  My personality and Nicole's personality is very hands off.
• 31:56
  We want kids to just explore and make mistakes.
• 31:59
  And what we've tried to do here at One Acre Farm is within the, the
• 32:03
  four walls of the privacy fence that we've provided a safe environment
• 32:07
  that it can be a yes environment, which is what we learned from you.
• 32:11
  We did, you know, I need to kind of go back.
• 32:13
  There was so much that we've learned from you and with you that, that I'd like to
• 32:18
  share with your listeners how we met.
• 32:21
  And so my daughter Nicole had gone into education and and
• 32:26
  with into special education and she wanted to go listen to Dr.
• 32:29
  Temple Grandin.
• 32:30
  And I said, oh my gosh, I wanna go, I know of her because of her agricultural stuff.
• 32:34
  So we go to this place here in Houston to go listen to Temple.
• 32:38
  And it's much like when you go to a music concert, you're, you're going
• 32:42
  to hear the headlining musician or the headlining band, but then you have
• 32:47
  the little opening act beforehand.
• 32:49
  So you were the opening act and you walk out on the stage and you're, you looked
• 32:55
  like you had just walked off the ranch.
• 32:58
  You had your jeans.
• 32:59
  Rupert Isaacson: I probably had, yeah, you probably had,
• 33:02
  Catherine Ward: yeah, you've got your long hair.
• 33:04
  I mean your, your signature look that you have.
• 33:06
  And I turned, and I, I looked at my daughter and I kind of rolled my eyes.
• 33:10
  Honestly, you hadn't even opened your mouth yet.
• 33:13
  And I rolled my eyes.
• 33:14
  I think you were
• 33:15
  Rupert Isaacson: the first person to have had that reflecting to me.
• 33:18
  Catherine Ward: And I looked at her, I said, oh my gosh, we have to listen
• 33:20
  to this guy before Temple comes on.
• 33:23
  And she's like, it'll be okay, mama.
• 33:25
  He probably won't talk that long.
• 33:27
  Rupert Isaacson: So, didn't know me that well yet.
• 33:28
  Yeah,
• 33:28
  Catherine Ward: yeah.
• 33:29
  So, but then your mouth opened, you started speaking, you started sharing
• 33:34
  your story of Rowan, you started sharing.
• 33:38
  The things that you did to help him and how Movement Method and Horse Boy
• 33:44
  were all developed and the whole time, Nicole and I are both elbowing each
• 33:48
  other because everything that came outta your mouth was exactly how we
• 33:52
  homeschooled and how they were raised.
• 33:54
  And I just kept having, it was almost like some people when they talk about
• 33:58
  going to church and that God is talking to them, that there's that light shining.
• 34:02
  So I did, I felt like, I think
• 34:03
  Rupert Isaacson: anyone's made that comparison to me before,
• 34:07
  Catherine Ward: but I did and I felt like, oh my gosh, this
• 34:10
  guy is speaking right to me.
• 34:12
  And now I knew that, 'cause I, I had spent so many years feeling
• 34:16
  alone 'cause there was nobody else around me homeschooling like this.
• 34:21
  And, and we were just kind of the oddballs in the homeschooling community.
• 34:27
  So now fast forward, she's an adult, we're listening to you.
• 34:30
  And now I didn't want you to stop speaking.
• 34:33
  I wanted to keep hearing you.
• 34:35
  And of course we were very grateful to, to hear Dr.
• 34:38
  Temple also.
• 34:39
  But afterwards we made a beeline to go meet you, buy a book, and
• 34:43
  then she and I signed up to come to training at your place with them.
• 34:46
  I think the ranch that summer, it was like just a couple months later.
• 34:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:51
  And and it was just so, edifying to now find that, that what we had been doing
• 34:58
  all along had a name or it had, it had science behind it because you obviously
• 35:03
  have done all the science research for it.
• 35:05
  So it was a very, it was a very comfortable place.
• 35:08
  It was, it was like, this is the very next step that our life needs to take.
• 35:13
  And at the end of, and I've heard you do this 'cause I've seen you speak
• 35:15
  many times, and when you encourage people to use their life and what they
• 35:21
  have to include people with autism into their life, you made it very
• 35:27
  clear that, that you may think you're gonna be imparting something to them.
• 35:32
  But what in fact actually happens is that you receive so much more from that
• 35:36
  person with autism that they give back to you and that they are the dream givers.
• 35:40
  And, and that's exactly what happened.
• 35:43
  So I came back from training and everything else and we were like, this
• 35:47
  is the next step for one acre farm.
• 35:49
  So from 1999 to 2016, we had been doing all these classes and then it
• 35:54
  was like, no, this is the next step.
• 35:56
  We are going to become inclusive with all of our activities and we're
• 36:01
  gonna start private autism sessions.
• 36:03
  And, and we have never looked back from that decision.
• 36:07
  Ever, ever.
• 36:08
  So thank you Rupert for that.
• 36:10
  Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it's my great pleasure.
• 36:11
  I mean you, where are we talking about connectivity?
• 36:14
  Connection, connectedness I think.
• 36:17
  A a lot of us started in this place, and I'm sure most listeners who
• 36:21
  are equine assisted practitioners started in this place or might still
• 36:26
  be in this place of loneliness.
• 36:28
  When you tread a bit of a pioneering path, it's lonely.
• 36:33
  And when you are a special needs parent with a, with a nonverbal kid,
• 36:38
  you're, it's lonely because you're, you're not really talking and the,
• 36:42
  there, there's a lot of loneliness.
• 36:44
  And so for, for me, I know the great gift, one of the many great
• 36:50
  gifts of doing this work has been the connectedness of community with
• 36:54
  people like you all and like with the people who are listening to this.
• 36:57
  So to realize, oh my gosh, we actually are all one tribe.
• 37:00
  We actually are all one community.
• 37:02
  It's just that we're a little bit spread out geographically from
• 37:06
  each other, but we have community.
• 37:08
  We're out there and listening to you between the lines, talking about the,
• 37:14
  this sort of zero hour where the kids come in and get to socialize before move
• 37:19
  and socialize and explore together before they have to sit down and listen to old
• 37:25
  boring adult, you know, saying, okay, now let's look at the DNA of chickens.
• 37:30
  Interesting as that is, they are the fact that they're allowed to have
• 37:34
  their time to not just transition into the school day, but also.
• 37:42
  To explore their own connection and community.
• 37:44
  And then you begin to organize them in teams.
• 37:48
  This is actually quite groundbreaking because you, you know, yes.
• 37:52
  You, you hear about project based education.
• 37:55
  It's coming in more and more in the mainstream, but it's, you know,
• 37:58
  we all know that unless you have a, a, a, a teacher that really
• 38:02
  has that personality, it's likely to be a little bit lip service.
• 38:06
  You know, you guys really do it.
• 38:07
  Can you, Nicole, talk, talk to me about co connectedness
• 38:13
  and how do you encourage kids?
• 38:17
  Because you, you're encouraging to be independent minded, but you also
• 38:20
  need to encourage them to learn how to seek out information, right?
• 38:24
  Who to ask, who to research, how to just 'cause somebody says something
• 38:27
  doesn't mean it's necessarily true.
• 38:29
  Dah dah, dah.
• 38:29
  You know, how do you approach all that?
• 38:32
  Nicole Jones: Well, I think we have a couple of really
• 38:33
  good things working for us.
• 38:35
  One being we have the multi age range.
• 38:38
  So my class is ages four to seven.
• 38:41
  Catherine's class is ages seven to 10.
• 38:43
  That comes back being based in the Montessori practices of having a three
• 38:47
  year age range and the importance in that.
• 38:49
  And so we already, now we do have a small class size.
• 38:52
  The early childhood class goes up to about 13 and then elementary
• 38:56
  fluctuates anywhere from 13 to 16.
• 38:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 38:59
  Roundabout per day.
• 39:00
  Now that we will have more students than that during the week, because some come
• 39:04
  partial week and some come the full week.
• 39:05
  But in a given day it's 13 to 16 kids per class.
• 39:09
  So in that 13 kids, we've got a third are the oldest, or a third are the middle.
• 39:15
  And a third are the youngest typically is how it would go.
• 39:18
  So whenever we start a school year, we're not getting this influx of.
• 39:23
  Brand new children.
• 39:24
  A, a class of brand new children.
• 39:25
  It's 60% of the kids are still retained from the following
• 39:29
  year or from the previous year.
• 39:31
  And the new kids coming on are learning from the kids who
• 39:35
  are already having New Year.
• 39:36
  Ah, so
• 39:36
  Rupert Isaacson: there's mental, there's age to age.
• 39:37
  Yes.
• 39:38
  Absolute peer mentorship within the Yeah.
• 39:40
  Got it.
• 39:40
  Nicole Jones: Yeah.
• 39:41
  Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
• 39:44
  considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
• 39:48
  taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
• 39:52
  Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
• 39:59
  Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
• 40:05
  developed in conjunction with Dr.
• 40:08
  Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
• 40:11
  We work in the saddle with younger children.
• 40:15
  Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
• 40:20
  It works incredibly well.
• 40:22
  It's now in about 40 countries.
• 40:24
  Check it out.
• 40:25
  If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
• 40:30
  method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
• 40:33
  applied in schools, in homes.
• 40:35
  If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
• 40:40
  at home that will create neuroplasticity.
• 40:43
  when they're not with you.
• 40:45
  Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
• 40:48
  If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
• 40:51
  really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
• 40:55
  in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
• 41:00
  So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
• 41:03
  also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
• 41:08
  And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
• 41:12
  am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
• 41:15
  need, as well as Serving my clients.
• 41:18
  Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
• 41:23
  absolutely gives you this.
• 41:25
  Nicole Jones: So, you know.
• 41:26
  Five and six year olds are teaching three and four year olds how to how to observe
• 41:31
  body animals operate heavy equipment.
• 41:32
  No, I'm kidding.
• 41:32
  Yeah.
• 41:33
  No, no, not yet.
• 41:34
  No, not yet.
• 41:35
  You know how to feed the animals?
• 41:37
  Well, you can't pull that in the garden.
• 41:39
  That's an herb.
• 41:39
  We, we don't pull that one, but you can pull this weed
• 41:41
  and go give it to the goats.
• 41:42
  So all of those things that.
• 41:44
  While us as teachers could interject more, not, we don't want to, we would have to
• 41:49
  be doing that if we didn't have that kind of peer modeling and mentorship going on.
• 41:54
  And it's not only good for the, the younger kids who get that peer-to-peer
• 41:57
  learning, but it's so beneficial.
• 41:59
  For the oldest kids in the classroom that then are building those leadership skills.
• 42:04
  And we start to see, especially that third year and this is true
• 42:08
  of Montessori classrooms as well.
• 42:09
  We see those kids in that third year start to really emerge as leaders because, you
• 42:13
  know, they've been through learning from other kids, they've learned from us.
• 42:17
  That second year is a lot more experimental in what they
• 42:20
  do and the boundaries they push and that sort of thing.
• 42:21
  And that third year we get like these really great leaders that know
• 42:25
  how everything works on the farm.
• 42:26
  They're, they're like the cool kids because they know where all the cool
• 42:29
  spots are and well, I know where to find this plant and I know where to get this.
• 42:32
  And so all these younger kids come to them and they, and they get to
• 42:35
  pass that on to the other kids.
• 42:37
  So we all already, with just the multi ages, get that sense of community
• 42:42
  building from kids just asking each other questions and kids wanting to, to help.
• 42:46
  And we do have a very good retention rate.
• 42:49
  We don't lose very many students.
• 42:50
  Most of them tend to stay with us.
• 42:52
  Typically we will where we lose students the most is that kindergartner,
• 42:56
  first grade year, the families that come to us that they're like, I
• 42:58
  just want something for a couple years before we send them to public.
• 43:01
  We do get that and we understand that.
• 43:03
  But the majority of our kids tend to retain and stay with us and, and
• 43:07
  then move up to the elementary class.
• 43:09
  So we're now in this.
• 43:10
  This year was really cool because this was the first year that we had
• 43:13
  kids go all the way through the three years in the early childhood class
• 43:16
  and then graduate up to elementary.
• 43:19
  And we've seen this cool change happen from our pilot year to now where
• 43:24
  we've just got these kids that have I don't wanna say more common sense, but
• 43:28
  more farm common sense because they, they've been with us for these three
• 43:32
  years and they know how everything works and they're, they're able
• 43:36
  to go deeper into their questions.
• 43:37
  While they may have studied chickens and horses and pollination and composting in
• 43:43
  the early childhood class, well now they get to dive even deeper in elementary
• 43:47
  and go way more into how this all works at a, at a science based level and not
• 43:52
  just, oh, this is, this is a cool lesson.
• 43:54
  And so, we already get that building of community just through
• 43:57
  the information sharing and the way they structure their day.
• 44:01
  Our class tends to get really connected really quickly.
• 44:04
  It's, it's a different class in August at the start of the school
• 44:06
  year than it is in December.
• 44:08
  Usually around November, December, we've seen the friendships deepen a lot.
• 44:13
  They've.
• 44:14
  They ha the kids have learned how the schedule of the day works, what,
• 44:18
  you know, how much freedom they have.
• 44:19
  Because a lot of times the, those new kids that come in, they have
• 44:22
  not spent a lot of time outdoors.
• 44:24
  Most half of our kids have never even had pets of any kind.
• 44:27
  I mean, not even a fish that, so a, a big chunk of our kids come
• 44:30
  and this is the first time they've ever been around animals at all.
• 44:33
  So we do a lot of working with read, observing and reading body language
• 44:38
  of animals, the sounds they make.
• 44:39
  And a lot of the older kids will help the younger ones learn that as well.
• 44:43
  And so anyway, by the time we get to November, December, our class
• 44:46
  has really normalized and, and we're not having to step in as much.
