Latest / UK Column Radio / Building Resilience through Home Education — with Sam Sorbo

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Building Resilience through Home Education — with Sam Sorbo · UK Column Radio

0:07
Speaker 1: Lou. I'm Charles Madnett with a UK column interview and
0:11
Speaker 1: today I'm joined by Sam Sorbo, who is an accomplished broadcaster,
0:16
Speaker 1: author and public speaker. She has home educated her three
0:20
Speaker 1: children and she describes herself as an education freedom advocate.
0:26
Speaker 1: Sam sorboth thank you very much indeed for joining me,
0:29
Speaker 1: and a warm welcome to UK column.
0:31
Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
0:34
Speaker 1: Good Now, there's a lot to get into and I'm
0:37
Speaker 1: very interested in your personal story. But I think for
0:41
Speaker 1: the benefit of the audience, we should start by defining terms.
0:45
Speaker 1: And I've just referred to home education. What I'd like
0:49
Speaker 1: you to do is set out what you see as
0:51
Speaker 1: the difference between school or schooling and education.
0:58
Speaker 2: Well, you just picked the sixty million dollar question. That
1:03
Speaker 2: is the question that faces us today is what is
1:05
Speaker 2: education and how does that differ from schooling? And so,
1:10
Speaker 2: of course I grew up in the United States, so
1:12
Speaker 2: all of my experience pretty much is relevant to the
1:16
Speaker 2: United States, although I did attend school in Sweden for
1:18
Speaker 2: a year. I went to high school my senior year
1:21
Speaker 2: of high school in Sweden. So let's talk about and
1:26
Speaker 2: by the way, I just want to say that defining
1:29
Speaker 2: terms is something that is a debate sort of technique,
1:34
Speaker 2: and it's not something that we take very seriously in
1:36
Speaker 2: the United States too often, and so I'm often, you know,
1:41
Speaker 2: encouraging people to get down to brass tacks and define
1:44
Speaker 2: their terms. So what do we mean by education? What
1:48
Speaker 2: we ought to be meaning by education is raising a
1:51
Speaker 2: child to adulthood, be a valuable member of society and
1:57
Speaker 2: family right community. And that's not the way that the
2:02
Speaker 2: school defines education. The school defines education as college prep
2:06
Speaker 2: and career readiness. And I'm making broad strokes. Of course,
2:10
Speaker 2: individuals have their own little definitions and stuff, but I
2:14
Speaker 2: try to go more broad because we're talking to a
2:17
Speaker 2: large audience, and so these are the broad strokes of
2:20
Speaker 2: what we're talking about. And I say that school's school,
2:24
Speaker 2: but they don't educate. Why because the school doesn't teach
2:27
Speaker 2: a child how to be an adult. In fact, to
2:29
Speaker 2: the extent now that we have a new word, it's
2:34
Speaker 2: a verb adulting to adult, as in, I don't know
2:39
Speaker 2: how to do this. Oh, I guess I'm adulting now.
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Speaker 2: Because I had to bake my first car payment, or
2:45
Speaker 2: I had to sign a lease for my new apartment
2:47
Speaker 2: or whatever. And that's actually become part of our vernacular
2:50
Speaker 2: now because we're turning out children from college who can't
2:55
Speaker 2: hold a job, much less have a career because they
2:58
Speaker 2: haven't been taught the basics of what it means to
3:01
Speaker 2: be a contributing citizen, and not even the basics here
3:06
Speaker 2: in the United States of what citizenship really entails. They
3:10
Speaker 2: don't they can't define rule of law, they don't understand
3:15
Speaker 2: the Constitution or the amendments to the Constitution, or how
3:18
Speaker 2: government works. And so you now have a young population
3:23
Speaker 2: that is begging the government to take care of their
3:26
Speaker 2: student debt because they were basically coerced into going to college,
3:31
Speaker 2: borrowing a ton of money to get a degree that
3:34
Speaker 2: has very little value for which they can't provide payments.
3:39
Speaker 2: So I hope that goes a little way to answer
3:43
Speaker 2: your question. I don't want to get too long winded.
3:45
Speaker 1: No problem with that at all, but no, I think
3:47
Speaker 1: what you've done there is encapsulate what almost everybody in
3:51
Speaker 1: our UK column audience who lives in what we are
3:55
Speaker 1: told is the developed world, will be looking at the
3:58
Speaker 1: younger generation and thinking. So I think you've articulated that
4:00
Speaker 1: absolutely brilliantly. And you know, like you said at the beginning,
4:04
Speaker 1: I mean, this is such a critical part of it
4:06
Speaker 1: is that we are told that even though what you've
4:11
Speaker 1: described as clearly not the right outcome, we are told that,
4:14
Speaker 1: in actual fact, it is the system that should prevail.
4:18
Speaker 1: To go back. Therefore, now that we have done, you
4:22
Speaker 1: know what we've described as defining terms. You've referred a
4:25
Speaker 1: little bit to your time in Sweden, but you have
4:30
Speaker 1: experienced home education via what you've done with your own
4:33
Speaker 1: children and indeed your sort of career now. But for
4:37
Speaker 1: you growing up and going through that experience, what was
4:41
Speaker 1: your feeling on that at the time, and then with
4:43
Speaker 1: the benefit of hindsight, Well, I hated school.
4:46
Speaker 2: And I was a good student. I was near the
4:49
Speaker 2: top of my class, I was gifted, I was advanced.
4:53
Speaker 2: I hated every moment of it. I probably had the
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Speaker 2: most truancy of any of the children in school, because
5:00
Speaker 2: would write me notes for staying home because I just
5:03
Speaker 2: didn't feel like going to school that day. I found
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Speaker 2: school to be terribly boring, and I fear and I'm
5:13
Speaker 2: convinced that a lot of children find school to be
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Speaker 2: boring or frustrating or at least unsatisfying, and yet we
5:24
Speaker 2: insist on sending our children back into that system because
5:29
Speaker 2: somehow the system has convinced us that we're the outliers.
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Speaker 2: Everybody else loves it, and of course that's not true,
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Speaker 2: but we think somehow that, well, the system clearly didn't
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Speaker 2: work for me because I'm incapable of educating my own children,
5:46
Speaker 2: but it's going to work for my kids, even though
5:48
Speaker 2: it's much worse now than it was when I went
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Speaker 2: to school. And unfortunately, that's really a logic pretzel that
5:56
Speaker 2: you're never gonna unravel. It's you know, it makes no sense,
6:01
Speaker 2: and we ought to be ashamed for allowing ourselves to
6:05
Speaker 2: go through those mental gymnastics, especially when it comes to
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Speaker 2: sacrificing our children, which is what we're doing. We're sacrificing
6:12
Speaker 2: our children. A typical school career from K through twelve
6:17
Speaker 2: in the United States anyway, is about sixteen thousand hours.
6:19
Speaker 2: I imagine it's roughly the same over in your neck
6:23
Speaker 2: of the woods, and that's sixteen thousand hours. You'll never
6:26
Speaker 2: get back that you submit your child to a system.
6:32
Speaker 2: And by the way, I don't know of any other
6:35
Speaker 2: culture that institutionalizes healthy children. We are robbing children of
6:39
Speaker 2: their childhoods, and we're almost gleefully doing so. It's as
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Speaker 2: if we hate them, as if we're jealous of them
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Speaker 2: for having childhood and being innocent. We're robbing them of
6:50
Speaker 2: their innocence and their childhoods. We send them to school
6:52
Speaker 2: and then we give them homework. When they get home
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Speaker 2: from school, you will not have playtime, you silly child.
