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Homeschooling: Not Just For Hippies and Religious People Anymore · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Knowles with
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: us again, which means it's stuff it sounds I can
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: spell up the cliff I did. That would have been
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: good for the clip diving episode, remember that one man.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: That was interesting. Uh you have parents, Chuck, who we're
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: both educators, right, um dead principal, mom, teacher And Uh.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I was wondering while I was researching this, because we're
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: talking about home school today. I wasn't homeschooled. You weren't homeschooled.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Now in a way, you were home schooled, because you're
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: right exactly. Um, but I wondered, like, if you were
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  Speaker 1: raised with any kind of opinions one way or another
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  Speaker 1: on home schooling because of both your parents professions. No,
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  Speaker 1: not at all, because when I was in school. Uh,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and when you were in school, it wasn't super popular. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Well it may have been illegal for in a lot
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  Speaker 1: of places. Yeah, I guess that's a good point to
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  Speaker 1: bring up. Um schooling education history one. Uh it started
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  Speaker 1: compulsory school attendant started in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, and by nineteen eighteen, UM Mississippi of
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  Speaker 1: course was the last state to I'm so sorry Mississippi,
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  Speaker 1: it was the last state to to UM demand compulsory
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  Speaker 1: attendance by law. Uh. And then for many years it
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  Speaker 1: was that way, like you had to go to school
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  Speaker 1: between until like what the was the seventies. Uh, that
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  Speaker 1: was when I think the movement really started, but I
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  Speaker 1: think possibly into the nineties, like there were states where
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you had to go to school. Yeah, and we should
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: point out up front that every state is different when
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it comes to laws about home schooling. So this is
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  Speaker 1: a super high view. UM. We would have to do
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  Speaker 1: fifty podcasts to really get into the nitty gritty of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: of the the finer points of homeschooling in each state
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  Speaker 1: for sure. So yeah, we're gonna do an overview. But
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you are right, like homeschooling was, it wasn't around until
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: like they started to really there was a group of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: grassroots people who got together and started organizing UM and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: got homeschooling laws passed. Apparently they were trying really hard
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to get the Supreme Court to rule on a case
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  Speaker 1: a homeschool in case once and for all that would
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  Speaker 1: give it some sort of constitutional or federal protection that
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: may lead to like a federal law or mandate, but
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: they haven't gotten to that point. Instead, it's just been
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: state by state, which is fine. Very few kids go
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to school interstate, right yeah, um, or interstate, I should say,
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  Speaker 1: But there's no federal legislation. It's like you say, all
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the states have different laws that they all have homeschooling
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  Speaker 1: or allow for homeschooling, which is pretty amazing in and
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  Speaker 1: of itself, considering in nineteen seventy it was illegal. And
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: hold on, let me say one more thing to chuck.
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  Speaker 1: There's an article out there called a five Year Moment.
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  Speaker 1: It's on a new magazine called Muria M O O
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  Speaker 1: R I A. And the article was written by a
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  Speaker 1: guy named Dougald Hind, who is an awesome thinker who
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  Speaker 1: I believe is Scottish. I've only seen him online. Um,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: but this is an amazing best article I've read in
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: years as far as content goes. But one of the
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  Speaker 1: things he touches on is compulsory education and the history
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  Speaker 1: of it and how it was used to basically turn
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: children into responsible, unquestioning little drones. And this is what
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: originally gave birth to the homeschool movement. Yeah, like I
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: want to be more in control of how my child,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: how and what my child gets educated because that's free
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: public education. Does it in doctor nats your children? And
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: for some people it's like, great, this is free daycare
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  Speaker 1: because I work, my husband works, or it's just me
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and I work, and I've got to have a place
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  Speaker 1: for my kids. And if they're learning along the way, awesome.
