Latest / 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids. / Reviving Traditional Home Economics in Public and Homeschool w/ Kody Hannner

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Reviving Traditional Home Economics in Public and Homeschool w/ Kody Hannner · 5–Minute Parenting: Tips to Help You Raise Competent, Godly Kids.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of the Five Minute Parenting Podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Karen Ferguson, wife, mom, grandmom, and children's book author with a background in K-8 education and a passion for equipping parents to raise confident and God-confident kids.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: In this podcast, we'll cover parenting practices from both a practical view and a biblical view.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Our goal is to help you raise kids with a positive, godly self-image so they can become all they were created to be.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're busy, so we'll keep it short.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take just five minutes and dive in.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, listeners.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to have a special guest on the show today talking about reviving traditional home economics for public and homeschool students.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Cody Hanner is a homesteader, proud homeschool mom, and the creator of the Homestead Education, a company that provides educational resources that aim to teach children self-sufficiency through hands-on learning.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Inspired by her own family's story, her education, and background in agriculture, Cody's family made the move to Idaho to start their own homestead.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Through homeschooling her own children, she realized there was a gap in the market for educational curriculum and resources that met her needs and those in the homesteading community.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Her primary goal with her resources is to prepare the next generation and expose children to the life skills and fun that come from working in the agricultural industry.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cody, welcome to the show.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you, Karen, so much for having me.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a big fan of this topic, and I like what you wrote on your blog that this topic is about more than just cooking.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's about food independence, nourishment, and empowerment.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to hear what you have to share with our listeners today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Please jump right in.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this uh topic is actually, like I was saying um before we started, has really become a calling for me.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because it's hit so close to home.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: About eight years ago, my husband was diagnosed with end-stage liver disease.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we were told, you know, we had five kids at the time, one on the way, and we were told that he had about a year to live.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, I mean, I don't even think that I can put it into words at this point in life.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the most life-changing and horrible thing that could have ever happened to us, but it has turned into the most beautiful thing.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: We decided to pull our kids out of school at that time, sell our small farm in Oregon, and buy a much larger farm in Idaho where we could begin growing all of our own food, live a non-toxic lifestyle.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because even though they said that he was in stage that these changes could help his quality of life, and that was worth it enough for me.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So off to North Idaho in the middle of nowhere, we went, and we, as a family of now six, and we're a blended family, we had to learn how to work together growing all of our own food.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that in itself could be a whole story.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um we are now, you know, eight years into our story.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Two years ago, my husband had a scope and a biopsy, and his liver is fully healed.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, awesome.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So in those years, I had to really focus on our farm and our food and just everything that we did, but I needed to be able to educate my kids at the same time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So our goal was to find an agricultural curriculum, cooking curriculums, just all those things that fit right into our lives, but then also gave us the science, the English, the math, all the things that they needed to have these things make sense for them and be integrated into what we were doing.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was incredibly bummed that there was not an agricultural curriculum on the market for homeschoolers at least.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's some really great resources out there, but nothing that would just really resonate with a homeschool family.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I began creating it for my own kids.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we had kids all the way from infant through a sophomore in high school.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was putting together their lessons that could both be like the deep science and, you know, the more drawing pictures for the younger ones.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And over the course of about three years, I ended up having almost a whole curriculum put together.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when uh, you know, kind of post-COVID people realizing, you know, that they wanted more from their lives, from their property, from their food.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I decided to put together my curriculum, which is the homestead educ or homestead science curriculum, which my high school one is a full-year science with a lab.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it covers, you know, all the base sciences.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what I really wanted it to do is create a science that's so applied that it just makes sense.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it has become like high, you know, hugely popular.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: But my goal was to reach a whole generation, not just you know, a small group of homeschool families.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, of course, we're not a small group anymore, but um, I started reaching out to schools, I started reaching reaching out through uh the ag industry just to see where some of the gaps were.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I keep relating it back to agriculture because that's where it started, but honestly, the entire basis of you know our lives and our culture and everything is based on our food, which comes from agriculture.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I've found that even conventional agriculture teachers are looking for ways to integrate the ag education because you know, ag as a vocational career is much different than ag in your backyard.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: As a lifestyle, yeah.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing that word for me.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was only halfway through my first cup of coffee.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um so then in my research and putting that together, I found that vocational courses um in public schools only have about a 30% proficiency at state testing levels.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I was just blown away by that because I felt like some of that stuff comes so innately, at least it has for me, that to see that um students are only at a 30% proficiency in many states, just tells me where the emphasis in both, you know, public schools and in a homeschool setting, because a lot of homeschool kids take ag classes and through the public school system.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, just the parents, that there's not a lot of emphasis on the importance of these topics.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And historically, these classes were designed, and once we get into talking to vocational courses, that also includes home economics.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And these courses were designed where you did K through eighth um school, and then your high school years were when you were actually training for some sort of career.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for a lot of girls, that meant learning how to run a home, but over the years they actually changed the name of it to Consumer Sciences so that it wouldn't be just focused on the boy or on the girls that and which I think is really important.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: My my husband helps me run our home, and I couldn't do it without him.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, my boys cook in the kitchen just as much as my daughters, and I I think it's a it's an everyone helps thing to make a family run.