6:58
Speaker 2: Shame on you for even wanting to play. And now
7:01
Speaker 2: we have a researcher who is making great in roads,
7:04
Speaker 2: Jonathan hat who's talking about how we we sacrificed the
7:08
Speaker 2: play based childhoods and replaced them with phone based childhoods.
7:12
Speaker 2: And I don't you know, I agree that we've given
7:15
Speaker 2: children phones too early, but we sacrificed play based childhoods
7:20
Speaker 2: full stop, like we didn't. We replaced them with homework,
7:24
Speaker 2: you know, and then the phones, and so it was
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Speaker 2: it was an easier transition. It's very sad to me.
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Speaker 1: It is very sad we come onto the tech side
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Speaker 1: of things a little bit later. Now you've obviously described
7:37
Speaker 1: your own feelings on the system as it was when
7:40
Speaker 1: you went through it, and you have done something about
7:43
Speaker 1: that for the next generation. In your family. Do you
7:48
Speaker 1: remember at the time having any sense that things could
7:53
Speaker 1: be different? I mean, what was your learning experience that
7:56
Speaker 1: led you to the to the points of view that
7:58
Speaker 1: you now have. What triggered that?
8:00
Speaker 2: Nothing? Nothing in my schooling triggered that. The only thing, well, okay,
8:07
Speaker 2: I'll tell you the genesis if we want to go
8:10
Speaker 2: back that far. So I attended Duke University, and I
8:13
Speaker 2: was studying biomedical engineering, and I was working on an
8:16
Speaker 2: ulcer because the pressure was on me to earn money.
8:21
Speaker 2: And I was the fourth of four girls from a
8:24
Speaker 2: single mother. We left my father when I was a
8:27
Speaker 2: year old, so she was terribly insecure financially. She had
8:32
Speaker 2: never graduated college, so I was raised with this impetus
8:35
Speaker 2: to graduate college and get a career and make a
8:38
Speaker 2: lot of money. And everything else was secondary, and of
8:42
Speaker 2: course the school piled onto that. So even though I
8:44
Speaker 2: wanted to become an actress, that was not possible because
8:47
Speaker 2: it wasn't a stable career, it wouldn't pay off. It
8:52
Speaker 2: just wasn't an option. College medicine give become a doctor,
8:57
Speaker 2: that whole thing. And I realized during my second year
9:01
Speaker 2: of college that I was working on an ulcer, and
9:04
Speaker 2: I needed to take some time off. So I ended
9:08
Speaker 2: up modeling for a year and earning a ton of money.
9:12
Speaker 2: I was very successful. I also learned French, I traveled
9:15
Speaker 2: the world. It was phenomenal. And I went back to
9:18
Speaker 2: college and I took the hardest courses I'd ever taken
9:21
Speaker 2: because they were interesting to me. But I aced them
9:24
Speaker 2: without even lifting a finger because the pressure was off.
9:28
Speaker 2: And so I realized a couple of things. My anxiety
9:32
Speaker 2: inhibited my learning, which is what I tell parents. So
9:34
Speaker 2: you send your child to a to sit in a
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Speaker 2: vat of children, and there are all kinds of pressures
9:42
Speaker 2: there and all kinds of anxiety provocations there, and those
9:47
Speaker 2: are inhibitors to learning, and then you demand that the
9:49
Speaker 2: child learn. It's we play a very dangerous game. That's
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Speaker 2: damaging to children, I would say. But the second thing
9:57
Speaker 2: that I realized is I could do everything else that
10:02
Speaker 2: I wanted to do and earn a lot of money
10:04
Speaker 2: and not go into debt. And so I decided to
10:09
Speaker 2: do that. So I dropped out of college. And it
10:13
Speaker 2: was shortly after that that I realized that I had
10:17
Speaker 2: done everything the system had taught me to do, and
10:21
Speaker 2: I earned the money and my bank account was swollen,
10:24
Speaker 2: and I felt pretty good about myself, but I had
10:28
Speaker 2: no purpose in life. I was completely lost. I was like, well,
10:33
Speaker 2: I might as well just kill myself, because really, what
10:36
Speaker 2: is life about. If I've already achieved the goal that
10:40
Speaker 2: they set out for me, why am I here? And
10:45
Speaker 2: so at that point I went on a search for meaning.
10:48
Speaker 2: So all that fed into when I was educating my
10:54
Speaker 2: children academically and really focused on the academics, because, as
10:59
Speaker 2: I said, I was an academic, I just didn't like
11:02
Speaker 2: the system. I was really focused on academics for them,
11:06
Speaker 2: and I slowly realized education is about so much more
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Speaker 2: than academics. It's about showing your child how to hold
11:14
Speaker 2: the door open for somebody because it's polite, it's the
11:18
Speaker 2: right thing to do. About teaching them that we return
11:21
Speaker 2: the wallet with all the money in it, because the
11:24
Speaker 2: money also doesn't belong to us. It's about not stealing.
11:29
Speaker 2: It's about all of the other things. Character formation, and
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Speaker 2: I would argue it's first and foremost character formation, because
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Speaker 2: without character, why would you want to learn academics? You
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Speaker 2: need the care. It's hard. Some of academics are challenging.
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Speaker 2: Why would you step up to the challenge if you
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Speaker 2: don't have the character or the integrity to desire that
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Speaker 2: for yourself. So at this point in the United States,
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Speaker 2: we're like fortieth in the world out of forty developed
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Speaker 2: nations or whatever. The academics are failing, and in part
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Speaker 2: I'm sure that that is because we aren't teaching character
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Speaker 2: at all. We're not teaching any kind of morality or
12:18
Speaker 2: virtue except survival of the fittest, which, when it boils
12:23
Speaker 2: down to it, it's bullying.
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Speaker 1: Indeed, no, you know, the idea of education as we
12:31
Speaker 1: think of it now was sorry, to be more precise,
12:34
Speaker 1: schooling really doesn't go back very far. I mean, for
12:37
Speaker 1: Americans in nineteen o two, John Rockefeller set up the
12:41
Speaker 1: General Education Board, and it was he that said, I
12:44
Speaker 1: don't want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation
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Speaker 1: of workers. To what extent does that pervade the culture
12:52
Speaker 1: surrounding academia today, Well.
12:55
Speaker 2: I can break it down for you. We learned four
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Speaker 2: basic things in school. Tacitly, there are four basic lessons
13:04
Speaker 2: that are imported to us rather than being taught to us.
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Speaker 2: The first one comes when you first go to school.
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Speaker 2: You're a little kid, You're curious about everything, you're asking
13:14
Speaker 2: questions about everything, and the first thing they tell you
13:17
Speaker 2: is sit down and shut up. And if you have
13:20
Speaker 2: a question, you must first ask permission to ask that question.
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Speaker 2: That is anti learning, it's anti child it's a barrier
13:30
Speaker 2: to entry. You must cause attention on yourself. You have
13:37
Speaker 2: to draw attention to how dumb you are that you
13:40
Speaker 2: have a question. It's intimidation. And so that lesson is
13:45
Speaker 2: don't ask, don't ask questions. The second lesson is don't read.
13:51
Speaker 2: The teacher read the book. She's going to tell you
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Speaker 2: what's in it. Just sit there and imbibe what she
13:56
Speaker 2: is giving you like a baby bird. Just let her
14:00
Speaker 2: need you. So don't read. Don't try because failure is bad.