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  Speaker 1: So there there is something that that free public education
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  Speaker 1: gives to people. But a lot of people said, I
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  Speaker 1: want to I want a better a better hand in
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  Speaker 1: that because you don't really have much to say in
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: what your kids are taught in public school. Yeah, there
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  Speaker 1: are polls conducted and generally, UM, states like to keep
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  Speaker 1: track of why you are homeschooling so they can theoretically,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: I guess, get better at their public schooling. So when
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: you in most states, when you apply to homeschool you
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  Speaker 1: you have to give a reason. And um, this study
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  Speaker 1: was actually from a while ago, but I saw a
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  Speaker 1: recent one that the numbers are pretty close, So I
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  Speaker 1: think the reasons are fairly consistent. About thirty percent or
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  Speaker 1: so say it's out of concern about the environment of
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the school, about or for religious or moral reasons, so
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: they could you know, a lot of you know, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of Christians are up in arms about the secularization
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  Speaker 1: of schooling over the years, and they want to be
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  Speaker 1: able to teach their kids, um, stuff from the Bible
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  Speaker 1: and stuff you know, regular like curriculum. Uh, and then
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: about six because they're dissatisfied, basically dissatisfied with the instruction
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and either the curriculum or the teaching. Like I don't
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: think they're getting a good enough education. Escially, if I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: put my kid through this meat grinder, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: they're gonna come out as smart as I want them
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  Speaker 1: to be. So I'm going to teach them myself. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and this is not an indictment of teachers or public schools,
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  Speaker 1: because boy, we know how hard you people work and
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: how what you're up against. Yes, but I went to
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: public school, and I just used the word myselves. Yeah,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: but you're a big shot podcaster, That's true. A couple
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: of sort of not so fun things up front about taxes,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: because I started wondering, if you're homeschool and your kid a,
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  Speaker 1: do you get tax breaks because you're buying this stuff
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: the curriculum and be do you have to pay taxes
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: education taxes for your kid that's not going to public school. So,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: since there's no federal law requirement or mandate or anything
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: regarding homeschooling, I would guess you have zero tax break
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: on the federal level, but probably on in state level.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: In some states you would write boom, federal government doesn't
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: offer anything right now. Uh, some states, I think Illinois, Louisiana,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Minnesota offer tax credits you can write off a lot
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of stuff. Um. I think in Louisiana specifically applies to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: eligible expenses during a year up to five thousand dollars
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: per kid. Oh that's that's a nice break. Yeah, it's
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: not too bad. Well. Plus, also, you remember there was
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: this huge movement to get um tuition vouchers given to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: kids to go to private school, like lower income kids,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to get more of a mixture of people in private schools.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently in some states you can take that voucher and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: just use it to fund your home school. Yeah. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so that's actually opening up the home schooling door for
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people who didn't have that opportunity before.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: They just couldn't afford it. One way or another. Yeah,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and things are changing every year, so it's I mean,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: this will be out of date a year from now. Um,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and now Ohio had it on the docket to consider. Uh,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: they were voting, I think, to decrease property taxes if
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: you were a homeschool home. But I couldn't find Sometimes
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: it's fun. It's hard to find where the Senate bills.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they just seem to disappear, which that means they
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: haven't been voted on. I guess no. I think that
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the people like, really the senators really rallied behind them
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: around election time and then get re elected and they're like,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: I got kickbacks to go. Get bothered with this stuff.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: That's disappointing. And then California is one of twelve states
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: where homeschooling is um considered a private school exemption. So
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: you're sort of your own private school in the state
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: of California. You don't paid property tax. Is there anything
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: like that. I'm not sure about that for taxes, but
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  Speaker 1: they basically consider you part of the private school pool.
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  Speaker 1: That taxing, though, too, is a real reason. There's a
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  Speaker 1: big there's a tug of war between homeschool people and
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  Speaker 1: public school administrators, because for every pupil you have in
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  Speaker 1: your school, you get X number of federal dollars. And
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you start to lose kids to home school then you're
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  Speaker 1: losing federal funding and your whole school suffers because it's
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  Speaker 1: not like that money covers that kid down to the penny.