• 44:51
  We are really able to take a step back a lot and just watch the
• 44:55
  children spend their time on the farm and get into their projects and
• 44:59
  observe an anthill for 20 minutes.
• 45:00
  Go birdwatching.
• 45:02
  I mean, we have birds that build nests right next to the classroom,
• 45:05
  and then we get to hear the owls in the woods behind us.
• 45:08
  So they all go off and do their things and they play tag and do their games.
• 45:11
  But there's also so much immersive nature involved in it that the children that
• 45:15
  are interested in similar things tend to pair up and, and do things together.
• 45:18
  And so the, the friendships go grow really quick.
• 45:21
  And by November, December, we've got a really, really solid and connected class.
• 45:28
  Catherine Ward: To bounce off of something that she said about some of
• 45:30
  the kids that we lose that go to public school at kindergarten or first grade.
• 45:34
  They will come because our school are we actually go year round.
• 45:38
  So we do a regular 10 month from August to May, but then we have a summer session.
• 45:42
  And so those kids have all come back every summer to do their
• 45:47
  two months of summer farm school.
• 45:49
  In between one of the, the students I don't remember if it was our pilot
• 45:54
  year or our second year, Nicole, but we had a, a mom come to us in tears.
• 45:58
  So this was during our interview process of her wanting to enroll her child and
• 46:03
  she was crying because her child had already been kicked out of three other
• 46:09
  preschools kicked out of preschool, and I.
• 46:14
  And
• 46:14
  Rupert Isaacson: for what?
• 46:15
  Catherine Ward: For moving, moving around and not napping, not
• 46:17
  sitting down, that sort of thing.
• 46:19
  And so being a kid basically.
• 46:21
  Yeah.
• 46:21
  Being, yeah.
• 46:21
  Yeah.
• 46:22
  Just being a kid.
• 46:23
  And so it didn't, now, while Nicole and I, we didn't show this to her, but
• 46:27
  we're we're shocked at the fact that a preschool would even kick a kid out.
• 46:31
  That was our shock.
• 46:32
  Our shock wasn't about, about the behavior.
• 46:34
  And, and so she's like, you're, so, you're gonna take him?
• 46:37
  And we're like, yeah, sure.
• 46:39
  You're not afraid.
• 46:40
  No, we're not afraid.
• 46:42
  No.
• 46:43
  And do you know that, that we never, not once had any problems with him.
• 46:50
  He needed that movement and all of that stuff.
• 46:54
  And so I think there are some kids that can conform.
• 46:59
  I don't think they perform at their top level, but there are also gonna be those
• 47:03
  kids that just cannot conform to an institution, institutionalized classroom.
• 47:08
  And and so he then they did send him on to public school after he finished with us.
• 47:14
  And but he comes back every, every summer and, and, and you don't
• 47:18
  Nicole Jones: have to tell him how to feed the goats and the, he remembers Yeah.
• 47:22
  From the year before.
• 47:23
  And so it has stuck with him.
• 47:25
  So it's, it's been nice to be able to see those kids come back and see
• 47:28
  how, how, how much that this place has meant to them and how it stuck with
• 47:32
  them even three, four years later.
• 47:34
  Yep.
• 47:35
  So that's a unique thing that I don't know of any other school that does
• 47:38
  that take, because even Montessori schools won't take kids during the
• 47:41
  summer that have been previous students.
• 47:43
  So it's kind of a unique thing we get to experience.
• 47:45
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 47:46
  You guys have gluttons for punishment 'cause you get, you get no holiday no
• 47:49
  Catherine Ward: breaks tough.
• 47:50
  No.
• 47:50
  No.
• 47:50
  None.
• 47:51
  And I think too for like, say for that child, 'cause we have other kids
• 47:54
  that have gone on to public school.
• 47:56
  Actually we had one that went on to public school and then they took 'em out and
• 47:59
  brought them back to farm school because they were not performing well at all.
• 48:03
  And the kid just really wanted to be back at farm school.
• 48:06
  But like with the ones that do, on the ones that do go on, I think the
• 48:11
  amount of time that they've been given to become independent and
• 48:15
  autonomous and the confidence that they get from learning the skills,
• 48:21
  and I think they also learn patience.
• 48:24
  They, there are a lot of things that, that just stroke their, their personality,
• 48:30
  that they're, they are, they now have the skills to conform to those
• 48:35
  demands of an institutional classroom.
• 48:38
  Rupert Isaacson: What, what's interesting, what it sounds like
• 48:40
  what you're describing is, is emo the teaching of emotional intelligence.
• 48:44
  Catherine Ward: Mm-hmm.
• 48:45
  Rupert Isaacson: And you know, we all know Yeah.
• 48:47
  Academics are one thing.
• 48:49
  And we'll get into the academics you, you deliver and how you deliver them next.
• 48:53
  But we, listening to you talk makes me think of a, a, a, a really a.
• 48:59
  Great movement method teacher that we know in Colorado, Cade, who teaches at
• 49:04
  Evans Elementary in Colorado Springs.
• 49:06
  And he says that after about is, and this is very much within the,
• 49:12
  you know, the regular system, but of course he's taking the same approach.
• 49:16
  He says that by the time the kids are about 10 weeks in, their brains have
• 49:21
  developed to such a degree through the movement and the project based thing and
• 49:26
  the mutual support that they go from the standard sort of them and us teacher, you
• 49:32
  know, children versus the teacher thing.
• 49:34
  'cause that's obviously what they've, you know, come in with to being able to
• 49:40
  go off and learn independently in small groups in other parts of the school.
• 49:46
  And he says, you know, I send out my little spies, you know, to see what are
• 49:49
  they actually doing, you know, and yes, they are that, it's like he says the,
• 49:53
  the, the, the brain development that you have a different child after 10 weeks,
• 49:56
  the, the, the, the, the neuroplasticity has really kicked in and we, we see
• 50:01
  this time and again, but he's not able to work, you know, as as you are.
• 50:06
  Because you know, your campus is your own and you have the
• 50:09
  animals and, and so forth.
• 50:11
  Talk to me about.
• 50:14
  The academics that you deliver.
• 50:16
  So if I was a, if I was a, a parent, say, well, this all sounds great guys, but you
• 50:21
  know, I want my kid to go on and get their SATs, or if it was in English England, it
• 50:26
  would be their GCSEs or whatever, and I want 'em to get onto college and so on.
• 50:29
  Can you really tell me that this way you're going to deliver the
• 50:34
  national curriculum this way?
• 50:36
  I imagine that you're gonna say, well, yeah, sure, but tell me the nuts and
• 50:41
  bolts of, of how so, so, Nicole, I, I'll throw that one to you first.
• 50:45
  I'm the skeptical parent.
• 50:47
  Well, this all sounds great, but it sounds also a bit hippie.
• 50:50
  Okay.
• 50:50
  Hippies actually rule the world, but hey how can you reassure me that you are going
• 50:55
  to equip my child academically in the same way as if they were in the public school?
• 51:01
  Nicole Jones: Yeah.
• 51:02
  Well usually when I start out, parents typically will meet me at a torque.
• 51:06
  And so we walk them through the whole the farm, the classroom, go
• 51:09
  over the educational philosophy and go over the curriculum.
• 51:12
  And so at some point in there, I will throw in, I was homeschooled
• 51:15
  right here in this community, right next door to the farm.
• 51:19
  Like, so, and I turned out to be a normal human being.
• 51:22
  Normal human being.
• 51:23
  I went to college, I graduated high school with college credits,
• 51:26
  you know, so like, it, it, first of all, you're talking to somebody
• 51:30
  who's proof in the pudding, right?
• 51:31
  So Right.
• 51:32
  You're the proof of concept.
• 51:33
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 51:33
  Right.
• 51:34
  Nicole Jones: Exactly.
• 51:34
  And so here we are just creating this.
• 51:37
  For while, while I did it at a a family level.
• 51:40
  Here we are creating this for a classroom, small class size level.
• 51:44
  And so, starting off with that, when people find out, oh, you were actually
• 51:47
  homeschooled and you went okay, it eases the conversation a little bit.
• 51:51
  But then when, when we walk through the indoor portion of class because
• 51:54
  the kids do spend two and a half hours outside before we even go
• 51:57
  in for any kind of academics.
• 51:59
  And then even when we go inside, they're eating first, washing their hands, getting
• 52:03
  some movement out a little bit more before we even sit into any kind of a lesson.
• 52:07
  And so our classroom, the early childhood classroom is set up as you would
• 52:11
  see a typical Montessori classroom.
• 52:12
  So we have fine motor work, practical life, all the things to
• 52:16
  help develop the hand for writing.
• 52:19
  We've got sensorial work, which is working with a lot of pieces,
• 52:22
  discrimination objects and things like that, math language and science.
• 52:27
  And our science and geography changes monthly depending on what we're
• 52:29
  studying and what the seasons bring us.
• 52:31
  So while we advertise, we are supplemental curriculum to what you're
• 52:36
  doing at home, we really do teach a full curriculum in that two and
• 52:40
  a half hours that they're indoors.
• 52:42
  And I've had classes as with as many as 40 kids, and in that two and a half
• 52:47
  hours, I get more done with those 13 kids than I ever got done in eight
• 52:50
  hours, even in a Montessori setting.
• 52:53
  And so, and our parents do get.
• 52:55
  A pretty comprehensive progress report twice a year of things that they're doing.
• 52:59
  And so they can look at those things and match it to, in Texas we have the
• 53:03
  teaks, that's the, our Texas educational code of what they're learning as far
• 53:07
  as math and reading and things goes.
• 53:09
  But we can teach anything from early numeracy and learning letter sounds
• 53:13
  to, you know, writing sentences and writing stories to long division.
• 53:18
  And so, because we also have the flexibility to be able to make curriculum
• 53:21
  as we need it you know, I've had some years, I've had a 6-year-old that
• 53:25
  was at like a fourth grade reading level, and so I just made things that
• 53:27
  she needed and got and for, you know, what she was on level for and we're
• 53:32
  able to adapt what the kids need.
• 53:34
  And so because it's a Montessori classroom that's already set up for your age range
• 53:39
  of about three years of an age range while it may look like how can you fit three
• 53:43
  years of curriculum in here, the materials that we're using and the curriculum that
• 53:47
  we create is so flexible in what we can do with them, that we can be using this
• 53:53
  for, you know, a 4-year-old and then also be using this for a 7-year-old
• 53:56
  in long division and multiplication.
• 53:58
  So, it's, it's very, the materials are very comprehensive in what they're,
• 54:02
  we're able to, to offer to them.
• 54:04
  So usually once we go through the curriculum areas and, and that
• 54:07
  sort of thing that we don't have too many skeptics after that.
• 54:10
  But, but typically and, and it, you know, we do have those people where it just
• 54:14
  doesn't fit with them and that's fine.
• 54:16
  We don't want them to come if, if, if that's not what they're about.
• 54:20
  It's, but typically the people that seek us out are wanting the small
• 54:23
  class size, the movement, the outdoors, the animals that typically is what,
• 54:28
  what the families that come to us.
• 54:30
  That's one of the things that they're wanting.
• 54:32
  And the, the families that get the most out of this are the ones that have
• 54:35
  academics lower on their, on their list.
• 54:38
  Because as we all know, everything that they do outdoors as far as the
• 54:43
  autonomy, going back to that, that creates so much executive functioning
• 54:46
  skills that, okay, if you've had two hours outside to be autonomous in what
• 54:50
  you wanna do with your day, well then when you get this big huge math problem,
• 54:53
  you now have the executive functioning skills to go through this math problem
• 54:57
  that might take you 20, 30 minutes.
• 54:59
  Whereas if I was leading you through your day and you don't know, I
• 55:03
  don't know how to get this math problem done, I need a teacher to
• 55:05
  sit here and tell me step by step.
• 55:07
  So we try and it's a lot of educating parents because a lot of them already
• 55:11
  have a feeling of, okay, I, I feel like this is right, but I don't know why.
• 55:14
  Like I, you know, I don't know how to justify it.
• 55:17
  And so once we're able to.
• 55:20
  To go through the science of it and, and show proof of concept.
• 55:23
  We really get a lot of people that just, they take a breath,
• 55:25
  okay, this, this is gonna be fine.
• 55:27
  And, and then the ones that, that don't, aren't attracted to those
• 55:30
  kinds of things, we, we send 'em off.
• 55:31
  We, we don't want, we don't want them in our program.
• 55:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Give, gimme a concrete example.
• 55:36
  Let's say I'm a kid and I, I'm having trouble with long division.
• 55:39
  How would you set up my day?
• 55:42
  Like I'm sure you're, you're strategizing right?
• 55:45
  Saying, okay, Rupert's got trouble with long division, so we're going to
• 55:50
  start his day like this, and then we're gonna look at this thing with animals.
• 55:53
  We're gonna look at this thing.
• 55:53
  We the horse, we're gonna look at this thing with the plants.
• 55:56
  And then once I am inside and I've gone through that and now I'm faced with the
• 56:02
  long division exercise, how do you present it to me and how do you help me through?
• 56:07
  So can you talk me through the day from start to finish?
• 56:09
  You've got you, you've got your eye on me.
• 56:11
  Okay.
• 56:11
  Root need to help with the long division.
• 56:13
  Off we go.
• 56:14
  Yeah.
• 56:14
  Nicole Jones: So I wanna make sure if I know that a kid's been struggling with
• 56:18
  something in particular I wanna make sure that they've gotten the opportunity
• 56:22
  to get the movement out in the morning.
• 56:23
  We have four different types of swings on the farm.
• 56:26
  So I, you, we try to have, make sure kids have opportunity for swinging.
• 56:30
  I tend to find a lot of the kids that struggle with.
• 56:33
  Reading will tend to be on the swing more.
• 56:35
  I don't know if that's a specific connection, it's just
• 56:38
  an observation that I've had.