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Speaker 2: Failure is the worst you get. The read letter f
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Speaker 2: the class laughs at you, the teacher makes fun of
14:11
Speaker 2: you because you failed. So don't try, okay. And then
14:15
Speaker 2: the last one is don't think. Just put on the
14:19
Speaker 2: test what the teacher told you the answers were, and
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Speaker 2: don't challenge the teacher because she's the teacher, she's the authority.
14:27
Speaker 2: And so those are the four basic foundational elements that
14:32
Speaker 2: we learned that we just by wrote. We learned them
14:34
Speaker 2: in school don't try, don't think, don't read, and don't ask.
14:39
Speaker 2: And all of those are anti education, which is sort
14:44
Speaker 2: of at its core, at least, the search for understanding,
14:49
Speaker 2: you know. And it all begins with a question, a
14:51
Speaker 2: quest for knowledge, right, It starts with a question. And
14:54
Speaker 2: those four questions are never to be uttered in the
14:57
Speaker 2: classroom basically. And then or you have the teacher that says,
15:01
Speaker 2: no question, there are no stupid questions, which, of course
15:04
Speaker 2: we all know right on the surface that's a lie.
15:07
Speaker 2: So why is she lying to us? Because of course
15:10
Speaker 2: there's a stupid question. You could ask me right now
15:12
Speaker 2: what the weather is here. It's kind of a stupid question.
15:15
Speaker 2: Nobody cares what the weather is outside my closed window, right,
15:20
Speaker 2: And so you know, we have to stop, we have
15:22
Speaker 2: to stop lying to ourselves that what is happening in
15:27
Speaker 2: our schools passes for education. Now, let me just add
15:32
Speaker 2: the caveat. I don't go after teachers. I think teachers,
15:35
Speaker 2: by and large, many teachers, maybe most teachers are fabulous
15:40
Speaker 2: people who really just want to teach children. They just
15:44
Speaker 2: really love to impart knowledge to kids. And then they're
15:49
Speaker 2: the bad teachers also. But it's the system, right, The
15:53
Speaker 2: system tells the child to sit down and shut up.
15:56
Speaker 2: The system tells the child that the teacher is the authority,
15:59
Speaker 2: the teacher the spigot of knowledge, and creates a dependency
16:03
Speaker 2: in the child for a teacher, so that when you
16:07
Speaker 2: hit a roadblock in life and you're like, I don't
16:09
Speaker 2: know how to solve this, and there's no way for
16:12
Speaker 2: me to know because there's no teacher that I can
16:14
Speaker 2: ask how to solve this problem. So we create a
16:19
Speaker 2: nation of people who can't think outside the box. They've
16:22
Speaker 2: been institutionalized for thirteen plus years and they don't know
16:25
Speaker 2: how to problem solve because they've never actually been hit
16:28
Speaker 2: with a problem. They've been hit with questions and answers.
16:32
Speaker 2: So the whole system is is the issue. And you
16:37
Speaker 2: brought up Rockefeller, and there were plenty of others who
16:40
Speaker 2: who saw the system as a way of co opting
16:44
Speaker 2: the citizens of the nation to create workers and consumers.
16:50
Speaker 2: And unfortunately, the whole you know, economy runs on the
16:54
Speaker 2: backs of these workers and consumers. But we're going to
16:58
Speaker 2: grind to I won't say we're going to grind to
17:01
Speaker 2: a heart, but we will start grinding down if we
17:03
Speaker 2: don't create some problem solvers.
17:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, And well, I think you make a really
17:09
Speaker 1: pertinent distinction there between the system and the teacher. I'm
17:13
Speaker 1: sure the majority of people listening to this will have
17:16
Speaker 1: experienced formal education at some point and therefore will be
17:20
Speaker 1: able to think of people who were within that system
17:22
Speaker 1: who genuinely seem to be acting for their benefit for
17:26
Speaker 1: the good. So I think there's a point very well
17:28
Speaker 1: made going concentrating on the system and what it does
17:34
Speaker 1: bring about. And I'd like your take on this. In
17:37
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, there is still a stigma attached to
17:42
Speaker 1: the idea of home education. Now this is either cultural
17:46
Speaker 1: you see it in films or television series. You know,
17:50
Speaker 1: the people that are involved in home education are a
17:53
Speaker 1: bit odd or that's where the trouble starts, or these
17:57
Speaker 1: sorts of tropes. And in legislation we have many references
18:02
Speaker 1: to home education being in effect the domain of troubled children,
18:08
Speaker 1: you know, they are not resilient enough to go into
18:12
Speaker 1: the state educations. Is this a similar thing in the
18:17
Speaker 1: state or how does this manifest? Yeah?
18:21
Speaker 2: So it was so in the say the seventies, there
18:25
Speaker 2: were the oddball kids who just no matter what, they
18:29
Speaker 2: just wouldn't get on in school, they were terribly bullied,
18:32
Speaker 2: or they were too slow, or they were too smart,
18:36
Speaker 2: and so the parents eventually, you know, would decide the school,
18:41
Speaker 2: it's just not working. We're just going to have to homeschool.
18:44
Speaker 2: And so that created here in the United States, this
18:48
Speaker 2: stigma that they were the weirdos or or the parents
18:53
Speaker 2: did it for ultra religious reasons, cult reasons or whatever,
18:58
Speaker 2: and so they were the outliers, and so the stigma developed.
19:04
Speaker 2: These days, it's just been obliterated because so many families
19:09
Speaker 2: have discovered the joy of the family unit and the
19:13
Speaker 2: way that in a sense, the way that God intended
19:16
Speaker 2: the family to run. And when you keep your children
19:20
Speaker 2: home and you develop that relationship with them, you notice
19:24
Speaker 2: all of the trappings of the struggles of the world
19:28
Speaker 2: sort of fall to the side. So, you know, I've
19:30
Speaker 2: said this and people often push back, teenagers don't rebel.
19:36
Speaker 2: But we live in a culture where the culture simply
19:38
Speaker 2: believes that teenagers rebel because teenagers have gone to school
19:43
Speaker 2: for so long and have been trained to think of
19:46
Speaker 2: their parents as less then, because honestly, if the parents
19:50
Speaker 2: were equal to the educators, then the parents would teach
19:54
Speaker 2: the kids themselves. Wouldn't they. I mean, the underlying message
19:57
Speaker 2: to the child is I can't so them, and so
20:01
Speaker 2: the child then trusts them as the ultimate authority, and
20:04
Speaker 2: the parents fall under that they see their authority, and
20:08
Speaker 2: of course their authority is going to be challenged. My
20:12
Speaker 2: authority was never challenged. My husband's authority has never been
20:16
Speaker 2: challenged in our home. And okay, I say never. You know,
20:19
Speaker 2: that's a little bit of hyperbole. Basically, our kids don't
20:22
Speaker 2: challenge our authority because they trust us and they know
20:25
Speaker 2: that we want what's best for them and we've always
20:27
Speaker 2: been the authority and so I will and I and
20:32
Speaker 2: I tell people this when my when my children were teenagers,
20:35
Speaker 2: you know, the culture says, oh, how old are your kids?
20:39
Speaker 2: And I said, well, I have three teenagers, and the
20:41
Speaker 2: person typically says, oh, wow, you've got your hands full,
20:44
Speaker 2: you know, ooh, three teenagers. Those are the tough years.
20:48
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about,
20:50
Speaker 2: because on any given evening, if I were in bed
20:54
Speaker 2: alone my husband travels a lot, one of my children
20:57
Speaker 2: would come in softly, knocking on the door and sit
20:59
Speaker 2: down on the edge of my bed and pour out
21:01
Speaker 2: their day to me. Because they want that relationship. And
21:06
Speaker 2: you know, they're telling me silly teenage stuff, but it's
21:10
Speaker 2: important to me. I close my computer, I put it
21:12
Speaker 2: to the side, and I have a conversation with my child.