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  Speaker 1: It frequently goes over and you can use that for
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the school and for all this other stuff. So, um,
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  Speaker 1: there's a I don't want to call it a vicious
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  Speaker 1: cycle because it's not like, um, that's a pretty good
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  Speaker 1: term for it. Actually, the public schools are perceived as
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  Speaker 1: failing in their mission, so they lose students, and by
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: losing students to homeschooling, they lose funding, and so they
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: are doomed to fail even further in their mission. So that, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's a pretty vicious cycle now I think about it. Yeah,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: but they m The real truth is there aren't that
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  Speaker 1: many kids that are home schooled still. Um three three
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: something is that where you got? Yeah, I saw a
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  Speaker 1: more recent one. I got anywhere from one point seven
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  Speaker 1: to two points something. But oh, I thought you're gonna
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  Speaker 1: stay percentage. Yeah, I saw one point seven seven million. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but of the overall school age population. Yeah, but I've
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: heard those numbers could be higher, as much as double,
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  Speaker 1: just because um, it's I guess it's not counted. It's
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a tough thing to count. Well, yeah, an aggregator or
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: maybe no one cares to. School districts have a lot
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of reason to fudge numbers on the lower end. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but that's up about from just like seven or eight
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  Speaker 1: years ago. Well, that's actually double from fifteen years ago,
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  Speaker 1: So there's a very steady increase. And I think the
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  Speaker 1: reason that it's increasing, I mean doubling over fifteen years,
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  Speaker 1: it's pretty significant, even gonna be like in fifty years, right, Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And I think the reason that it's just picking up
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  Speaker 1: steam and it's spreading more and more is because the
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  Speaker 1: more people that have done it, Because the people who
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  Speaker 1: originally started homeschooling had to figure all of this out
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  Speaker 1: on their own, and there were very few homeschool textbooks available,
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  Speaker 1: very few resources, very few websites, very few groups. So
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  Speaker 1: the more people that tried it and were successful and
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  Speaker 1: built momentum. Now, homeschooling is not some scary, weird thing
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  Speaker 1: that parents who only let their kids watch PBS do.
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  Speaker 1: It's it's like a viable option for a parent who
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: is considering where they want to send their kid to school. Yeah,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: my brother and his wife homeschool their kids for a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: couple of years and it went great. Because it's my brother.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: He built a full on classroom. Quite sure, it was
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: awesome and um, you know you well, we'll get into it,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: but it's it's something that you should treat like that. Um.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: And they eventually went back to public school because they
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: wanted the kids wanted to but um, it was you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it was great for a couple of years, I think
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: for for everyone involved. So let's let's dig into this, Chuck, Like,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: what are the considerations. I mean, this isn't something like
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you just hit upon it. This isn't something you take lightly. No,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: not at all. So Chuck, let's dig into it and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: figure out what the considerations are. Because you just hit
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: upon it. This isn't something to take lightly. We'll do
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that right after this. You're right, Josh, as you said
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: before the break, it is not something to take lightly.
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  Speaker 1: You want to do a lot of research beforehand and
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: ask a lot of tough questions of yourself, of your child,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and maybe get some good books. There are a few
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: recommendations here in this article Real Life Homeschooling by Ronda
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Barfield tells a lot of stories about homeschooling families which
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: can help homeschooling for Success by Rebecca Kulk and Duffa
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Conna. There's another going to check out in
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the Homeschooling Almanac by Mary and Michael Leppard. And there
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: are scores and scores of more books, but read some
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: of the start thinking about it. Can you afford it?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Is the first question? Well, the first question I think
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: is why? Well, yeah, good point. Why do you want
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  Speaker 1: to do this? Yeah? And Catherine Near, who wrote this
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: article How Homeschooling Works, says, be as explicit as you
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: can be, so use a lot of curse words in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: your answer to yourself. But you you have to wonder why.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: And that's probably a pretty easy question for most parents
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: who are considering homeschooling to answer. Yeah, you probably got
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: that reason already in your head, right. But if if,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: if your answer is like, because I don't want to
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: let my child out of my sight ever for the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: rest of his life, it's not maybe you should talk
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to some other people about that idea and see if
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: they can talk you out of homeschooling. Yeah, that's a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: good point. Um. The next question that I alluded to
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: is can you afford it? Because, uh, there's a couple
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: of expenses. One or all the things that you need
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to buy to support the education, all those field trips
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: to those aren't cheap. Sure, all that stuff costs money. Um.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And the other one is depending on your situation in