• 56:40
  And so I don't know if it has to do with those oral skills and things
• 56:43
  like that, but I tend to see that.
• 56:44
  So we wanna make sure they've done what they want outside.
• 56:47
  They've gotten their movement out.
• 56:48
  They've spent lots of time with the animals.
• 56:50
  Usually that will really help if, if they can go spend more time with the
• 56:53
  goats or the chickens or the rabbits.
• 56:55
  It tends to calm the, the nervous system down before we go indoors.
• 56:59
  So I want to hopefully see them get some animal time as well, and not just
• 57:03
  the running and, and energetic stuff.
• 57:05
  So that tends to help.
• 57:06
  And then by the time we go indoors, we don't structure a kid's day and that okay,
• 57:11
  you have to start and we're immediately gonna do this math problem that you hate.
• 57:15
  Once kids in the early childhood class reach about six years old, they
• 57:19
  actually get a work plan for the week.
• 57:21
  And so it's, here's your things that you have to accomplish this week.
• 57:25
  You can pick Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and you get to
• 57:29
  structure your week as you see fit.
• 57:30
  Now that doesn't mean that because you have handwriting and reading this
• 57:35
  book with me and long division and multiplication, that you have to do that
• 57:39
  all first we allow for some art time or something else before we get to that.
• 57:44
  So it's more on the teachers to go, okay, let me observe and, and kind of
• 57:50
  help push them and guide them to get it done when we know it's about time.
• 57:54
  But we're still making sure that they have time for that autonomy
• 57:57
  and get those things done.
• 57:57
  So when it comes to that long division problem, maybe they didn't wanna do it on
• 58:01
  Monday, maybe it's coming up on Wednesday.
• 58:02
  So I know on Wednesday I need to make sure that around 1130 we're gonna get
• 58:08
  started with that long division problem.
• 58:10
  We, one of the things that's unique about Montessori materials,
• 58:13
  especially in the math curriculum, is everything is concrete.
• 58:17
  Nothing is done on paper first.
• 58:18
  Everything is done with very physical materials first before
• 58:22
  you ever get to anything on paper.
• 58:23
  And that's also something we have to explain is that you're
• 58:26
  not to parents, you're not going to see a lot of work come home.
• 58:29
  And while that made to you look like, oh my gosh, my kid didn't do anything
• 58:34
  academic because it didn't come home on paper, it's because we're using the
• 58:37
  physical materials in school and they might not be at the point where they're
• 58:42
  writing it down on paper yet, because that's a little bit too abstract.
• 58:45
  Now, eventually we get to that, but we're working with place value.
• 58:49
  So the unit bead, the 10 bar, the a hundred square, the thousand cubes.
• 58:54
  So they're understanding quantities and place values before we get to
• 58:58
  those really hard problems on paper.
• 59:00
  So they start doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division with the
• 59:05
  quantities before it ever gets onto paper.
• 59:08
  So then by the time they're really familiar with that, well then we
• 59:10
  can actually start doing it on.
• 59:12
  Paper with the materials, because by then they're already starting to get it.
• 59:16
  And these kids will already start to, to visualize the math in their head.
• 59:20
  And it's when they get about to the point where they're no longer using
• 59:24
  the materials that they're just telling you, oh, I know the answer is 2,192.
• 59:28
  Well then, okay, we're ready for paper now.
• 59:30
  We can, we can get rid of that and go to paper.
• 59:32
  And so a lot of it is the, the preparatory work for the day, just
• 59:36
  making sure they've had their outlet for sensory and movement needs.
• 59:39
  And then they also have autonomy of when they do those really hard
• 59:42
  things that they may not like.
• 59:43
  Now it's, it's not that I say, okay, well you get to do whatever you want this week.
• 59:48
  You do have to get these certain things done because we do need to ensure you
• 59:52
  are getting reading done, you are getting your math done, but there's avenues in
• 59:56
  which way you can choose to get that done.
• 59:58
  So maybe we're not reading a book, maybe we're matching parts of a story.
• 1:00:03
  So we, you know, we have a book with sentences and they have to match pictures
• 1:00:07
  to the correct page or we're matching pictures towards, so there's different,
• 1:00:11
  different reading aspects we can do.
• 1:00:13
  We've also got where they have to read an activity and so then
• 1:00:16
  it's like, go jump on a rug.
• 1:00:18
  So then they go jump on a rug.
• 1:00:19
  Okay, go find a cup.
• 1:00:21
  And so then we've got movement involved in the reading and they're
• 1:00:24
  moving around the classroom, but they're still doing reading.
• 1:00:26
  So those are the kinds of things that we kind of.
• 1:00:28
  Add into the class to, to make it work.
• 1:00:30
  I don't know if that answers
• 1:00:31
  Rupert Isaacson: No, it totally makes sense.
• 1:00:32
  Okay.
• 1:00:32
  And, and I, I think it's really useful to have this broken down for people because,
• 1:00:36
  you know, you know, and I know we've gone through this period, this process
• 1:00:41
  of having to learn to become educators.
• 1:00:43
  I did it kicking and screaming.
• 1:00:44
  I didn't want to be, I just kind of had to.
• 1:00:47
  And then how to break these things down, as you say, you know, doing
• 1:00:49
  with physical things and then moving from physical things with moving.
• 1:00:53
  'cause when you move, when you use physical things, you are still moving.
• 1:00:56
  Right.
• 1:00:56
  And then to the abstract.
• 1:00:58
  And then as you say, making sure that the, the sensory and
• 1:01:02
  physical needs are met first.
• 1:01:04
  And as you know, with movement method, we sort of sprinkle the concept
• 1:01:09
  into the movement long before we ask a kid to tackle an exercise.
• 1:01:15
  If you, if you like, and I, I know with Montessori it's very similar, you know,
• 1:01:19
  Catherine, when you, when you are now dealing with the elementary kids and
• 1:01:24
  it's getting a little bit more academic based again, how, and, and this kid
• 1:01:31
  might well, will, is gonna have to, at this stage, transition back into
• 1:01:37
  something more mainstream by the time they hit middle school or high school.
• 1:01:41
  So you, you have that presumably in your mind, okay, I have to prepare
• 1:01:44
  these kids to be able to thrive.
• 1:01:47
  I.
• 1:01:48
  When they don't have the luxury of one acre farm what are your
• 1:01:52
  strategies for making sure that that transition happens at least
• 1:01:58
  academically, relatively seamlessly?
• 1:02:03
  Catherine Ward: I would first say that most, most of our elementary
• 1:02:06
  kids are obviously because of their age, they're being homeschooled.
• 1:02:10
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:10
  Most of them continue to be homeschooled even after they're done with
• 1:02:15
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:02:16
  After they out.
• 1:02:16
  So you, you are like a homeschooling backup.
• 1:02:18
  You like.
• 1:02:19
  Yes.
• 1:02:19
  They would consider sending them to home one acre farm even though it's
• 1:02:22
  a school as part of homeschooling, even though it is actually Yes.
• 1:02:25
  Sort of isn't really homeschooling, but Okay, I see what in those parents'
• 1:02:29
  mind, it comes under that banner.
• 1:02:31
  Catherine Ward: Yes.
• 1:02:31
  Well, and, and Nicole said the, the word earlier that we're supplemental,
• 1:02:34
  so we don't advertise and say we are a full curriculum school.
• 1:02:38
  Right.
• 1:02:39
  We are supplemental education.
• 1:02:41
  Right.
• 1:02:41
  So, now while the early childhood that Nicole is over is a
• 1:02:45
  full four day program mm-hmm.
• 1:02:47
  Some kids only go two days.
• 1:02:49
  The elementary is not offered all four days.
• 1:02:53
  For right now, we've chosen just two days out of the week.
• 1:02:56
  Mainly because our philosophy of thinking is that, well, if you're, if
• 1:03:01
  you have a child at home, age seven to 10, you've chosen to homeschool.
• 1:03:04
  So the bulk of their academics are gonna be taught at home.
• 1:03:09
  And so we're supplemental.
• 1:03:10
  So they come to us for two days out of the week.
• 1:03:13
  Now that doesn't mean that we don't focus on academics.
• 1:03:15
  We certainly do interconnect them, but we're not providing a full math curriculum
• 1:03:22
  or a full language arts curriculum.
• 1:03:25
  So our, our elementary is more focused on the sciences.
• 1:03:29
  Of, of all of the animals, animal husbandry.
• 1:03:32
  But within the studying of those animals and gardening we, we bring
• 1:03:37
  in reading because they then have to read books, do book reports.
• 1:03:42
  We bring in geography and history because we study the migration of animals, whether
• 1:03:46
  it was natural or through explorers.
• 1:03:49
  And, but through that, my main focus, because they think it's fun
• 1:03:54
  at this point, a book report is not something they roll their eyes at.
• 1:03:58
  They're excited to write something about chickens.
• 1:04:01
  And we take it much like Nicole describes taking things in steps.
• 1:04:05
  We start off teaching them observation skills.
• 1:04:08
  When they're outside, we want them to observe.
• 1:04:11
  And then with nature journaling, what are, what are you observing?
• 1:04:14
  Write that down.
• 1:04:15
  What are some?
• 1:04:15
  And if they're not writers yet, then, then we'll, we'll write for them as they
• 1:04:19
  dictate what are, what are the adjectives?
• 1:04:21
  What are we, we want them to become more creative in their writing as they observe.
• 1:04:26
  So then when they come inside then they can take those skills.
• 1:04:31
  And, and I really try to give them observation skills of what are they
• 1:04:34
  observing in the books and how to express yourself in writing, how to
• 1:04:39
  write complete thoughts within sentences.
• 1:04:42
  And.
• 1:04:43
  And so they, they come to that.
• 1:04:45
  So my, while my focus is studying about the animals, I'm not trying
• 1:04:49
  to get them a vet degree, but it is a means to an end, I guess.
• 1:04:53
  So we use the animals and their interest in all of that to
• 1:04:56
  get those other subjects in.
• 1:04:58
  And so hopefully when they're done, if they leave us at age 10, then they've,
• 1:05:03
  they've got those writing skills and those research skills and those things
• 1:05:07
  that they need as a foundation to transition into middle school, whether
• 1:05:11
  it's institutionalized or, or at home.
• 1:05:14
  And and so right now, the way we have the curriculum set up, the
• 1:05:18
  parents don't come in expecting that they're going to be getting algebra
• 1:05:22
  or, or pre-algebra or any of that.
• 1:05:24
  They're very accepting of the curriculum that, that we provide.
• 1:05:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Would you rise to the challenge of
• 1:05:30
  doing algebra and pre-algebra?
• 1:05:32
  Catherine Ward: I, I would, you and I have had these conversations, I
• 1:05:37
  would I would, I would have to take a refresher course myself a little bit.
• 1:05:43
  But one thing I will say that we've added this year that has, we're, 'cause every
• 1:05:48
  year we, we tend to kick it up a notch.
• 1:05:50
  We add more and we make the program a lot a lot more flourishing.
• 1:05:54
  And so this year, while it doesn't have to do with algebra, we are
• 1:05:58
  doing a presentation project.
• 1:06:00
  So the kids, in fact, we're on spring break right now.
• 1:06:02
  They come back next week and they're gonna spend about five weeks
• 1:06:05
  in teams with a subject matter.
• 1:06:08
  And then we're gonna have a presentation night where all the families at the
• 1:06:11
  home of the farm school are invited in and they're gonna have these
• 1:06:15
  display boards and be able to give speeches and talk about their display
• 1:06:19
  and the things that they've learned.
• 1:06:21
  And so that's something we've never done in the elementary program before.
• 1:06:24
  So we're adding that this year.
• 1:06:26
  And we have discussed, I can tell you that, that.
• 1:06:30
  Probably half of our parents in the elementary ask, when
• 1:06:33
  are you gonna offer a four day?
• 1:06:35
  Because they would send their child here for the whole four days.
• 1:06:38
  We, Nicole and I just have not made it to that decision level yet.
• 1:06:42
  There's a lot of working parts.
• 1:06:43
  I'm sure that's a
• 1:06:44
  Rupert Isaacson: staffing issue too.
• 1:06:45
  Yeah, it's,
• 1:06:45
  Catherine Ward: Very much so because the, the other two days that I'm not teaching,
• 1:06:50
  well, that's when I'm on the tractor doing tractor work or, or fence repairs or, so
• 1:06:56
  if I now then had to teach four days when, and I'm still doing, and then the autism
• 1:07:02
  Nicole Jones: sessions as well, right?
• 1:07:03
  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  So when school is over at, in the afternoon, I'm doing
• 1:07:07
  private autism sessions.
• 1:07:08
  So unless you can find a, a doctor to clone a me Yeah.
• 1:07:14
  So, so it's a logistical staffing issue to not expand that more.
• 1:07:17
  But yes, we do have visions of expanding and possibly expanding curriculum.
• 1:07:22
  We're just not, we're just not there yet.
• 1:07:24
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, you'll be pleased to know, i'm on it as well because those
• 1:07:28
  people that know movement method, now math and science curriculums know that I don't
• 1:07:32
  write those because I'm not qualified to.
• 1:07:34
  So I, you know, I, I could figure out the very early basic stuff with
• 1:07:38
  homeschooling, but as you guys know we turned to an amazing man called Dr.
• 1:07:43
  Alfred Ziegler who was a he's retired from there now, but he was a, a
• 1:07:48
  physics professor at the University of Ossner Brook, which is a very
• 1:07:52
  prestigious university in Germany.
• 1:07:53
  And he came up with all our higher math and science movement method curriculum.
• 1:07:59
  And so I've just been making a little note to myself here.
• 1:08:02
  I go back to Dr.
• 1:08:03
  Alfie for our kinetic al algebra stuff, please.