21:15
Speaker 2: And that's the relationship that I've developed with my children.
21:19
Speaker 2: And I would never have had that if I if
21:21
Speaker 2: I had submitted them to a system. And my husband
21:25
Speaker 2: admits that he loved school. He was, you know, the
21:27
Speaker 2: popular jock, the guy, a good student but got along
21:31
Speaker 2: with everybody, and he had a fabulous time at school.
21:35
Speaker 2: But he also recognizes that his relationship with his parents
21:38
Speaker 2: and his siblings suffered because you can't maintain that kind
21:42
Speaker 2: of relationship. You can. You can maintain it in a
21:45
Speaker 2: marriage because you're both adults. But children need their parents,
21:49
Speaker 2: children need that that pouring in. They've never done this before.
21:53
Speaker 1: I think that's a that's a point really well worth
21:56
Speaker 1: holding in mind. And you know, I know you you
21:59
Speaker 1: talk specifically about the role of the parent and how
22:02
Speaker 1: incredibly important that is, and how it is you know
22:06
Speaker 1: that that relationship is denied by by the system. Now
22:10
Speaker 1: you use the word pushback a moment ago, and the
22:14
Speaker 1: problem is, in some senses, this is turned into a
22:18
Speaker 1: divisive issue because we are supposed to believe that stepping
22:21
Speaker 1: outside of the system is the wrong thing to do.
22:24
Speaker 1: And in describing the benefits of home education not just
22:27
Speaker 1: to the family, but also back to society, there is
22:30
Speaker 1: in a sense an implicit criticism of parents that are
22:34
Speaker 1: putting their children into the system. And I'm certain that
22:38
Speaker 1: you would hear a lot of parents saying, oh, well,
22:40
Speaker 1: you know, we would like to do it. But how
22:44
Speaker 1: do those conversations turn out with you?
22:47
Speaker 2: Well, sorry, I just have to pick up on we
22:51
Speaker 2: are supposed to believe brilliant, right, that's just great. We're
22:58
Speaker 2: supposed to believe something, and it's the system that wants
23:01
Speaker 2: you to believe it, right, because that's what that means.
23:04
Speaker 2: And why would the system want you to believe that
23:06
Speaker 2: the system is the best solution job security. Plus, they
23:12
Speaker 2: trained you to believe that they were the solution for
23:14
Speaker 2: thirteen years. They had you from K through twelve or
23:17
Speaker 2: you know however long right, and so so now it's
23:21
Speaker 2: difficult to not conform because you yourself was schooled to conform.
23:30
Speaker 2: That's the That's one of the other big lessons in
23:32
Speaker 2: school is don't stand out conform less people. You know,
23:36
Speaker 2: lest you draw attention to yourself, less people notice you,
23:40
Speaker 2: lest people tease you for being nonconformist or whatever, for
23:45
Speaker 2: good or for bad. I'm a bit of a social pariah.
23:48
Speaker 2: I'm a bit of a non conformist. Uh. And so
23:51
Speaker 2: when you say the words you're supposed to believe, I
23:55
Speaker 2: bristle at that. I don't care what I'm supposed to believe.
23:59
Speaker 2: I care about truth, and I will tell you that
24:03
Speaker 2: my stance is not an easy one to hold, but
24:06
Speaker 2: it is the truth. So yeah, there are a lot
24:09
Speaker 2: of parents who feel like I judge them. I don't
24:12
Speaker 2: judge them. I pity them. I pity parents who submit
24:15
Speaker 2: their children away from them, because those parents have no
24:18
Speaker 2: idea what they're sacrificing, and they are losing their children
24:21
Speaker 2: every day. And that makes me sad. And it makes
24:25
Speaker 2: me sad for the children who are being abused by
24:28
Speaker 2: a system that insists on lying to them. I think
24:31
Speaker 2: that it is cruel and unusual to lie to a
24:34
Speaker 2: child who only wants to find truth. I think that
24:38
Speaker 2: that's mean. And I think that parents who just throw
24:44
Speaker 2: up their hands and say but I just don't know how,
24:47
Speaker 2: or I can't, or it's too expensive I want to
24:53
Speaker 2: say shame on you, because I think you're better than that.
24:59
Speaker 2: You should be better than that. It's your child whose
25:02
Speaker 2: life is at stake. Erica Komisar is a researcher and
25:06
Speaker 2: a child and a family psychologists, psychiatrists something and her
25:13
Speaker 2: research is now showing that children who fail to bond
25:18
Speaker 2: with their mothers from zero to three, who fail to
25:21
Speaker 2: form good attachments with their caregivers, and that would be
25:25
Speaker 2: the mother because when you submit a child to daycare,
25:29
Speaker 2: those caregivers rotate. There's no stability there, and so a
25:37
Speaker 2: child that doesn't get the opportunity to bond at that
25:40
Speaker 2: early age is set up for all kinds of relationships
25:43
Speaker 2: struggles later in life as an adult. And in order
25:48
Speaker 2: to and by the way, this is her job security right,
25:50
Speaker 2: because she deals with the adults who are struggling through
25:54
Speaker 2: the fact that their mother didn't love them or didn't
25:57
Speaker 2: pay attention to them or whatever. And so we have
26:01
Speaker 2: no idea that the hardships that we are inflicting on
26:05
Speaker 2: our own children because the system says do this with
26:09
Speaker 2: your child. The system's an idiot. This education system, school
26:16
Speaker 2: system that we've had, we've had for one hundred and
26:19
Speaker 2: twenty years not longer. This system is the experiment. You're
26:25
Speaker 2: the guinea pig. I'm the guinea pig. Our children are
26:30
Speaker 2: the guinea pigs. Now they're the guinea pigs for gender
26:33
Speaker 2: reassignment therapies called healthcare. Shame on them. Our children should
26:41
Speaker 2: not be guinea pigs. Our role as parents, our primary
26:46
Speaker 2: role is to protect our children from the evil doers,
26:50
Speaker 2: and unfortunately we are literally bringing our children to the slaughter.
26:56
Speaker 1: So many questions we should really sort of tease out
26:59
Speaker 1: out of that. I think to describe the system as
27:02
Speaker 1: an idiot is going to be quote of the interview.
27:05
Speaker 1: So far, I can't see anyone disagreeing with that. So
27:08
Speaker 1: well done on that one. In actual fact, it's very interesting.
27:12
Speaker 1: You're quite right to be sort of lit up by
27:16
Speaker 1: the suggestion that you know, this is what we're supposed
27:18
Speaker 1: to believe. I say that very deliberately because it's so
27:20
Speaker 1: obvious that these sorts of messages are put out, and
27:25
Speaker 1: you know, I'd be interested in your take on this.
27:26
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, when we went through the coronavirus charade
27:30
Speaker 1: and children were removed from schools, it was almost as
27:34
Speaker 1: though that was with the express intent of creating such
27:39
Speaker 1: trauma within the household, in throwing people together at a
27:43
Speaker 1: moment's notice who were sort of ill prepared for it
27:46
Speaker 1: and were convinced that actually they shouldn't be doing it,
27:49
Speaker 1: and therefore they didn't want to be doing It's almost
27:51
Speaker 1: the reaction to it was, Okay, I thank goodness, the
27:54
Speaker 1: schools are going to open again. I just want to
27:56
Speaker 1: get the children back onto the bright track and all
27:58
Speaker 1: the rest of it. I think from this side of
28:01
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, we're seeing a real push against a trend
28:06
Speaker 1: that is actually tending towards homeschooling. Are you seeing a
28:10
Speaker 1: similar thing, a sort of in effect, a sort of
28:13
Speaker 1: a counter action to the homeschooling home education trend as
28:18
Speaker 1: it were.