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: your house, you may be dropping a salary if you're
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: not going to take a job as as a spouse
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: to homeschool your kids. Yeah. That's in economics called an
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: opportunity cost, and that is a big one for a
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: lot of people. That's what's prohibited a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: from being able to go to homeschool their kids, like
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: they just can't afford it. Sure, So that's why those
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: tuition vouchers have come into play and helped a lot
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: more people be homeschool teachers because you can use that Yeah. Um,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: that's not to say. I mean with today's modern work
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: trends like telecommuting, working from home, creative scheduling, you can
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: tag team it with the parents or you know, you
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: might can work it out where you both still have
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: an income and you can home school. But when you
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: traditionally think of homeschooling. You think of like one of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the parents isn't gonna work and they're gonna be the teacher, right. Um.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Another option for you, too, is to have grandparents do it.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Umi's boss never thought about that. Umi's Boss's daughter is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: just sharp as a tag. She's homeschooled by her grandparents.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So yeah, they're responsible for her education and they're apparently
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: doing like a bang up job with it. I bet
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: that's a very patient teacher too, the grandparent. Yeah, that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: a good scene. Yeah, But but the point is with
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the grandparents, they're already retired, they already have income, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: if you have money from your job, you can kick
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: them a little bit too. Yeah, so everybody would. Yeah. Plus,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: you're not doing that parent thing where you're just trying
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to like a little make a little mini version of
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: yourself that narcissistic like here where this ramon shirt and um,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a mohawk and an earring at seven. Man.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Grandparents don't care about that. They just want the best
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: for you. They're mellow, they're mellow, all right. The next
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: question is are you qualified, um to teach just because
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you have a college degree or a high school degree
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher, right,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: And and the whole concept of homeschooling too, I think,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: kind of comes out of this sense that you are
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: qualified because kids, not every kid, but a lot of
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: kids are homeschooled in some way, shape or form sure,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: where they learn to read or recognize words, or how
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: to run or walk or crawl or all the stuff
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they learned before they have to go to school. Um,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: I want that head start, you know these days. Right,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: But even even without a head star, even just basically
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: being there absorbing the information that you get from a
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: family and from being around family members, that that is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a form of homeschooling. And a lot of people think like, hey,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: we're on a roll with this stuff. Let's keep it
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: going and I'll be this kid's teacher. Yeah, it's something
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: to think about for sure. Um, you want to think
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: about your kid and talk to your child, like do
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you want to be homeschooled? What do you think about it? Uh?
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: They may be ready, they may be not ready. Do
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you want to I wouldn't say treat them like adults,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: but treat them as if they have their own opinion
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Because they do. You know, it's probably not something you
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: want to force on your kid if they really really
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: want to go to a public school. Uh, of course.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone's gonna make their own decision about their children,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: not gonna tell you how to parent. But I think
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: it's a good idea to have a good, open, honest
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: line of dialogue with your kid about homeschooling first. And
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I mean if your kid is just dug in like
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I do not want to spend all day every day
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: with you, like it's not going to work. Yeah, maybe
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: you should consider that answer. Yeah, and it doesn't it's
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: not doesn't have to be the final word either. You can,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: like my brother, they did it for a couple of
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: years and you can try it and see if it works.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And it's not like the public school is gonna say nope, Smarty,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: you left us, you abandoned us. Then that'd be weird. Principles.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Just guy's arms crossed at the watchfront door. That's how
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: local government works. So let's say everybody's on board, Chuck,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: everyone's on board. Um, you gotta get in touch with
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: your state and find out exactly what the rules are
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to do this legally incorrectly, right, and Catherine Near says,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: don't just look at synopsis of laws, go to your
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: state's education website and find out the laws. And she
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: uses these, um these, she uses North Carolina as an example. So,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: for example, in North Carolina, you would have to you
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: file a notice of intent, which basically says you don't
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: need to worry about my kid. I got I got
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: my kid covered. And why right you would? Yeah? Why, um?
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Am I doing this for religious reasons? Am I doing
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it because the bullies are really bad at the local school? Whatever?