• 1:08:08
  So I'm gonna ask him for those and I'll, I'll probably do that in the next week
• 1:08:11
  or two, and then I'll then circulate that to you all to use as you wish.
• 1:08:17
  That'd be great.
• 1:08:18
  Thank you.
• 1:08:18
  'Cause yeah, it's, it's hard to come up with these things by oneself.
• 1:08:22
  And I think, I think that's, that's one of the difficulties about homeschooling
• 1:08:25
  when I'm advising people is say, you know, don't think of homeschooling as you
• 1:08:31
  and your kids sitting at a table, both driving each other, nuts, both wanting
• 1:08:35
  to kill each other and yourselves.
• 1:08:37
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:08:38
  You've gotta, you've gotta reach out for mentorship yourself.
• 1:08:42
  Get the curriculum from people that know how to do the curriculum and build a
• 1:08:47
  team, you know, whatever that looks like.
• 1:08:50
  So that it's not just about maybe that person can teach that thing,
• 1:08:56
  that subject better, but also it's the socialization thing.
• 1:08:59
  You know, we need more than one personality involved.
• 1:09:02
  We need, you know, and, and then as you say, where, where are those
• 1:09:05
  collective homeschool groups so that they can have the socialization
• 1:09:08
  with the other kids as well.
• 1:09:09
  And you guys, of course, have done something rather remarkable, which is
• 1:09:13
  to corral that into a one dedicated physical location rather than having
• 1:09:19
  to do, you know, a homeschool group, you know, session here, homeschool
• 1:09:22
  session over there in that household, that household, that household.
• 1:09:25
  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's just logistically easier for
• 1:09:28
  families, I think, you know, to, and, and, and nice also for a kid to have a campus.
• 1:09:33
  So you, you mentioned the staffing issues.
• 1:09:36
  It, it, how many people are there working now currently, and I'm sure you
• 1:09:42
  are under pressure to expand and I'm, I'm sure you're also under pressure
• 1:09:46
  to move into middle high school.
• 1:09:48
  Catherine Ward: Yes.
• 1:09:49
  Rupert Isaacson: How, what, what are your plans for that?
• 1:09:51
  Catherine Ward: We certainly talk about it a lot.
• 1:09:54
  I I don't, so your listeners may not know this.
• 1:09:55
  You said something earlier about doing with what you have and, and I
• 1:10:00
  am a self-proclaimed, I am the queen of, I make do with what I've got.
• 1:10:05
  When, when my girls wanted to show animals for four H and we didn't have
• 1:10:08
  a pickup truck, we had a family van, I have shoved pigs and goats in the
• 1:10:13
  back of the family van because that's what's my, what my girls wanted to do.
• 1:10:17
  So that's, that has been a constant in my personality.
• 1:10:21
  And so, with one acre farm, we truly are one acre and I have fit
• 1:10:26
  into that one acre as much as we can over the last 25 years or so.
• 1:10:31
  And then when Nicole and I when we had talked about opening a school, every
• 1:10:36
  time that I would approach the state about it, they wouldn't approve it.
• 1:10:39
  That, oddly enough they, one of the reasons they didn't wanna approve a
• 1:10:43
  school is because they didn't wanna have a mix of animals and kids.
• 1:10:47
  And so, how we were eventually able to start the farm school.
• 1:10:51
  It's actually considered another category of learning pod is
• 1:10:54
  that when COVID happened and all the schools closed, pretty much
• 1:10:57
  everybody became a homeschooler.
• 1:10:59
  And so the state of Texas then redefined the definition of school
• 1:11:04
  and they came up with learning pod.
• 1:11:07
  And so the very people that had declined me, contacted me and
• 1:11:11
  pretty much said, guess what?
• 1:11:12
  We have this place, this, this category of an umbrella that you can exist.
• 1:11:18
  So that's how we then said, guess what?
• 1:11:20
  We're gonna go ahead and open up.
• 1:11:23
  As far as as growth and expansion when we, when we started, it was
• 1:11:28
  gonna be outdoors only the whole time, but then we quickly realized there
• 1:11:32
  needed to be some, some type of indoor portion because, and that's a tall
• 1:11:37
  Rupert Isaacson: order in the Houston climate where it gets Oh, it is.
• 1:11:39
  Well, and yeah.
• 1:11:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:41
  Catherine Ward: Not just for the comfort of the students and the
• 1:11:43
  teachers, but also resources.
• 1:11:44
  Yeah.
• 1:11:45
  I have had so many books ruin.
• 1:11:47
  In my outdoor classroom, even though I have a bookshelf because of the
• 1:11:50
  humidity and they just mold and so forth.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah.
• 1:11:53
  So I'm very, very fortunate in the structure of my home that it
• 1:11:58
  has very two large living rooms.
• 1:12:00
  And so one living room at the back of the house is attached to the kitchen.
• 1:12:04
  Kitchen.
• 1:12:05
  It's one huge space.
• 1:12:07
  And again, when we started the farm school, it was only the early childhood.
• 1:12:10
  We had not started the elementary yet.
• 1:12:12
  So, we, I took out all of my living room furniture that was no longer a living
• 1:12:17
  room, and we created a classroom in there.
• 1:12:19
  So that's where Nicole's early childhood is.
• 1:12:22
  And there's just bookshelves and bookshelves and all of their work trays
• 1:12:26
  and the, the rugs and, and so we've got a small Montessori inspired classroom there.
• 1:12:32
  And and so then I, I was again, the queen of make do, so we made
• 1:12:36
  do, it's no longer a personal space that's now an indoor classroom.
• 1:12:40
  We thought parents would, now some parents come in thinking this is
• 1:12:45
  a little weird, but then other parents embrace it and love it.
• 1:12:49
  And I'm so encouraged because my, my mother was a teacher at some point.
• 1:12:54
  My grandmother was a teacher and my great-grandmother was a teacher.
• 1:12:57
  And I remember my grandmother opened up.
• 1:13:00
  Kindergarten in half of her house.
• 1:13:03
  So I just kind of felt like this is all natural and normal to me
• 1:13:07
  to put a classroom in your house.
• 1:13:09
  Then when we added the elementary, we did have it strictly outdoors the whole time,
• 1:13:14
  the first year, and then that's when a lot of our resources were just ruining
• 1:13:18
  in the, I put 'em in Ziploc bags, I'd do whatever I could to protect them, but the
• 1:13:22
  humidity was just awful on the resources.
• 1:13:25
  So then I have another humongous living room that Nicole
• 1:13:31
  and I said, you know what?
• 1:13:32
  Well, what if we just kind of divided that room in half?
• 1:13:35
  So half of it still has my TV and my sofa so that I can, you know, enjoy
• 1:13:41
  watching something if I want to.
• 1:13:43
  And then the other half is now bookshelves and classroom.
• 1:13:47
  I have something very unique that my grandfather and my
• 1:13:51
  father built a huge 12 foot.
• 1:13:56
  Oak table as when I was a child, I still have that table.
• 1:14:00
  So that is the table in the, the classroom, but it's also our family
• 1:14:04
  table where we gather on Sundays.
• 1:14:06
  So that room has become very dual purpose from u using, using it as a classroom and
• 1:14:11
  then using it for my own personal space.
• 1:14:13
  Our goal right now and in our fundraising is to try to raise money so that we can
• 1:14:17
  actually build a two room schoolhouse on the farm property and remove it from
• 1:14:23
  the home and, and onto into a classroom.
• 1:14:26
  So there's that expansion.
• 1:14:27
  Well, you
• 1:14:27
  Rupert Isaacson: know what happened with that?
• 1:14:28
  You'll just end up with four classrooms, just two ones in the house will
• 1:14:30
  stay, and then you'll just have two extra ones in the new structure.
• 1:14:33
  Yeah,
• 1:14:33
  Nicole Jones: I know.
• 1:14:34
  Then it goes back to a staffing problem after
• 1:14:36
  Catherine Ward: Right.
• 1:14:36
  Then the staff.
• 1:14:37
  Yeah.
• 1:14:37
  Staffing.
• 1:14:38
  So Nicole is the lead teacher.
• 1:14:39
  I'm the lead teacher, and then she and I both have assistants
• 1:14:43
  and the demographic of the class.
• 1:14:45
  Out of my 16 students four to five are neurodivergent.
• 1:14:52
  We have a couple of them that do need shadows because of communication.
• 1:14:57
  So while they are not staff, my staff, they are two other adults
• 1:15:01
  that are there, but their attention is supposed to be specifically for
• 1:15:04
  those, for those nonverbal kids there.
• 1:15:07
  And then so it's, it's really just two teachers and two assistants.
• 1:15:11
  It can be, it can be hard, like when we've lost teachers before, like we
• 1:15:16
  had one that that ended up moving and I think Nicole, what was it?
• 1:15:20
  We went through like six applicants or something.
• 1:15:22
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
• 1:15:23
  I mean, it's, it's a set of skills that not everyone can.
• 1:15:25
  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
• 1:15:26
  And, and I would say each one of them like came for a day and then
• 1:15:30
  they're like, yeah, this isn't for us.
• 1:15:31
  Because it is, you've, you've got to love kids, love animals, wanna
• 1:15:37
  understand the yes environment.
• 1:15:40
  There are a lot of people that cannot comprehend and accept the freedom and
• 1:15:45
  the au autonomy that the kids have.
• 1:15:47
  And then you, you gotta be okay with being dirty.
• 1:15:50
  And so the, the finding a person that has that perfect storm can be very,
• 1:15:55
  very, very difficult to, to find.
• 1:15:57
  Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  Nicole, you were gonna say something?
• 1:16:01
  Nicole Jones: Yeah, well, I was gonna say exactly what you said, also, the
• 1:16:03
  being outdoors even, you know, for two to three hours at a time in our climate,
• 1:16:08
  especially in the summer, it just, people are like, Nope, I can't do it.
• 1:16:11
  And even though they might be on board with everything else, that's
• 1:16:13
  something that keeps it away.
• 1:16:14
  So, yeah, I think unfortunately your climate
• 1:16:16
  Rupert Isaacson: is particularly extreme.
• 1:16:17
  Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:18
  Nicole Jones: yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:19
  Yep.
• 1:16:20
  Rupert Isaacson: How do you fund it?
• 1:16:21
  So obviously people pay to send their kids to you but you know, you can only
• 1:16:30
  have a certain number of kids because you are a certain number of people.
• 1:16:32
  You've got a certain amount of space.
• 1:16:34
  So what outside of the actual school fees that you charge,
• 1:16:41
  how, how do you fund what you do?
• 1:16:43
  Catherine Ward: The, the school programs are very fortunate that
• 1:16:46
  they do fund the programs completely.
• 1:16:49
  And then the other programs that we have during the week or during the month,
• 1:16:53
  like the story time and the autism sessions and the kids aren't in play.
• 1:16:57
  Those programs also funnel money into it.
• 1:17:01
  So as far as, you know, paying, paying the feed bill and paying salaries and
• 1:17:06
  that kind of stuff is all covered there.
• 1:17:08
  What becomes a challenge is the huge chunks of money that we need for
• 1:17:13
  like a new classroom or something.
• 1:17:15
  Before we had the elementary, I was a lot more connected and going to all
• 1:17:20
  of the Chamber of Commerce meetings.
• 1:17:22
  And in the evenings I would go and speak to different community groups and stuff.
• 1:17:27
  But now that the administrative duties and the teaching duties and everything
• 1:17:32
  else, I, my time is just so stretched.
• 1:17:34
  I have now been so disconnected from being able to be out there presenting it to,
• 1:17:39
  to the, to the community for those kinds of donations and, so while we, we do fund
• 1:17:47
  our projects, like we ha a hurricane came through and blew down all of our fencing.
• 1:17:51
  And so we've been having to rebuild fencing.
• 1:17:53
  We've been able to take care of that stuff.
• 1:17:55
  But as far as growth for taking on another staff member or taking on an assistant
• 1:17:59
  for me, 'cause we have a waiting list for, for families of children with
• 1:18:03
  autism and we just can't help everybody.
• 1:18:06
  And if I could be, if I could know that I had the funding to pay somebody, then I
• 1:18:11
  could go ahead and train someone to be an assistant and take on more clients there.
• 1:18:16
  And then also the funding for the classroom.
• 1:18:18
  And so we have all of that and we speak it out in positive vibes to the
• 1:18:23
  universe and prayers to God and, and we just keep doing whether, whether,
• 1:18:28
  whether it's gonna happen quickly or not.
• 1:18:30
  We just, like I said, we make do with what we have and we just keep pushing on
• 1:18:34
  and, and looking to grow as we can do it.
• 1:18:38
  Rupert Isaacson: Well in the years I've known you I've
• 1:18:40
  never seen you guys not do it.
• 1:18:42
  Yeah.
• 1:18:42
  So, I think you guys are, you know, absolutely.
• 1:18:46
  Will continue to thrive.
• 1:18:48
  One of the things I've always thought is what is needed is a ton of little
• 1:18:53
  one acre farm campuses dotted around.
• 1:18:56
  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
• 1:18:57
  Rupert Isaacson: All over the world really.
• 1:18:58
  Are you beginning to think about how to train people to put together.
• 1:19:06
  What you do.
• 1:19:06
  'cause it's, it's very specific.
• 1:19:08
  Like, you know, we go and do movement method trainings or horse
• 1:19:10
  method trainings, and then we say to people, here's the framework.
• 1:19:13
  Use it in your context, the way you want to use it.
• 1:19:16
  But with you, it's, it's, it's even more it's even more complex because
• 1:19:21
  you're, you're, you're really taking on the the academic responsibility.
• 1:19:25
  We, we, we supplement, we show people how to homeschool, we show, we train
• 1:19:29
  schools how to use movement method.
• 1:19:31
  We give them the lesson plans and so on.
• 1:19:33
  But it's really us training professionals who are already doing it.
• 1:19:36
  You guys are the professionals.