28:19
Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm seeing both over here, because homeschooling was
28:23
Speaker 2: so well established by the time they banned children from schools,
28:29
Speaker 2: and so there were two schools of thought. There were
28:32
Speaker 2: two camps. The parents who absolutely hated the quote homeschooling
28:37
Speaker 2: that they were doing, which was not homeschooling. And that's
28:39
Speaker 2: what I tell them. You were thrown into a pit
28:43
Speaker 2: of vipers and told that you were homeschooling, and that's
28:46
Speaker 2: not what you were doing, And in fact I differ
28:50
Speaker 2: so terms, right, I like to call it home education
28:55
Speaker 2: or home learning. I don't actually like to call it
28:58
Speaker 2: homeschooling because I I don't want people to think it's
29:02
Speaker 2: school at home where the parent is the teacher with
29:05
Speaker 2: the finger at like. I don't want them to get
29:07
Speaker 2: that image in their heads. But I will say that
29:11
Speaker 2: homeschoolers doubled a post COVID. So during COVID it was
29:16
Speaker 2: like way high, and then it recalibrated a little bit
29:20
Speaker 2: when school's opened again. And it's kind of funny because
29:24
Speaker 2: when the school's closed, I was cheering, which is silly, right,
29:29
Speaker 2: But I was like, maybe parents will understand that the
29:33
Speaker 2: schools are no good for their children. But you're right.
29:36
Speaker 2: A lot of parents were like, ah, I can't take
29:39
Speaker 2: my children anymore, which is so sad. Imagine being a
29:43
Speaker 2: child in that house and the parents are saying, well,
29:46
Speaker 2: I just can't wait till the school opens again and
29:48
Speaker 2: you can just go to school and be out of
29:50
Speaker 2: my hair. It's so you know. I talked to a
29:57
Speaker 2: teacher years ago and I said, have you ever considered
29:59
Speaker 2: home school? She taught third grade, and she and her
30:03
Speaker 2: children were roughly that age those ages around third grade,
30:07
Speaker 2: and she said, oh my gosh, I would kill my
30:09
Speaker 2: children by Wednesday if I homeschooled them. And I, you know,
30:15
Speaker 2: I looked at her. I said, you know, I didn't
30:17
Speaker 2: say this, but I thought, I wonder if the parents
30:19
Speaker 2: of the children in her class know that she speaks
30:22
Speaker 2: about her own children that way. And then there's the
30:25
Speaker 2: flip side. There are countless teachers who have left teaching
30:30
Speaker 2: because they refuse to put their children into that system,
30:34
Speaker 2: and principles who have left their jobs and or continue
30:38
Speaker 2: in their jobs but homeschool and so you know, it's
30:42
Speaker 2: not enough to say, well, the system requires this of me,
30:46
Speaker 2: or the system is telling me that the system gets
30:48
Speaker 2: doesn't give a flip about your children. The system wants. Okay,
30:56
Speaker 2: I'm trying to decide if I so. One thing that
30:58
Speaker 2: I say here in the States, because we have so
31:00
Speaker 2: many stories of it, is they want to have sex
31:03
Speaker 2: with your children. The system doesn't seem to have your
31:08
Speaker 2: child's best interests at heart. Let's put it that way.
31:12
Speaker 2: So why would you trust the system to tell you anything.
31:15
Speaker 2: The system's a dictator. I know I understand that parents
31:20
Speaker 2: out there have gone through the system, and so they
31:22
Speaker 2: rely on the system, but they shouldn't. I'm here to
31:25
Speaker 2: wake them up and tell them. The system doesn't want
31:27
Speaker 2: what's best for you and your child. The system wants
31:29
Speaker 2: to separate you from your child so that people can
31:32
Speaker 2: get at your child.
31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think that's again another point,
31:38
Speaker 1: very well made. And what you've just alluded to is
31:41
Speaker 1: the incredible harm that can or that children can be
31:44
Speaker 1: put in the way of, or that is put in
31:46
Speaker 1: their way.
31:47
Speaker 2: Just a quick story. When COVID sort of hit and
31:52
Speaker 2: schools closed, a friend of mine sent me a video
31:55
Speaker 2: that his school had prepared for all the children in
31:57
Speaker 2: his very high, high level public elementary school, so in
32:06
Speaker 2: a very affluent area. Okay, so arguably this was the
32:10
Speaker 2: good school. This was the really good public school, because
32:13
Speaker 2: that's where he said his kid and the video came
32:15
Speaker 2: over and it was maybe forty minutes long, and it
32:18
Speaker 2: was a collection of short videos of all the teachers
32:22
Speaker 2: and they all did this little video. Hi everybody, I'm home.
32:26
Speaker 2: This is my dog Jack. I'm taking Jack for walks.
32:30
Speaker 2: Remember to wash your hands, don't forget to wear your masks.
32:34
Speaker 2: All of these videos telling the children to do the
32:38
Speaker 2: things that the CDC recommended whatever, and I miss you
32:42
Speaker 2: and I can't wait to see you again. Not a
32:45
Speaker 2: single teacher out of thirty teachers or whatever. Not a
32:50
Speaker 2: single teacher said, don't forget to look at your spelling words,
32:55
Speaker 2: don't forget to keep reading in the book that we're
32:57
Speaker 2: reading in. Remember to you know, get your mom or
33:01
Speaker 2: dad to read to you from the you know whatever.
33:05
Speaker 2: Nothing zero about actual academics, not a single teacher, and
33:14
Speaker 2: not the principal. I rest my case. They are about
33:21
Speaker 2: classroom management, behavior management, and some of that is torturing
33:27
Speaker 2: children with homework or torturing children with lectures, but it's
33:34
Speaker 2: not about real life. Your relationship with your child is
33:38
Speaker 2: more important than trigonometry. And I'm a mathematician. I happen
33:44
Speaker 2: to love math. I tutored calculus. That is hard for
33:47
Speaker 2: me to say, but it's the truth.
33:53
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean the demise, or the continued push for
33:58
Speaker 1: the splintering of the relationship between the parents and the child,
34:01
Speaker 1: as you say, is desperately sad, and nonetheless that's what
34:05
Speaker 1: the system continues to push towards. Now, something I think
34:10
Speaker 1: you've you know, just really hit upon there is how
34:14
Speaker 1: indoctrination is without doubt the weapon that leads to compliance
34:22
Speaker 1: and therefore the perpetuation of the state as it is. So,
34:27
Speaker 1: in effect, the decision to home educate is too well,
34:33
Speaker 1: let's put this as a question, sorry, is it to
34:36
Speaker 1: set the child on a different pathway? And you know,
34:42
Speaker 1: how does one view that as a parent? You know,
34:44
Speaker 1: in thinking, Okay, if I remove a child from the
34:49
Speaker 1: system in terms of education, schooling and do this in
34:56
Speaker 1: a home context, what are the life opportunities for that child?
35:03
Speaker 1: How do you encourage parents to think about that?
35:08
Speaker 2: It's an interesting question and I'm trying to sort of
35:10
Speaker 2: wrap around where you want to go with this. So
35:13
Speaker 2: let me start by saying this education is to a
35:17
Speaker 2: certain degree in doctrination, and by indoctrination, as we should
35:20
Speaker 2: define our terms, the indwelling of a doctrine into the child.