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: And that would also be your claim for whether you
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: were a religious school or just an independent non public school. Um,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: you in North Carolina have to have at least diploma
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: or g e d from high school level to be
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: a qualified homeschool teacher. That's probably a pretty good idea. Whatever.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: North Carolina is obviously a nanny state. Um. And then, uh,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you need to keep track of attendance. You also need
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to do immunizations, which I was kind of surprised by. Yeah,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's still accurate in North Carolina.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Looked up. Yeah, the only one that's not on here
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: is annual standardized testing. Well, this is North Carolina because
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: that's where Catherine lives, right, and that's the only states
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: website that they're allowed access to. UM. But like we said,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: every state is going to be different as according to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: like UM, whether or not you have to pass standardized tests,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: whether or not how many quote unquote vacational holidays are
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: allowed during the calendar year, what months of the year
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: you were required to be in school. Some states, there's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: eleven states out there. They're like, you don't have to
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: tell us anything, just do what you want. You don't
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: even need to tell us your homeschooling your kid. That's
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, UM those are there's eleven,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: there's two or three that UM. One of the homeschool
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: associations quality say is UM like highly regulated, like New York,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: like we'll have people come visit at your house to
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: make sure you're doing things right. UM, and then most
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: other states fall in between where it's kind of like, yeah,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you have to tell us what you're doing, but UM,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: other than that, it's your's your show, yeah, and that
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: this might inform your decision on whether or not you
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: want to follow through on it too, depending on what
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: how lacks your state is, I mean lax but how
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: permissive I guess, or whether or not they have like
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of rigid standards that you're trying to get
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: away from in the first place, like standardized testing, which
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: a whole different kind of worms. Uh. So, if you've
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: got this figured out, like I think, if you're if
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you're thinking you can homeschool your kid, you can probably
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: navigate your state's regulations. Yeah, if you can't, or let's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: say the other way, if you can't do that and
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: probably shouldn't come school you. I think that's a good point, Chuck.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So you've reached this point where you're like, Okay, my
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: kids excited. Um, we've chosen our school mascot. Uh, We've
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: gone over the state's website together, we've agreed. Yes, now
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: you have to get it immunized, whether you like it
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: or not, because we're doing a home school and Carolina, Um,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: what what teaching method should we use? This is a
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: pretty big it's a big decision, but it's also one
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that is not a final decision, like the even the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: decision to homeschool. It's it can change and evolve him.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Apparently with most people it does. Yeah, it's weird to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: say that, but I totally agree. I think it is
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the most important decision you can make. But don't freak
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: out because it's not written in stone. You can evolve
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: your teaching method according to what works. The traditional approach,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Catherine points out, is when I just want to school
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: my kid at home, I'll use the state's curriculum. I'll
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: get all their books and I'll kind of try and
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: mimic what goes on at the public school in my home,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: or I'll get all of my sources from Oral Roberts
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Universities curriculum or whatever. But it's it's like, I imagine
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: your brother's house was you walk into this special room
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and it looks like a classroom or at least all
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: this stuff that's going on is what you'd find in
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: a classroom too. Yeah, And you know, you don't have
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: to build out a special classroom. If you don't have room,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you can do it how however it works for your family.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: But I think they found just having that separate room,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: um was beneficial for sure. Well, yeah, there's fewer distractions,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I would guess. Yeah, And it's just the psychology behind
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: it is like when you're in this room, you're learning, Yeah, exactly,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: like this is what this place is for UM classical education.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: If you want to talk about the three UH principles
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: known as the trivium or the three phases UM. You
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: have the grammar school age students which UM they focus
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: on memorization, gathering facts, the logic, which is middle age students,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and that is when you start to focus more on
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: critical thinking. Middle school aged what I say middle aged.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Those are called non traditional student. I'll watch Back to
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: School the other day. By the way, I think that's good.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: It was so great. Man. If you said it didn't
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: hold up, it totally holds up. Of course it does.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Very funny triple indy, Oh yeah, is still so funny
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: to me. Um, alright, middle school aged. Yeah, And that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is when you're concentrating more on critical thinking and you're
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: putting all this stuff into context. And then the final
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: stage is rhetoric UM, which sounds like a bad word
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: these days because you think of rhetoric is just a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of gob But someone's spouting off some gas bag. Yeah,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: but that's not what rhetoric is. I don't know what
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: he's talking about. These are high school age and that's
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: when they can actually articulate UM a language focused discussion
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: about topics and education. And yeah, the whole thing behind
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: classical education is that is language focused, in language oriented