• 1:19:37
  If somebody wanted, that's, maybe they're sitting in the Netherlands
• 1:19:41
  listening to this or somewhere, places where space is at a premium, or I mean
• 1:19:46
  any, any given suburban environment like yours, are you, are you gonna put
• 1:19:52
  together a tra a framework for trainees?
• 1:19:54
  Can people contact you for that?
• 1:19:55
  Catherine Ward: We do, we are in the works on that.
• 1:19:57
  And, and it's a continuing, evolving thing as we do it.
• 1:20:00
  And the more we do it, the more we're like, oh, we need to do this too.
• 1:20:03
  And so Nicole and I you had told us a long time ago, you just wait.
• 1:20:07
  People are gonna be seeking y'all out.
• 1:20:09
  And I thought, eh, they're not gonna know anything about one acre farm.
• 1:20:12
  But sure enough, we have people that seek us out from all over the place.
• 1:20:16
  So Nicole and I are now doing consulting and some people just
• 1:20:19
  need a, a couple of visits with us.
• 1:20:21
  You know, zoom calls like this where 'cause there are a lot
• 1:20:25
  of people that wanna do forest schooling or wild schooling.
• 1:20:29
  I mean, there's all kind of little buzzwords out there and there are a
• 1:20:31
  lot of people that they will, they just wanna put a group of people
• 1:20:34
  together and go to a, a, a park and do some type of learning at a park.
• 1:20:38
  So we have branched out on that.
• 1:20:41
  And our goal is to have a, a one acre farm or, or, or to have a curriculum
• 1:20:46
  that we can eventually sell to people.
• 1:20:49
  Maybe some videos.
• 1:20:50
  Our consulting, we would love, I think our, and I'll let
• 1:20:54
  Nicole expand on this too.
• 1:20:55
  I think we would love to somehow become a connector of, of people
• 1:21:02
  that, that have the, the skills of teaching, but may not have the land.
• 1:21:06
  And then people that have land but don't have the skills because
• 1:21:10
  Oh yeah, it's a great idea.
• 1:21:11
  We're, we're, we're just very unique that we are very fortunate to have.
• 1:21:14
  One acre farm, and we're both teachers, so we've, we've been
• 1:21:18
  very fortunate we that we had that.
• 1:21:20
  But, but there's, there's gotta be people out there that say, man,
• 1:21:24
  I've got all this land, I have these animals, but I don't know how to teach.
• 1:21:27
  But I would love to let somebody come on my ranch or my small farm and teach.
• 1:21:33
  And then there's gotta be teachers out there that are like, oh, I wanna do this.
• 1:21:36
  I wanna teach stuff, but I don't have any land or animals.
• 1:21:39
  So I, I think agree.
• 1:21:41
  Nicole, would you agree that that's one of the Yeah.
• 1:21:43
  The ways we wanna go, the, the
• 1:21:44
  Nicole Jones: people who reach out to us are usually either farmers
• 1:21:46
  and like, how do, how do you do this on an acre with your animals?
• 1:21:50
  I don't really know how to teach.
• 1:21:52
  And so then they want the curriculum type thing, and then
• 1:21:55
  we've got teachers that reach out.
• 1:21:56
  They're like, oh my gosh, I could totally teach this.
• 1:21:58
  I love this, but I just don't have the space.
• 1:21:59
  And so mm-hmm.
• 1:22:00
  It's, we, like she said, we're unique in that we had both, we, we've got the
• 1:22:04
  farmer background and we're teachers and we had the acre to work it on.
• 1:22:08
  But yeah, connecting the two, and I think we're now at a point in time
• 1:22:12
  in America where people are more willing to do something like that.
• 1:22:15
  I think before COVID this, this would not have gone over well.
• 1:22:19
  Yeah, I agree.
• 1:22:19
  But the, you know, the, the, the decline we're seeing in profits that small farmers
• 1:22:24
  are making specifically small farmers.
• 1:22:26
  I'm not talking commercial, I'm talking small.
• 1:22:28
  50 acre, 10 acre, five acre farms.
• 1:22:30
  To be able to have that income come in of X amount per month, that, okay, I
• 1:22:35
  lease this one acre portion of my land.
• 1:22:37
  And I get that per month, that's great.
• 1:22:40
  And then the teachers be able to go, I can leave this know full-time
• 1:22:44
  institutionalized job that I hate now, and go and create this thing
• 1:22:48
  and do it for less hours, a more intentional program outdoors.
• 1:22:53
  So I I, and we're seeing that across Facebook groups and people we talk to.
• 1:22:57
  This is something that people are looking for all over the country, not just Texas.
• 1:23:01
  It, it's happening all over.
• 1:23:02
  And so have you, have you got
• 1:23:03
  Rupert Isaacson: some, have you got some projects that you've put together
• 1:23:06
  now where you've, you've, you've put those people together with land
• 1:23:09
  and teaching skills and seen them.
• 1:23:12
  Not yet.
• 1:23:13
  Nicole Jones: We have we've done some consultations that two specifically did
• 1:23:17
  go ahead and start their programs and they've been on, been very successful.
• 1:23:21
  One is a, we did a consult with someone who is in Idaho, and she
• 1:23:26
  does her Montessori classroom out of a yurt, and that was really cool.
• 1:23:30
  And then another one, she's specifically more of homeschool educational classes.
• 1:23:35
  She'll do like a six to eight week rotation in classes, and that's
• 1:23:40
  gone off really well with her.
• 1:23:41
  And so, yeah, that's been cool to see those start and that those people just
• 1:23:44
  needed the encouragement to do it.
• 1:23:46
  That, you know, a lot of people, the people that are ready to jump
• 1:23:49
  on this just need to hear that they're not crazy and that it's,
• 1:23:52
  yeah, you're on the right track.
• 1:23:54
  People will sign up.
• 1:23:55
  People do want this.
• 1:23:56
  It's, it's okay.
• 1:23:57
  And so I go, going back to the loneliness aspect, once you.
• 1:24:02
  Can connect with people and tell 'em you're, you know,
• 1:24:04
  we're all in the same boat.
• 1:24:05
  Like this is a, you know, pioneer this even though you have nobody
• 1:24:08
  in your area that's doing this.
• 1:24:09
  Just, just do it.
• 1:24:10
  And, and because both these people already had land, you know, that they
• 1:24:14
  were in a similar situation with us where they were just able to start it.
• 1:24:17
  But the, the connecting, the, the two different types of people is something
• 1:24:21
  we'd like to be able to do in the future.
• 1:24:23
  Rupert Isaacson: What about mobile?
• 1:24:24
  One acre farms?
• 1:24:25
  What about being able to, you know, pack your one acre farm in a trailer
• 1:24:29
  and then take it onto a school campus?
• 1:24:31
  Catherine Ward: Well, I actually did that, Catherine done that before.
• 1:24:33
  I did that.
• 1:24:34
  I did that for years.
• 1:24:35
  That's exactly what I did.
• 1:24:37
  Before, I mean, I would have a few classes and workshops at the farm.
• 1:24:42
  But no, I, it was, it was very lucrative too.
• 1:24:45
  And so I, I built I had a flatbed trailer and I built this red frame structure
• 1:24:53
  around it to make it look like a barn.
• 1:24:55
  And it just said more like, so a tiny house
• 1:24:56
  Rupert Isaacson: on the back of your pickup?
• 1:24:57
  Yeah,
• 1:24:58
  Catherine Ward: exactly.
• 1:24:58
  Exactly.
• 1:24:59
  And I'd put all the animals in there.
• 1:25:01
  Oh, a great idea.
• 1:25:02
  I did.
• 1:25:03
  And so I got paid to, to, I did a few birthday parties, but that really
• 1:25:08
  wasn't my, that, that's not my gig.
• 1:25:11
  So I, I marketed myself to all of the preschools and daycares around.
• 1:25:16
  And so I would go and set up for several hours and they would rotate
• 1:25:20
  all their classes through, and I gave like a 30 minute demonstration.
• 1:25:24
  And I talked about the chickens and the rabbits.
• 1:25:26
  And so it wasn't a petting zoo at all.
• 1:25:28
  It was very educational.
• 1:25:29
  And then I got a contract with the local school district to do it.
• 1:25:33
  And and so I was going to all of the elementary schools and
• 1:25:36
  it, it was so labor intensive.
• 1:25:40
  It was at least two hours of prep, loading, loading animals
• 1:25:44
  making sure we had water and food.
• 1:25:47
  And again, because of our heat and humidity down here, watching and
• 1:25:51
  caring for the animals' health in these parking lots while I'm doing
• 1:25:55
  this, and then loading them back up, coming home and unloading it was, I,
• 1:26:00
  I burned out really, really quickly.
• 1:26:03
  I would've, I would've done it for, I probably, I.
• 1:26:07
  If it weren't for, for what I'm, I'm, what I'm about to lead into,
• 1:26:10
  I probably would've kept with it.
• 1:26:12
  But my mom, my mother ended up having a stroke and very debilitating.
• 1:26:18
  And paralyzed.
• 1:26:20
  She couldn't move, she couldn't talk anymore.
• 1:26:22
  And we were in this, you know, middle class limbo where we couldn't
• 1:26:26
  afford full-time care to help.
• 1:26:29
  So I became her, her caregiver, right?
• 1:26:31
  And so I ended up having to shut that down.
• 1:26:34
  I had just had to sell off about half of my animals.
• 1:26:36
  I didn't wanna get rid of all of them, but I bring up her stroke
• 1:26:40
  because her, her doctor had explained to me, he said, you know, don't.
• 1:26:46
  Please work with her every day, help her learn how to feed herself again,
• 1:26:50
  help her learn how to talk again.
• 1:26:52
  And so he gave this visual of like, if so I'm here in Texas, so between Houston
• 1:26:57
  and Dallas is the highway called 45.
• 1:27:00
  And he said, if you wanna get from Houston to Dallas, you would normally take I 45.
• 1:27:04
  But the road is blocked now.
• 1:27:07
  You can't.
• 1:27:07
  So now you've gotta go all these little country roads might take longer, but
• 1:27:13
  you can still get from Houston to Dallas and it's gonna, but you're just gonna
• 1:27:16
  have to go down these other paths.
• 1:27:18
  That's what you're doing with your mother's brain.
• 1:27:21
  This part of her brain is, is destroyed, but you can retrain
• 1:27:26
  it and create these new paths.
• 1:27:28
  So all of that happened and then we meet you and we learn the science
• 1:27:33
  behind movement method and what happens with a child's brain that may have
• 1:27:37
  autism and about forming pathways and neuroplasticity and all of that.
• 1:27:42
  So all of those life experiences that I had that brought me then to
• 1:27:46
  meeting you and movement method have just now fast forwarded to where we
• 1:27:51
  are and, and, and what we're doing.
• 1:27:54
  Rupert Isaacson: if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
• 1:27:57
  I'm guessing you are, then you've probably also always wondered a little
• 1:28:02
  bit about the old master system.
• 1:28:05
  of dressage training.
• 1:28:06
  If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
• 1:28:15
  exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
• 1:28:21
  of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
• 1:28:28
  well being of the horse and the rider.
• 1:28:30
  Intrigued?
• 1:28:31
  Like to know more?
• 1:28:33
  Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
• 1:28:38
  Check out the free introduction course.
• 1:28:40
  Take it from there.
• 1:28:41
  I wonder if it might be possible, I'm just thinking obviously, of you guys,
• 1:28:45
  but I'm also thinking about other people who might be listening who are thinking,
• 1:28:49
  well, you know, I'd like to do something like this, but I'm already maxed out, you
• 1:28:54
  know, with the, with the program I've got.
• 1:28:56
  And I think that's very much the experience of.
• 1:28:59
  Pretty much anyone who, who runs any of these programs unless somebody
• 1:29:02
  comes in and we, you know, with a big checkbook and says, alright, you
• 1:29:07
  are now able to hire all the staff.
• 1:29:09
  Because then even if you do, then suddenly you are the administrator
• 1:29:12
  and you are now doing that full-time.
• 1:29:16
  So it's okay, you might expand your capacity, but in terms of your
• 1:29:20
  own personal time, you, you are as stretch as you ever were, if not more.
• 1:29:24
  But what I was wondering, listening to your story about going round,
• 1:29:27
  because we, we used to do this from our new trails ranch.
• 1:29:30
  We would also put the horses and trailers and go onto school campuses and so on.
• 1:29:35
  And one of, but we take the other animals and then we run some lessons.
• 1:29:40
  And I know some of the other horse boy movement method people have done it too.
• 1:29:45
  I think if I was in your shoes though, is it possible to
• 1:29:50
  find, to almost outsource that?
• 1:29:52
  Could you find people that you don't have to pay directly, but you could
• 1:29:58
  train and say, okay, you know, I will set you up with the clientele.
• 1:30:04
  You could go out to the schools and say, who, who wants this?
• 1:30:06
  You know, or, or the homeschooling groups who, who can't come to you and
• 1:30:10
  then you say, all right, you, this person have gone through a training.
• 1:30:14
  Now your job is to load up the animals, go that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:30:19
  This is what you need.
• 1:30:20
  You're gonna need to be under a big tree because of the, he,
• 1:30:23
  you know, the blah, blah, blah.
• 1:30:23
  You're gonna need this, you're gonna need that.
• 1:30:25
  You're gonna need the other this.
• 1:30:25
  And then they go off and deliver that.
• 1:30:28
  While you continue, but you don't have to necessarily pay them directly.
• 1:30:31
  They are a an independent contractor that gets paid and then they
• 1:30:36
  just give you, you know, a small percentage of their, that daily fee.
• 1:30:40
  But then perhaps at a certain point you have 10 of those people going
• 1:30:43
  up and then that becomes, you know, enough money to fund some more
• 1:30:49
  construction staff members on property.
• 1:30:53
  But it also expands your reach.