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so looking at these programs, when you're supposed to be training for your career during your high school years, and if your career was to go on to teaching or uh medical or something like that, then you would be a college prep student to go on to one of those programs.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, kind of what we've seen is we have a lot of students that were not college bound, but not educationally trained on anything.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this is because the schools have stated they want to focus more on academics than on vocational skills, but not everyone goes to college or a trade school after high school.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not so then we're ending up with a lot of poverty and a lot of unhealthy families because they're not getting the home economics type training in school, and neither were their mothers, and possibly depending on the generational gaps, neither were their grandmothers.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is a good point, yeah.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, we're just we're kind of having a loss there um through several groups, and so with what I've been working on is not only within my own homeschool curriculum, creating more um resources for families to learn agriculture, cooking, uh consumer sciences, you know, get the applied mathematics of everything that goes into budgeting and planning a meal, um, even, you know, how to care, you know, basic first aid, how to care for your family, all those things that we've just been missing.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also beginning, I actually just got home from DC, where I proposed a plan to a national organization to start bringing this education to rural communities, both through yeah, share a little bit about that.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I want to be able to bring this education both through public schools, but also through community centers like the Grange and churches and anywhere else where families can come together and learn these skills, but also providing the curriculum and the resources for public schools and private schools and um like farm school type programs.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: How was it received?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: Was it received?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was very well received, even when I was talking to I had the opportunity to talk about my present my proposal to the chief of staffs for the House Committee of Agriculture.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is exciting.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh it very it very much was.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of put on the spot.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that I was going to have an opportunity to talk to them.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was just presenting to this private organization.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And really cool.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: It sparked some really beautiful conversation.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that overall there is a huge push towards people just being back in control of their health, their food, the sustainability, just not a um culture of reliance.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've noticed that in my own circles as well, and in my daughter's circles as well.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely a push towards that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then to hear it um from DC as well was just you know, from from higher ups in the USDA and the Committee of Agriculture to kind of hear that same push.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then one of the things we talked about was that, you know, food stamps, the second most purchased item is soda pop.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's horrible.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, several billion dollars a year of taxpayer money going towards soda.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And why they would even approve that, I don't understand, you know.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand either.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's actually it's listed as sugary drinks, but juice is a whole nother category.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, just after I I talked to them about that, but then I mean, in just the last few days on the internet, I'm seeing that there's a huge push with the new farm bill to not no longer allow uh sodas and possibly some other highly processed sugary foods with the food stamp program.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, isn't this or Snap program, I guess.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, what I was gonna say, how timely for you as well as you're moving into this and we're we're moving into this make America healthy again.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so that's it's been a wonderful um boost for my business, which of course is exciting for us as a family, but also because it's going to enable me to be able to provide back more to the programs that I currently donate to when I can, which is farm school and one room schoolhouses that um work with developmentally disabled children.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how wonderful.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping to develop that more uh through this new initiative that I'm doing where there could be some grants and things like that involved.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so basically my entire goal has been, and it's developed over the years.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, it was to reach a whole generation.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And now I realized that in order to truly reach that generation, we're going to need to heal the severed cord of generational sustainability that has happened over the last 50 to 100 years.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say, generations ago, these were life skills that were passed down, right, to children and grandchildren.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to bring that back.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even when I was presenting to this organization that I was with, the president of it, um, she's very sustainable.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Well, I guess I never really followed the homestead or natural food movement because we just do that.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, That's wonderful, but where did you learn it?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And her response was from her mother and grandmother.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Everybody doesn't have that.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: No, so true.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I learned a lot of my sustainable skills from my dad, who took me hunting and then taught me how to process all my own meat and things like that, where I wasn't getting some of that same how to preserve and things like that from my mom.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, it's I have a I came into our life that we have now with a lot of sustainable skills, but really had to teach myself a rhythm of the kitchen.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and look at you now, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 15:02
  unknown: Right.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Cody, thank you so much.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: This has been very insightful and inspiring too, just hearing your story and how you're just stepping up and stepping out there.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we need more of that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, thank you, you know, for doing that and for representing families in Washington, D.C.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's huge.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: And before we close, I do want to highlight your website, which has a ton of helpful resources for homeschool parents, for those with an interest in homesteading, and of course, those who do want to teach home economics to their kids.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: So tell listeners the best place to find you online.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, yes, my website is thehomesteadeducation.com.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like she said, that's where you can find my blog, my resources, and my podcast.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, I'm on Facebook and Instagram as well.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, wonderful.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we will have a link in the show notes to your website and other um social media channels, as well as a link to a couple of freebies that Cody has provided, including uh science plant sample lessons.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for that, Cody.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Listeners, be be sure to check that out.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you again for being on the show.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a real treat.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And listeners, again, be sure to check the show notes for those links to Cody's website and resources.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And be sure to come back next week for another episode of Five Minute Parenting.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Have a blessed week.