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and all. This probably sounds pretty familiar to you. If so,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: it's because it has its roots in the Middle Ages.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Not middle aged students, but the Middle Ages. Um, so
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: it's been around for a little while and a lot
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of people out for that one. There's a lot of
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: course material out there based on classical education. Uh what else, Chuck, Well,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you have Montessori, which is a type of schooling based
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: on this really awesome, awesome Italian physician, uh named Maria Montessori.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And she basically was like, somebody needs to make a
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: movie about her. She was so awesome. She was basically like,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I'm looking around and I think this stinks. And this
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: is the early nineteen hundreds. This wasn't like you know,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies when some hippie lady and she
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: was saying, this is the way we're teaching our kids
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: is wrong. And so she started doing things like, you
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: know what, get up, get this heavy furniture out of here.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Let's put some kids furniture in here that they can
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: move around. It's like child size. Let's lower the bookshelves
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to where the kids can access this stuff. Let's teach
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: kids how to care for pets and gymnastics and how
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to cook, and let's put these big open air sections
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: where they can move about freely if they want to,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: and really just sort of opened up. Um really revolutionized
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: education and night, you know, early nineteen hundreds of Italy. Um.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: There's another, I guess, turn of the century educator. She
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: was British though her name is Charlotte Mason. She came
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: up with her own method that I think it's kind
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of clever in a way. Charles Manson, Yeah, he's hope
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: with his education idea. Charlotte Mason, she said, UM, just
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: teach your kid a bunch of stuff, and I'm not
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: exactly clear on how like it's taught, maybe in a
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: normal structured environment, but also teach them fine arts and
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff that most schools just kind
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of are getting rid of these days. The thing that
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: makes her the revolutionary is like, you don't use testing.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Instead use what's called narration, where you say, okay, kid,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I've taught you everything that I know about wales, stand
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: up and tell me about whales, and the kid narrates
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: everything he or she knows about whales and not not.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I did my book report on whales. Whales live in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the ocean and the salt water, and they are large
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: and blue. Because I guess you probably wouldn't be able
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: to have notes because you're not really narrating. Yeah, they
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: have to understand it in order to talk about it exactly.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: That's the whole key, is that to narrate something, you
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: have to understand something. Of course, you could be like
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a complete BS artist, which is kind of awesome in
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and of itself. I means your kid has got some skills,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and another those are creative skills. But Charlotte Mason's point
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: was if your kid can stand up and tell you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: about whales in a smart, intelligent way, and your kid
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: has learned about whales, Yeah, that seems like a pretty
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: cool notion if you asked me. And the next one
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: is my all time favorite, the Waldorf method. Oh no, sorry,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the second to next one. Okay, you were thinking the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Waldorf salad, Yeah, which, man, those are weird. Another one's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: grapes and stuff. Grapes and like apples but also mayonnaise.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: It's not a winning combination. Uh. Someone wrote in with
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: that cotton candy grapes. Did you see that? No, she
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: said that they had them at Whole Foods and they
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: are grapes that tastes like cotton candy. Crazy. Is it
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: called mutants? Um? The Waldorf method is based on Austrian
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: scientists uh Rudolph Steina and he has the concept of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: educating the whole child. Um. Basically concentrates on creative topics. Um,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: fine arts, painting, music, drama, foreign language, gardening, sewing, things
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: that you are, like you said, are kind of going
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: by the wayside in a lot of public schools, did
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: you say, sadly? But then you build upon these things
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: based on the kid's age. That determines what the kids
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: studying at any given points. Yeah. So, if you've ever
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: heard the head, heart and Hands method, that is the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Waldorf method. Um, here's my favorite one, the unit studies method. Yeah,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I like this one. That's gonna cool. It's a little vanilla,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: but it makes sense to me. Basically, you choose a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: topic or a theme and you stretch it out over
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: say like a week or a month or a semester
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and the theme is say, um, but by pirates, okay,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and then you you pirates to investigate, or you investigate
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: every aspect of pirates using math, science, history, UM documentaries, uh,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: projects like all visits to a like a pirate ship
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: if you're in the San Diego area, all that kind
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So sort of finding the individual lessons within
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: a topic, like you can teach economics through talking about
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: pirates or history or like all those things were. And
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: so in the end you you fully get pirates, but
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: you also get a really great good understanding of how
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: everything has all these different aspects and components to it
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: that come together inform it form a whole. It's our
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: like trade. That's what you and I do, Like we
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: take that hole and break it apart. I think that's
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: why it appeals to me so much. I was right
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: there with you on that one. Uh. Then you have unschooling,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: which they call child directed learning or natural learning, and