• 1:30:54
  Have, you know, could one do, do it sort of that way?
• 1:30:57
  Catherine Ward: I've never thought about it, but I think that's
• 1:30:58
  something certainly a put thought to.
• 1:31:00
  Yes.
• 1:31:01
  I think that
• 1:31:02
  Rupert Isaacson: could be done because there are people out there with a vehicle
• 1:31:03
  and people without, you know, and it might be that they could just, okay,
• 1:31:06
  they can't put the full farm in there.
• 1:31:08
  They can't do, you know, that very whimsical thing on the back of a pickup
• 1:31:11
  truck, but they might be able to put two, two chickens and a dog in the back
• 1:31:15
  of the thing and, and go and deliver really meaningful curriculum that way.
• 1:31:20
  And that, the reason I think about chickens is we have a, a, a really
• 1:31:24
  wonderful place here in Germany.
• 1:31:26
  The Green Care farm at up in Munster and they go out to schools as well
• 1:31:32
  as having schools come to them.
• 1:31:34
  And they got a call to go in where there'd been a threat of.
• 1:31:40
  Luckily it didn't materialize, but of a school shooting, which is very,
• 1:31:44
  very rare for this part of the world.
• 1:31:46
  And it was because of complications between Ukrainian and Russian and
• 1:31:51
  Syrian and Iraqi refugee families.
• 1:31:54
  There's it, it blew up and the kids were pretty traumatized, and they
• 1:32:01
  took the farm into the school and they said that the thing that really
• 1:32:05
  got the kids was the chickens.
• 1:32:08
  Somehow the following of the chickens.
• 1:32:11
  The, the organizing of the chickens that the social stuff that chickens go
• 1:32:15
  through that they aren't, they aren't always so nice to each other, as you know.
• 1:32:19
  Yeah.
• 1:32:19
  But yet they always kind of work it out that, that the idea
• 1:32:23
  that there's a tangible product, there's the egg, you know, there's
• 1:32:26
  the meat, there's the feather.
• 1:32:27
  You can do these things with it.
• 1:32:29
  It's, and at the same time it's, it's so full of personality and it's such a
• 1:32:35
  simple thing to do a chicken, you know?
• 1:32:36
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:32:37
  A small group of chickens.
• 1:32:38
  So I'm just wondering if I might put that out there to you and to anyone
• 1:32:42
  else who's listening, you know?
• 1:32:44
  Ha.
• 1:32:44
  Has anyone else been doing that or.
• 1:32:47
  If, if you did decide to do that, I'd love to hear a report.
• 1:32:50
  Yeah.
• 1:32:51
  Catherine Ward: To my knowledge, I don't think there was anyone else.
• 1:32:53
  I mean, certainly there were petting zoos that set up, its petting
• 1:32:55
  zoos, but I don't think there was anyone that was doing it like, like
• 1:32:59
  we were as far as education, so.
• 1:33:01
  Right.
• 1:33:01
  I know if I put thought to that there would be an immediate source of clientele
• 1:33:06
  that would, that would want that done.
• 1:33:08
  Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
• 1:33:09
  Okay.
• 1:33:09
  Well, maybe you wouldn't work on that together.
• 1:33:11
  That would not
• 1:33:11
  Catherine Ward: be hard to organize at all.
• 1:33:12
  Rupert Isaacson: It might even be the sort of thing that you, you get
• 1:33:15
  like a working student to come in.
• 1:33:17
  Maybe that's somebody who wants to come and add this to their cv, to their resume,
• 1:33:22
  you know, and they're coming in from abroad or they're coming in from another
• 1:33:26
  state and they're maybe in between doing their school and college or between their
• 1:33:32
  BA and their MA or whatever, and they want to, and you can say to that person, okay,
• 1:33:37
  you know, you go off and handle that.
• 1:33:38
  You, you can drive, you know you're good with animals.
• 1:33:40
  I'll give you this training.
• 1:33:41
  You go off and handle that, and that money will be largely yours.
• 1:33:46
  We just need a small percentage of it or whatever.
• 1:33:48
  Yeah.
• 1:33:49
  Yeah.
• 1:33:49
  Catherine Ward: Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:51
  Very doable.
• 1:33:52
  Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
• 1:33:54
  I'm taking notes.
• 1:33:55
  Catherine Ward: Yes.
• 1:33:56
  Rupert Isaacson: One thing we haven't talked about this is e this, this,
• 1:33:58
  this podcast is equine assisted world and you guys, you know,
• 1:34:00
  do have equines on the property.
• 1:34:02
  One of the things I obviously like to do, when I'm training people and
• 1:34:06
  talking to people is to tell them, while I want you to train your horses
• 1:34:10
  really, really well, I also don't want you to be too horse focused,
• 1:34:13
  because not every kid is into horses.
• 1:34:15
  You, they can't be on horses, you know, the entire day most of the time.
• 1:34:20
  So what are you doing with the rest of that time?
• 1:34:21
  But you guys have actually answered what are you doing with the rest of that time?
• 1:34:24
  So admirably.
• 1:34:26
  Talk to us a little bit about the equine side of what you do.
• 1:34:30
  Catherine Ward: Oddly enough, even though that was going to be the start
• 1:34:33
  of our focus when we started with the autism therapy sessions, it, it greatly,
• 1:34:39
  it very quickly moved to more of the smaller animals and the livestock.
• 1:34:44
  A lot of times the kids that we come can be intimidated by a larger horse.
• 1:34:50
  So at the time when we started, we had Nicole's horse and her sister's
• 1:34:53
  horse, and they were one was in Arabian and one was a quarter horse.
• 1:34:56
  No, we, we were both
• 1:34:57
  Nicole Jones: quarter horses.
• 1:34:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:34:59
  Okay.
• 1:34:59
  They, up and a quarter.
• 1:35:00
  Yeah.
• 1:35:01
  Catherine Ward: Okay.
• 1:35:02
  And so we started with them and then, the, a lot of the kids just didn't really even
• 1:35:07
  have that much interest in the horses.
• 1:35:10
  They immediately wanted to go be with the bunnies or be with the chickens.
• 1:35:14
  And I found myself like, well, no, wait, there's horses right here.
• 1:35:18
  Don't you wanna, don't you wanna be with the horses that
• 1:35:20
  are like, no, we wanna do this.
• 1:35:21
  And so with our philosophy of following the child, and and so then
• 1:35:25
  that became more of the method that was being used with, with the kids.
• 1:35:30
  So now we do have a pony, a Welsh pony, and she is being she's not
• 1:35:34
  fully trained, but I do train her in the, the horse boy method.
• 1:35:38
  And we have a couple of kids that are interested in her.
• 1:35:40
  But we also have a little mini horse, a, a white, I don't know, he's like
• 1:35:45
  32 inches tall and solid white.
• 1:35:47
  His name is Gus, and he's a very good introduction to to horses because
• 1:35:52
  he's so small and because he's white, we've allowed kids to paint
• 1:35:55
  on him like a big piece of paper.
• 1:35:58
  And, and so, currently right now with the clients that we have, I have only
• 1:36:02
  one student that wants to do any, any back riding on honey on our Welsh pony.
• 1:36:07
  So right now they're not being utilized as I thought they would in the
• 1:36:12
  beginning of the conception of this.
• 1:36:14
  Nicole Jones: I, I will add though, even though they're not being.
• 1:36:17
  Ridden the, the students that need the horse time, get their horse time,
• 1:36:22
  but Right, like she was saying, we gravely overestimated how important the
• 1:36:26
  horses were gonna be to the children.
• 1:36:28
  And now there are certain ones that, that's honey.
• 1:36:32
  The Welsh pony is the first one they go and say hi to and they bring her
• 1:36:35
  treats every morning or, you know, so there, there are those that go
• 1:36:39
  and talk to the horses and pet them, and that's really important to them.
• 1:36:43
  But the majority of our kids find the rabbits, the goats,
• 1:36:46
  the chickens to be their place.
• 1:36:48
  And so it really just depends.
• 1:36:50
  So they're there and they assist the kids that need it, but for the
• 1:36:53
  most part, it's a small animals that carry, carry the weight of the kids.
• 1:36:57
  Yeah.
• 1:36:58
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:36:58
  It's very interesting.
• 1:36:59
  I, and I find these things go in a sort of seasonal thing almost.
• 1:37:04
  Like in the course of our own practice, just my own home practice here in
• 1:37:09
  Germany, I find that it goes really up and down the number of hours or kids
• 1:37:17
  that are really, really horse focused.
• 1:37:20
  And sometimes I go through like a semester where it's really almost
• 1:37:25
  not about the horses at all.
• 1:37:27
  Or maybe we're just using the horses to.
• 1:37:30
  Get to a certain area of the forest where the kids want to play and explore.
• 1:37:35
  And actually they're quite happy to walk there.
• 1:37:38
  They like having the horses with, but they appreciate having the horse to get back.
• 1:37:42
  So you gotta get back up the hill from the creek or whatever.
• 1:37:45
  And that's when they wanna sit on the horse and ride.
• 1:37:46
  And then they'll often really interact, say, oh, I love this, I love the riding.
• 1:37:50
  Or but their focus is not there.
• 1:37:53
  And I can see what they get from it neurologically, and I can see
• 1:37:56
  how the oxytocin gets them, gets them communicating and speaking.
• 1:38:00
  And then there'll be another semester where it's like all about the horses.
• 1:38:03
  And I have kids that want to learn how to train horses from the ground and
• 1:38:07
  they're doing pf and massage and they're doing, and then another semester comes,
• 1:38:10
  it's sort of not about the horses again.
• 1:38:12
  What, what do you, talk to me about that kind of flexibility of follow the
• 1:38:17
  child because this is very, you know, you're a horsey person, Nicole, and
• 1:38:21
  you, you know that this is actually one of the difficulties about the
• 1:38:24
  horsey personality as we're, we're so horse focused, we can actually have a
• 1:38:27
  bit of trouble moving away from that if that's not where the person is at.
• 1:38:32
  You know, talk to us about that learning curve that you've gone through.
• 1:38:36
  Nicole Jones: Yeah, I, I think now we've both just kind of accepted it.
• 1:38:40
  I think at the beginning it was a little bit harder and also
• 1:38:42
  Catherine Ward: I.
• 1:38:43
  Nicole Jones: I, you know, I remember being a child and being so obsessed
• 1:38:46
  with everything about horses that I think, how can you, you've got
• 1:38:48
  a horse right in front of you.
• 1:38:49
  How can you not just want to do everything about this, but really I, I think once
• 1:38:54
  you just get to this point where you can let go of you being the one in control,
• 1:38:59
  I mean, it, it's less about, I think it's less about the, the horse aspect, but just
• 1:39:03
  once you can let go of, this is not about me, this is about what the kids want, and
• 1:39:08
  the kids are telling you what they want.
• 1:39:09
  Once you can get to that point, then everything else becomes.
• 1:39:12
  Easier.
• 1:39:13
  And so, you know, as, as much as the horses are, you know, lesser utilized
• 1:39:19
  than some of the other animals on the farm you know, most of our visitors when they
• 1:39:22
  come, even though they're not riding or doing anything in particular, honey goes
• 1:39:26
  up and greets every kid that comes in.
• 1:39:27
  She'll walk right up to the gate, the kids petter when they come in.
• 1:39:30
  So horses are still kind of the, and she, you know, tells them by
• 1:39:35
  when they leave, 'cause she goes, she, her pen is right where the kids
• 1:39:38
  enter and exit for the school day.
• 1:39:40
  And so even though they might not be directly interacting with her
• 1:39:43
  in the way that we see, she is still the start and the end to
• 1:39:46
  their day, which is really cool.
• 1:39:48
  And, and the kids, everybody who visits, whether it's you know, not specifically
• 1:39:52
  farm school, but other classes or events that Catherine puts on honey
• 1:39:57
  is the one that the kids talk about.
• 1:39:59
  Because she's right there where, where all the activities are.
• 1:40:01
  So, I, I think just once we let go of that feeling that, oh my gosh,
• 1:40:04
  we need to get the horses more involved in this and just, it's okay.
• 1:40:07
  Like, you know, the horses are there for the kids who need it.
• 1:40:10
  But it just didn't have to be this, our, our whole program didn't
• 1:40:14
  have to be wrapped around it.
• 1:40:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:40:16
  It's, it's so hard for horsey personalities because as you
• 1:40:20
  say, we are so obsessed we can't imagine that other people aren't.
• 1:40:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:40:25
  And then we almost become a bit evangelic as I know, but surely you
• 1:40:28
  want the haw, you know, so, and they're like, well yeah, well not really.
• 1:40:31
  You're like, really?
• 1:40:32
  Well, how can that be?
• 1:40:33
  And I think that there is a personality type that goes with being
• 1:40:37
  horsey that is a bit controlling.
• 1:40:38
  I mean, I think you have to be a bit bossy to be good with horses
• 1:40:42
  because you have to have that slightly leadershipy, bossy side that horses
• 1:40:47
  themselves actually often have.
• 1:40:49
  And I agree with you.
• 1:40:50
  I think letting that go is the hardest skill to learn.
• 1:40:57
  At what point for both of you, because you know, you, you, you, Catherine you
• 1:41:01
  know, for a while you were involved in a, a fairly controlled and controlling side
• 1:41:09
  of Christianity, you know, and it sounds like also listening to the story of your
• 1:41:16
  childhood and the ups and the downs there must have been a desire for control,
• 1:41:20
  you know, the, to find order and chaos.
• 1:41:23
  And I think a lot of us that end up with slightly controlling
• 1:41:25
  personalities, it's often in response to chaotic events, you know?
• 1:41:30
  And trying to find that kind of sense of safety.
• 1:41:33
  I'd like both of you just to talk a little bit about your own journeys with
• 1:41:38
  how you managed to kind of give up the obsession with control, because I think
• 1:41:44
  this is something that is an absolute.