35:26
Speaker 2: What's a doctrine? A doctrine is a system of beliefs,
35:28
Speaker 2: It's a worldview. The doctrine in the schools today. And
35:32
Speaker 2: by the way, so I'm talking about America, right We
35:36
Speaker 2: developed the schools. Initially, schools were developed to train children
35:40
Speaker 2: in virtue. They were given Bible versus for copywork, to
35:44
Speaker 2: train them in morality and basically teach them how to read,
35:49
Speaker 2: do some ciphering or math, and that was basically it.
35:52
Speaker 2: And they were run by communities and parents paid the
35:56
Speaker 2: teacher themselves, basically because that seemed like a good way
36:01
Speaker 2: for community to serve the children and the families, getting
36:05
Speaker 2: a little bit of information into the child and some
36:09
Speaker 2: good ethics into the child, because we needed responsible citizens,
36:13
Speaker 2: because this country is made for a morally principled people,
36:17
Speaker 2: and nothing less will do. Right. Then, in the sixties,
36:21
Speaker 2: the pundits or the educators or whoever, the zelots came
36:26
Speaker 2: and said, hey, education is not in doctrination, it's not
36:30
Speaker 2: about doctrine. It's about academics. Get your Bibles out of
36:33
Speaker 2: the schools. And so we did, and then we got
36:36
Speaker 2: prayer out of the schools, and then education was all
36:38
Speaker 2: about academics. Now it's no longer about academics. In the
36:43
Speaker 2: state of Oregon, you will be graduated unable to read
36:48
Speaker 2: or do math. That's perfectly acceptable now. So it's clearly
36:52
Speaker 2: not about academics. In fact, in the state of New
36:55
Speaker 2: Jersey this past January, they passed a new law that
36:58
Speaker 2: teachers did not have to be credited or pass a
37:02
Speaker 2: press an exam to teach. So what are the teachers teaching.
37:05
Speaker 2: They're teaching doctrine. So we've come full circle. The problem
37:10
Speaker 2: is that the doctrine is evil, The doctrine is not truthful,
37:14
Speaker 2: The doctrine is a very bad worldview, and the worldview
37:20
Speaker 2: that the United States is intrinsically racist and should be
37:24
Speaker 2: torn down. The worldview that children can change their gender,
37:27
Speaker 2: the worldview all of these very very egregious things. So
37:33
Speaker 2: you should want to protect your child from that doctrine.
37:36
Speaker 2: But then you should think, well, what do I want
37:38
Speaker 2: my child to believe? What is the truth as I
37:41
Speaker 2: know it? And that might be whatever religion you pursue
37:46
Speaker 2: or whatever lack of religion you pursue, but you definitely
37:48
Speaker 2: have a worldview. You definitely have a religion, whether or
37:52
Speaker 2: not you're pursuing it. So called everybody has a religion.
37:57
Speaker 2: We've come to accept that conservative parents often have very
38:04
Speaker 2: liberal children. No, that's a development of the system. The
38:08
Speaker 2: system is a very liberal, left wing, left leaning center right.
38:16
Speaker 2: The teachers' colleges were taken over by the Marxists, then
38:18
Speaker 2: they turned out Marxist teachers, and now our schools are
38:21
Speaker 2: rampant with Marxists, and so we are graduating children who
38:25
Speaker 2: believe in socialism because that's what the teachers believe is best.
38:29
Speaker 2: And that's wrong. But if you believe in socialism, then
38:36
Speaker 2: you'd be fine sending your child to school in that
38:39
Speaker 2: sense because they will come out believing as you do.
38:41
Speaker 2: But if you don't believe in socialism, it is not
38:44
Speaker 2: normal for your child to believe in socialism. It's a
38:48
Speaker 2: product of a system and you should not be accepting
38:51
Speaker 2: of it. And I will tell you I countless, countless,
38:54
Speaker 2: countless parents have come to me because I speak all
38:57
Speaker 2: over the place and lamented the fact that they sent
39:00
Speaker 2: their child to college. And I said, but this happened
39:03
Speaker 2: long before college. You don't raise a child in a
39:07
Speaker 2: doctrine that the school is counter to and think that
39:11
Speaker 2: that doctrine will stick when they go to college. The
39:15
Speaker 2: doctrine was never really placed inside the child because the
39:19
Speaker 2: school's doctrine. The school had the child for sixteen thousand hours.
39:23
Speaker 2: So when you get the child to church for an
39:25
Speaker 2: hour or two a week, don't think that that's going
39:28
Speaker 2: to prevail unless you're doing a lot of mitigating at home.
39:33
Speaker 2: Mitigation at home, it's not going to prevail. So yes,
39:38
Speaker 2: I think parents ought to take a step back and
39:41
Speaker 2: consider why am I having children? What do I want
39:44
Speaker 2: for my children? What do I want for my life?
39:47
Speaker 2: Why am I going to sacrifice all of this money
39:50
Speaker 2: and time and trouble for these little people that I'm creating.
39:57
Speaker 1: To do?
39:57
Speaker 2: What so that they can get a job at going
40:00
Speaker 2: old sacks and never come home for Christmas? Is is
40:03
Speaker 2: that what I'm doing? And I mean, this is not
40:07
Speaker 2: how I started. I started because I didn't think that
40:11
Speaker 2: they were accomplishing education. For my oldest when he went
40:16
Speaker 2: to first and second grade, I saw there were a
40:18
Speaker 2: bunch of flaws in the system and it just wasn't
40:20
Speaker 2: It just didn't seem to be effective, so I took
40:23
Speaker 2: him out. But as I progressed over the next decade,
40:27
Speaker 2: I started really considering, so why am I doing this?
40:31
Speaker 2: So what is this about? And I realized that I
40:33
Speaker 2: want my children to believe what I believe because what
40:37
Speaker 2: I believe, what I believe is the truth, at least
40:41
Speaker 2: as far as I know right. Otherwise I won't believe it.
40:45
Speaker 2: So my convictions ought to be their convictions. And I
40:50
Speaker 2: want grandchildren like I want family, because I know that
40:55
Speaker 2: the school taught me money is the highest value. But
40:57
Speaker 2: the school's wrong, the system's wrong. The highest value is relationship.
41:04
Speaker 2: The highest value is that dash between the start date
41:07
Speaker 2: and the end date of your life. And there's no
41:10
Speaker 2: tombstone that says I wish I spent more time at
41:12
Speaker 2: the office. The value of life is the relationships, it's service.
41:20
Speaker 2: And so I've raised my children to value those things.
41:24
Speaker 2: And it's counter to the way that I was raised,
41:27
Speaker 2: it's counter to my schooling, but it's the truth.
41:33
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean again, I can't see anybody disagreeing with that.
41:38
Speaker 1: And the you know, the sort of passion underlying it,
41:41
Speaker 1: it's incredible sort of rationale that you substantiate it with.
41:44
Speaker 1: To go back to what you said, you know that
41:46
Speaker 1: the formal education system has been in place for, as
41:50
Speaker 1: you say, about one hundred and twenty years, and therefore
41:52
Speaker 1: it can be no coincidence that the supernational control that
41:56
Speaker 1: we see in so many parts of the world expressing
42:00
Speaker 1: themselves so particularly, you know, whether it's the World Health
42:02
Speaker 1: Organization or the United Nations or even the World Economic
42:06
Speaker 1: Forum or whatever. It's almost that this could not have
42:08
Speaker 1: been possible without the formalization of the education system. Or
42:12
Speaker 1: the school system as has happened. But obviously there is
42:19
Speaker 1: another path, and that builds resilience, which of course is
42:24
Speaker 1: a great threat. The thing that you did allude to
42:29
Speaker 1: really early on that we haven't really talked about is
42:32
Speaker 1: sort of aside from all of this, or enmeshed with
42:35
Speaker 1: all of this, is the rise and rise and rise
42:37
Speaker 1: of technology and now in particular artificial intelligence and you know,
42:42
Speaker 1: social media and all these things. So insofar as you
42:45
Speaker 1: can remove children from the school system and you can
42:50
Speaker 1: provide that amazing education within the home and have those
42:56
Speaker 1: relationships that you describe, what's your approach when it comes
42:59
Speaker 1: to technology. I think that's a big question, a big topic,
43:03
Speaker 1: but just sort of break it down, which have a
43:04
Speaker 1: way suit.
43:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a tough one. I don't recommend
43:10
Speaker 2: smartphones for children. I don't recommend tablets for children. If
43:16
Speaker 2: I were, if I were redoing, if I were doing
43:18
Speaker 2: this again today, I would avoid all the technology and
43:23
Speaker 2: certainly all of the entertainment media that's being produced today,
43:29
Speaker 2: because there it is, it's nearly if it's not, it's
43:34
Speaker 2: very close to demonic. There is so much sexual proclivity
43:41
Speaker 2: or whatever that's rampant through all of entertainment, and so
43:47
Speaker 2: I would just be very very careful. When I was
43:50
Speaker 2: raising my kids, they weren't allowed to watch live action Disney.
43:53
Speaker 2: And the thing is that I know that parents struggle
43:58
Speaker 2: with well, but if if everybody else is doing it,
44:02
Speaker 2: what you do is you galvanize your children and you
44:04
Speaker 2: train them to understand why your rules are your rules.
44:09
Speaker 2: And what happens is they become proud that they have
44:12
Speaker 2: been singled out to be exceptional. That's how you train
44:17
Speaker 2: your children to withstand the push of the culture. Right,
44:23
Speaker 2: I did it wrong. My kids all got smartphones way
44:26
Speaker 2: too early at twelve, but that was way too early,
44:31
Speaker 2: as smart as they were, and they did suffer, and
44:35
Speaker 2: they were resilient enough to recover, unbeknownst to me, frankly,
44:43
Speaker 2: So today I tell parents, don't even flirt with that.
44:47
Speaker 2: By the way, no sleepovers, no sleepovers, zero, don't do it.
44:53
Speaker 2: Why you don't know, you don't know. I don't care
44:58
Speaker 2: how much you trust the person you know. And I've
45:01
Speaker 2: been down that road and with people that I trusted intrinsically,
45:04
Speaker 2: and that was misplaced trust and it was the wrong
45:06
Speaker 2: thing to do. So I'm trying to, you know, educate
45:10
Speaker 2: parents from my own experience, but don't do that. I
45:15
Speaker 2: you know, quick story, my son was part of a
45:18
Speaker 2: football team and he had to stay at the coach's
45:21
Speaker 2: house for a little extra and the coach put on
45:23
Speaker 2: a scary movie for him and said, your mom probably
45:26
Speaker 2: won't won't want you to watch this, And my son
45:30
Speaker 2: told me about it, and I'm like, he were there
45:32
Speaker 2: for half an hour. Couldn't he have just let you
45:34
Speaker 2: sit for half an hour? Why would he do that
45:36
Speaker 2: to you? And my son was also upset because he
45:40
Speaker 2: saw things that he would never be able to unsee
45:42
Speaker 2: and they were disturbing. So you know, you can protect
45:47
Speaker 2: your children. You should protect your children, and no, you're
45:51
Speaker 2: not being a helicopter parent. And by the way, that
45:54
Speaker 2: phrase is it is designed to intimidate you, to make
45:58
Speaker 2: your children more vulnerable because they want to have sex
46:01
Speaker 2: with your children. Like, don't let them intimidate you into
46:06
Speaker 2: relaxing your guard over the innocence of your children. So
46:12
Speaker 2: the AI question is, you know, now children in schools
46:17
Speaker 2: will be using AI to do their work for them,
46:20
Speaker 2: which will make them less and less resilient, stupider and
46:24
Speaker 2: stupider and more apt for the sort of wef world
46:30
Speaker 2: takeover or whatever is coming down the pike. But you
46:33
Speaker 2: can preserve your family, so do that. You can't do everything,
46:37
Speaker 2: but you can preserve your family. And you know that's
46:41
Speaker 2: my admonition for parents, is family above everything else.
46:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean that's coming through very much, lad
46:51
Speaker 1: and clear. Now to look sort of to the future,
46:54
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there is obviously a stronger I
46:57
Speaker 1: would say statistically we're talking about this before we started
46:59
Speaker 1: with I think are stronger traditions perhaps not quite the
47:03
Speaker 1: right word, but trend or proportion of home educated children
47:10
Speaker 1: in the United States and there is in the United Kingdom,
47:12
Speaker 1: but both seem to be on an up trajectory. What
47:17
Speaker 1: effects do you see of that happening in say, you know,
47:22
Speaker 1: a generation's time if that trend continues. I mean, are
47:27
Speaker 1: you considering that there will be sort of societal positives
47:31
Speaker 1: from all of this that we will actually be able
47:32
Speaker 1: to identify.
47:35
Speaker 2: I like to be optimistic. You know, this nation was
47:40
Speaker 2: founded on freedom. You guys have a different legacy, but
47:47
Speaker 2: we were founded by home educators. Children who were autodied acts.
47:53
Speaker 2: They taught themselves everything basically, and they never went to
47:59
Speaker 2: school except some of them did go to university, right,
48:04
Speaker 2: and so that's our heritage, and we were founded by
48:12
Speaker 2: a minority. So I think that the preservation of the
48:17
Speaker 2: nation will depend on homeschoolers here because they are more
48:23
Speaker 2: freedom minded than children who go to a system. And
48:28
Speaker 2: that's just the outcome of the system. It's not It
48:34
Speaker 2: almost doesn't matter what the teachers do. The system is
48:37
Speaker 2: the thing that has the greatest influence on the child,
48:42
Speaker 2: and systematizing the child has the biggest impact on the
48:47
Speaker 2: formation of that individual. And so anybody who stays outside
48:52
Speaker 2: the system. I mean, I said to Kevin. After Braden,
48:55
Speaker 2: my oldest, went through second grade, I said to my husband,
48:58
Speaker 2: I think I could fail at homeschooling him, He'll still
49:00
Speaker 2: be better off. And that was simply because he wasn't
49:04
Speaker 2: getting academics. But what he was getting was a bunch
49:06
Speaker 2: of crap that I didn't like. There were misbehaved children
49:11
Speaker 2: in his classroom, there was bullying, there was just a
49:14
Speaker 2: bunch of other stuff, and I didn't like that. And
49:16
Speaker 2: so I was like, well, even if he doesn't get
49:18
Speaker 2: the academics, he's still going to be better off and
49:21
Speaker 2: I can give him at least a smattering of academics
49:24
Speaker 2: and what I want people to understand, and this is
49:27
Speaker 2: why I wrote my book, my latest book, Parents' Guide
49:31
Speaker 2: to Homeschool is educating your child is just not that
49:36
Speaker 2: big a deal. It's just not that big a lift.
49:39
Speaker 2: What it ought to look like is the parents work,
49:44
Speaker 2: at least maybe one of them works from home. They
49:49
Speaker 2: contribute to their community, they do things together, and they
49:55
Speaker 2: are building their lives together in front of and including
50:01
Speaker 2: the children. That's education because the children. Okay, to put
50:07
Speaker 2: it really bluntly, your child wants to be you, your adult.