• 1:41:47
  Must for anyone who's going to do our kind of work.
• 1:41:52
  And it comes as a bit of a surprise, I think, as you say, for a lot of people
• 1:41:55
  that, oh, I'm gonna set up a, you know, an equine assisted program and say, yeah, but
• 1:41:59
  what if the person's not really into it?
• 1:42:01
  You know?
• 1:42:01
  So Catherine talk to, how did you, how did you give that up?
• 1:42:07
  Catherine Ward: I don't know if it was a giving up or if it was just an
• 1:42:10
  evolution and, and growing and moving on.
• 1:42:13
  I think at the time in my life when there was that much structure and rules,
• 1:42:18
  there was probably some, some type of comfort there far because, because it
• 1:42:25
  does give you structure and it does give you a, a, a bubble of protection.
• 1:42:29
  Yeah.
• 1:42:30
  And, and then a sense
• 1:42:31
  Rupert Isaacson: of security.
• 1:42:32
  Yeah.
• 1:42:32
  Catherine Ward: Yeah.
• 1:42:32
  Absolutely.
• 1:42:33
  Absolutely it does.
• 1:42:34
  And and I would never speak on, on that.
• 1:42:38
  I mean, I chose that life, so, I.
• 1:42:40
  And there were great benefits to that and, and a great love and, and faith
• 1:42:45
  to, to my creator and God in that.
• 1:42:47
  But I think as my mind grew it was just, it wasn't growing out of not,
• 1:42:53
  not wanting to have a faith in him, but I grew beyond the structure of the
• 1:42:57
  boundaries and, and just began to see the world through a, a different filter
• 1:43:03
  than just the filter of those rules.
• 1:43:06
  And so then my filter, and I'll just go back to it, just truly became
• 1:43:09
  about kindness and, and seeing every individual for being a human being who
• 1:43:16
  they are, and that every person has intrinsic value and that every person
• 1:43:21
  has intelligence and, and especially in working with kids with autism, something
• 1:43:27
  that, that I learned through you, but I think I'd already had that thought in
• 1:43:31
  my mind, is that to just always assume intelligence, always assume there is
• 1:43:36
  while they, while a person may not be able to verbalize and, and communicate
• 1:43:40
  in a certain way that we never devalue what is in their mind and their soul.
• 1:43:45
  And so I, I think I just, while I did leave some tenets of organized religion
• 1:43:53
  behind, I didn't leave my faith behind.
• 1:43:55
  And I just grew more in my acceptance and unconditional love of people and
• 1:44:02
  and truly try to, impart that to the, the kids that, that are here and and
• 1:44:08
  just find a balance, I guess maybe.
• 1:44:10
  I, I feel like now I just have a, a balance in life with that
• 1:44:16
  Rupert Isaacson: Nicole.
• 1:44:18
  Nicole Jones: I think a lot of that changed for me during my time at
• 1:44:22
  the A BA clinic because that was a highly controlled environment.
• 1:44:26
  Every, every minute of the kids' day were planned out.
• 1:44:30
  And while that can seem beneficial to someone who's more controlling in their
• 1:44:34
  personality or, or just the, the sense of control, you know, eases your mind.
• 1:44:38
  I saw how quickly it wasn't working and that in the process of, okay, we, yeah,
• 1:44:43
  we might have these kids under control but we're also breaking their spirit because
• 1:44:48
  we're taking all of that away from them.
• 1:44:50
  So I very quickly just started to realize this, this is not how you
• 1:44:55
  work with children and by taking this.
• 1:44:58
  Switching to Montessori and then really taking your control out of it.
• 1:45:02
  You can prepare you can prepare the environment, prepare the
• 1:45:05
  materials but really you let go of control and then it's okay, let
• 1:45:08
  the kids go and let them teach you.
• 1:45:11
  And so having that realization of let go of the control and observe and then watch
• 1:45:17
  the kids flourish that, so it was about a year's time where I really felt like this
• 1:45:22
  deep change in my teaching heart, I guess.
• 1:45:26
  And so now once that happened and it's like, okay, let 'em, let 'em do stuff,
• 1:45:30
  and, and I mean, I still have my moments, you know, I, I might cringe a little
• 1:45:34
  bit when they mix the Play-Doh colors together, but I don't say anything.
• 1:45:37
  So it's, but yeah, that's where I thing, I mean, you can, you still
• 1:45:41
  feel it, but oh my gosh, you have to know that, that this is, this is fine.
• 1:45:46
  So,
• 1:45:46
  Catherine Ward: yeah.
• 1:45:46
  Yeah.
• 1:45:47
  And that, that could sometimes be the, the biggest atrocity of the day.
• 1:45:50
  At the end of the day when we're cleaning up, we're like, oh my God,
• 1:45:53
  the Play-Doh colors are mixed up.
• 1:45:58
  So I actually gave to some of my kids, 'cause we've got modeling clay in the
• 1:46:01
  elementary, and, and I gave one of 'em.
• 1:46:04
  I said, here, here's your job.
• 1:46:05
  Somebody mixed up all these balls.
• 1:46:07
  I need you to separate the colors out.
• 1:46:11
  And they did.
• 1:46:12
  They were happy to do it.
• 1:46:14
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:46:14
  I mean, there you go.
• 1:46:14
  There's an opportunity right there.
• 1:46:16
  There's a learning opportunity right there.
• 1:46:17
  But, and, and then one has to get out first.
• 1:46:19
  You've gotta have your reaction.
• 1:46:19
  Oh my God.
• 1:46:20
  They just go, you know?
• 1:46:21
  Yeah.
• 1:46:21
  And then you look back and think, my God, I wasted like a month of reactions before.
• 1:46:26
  I thought, why don't I just give it to the kids to sort out that, so, right.
• 1:46:29
  Oh yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:31
  We're so interesting.
• 1:46:31
  Aren't we humans?
• 1:46:32
  And it, it, it, I, I guess it all comes down to fear.
• 1:46:36
  But you know, you, you were talking about let the, the quote let
• 1:46:40
  children do dangerous things safely.
• 1:46:43
  I found that actually with Jordan.
• 1:46:44
  Jordan Peterson.
• 1:46:45
  Catherine Ward: Oh, that's who said it?
• 1:46:46
  Yes, that's right.
• 1:46:47
  I should have known that.
• 1:46:48
  Rupert Isaacson: But it, it is, it is very true that if you grow
• 1:46:51
  up on a farm, you are gonna handle blades, machines, livestock.
• 1:47:00
  And it's so interesting with my three kids, you know, I've
• 1:47:04
  watched them all going through it.
• 1:47:08
  Touch wood, they don't tend to cut themselves because you are constantly
• 1:47:13
  with them sort of showing them what to do.
• 1:47:17
  They observe you cutting yourself.
• 1:47:19
  They sort of don't want to repeat that.
• 1:47:21
  Occasionally they give themselves a small nick or so on, but doesn't
• 1:47:25
  everybody have the right to do that?
• 1:47:28
  Then of course, it's very different when it's my kids as
• 1:47:30
  opposed to somebody else's kids.
• 1:47:32
  So when we've got.
• 1:47:36
  People coming, you know, onto the farm.
• 1:47:37
  Obviously we do our best to make sure that the quote unquote
• 1:47:40
  dangerous stuff is not just lying around and, and so on and so on.
• 1:47:44
  But we also make it very clear that we cannot and will not control every moment.
• 1:47:49
  But what we will do is try to provide mentorship and leadership because at a
• 1:47:53
  certain point, the kids are going to need to learn how to handle fire, or a blade
• 1:47:57
  or, you know, a tool of, of some sort.
• 1:48:01
  And you know, it's interesting.
• 1:48:02
  Temple Grandin is big on this.
• 1:48:03
  You know, she, she says you've got to let kids work out the technologies,
• 1:48:10
  the physical technologies, not the software technologies of life.
• 1:48:16
  If you want them to be able to order later things, which means they've gotta
• 1:48:23
  make some mistakes, which means you got, but isn't it interesting how much
• 1:48:27
  fewer mistakes with a Big M they seem to make if they're allowed to make
• 1:48:33
  a lot of mistakes with small lambs?
• 1:48:35
  You know, have you not found that, what.
• 1:48:38
  Nicole Jones: Yeah.
• 1:48:39
  Well, and even just going to thinking back and teaching at other schools,
• 1:48:44
  I was writing out incident reports multiple times a day for injuries
• 1:48:48
  and things that were happening.
• 1:48:49
  Yeah.
• 1:48:49
  And now it, we don't have injuries and things that happen at the farm.
• 1:48:53
  Now, the first few weeks when children come, we'll get bumps and bruises and
• 1:48:57
  somebody gets hit by the swing 'cause they're not used to where it is.
• 1:48:59
  You know, that happens.
• 1:49:00
  But after that we don't deal with we don't deal with injuries and stuff.
• 1:49:05
  I mean, you know, it, occasionally we'll have things come up, but because kids
• 1:49:09
  are allowed to, to try and take the risk, because typically at more you know,
• 1:49:15
  playground settings, they're jumping off of higher things 'cause they're bored.
• 1:49:18
  They don't, they're, or they're so controlled and you can't go up the slide.
• 1:49:22
  And, you know, so they're, and they're boiling
• 1:49:23
  Rupert Isaacson: over with energy.
• 1:49:24
  Yeah.
• 1:49:25
  Nicole Jones: Yes.
• 1:49:25
  Exactly.
• 1:49:25
  Overwhelms
• 1:49:26
  Rupert Isaacson: their thought process because they've
• 1:49:27
  been sat still for so long.
• 1:49:29
  Yeah.
• 1:49:29
  Nicole Jones: Right, right.
• 1:49:30
  And so here, because they're, we're, there's, you know, freedom within
• 1:49:35
  boundaries and reasonable boundaries.
• 1:49:36
  And so once they learn where those reasonable boundaries are very
• 1:49:40
  quickly, they, they're able to just go and, and do their thing.
• 1:49:44
  And we, we don't have the same amount of injuries and nicks and bruises that
• 1:49:48
  I saw at a typical school setting.
• 1:49:51
  Catherine Ward: Well, we, we talked about earlier about giving them skills.
• 1:49:54
  So, so for example, when, when October and November comes around and we get people
• 1:49:59
  that are donating their pumpkins that have been out, you know, in their decorations.
• 1:50:03
  We'll get, I, I don't know, one year we got over a hundred pumpkins or something.
• 1:50:06
  So we have pumpkin smashing at school and, and so what fun, we don't just,
• 1:50:12
  we don't just say, here, go, go at it.
• 1:50:15
  We show them proper.
• 1:50:17
  Handling the way you hold a hammer.
• 1:50:19
  And we say you can use the blunt end or you can use the hook end, but when
• 1:50:24
  you swing, be aware of where your legs are, you don't want your feet together.
• 1:50:28
  'cause if you swing, you might hit your shin.
• 1:50:31
  And so we go through this lecture of safety, and then we
• 1:50:36
  usually give them a hula hoop.
• 1:50:37
  So they're, each child is inside of a hula hoop with their pumpkin and hula
• 1:50:42
  hoops have to be so hi so far away.
• 1:50:46
  And then, and then after they've been given the instructions and the skills,
• 1:50:49
  then they, then they're able to go at it and they're just smashing those pumpkins.
• 1:50:52
  And, and you wouldn't, you wouldn't normally think you would allow 20,
• 1:50:58
  25 kids to be smashing pumpkins?
• 1:51:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
• 1:51:02
  What about, what about things like firewood?
• 1:51:04
  You know, using, using an AXA split word saw, you know, knives for whittling
• 1:51:10
  or, or, you know, all of that sort of thing, which of course there's no way
• 1:51:13
  in any school anyone's gonna let you do.
• 1:51:15
  Catherine Ward: Those are usually reserved for the elementary kids.
• 1:51:18
  Now.
• 1:51:18
  Both, both the early childhood and the elementary both have campfires
• 1:51:21
  and we go through campfire training and safety and all of that stuff.
• 1:51:25
  And, but oddly enough, here in Texas, we only have maybe.
• 1:51:29
  A week or two weeks where we are that you can actually have a fire.
• 1:51:33
  Yeah.
• 1:51:33
  Because we're, we're summertime most of the time.
• 1:51:36
  The, the kids, now that they've been through a whole half of a
• 1:51:41
  year now, the elementary kids will be doing more with more tools.
• 1:51:45
  'cause we wanna give them more time on learning self-control because while they
• 1:51:50
  have freedom, that age group can still be really squirrely and everything.
• 1:51:54
  Yeah.
• 1:51:54
  And so when we can trust them to have some self-control is when
• 1:51:59
  we'll introduce some of that.
• 1:52:01
  Rupert Isaacson: Talk to me about bullying.
• 1:52:03
  So I've generally noticed that in these outdoor environments, you tend not to
• 1:52:09
  really see it unless it's something that's being brought from a regular
• 1:52:14
  classroom out into the natural thing.
• 1:52:18
  'cause the kids are just not in nature that often.
• 1:52:20
  So in their minds, they're still sort of back in the, the, the playground politics.
• 1:52:27
  Talk to us about, you've both been in the public school system, plenty of bullying.
• 1:52:33
  Talk to us about that or the lack of that at one acre farm and, and if it's a lack
• 1:52:39
  of it, what do you attribute that to?
• 1:52:42
  Two.
• 1:52:44
  Nicole Jones: You want me to start?
• 1:52:45
  You can start and then I'll, yeah.
• 1:52:46
  Okay.
• 1:52:47
  Usually where we.
• 1:52:49
  See it cummin.
• 1:52:50
  Now we, we don't deal with a bullying issue at school.
• 1:52:53
  And, and that's even with having a wide range of.
• 1:52:58
  Of children and very diverse backgrounds of children.
• 1:53:01
  So yeah, with, with that all in play, we don't deal with it.