50:12
Speaker 2: You're cool. He wants to be you. Don't deprive him
50:15
Speaker 2: of that. Show him how to be you, show him
50:18
Speaker 2: the best way to be the best version of himself
50:22
Speaker 2: as he approaches you, and the natural sort of differentiation
50:28
Speaker 2: that will happen, say during the teenage years, where the
50:31
Speaker 2: child understands, oh, you know, I actually want to go
50:35
Speaker 2: this direction with my life. I want to do these
50:38
Speaker 2: kinds of things as opposed to what dad does or
50:40
Speaker 2: as opposed to what mom does. That's that's the beauty.
50:44
Speaker 2: That's the beautiful part. Then you, as a parent get
50:47
Speaker 2: to get to unwrap the gift that is your child
50:50
Speaker 2: and figure out how to help them accomplish the things
50:53
Speaker 2: that they dream of. That it's it's such a beautiful
50:57
Speaker 2: thing that we've robbed generations of. You know, the loss
51:05
Speaker 2: of generational knowledge is mind boggling. Because we all went
51:10
Speaker 2: to school. We didn't get to know grandma and grandpa,
51:14
Speaker 2: we didn't get to know our parents because we just
51:17
Speaker 2: were sent to school. And I think that if families
51:21
Speaker 2: can recapture that we will become strong and resilient again.
51:25
Speaker 2: We've become weak and compliant and it's not good for us.
51:30
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure you're watching what's happening, you know,
51:33
Speaker 2: the discoveries that Doge is making of the fraud in
51:36
Speaker 2: the United States government. Of course there's fraud in the government.
51:40
Speaker 2: These people were raised that money is the highest value.
51:44
Speaker 2: The moment they get to Washington, d C. They go, Okay,
51:46
Speaker 2: where's the till I want my hands in it. I
51:48
Speaker 2: want to get some money. I mean, this is the
51:53
Speaker 2: normal outcome of an institutionalized love of money. And you
52:03
Speaker 2: can avoid that with your own family, and you can
52:06
Speaker 2: find like minded people and form groups and co ops
52:10
Speaker 2: for schooling if you want, or just groups for social things.
52:15
Speaker 2: You know, I chose my children's friends I chose them.
52:20
Speaker 2: I didn't do a terribly good job, but I could
52:23
Speaker 2: have done a lot worse, letting them pick in the school.
52:28
Speaker 2: I remember my son had some friends and they were rowdy,
52:34
Speaker 2: and they disregarded their mother's commands, and she was you know,
52:41
Speaker 2: she just asked them to keep it, keep it quiet,
52:43
Speaker 2: keep it down, stop making so much noise or whatever.
52:45
Speaker 2: And I finally said to my son, and by the way,
52:48
Speaker 2: I didn't do this with my other two children, but
52:50
Speaker 2: my son was very much a leader, my first born,
52:54
Speaker 2: and I said to him, listen, your friends there. They
52:58
Speaker 2: don't listen to their mother. And I can't afford to
53:02
Speaker 2: have you around that because I'm afraid it's going to
53:05
Speaker 2: influence you. So when you're with them, if they don't
53:09
Speaker 2: listen to their mother, that will be the end of
53:12
Speaker 2: your time with them. And so my son made them
53:15
Speaker 2: behave and I didn't have to suffer him, you know,
53:22
Speaker 2: reacting against me, because he got used to his friends
53:25
Speaker 2: reacting against their mother.
53:29
Speaker 1: This amazing story, I very much encapulate, encapsulates the spirit
53:32
Speaker 1: of what you find.
53:33
Speaker 2: He used to bring home the youth group from church.
53:37
Speaker 2: You would think these were well behaved young people. They
53:40
Speaker 2: were not, and the girls dressed like tarts. And I
53:46
Speaker 2: said to him, these young women need to come to
53:50
Speaker 2: the house with clothing on or they will not be welcome.
53:53
Speaker 2: Now you have two choices. You can tell them put
53:55
Speaker 2: some clothes on before you come to my mother's house.
53:59
Speaker 2: Or I will stand at the door with extra large
54:01
Speaker 2: T shirts to hand out to everybody. They came dressed
54:08
Speaker 2: at least to my house. Because you can have your
54:12
Speaker 2: own standards in the culture. I lived in Hollywood for
54:16
Speaker 2: grinding out loud. I had my own standards, and we
54:19
Speaker 2: can do this. We do not have to succumb to
54:23
Speaker 2: what the system demands.
54:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Sam, I mean I agree entirely. Now, what
54:30
Speaker 1: I'm going to do is ask you a question that
54:33
Speaker 1: you ask your guests on your podcast, which is what
54:36
Speaker 1: advice would you give to your youngest self.
54:40
Speaker 2: I would pick the time when I was first getting
54:48
Speaker 2: into home education, and I would try to convince myself
54:53
Speaker 2: You've got plenty of time, there's no rush. Just enjoy
54:58
Speaker 2: reading with your children and don't focus so much on
55:03
Speaker 2: getting the curriculum into them, because education is not data entry.
55:10
Speaker 2: Education is lighting a fire. And with that said, we
55:16
Speaker 2: did academics in the mornings, and my children were free,
55:19
Speaker 2: pretty much free in the afternoons, and that is what
55:23
Speaker 2: set them on the path of truth and of curiosity
55:28
Speaker 2: and an eagerness for life, which I could never have
55:33
Speaker 2: imagined for them, because I didn't get it myself. And
55:37
Speaker 2: I'm so blessed that we managed to accomplish at least that.
55:42
Speaker 1: Well, that's a terrific and poignant note to draw to
55:47
Speaker 1: a close on.
55:47
Speaker 2: Now.
55:48
Speaker 1: The audience will be very keen to find out where
55:50
Speaker 1: they can go to look at more of your work
55:54
Speaker 1: and find out what you're doing, and indeed to buy
55:57
Speaker 1: your book and look at all those sorts of things.
56:00
Speaker 1: Where should we direct people.
56:02
Speaker 2: Sorbo Studios dot com. I have the book here. This
56:07
Speaker 2: is the Parent's Guide to Home School and it's a
56:09
Speaker 2: workbook for parents because you need to recalibrate the way
56:14
Speaker 2: you think about education, because you've been schooled and the
56:17
Speaker 2: school taught you trained you to think a certain way
56:20
Speaker 2: about what education is, and they're wrong. It's wrong.
56:29
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, terrific, Sam, thanks very much, and we will
56:32
Speaker 1: put notes to well, certainly a lot of the things
56:35
Speaker 1: you've preferred to as well as your book and Sorber Studios,
56:38
Speaker 1: there'll be links to that to those things in the
56:42
Speaker 1: notes for this interview. And before I let Sam go,
56:46
Speaker 1: I will just say that if you are a follower
56:49
Speaker 1: of UK Column, you are in a position to support
56:52
Speaker 1: what we do financially in order that we are able
56:55
Speaker 1: to continue to bring interviews like this to you, then
56:57
Speaker 1: please do consider making a donation taking out a membership
57:01
Speaker 1: at UK column dot org. But otherwise I will just
57:05
Speaker 1: say to Sam Sorbez, thank you very much, indeed for
57:08
Speaker 1: an incredibly enlightening and astonishing you wide ranging discussion about
57:12
Speaker 1: a subject is obviously not just of incredible significance to you,
57:17
Speaker 1: but to societies across the world at large. It's been
57:21
Speaker 1: a real pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much,
57:23
Speaker 1: Thank you
57:24
Speaker 2: So much for having me