• 1:53:04
  The only time we've had issues come in is, like you just said, when we have
• 1:53:07
  a kid coming in from the public school system and they come in and that's
• 1:53:11
  just like they're operating motive.
• 1:53:14
  'cause they just think I gotta survive and that's what I gotta do.
• 1:53:16
  And then.
• 1:53:17
  It's October, November, December.
• 1:53:19
  We see that all wane because they realize, okay, I'm a part of this
• 1:53:23
  community and I don't need to fight this.
• 1:53:26
  I don't need to hold my own.
• 1:53:28
  Like there are people looking out for me.
• 1:53:29
  I have friends who it well, and they quickly learn too.
• 1:53:32
  That doesn't work with the social dynamics here.
• 1:53:34
  If I start talking like that, nobody wants to play with me.
• 1:53:36
  And so there, there is that part of natural part of it that we let play out
• 1:53:40
  because we're not going to tell their kids, oh, hey, you have to play with
• 1:53:43
  so and so because that's what we do.
• 1:53:46
  You know, if somebody doesn't wanna play with you, well, why do you
• 1:53:49
  think they don't wanna play with you?
• 1:53:50
  Did you knock down their castle?
• 1:53:52
  Did you go and stomp on their mud out?
• 1:53:54
  Did you tell them?
• 1:53:55
  You know, whatever.
• 1:53:55
  So there's a ton of conversations that happen between teachers and kids.
• 1:54:01
  And then eventually our goal is later in the year is that the kids are having
• 1:54:05
  those conversations and they're not come having to come to the teachers anymore
• 1:54:08
  to help you know, lead that conversation.
• 1:54:11
  So the first few months, there is a lot of that.
• 1:54:14
  Oh, so and so said this to me, so and so hurt my feelings.
• 1:54:17
  So and so said this.
• 1:54:18
  And then we get the two together, we help them talk it out and
• 1:54:22
  then they go back to play.
• 1:54:23
  And so we, we don't do like, there's no timeouts, there's no taking recess away.
• 1:54:27
  There's nothing like that.
• 1:54:28
  Now if you're being unsafe, that's, that's where we do have a.
• 1:54:31
  You know, the boundaries get bumped up.
• 1:54:34
  Then if you're being unsafe with an animal or if you're being unsafe with a kid, well
• 1:54:36
  then we have to take some privileges away.
• 1:54:38
  You can't go in the animal pen by yourself because you're being unsafe.
• 1:54:41
  You can't go over there where I can't see you as well because you're being unsafe.
• 1:54:45
  So once they learn, my privileges get taken away they, they quickly,
• 1:54:50
  they quickly kind of change course.
• 1:54:52
  And so, it's been very rare that we've had issues last beyond a few weeks.
• 1:54:57
  It, it tends to write itself pretty, pretty quickly.
• 1:55:00
  I would say when we do tours, especially with, with the age group I work
• 1:55:04
  with, that is a question of about.
• 1:55:08
  30 to 50% of my parents at walked through, they ask about bullying and
• 1:55:11
  how the social dynamics are here.
• 1:55:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:55:13
  So it is something, it tells me like, even it's so prevalent that even before
• 1:55:17
  kids are school age, like parents are already thinking about this.
• 1:55:21
  And so that's something that we really want to strive.
• 1:55:24
  We want to provide a peaceful environment for these kids here, but we also
• 1:55:28
  want them to be able to have enough freedom to work out, you know what?
• 1:55:31
  I said that that way and that didn't work out and now that
• 1:55:34
  kid doesn't wanna play with me.
• 1:55:35
  So there is, there's that expectation of kindness, but also you have enough
• 1:55:39
  freedom that you can try things and then learn from your mistakes.
• 1:55:43
  So, but that's a hard boundary to teach and it's something that even as
• 1:55:47
  it comes up in real time, sometimes as teachers we have to talk about, you
• 1:55:50
  know, how are we gonna handle this?
• 1:55:51
  Because it's, it's not a black and white, oh, you said this now this
• 1:55:56
  is a consequence type of deal.
• 1:55:58
  Because that's how life is.
• 1:55:59
  Everything is so dynamic day to day.
• 1:56:01
  And so we just try and approach it with an attitude of solving it as best as possible
• 1:56:06
  and keeping a peaceful environment.
• 1:56:09
  Catherine Ward: Now with the ages of seven to 10, there, there's, you know,
• 1:56:12
  an, an elevation of maturity there.
• 1:56:14
  And that age group is very much more competitive and segregate themselves.
• 1:56:21
  Now we've got the boy girl dynamic going on, boys against
• 1:56:24
  girls, that kind of stuff.
• 1:56:26
  And again, the ones that come in from a public school
• 1:56:29
  situation will be the bullies.
• 1:56:32
  This, this age group tends to very much appreciate if I treat them as
• 1:56:39
  the growing up adults that they are.
• 1:56:41
  And I will tell them that I'm like, you know, if you're gonna act like
• 1:56:44
  a baby, then I may have to treat you like a baby, but I want to treat
• 1:56:47
  you like the growing up adult that you were, that you were becoming.
• 1:56:52
  And so I have expectations of you.
• 1:56:54
  And they like the, the way that we teach in the elementary class is very Socratic.
• 1:56:59
  So it's not just me standing up and talking.
• 1:57:02
  It's, it's a circle and it's very discussion oriented
• 1:57:05
  and interactive with them.
• 1:57:07
  And they like talking through this kind of stuff.
• 1:57:11
  I can tell you that is my short fuse.
• 1:57:14
  And if you wanna see Ms.
• 1:57:15
  Catherine blow a gasket, it will be to.
• 1:57:20
  Do something to an animal like kick dirt on a rabbit or poke a stick at a goat.
• 1:57:25
  Oh, Nicole will have to hold me back from wanting to annihilate a kid.
• 1:57:30
  I mean, I have to watch my temper on that.
• 1:57:32
  And then the other one is bullying or saying anything negative to somebody.
• 1:57:37
  'Cause you'll hear kids say, Ew, you have that in your lunch.
• 1:57:40
  Oh, that's so gross.
• 1:57:41
  I don't like that.
• 1:57:42
  And so then I try to use that as a teaching opportunity that people
• 1:57:46
  have different tastes, people have different whatevers with the.
• 1:57:50
  Ages seven to 10.
• 1:57:51
  We use a lot of object lessons.
• 1:57:53
  If I start to see that the kids are getting really catty and how they talk
• 1:57:57
  to each other and the whatevers and that kind of stuff, I will usually
• 1:58:02
  try to take a child aside and just talk to 'em, Hey, what's going on?
• 1:58:06
  Where did you learn to talk like that?
• 1:58:07
  Or something.
• 1:58:08
  And or, or how do you think that makes the other person feel?
• 1:58:11
  But then we'll do object lessons.
• 1:58:12
  I'll just, I, I won't address the whole group and say, okay, we're having a
• 1:58:16
  bullying problem, let's talk about it.
• 1:58:18
  I'll just make some kind of community group activity that we have to do that
• 1:58:23
  fosters teamwork or some type of object lesson that, that I, the first one I
• 1:58:28
  usually use at the beginning of every school year when they start getting that
• 1:58:31
  way, is about with a tube of toothpaste.
• 1:58:34
  And I think a lot of teachers have used this, like, okay,
• 1:58:37
  let's, let's see how fast.
• 1:58:38
  We have two teams and, and they have to squeeze the toothpaste out as
• 1:58:42
  fast as they can into the plate and who, who was the fastest to get the
• 1:58:46
  toothpaste out and they're screaming for each other and all of that.
• 1:58:48
  And then I'm like, okay, I have a dollar bill right here who can get
• 1:58:52
  the toothpaste back into the tube.
• 1:58:55
  And then they're looking at, they're like, now some of the smart
• 1:58:59
  ones will be like, well, let's cut it open and put it back in.
• 1:59:01
  And I'm like, no, you gotta get it back in the same way it came out.
• 1:59:05
  And so that it's, goes through this whole thing.
• 1:59:07
  And so then the, the gist of that lesson at the end is like,
• 1:59:09
  well, that's like your words.
• 1:59:11
  It is so easy for you to get words out, but once they're out, you can't.
• 1:59:16
  Put them back in.
• 1:59:18
  So be very, very careful and mindful of the words that you, you put out.
• 1:59:24
  And so every year, the kids that have been here before, they're like,
• 1:59:28
  when are we doing the toothpaste?
• 1:59:31
  So, so for that age group, I try to use object lessons.
• 1:59:35
  And a lot of times I'll get on Google and be like, object lessons
• 1:59:38
  for being kind to one another.
• 1:59:41
  And, and I'll get ideas from that.
• 1:59:44
  Rupert Isaacson: I mean, so much of this really comes down to the, I think all
• 1:59:48
  schools go through this and all education, all, all places go through this.
• 1:59:51
  It's the culture is really, comes from the top down, right?
• 1:59:56
  I mean it, if you, if your main focus is kindness rather than equestrian
• 2:00:03
  skills or this therapy, or if you say no, let's just start with kindness,
• 2:00:10
  then the other stuff will fall into a category and a framework of kindness.
• 2:00:16
  But if we say, let's start with equestrian skills, or let's start with an idea
• 2:00:22
  of a particular therapeutic outcome or an academic outcome, then kindness
• 2:00:27
  might be sidelined in relation to that.
• 2:00:33
  So I retake my hat off to you guys and you know, for listeners who.
• 2:00:37
  Well, maybe that sounds a bit too good to be true.
• 2:00:39
  It isn't.
• 2:00:40
  I've, I've gone out there and over years seen what Catherine and Nicole do and
• 2:00:46
  it's, it's, it's not just impressive.
• 2:00:50
  It's quite unique.
• 2:00:52
  And we need more of it.
• 2:00:53
  So, and it's successful.
• 2:00:56
  That's the thing.
• 2:00:56
  I've, I've just seen you constantly, constantly achieve success.
• 2:01:02
  So you guys are mentors and that's really why I want you on the show.
• 2:01:06
  We, we, we've sort of gone over the two hour mark, so we should wrap up.
• 2:01:10
  How do people contact you if they want consultations, if they wanna learn,
• 2:01:14
  if they want to put their own one acre farm together, if they want to know,
• 2:01:19
  you know, the ideas for lesson plans and so on, whether it's homeschooling
• 2:01:23
  or regular schooling, just talk us through how they can contact you.
• 2:01:28
  Catherine Ward: Well, if they go to the website, they which is www dot, and this
• 2:01:31
  is all spelled out, one acre farm tx.com,
• 2:01:36
  so that's O-N-E-A-C-R-E.
• 2:01:40
  F-A-R-M-T x.com
• 2:01:42
  Well then we have a contact page where they can send us an email if they wanna
• 2:01:46
  speak specifically about early childhood.
• 2:01:48
  Nicole's email is on there.
• 2:01:50
  Elementary, my email is on there.
• 2:01:52
  And so, and then our phone number is there.
• 2:01:54
  So if they're in the US they can also text us.
• 2:01:56
  And then we are on Facebook.
• 2:01:58
  Also is one Acre Farm TX on Facebook.
• 2:02:02
  So those are probably the, the major ways that they can get in contact with us.
• 2:02:07
  Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
• 2:02:08
  Catherine Ward: Oh, here, I'll put out the number now.
• 2:02:09
  So if they wanna text us, it's eight three two eight three two.
• 2:02:14
  Well my phone's gonna blow up now.
• 2:02:15
  Eight eight three two eight six zero four seven five six.
• 2:02:21
  And it's kind of funny.
• 2:02:22
  Say that one more time
• 2:02:23
  Rupert Isaacson: just so people are grabbing their pen.
• 2:02:24
  Catherine Ward: Yes.
• 2:02:25
  8 3 2 8 6 0 4 7 5 6.
• 2:02:32
  I can tell you if you call it will go to voicemail because I
• 2:02:36
  can very rarely answer my phone.
• 2:02:38
  And in the voicemail it will tell you, please text me.
• 2:02:41
  'cause if you text, I can usually shoot out a quick text and say, Hey, let's
• 2:02:46
  make a phone appointment or something.
• 2:02:48
  Rupert Isaacson: And you have WhatsApp on that number too?
• 2:02:50
  Catherine Ward: Oh yes, I do.
• 2:02:51
  I do, yes.
• 2:02:52
  So if they have a WhatsApp then internationally we can,
• 2:02:55
  they can get me through there.
• 2:02:56
  Yes.
• 2:02:56
  Rupert Isaacson: Super.
• 2:02:57
  Okay then.
• 2:03:00
  Listen guys I think we should have you back at a later date
• 2:03:02
  to go into some further things about specific, you know, teaching
• 2:03:07
  specifics in specific ways and so on.
• 2:03:09
  Yeah.
• 2:03:09
  But it's been an absolute delight to have you on.
• 2:03:11
  And I just look forward to seeing more and more of the same successes
• 2:03:16
  and watching you guys grow.
• 2:03:18
  And my, my ideal would be, yeah, if there's one acre
• 2:03:21
  farm in every neighborhood.
• 2:03:24
  Catherine Ward: Thank you.
• 2:03:24
  I would, I would love that as a vision.
• 2:03:26
  It's been a joy.
• 2:03:26
  Thank you for having us, Rupert.
• 2:03:28
  Rupert Isaacson: Well, well
• 2:03:29
  Catherine Ward: thank you very much.
• 2:03:30
  Rupert Isaacson: Thank you, Nicole.
• 2:03:30
  Thank you, Catherine.
• 2:03:31
  We'll see you next time.
• 2:03:33
  Catherine Ward: Yes.
• 2:03:33
  Alright.
• 2:03:34
  Rupert Isaacson: Bye.
• 2:03:35
  Catherine Ward: Bye.
• 2:03:35
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• 2:03:39
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• 2:03:44
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