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: this is I was originally used by author John Holt,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and this just sounds like kind of crazy way, not
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: crazy way, but basically let your child learn how to
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: manage their time and run the show, which is really
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: super interesting. He was one of the early homeschool UM
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: activists that was like agitating in the early seventies agitating. So, um,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: your kid is still learning and you are still teaching
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and guiding. But um, they interviewed Um Catherine. I don't
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: know where she got this quote, but one of the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: unschooled students has a really great quote. I'm planning what
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I do, so I have an overwhelming sense of commitment
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: to what I'm doing. Instead of being told what to
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: do and when to do it and simply being shuttled
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: back and forth from activity to activity, I get to choose.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: So your kid is learning planning and logistics and scheduling,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: and uh, this seems like a really good, real world
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: way of teaching. Oh yeah, for sure, you know, I
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: think I would guess everybody would choose this. The problem
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: is is a fear that accompanies this, of like what
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: if your kids committed to like eating Captain Crunch and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Jack all day? What do you do with that? You know, Well,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: then they're not a good candidate to run schooling. Oh
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: that's a great point, you know, great point, Like I
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: think you only do this if your child is a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: good candidate, and that way your kids, like, you know what,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: I want to do science experiments all day. I just
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: want to go to the library and read today. Then
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: go for it. But part of the key to unschooling
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: is the kid isn't like so take me. It's and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I noticed that you have a slot in your schedule
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: where you could take me to the library and then
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you could pick me up two hours later. Uh, let's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: work this out. And then you go, hey, don't get
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: smart with me, right, don't point that your imaginary watch.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: You're not wearing a watch. I can't even read time yet, kid.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: How do you know when I have yoga because it's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: on the fridge. I imagine you'd have to have a
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: family schedule of stuff on the fridge for unschooling. Yeah,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I think that's pretty smart anyway. And then after that, Chuck,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you have to figure out what kind of learner your
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: kid is. Yeah. Well, there's also the eclectic method, which
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we didn't mention, and that is just sort of a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: cornucopia of all these different methods. Um, it's kind of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: cobbled together. I guess that's the best way, best way
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to say it, right. Yeah, And apparently most parents who
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: are new to homeschooling start off their kid with a
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: much more rigid structure method and then apparently by like
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: year three, it's much lucy goosey. Yeah, much more loosey goosey.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Um or lay back, I guess is a better term
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: for it. But it's not necessarily just unschooling or just this.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It is probably along the lines of the eclectic method. Yeah,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. And like we said, you're not locked
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: into any of these. You gotta find out what works
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: for your kid. And a good way to start is
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: before you start, UM, figure out what kind of learner
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: your child is and what kind of learner and teacher
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you are. Maybe you want to figure out apparently if
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: your kid is one of the four there's four modalities
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I guess is what it's called of learning. UM there's visual, auditory, TecTile,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and kin aesthetic and visual learners basically, like you see
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: things and you get it, whether it's a pie chart
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: or a drawing or a photo or something like that,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: you see, you learned through seeing. So that's that's visual
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: learning style and that's pretty common. Auditory obviously is going
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to be listening and speaking. It's akin to the Charlotte
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: Mason method. UM. Tactile has to deal with touch, it does,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and I was wondering which one would have to do
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: with like writing stuff down, because that's how I remember
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: stuff now I get it into my head is through
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: writing or typing it out. And apparently that falls under
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: tactile doodling to people who doodle or tactile learners, I
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: think I'm a much more visual learner. Yeah, I get
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it when I see it too, but it doesn't I
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: don't get it until I write it myself. Actually, I'm
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a combination between visual and kinneth addic because kin aesthetic
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is um really being involved. Like she's an example of
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: a sailboat. If you want to teach a kid about sailboats,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: that came sailing I know to to research for this episode,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: you went and sat in on a homeschool class for
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. I did not. That's that's the method,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: isn't it. Oh and acting, Yeah, it would be method
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: podcasting I think. So. Uh, if you have once you
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: figure out what kind of learning your child is though,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a good And those aren't the only
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: teaching methods that we mentioned, but those are some of
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: the leading teaching methods for homeschooling. But you're gonna have
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: a good head start on figuring out a good place
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: to start and then just observe go from there and
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: do the the eyeball test, as they say, and if
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: things seem to be working, then great. So there's one huge,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: huge thing that's still outstanding, Chuck, and that is that
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of people worry that if you take your
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: kid out of school, even a crummy school, but that's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: standard course that a school provides, then they're gonna have
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a harder time getting into college. And most homeschool resource
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: places say no, if anything, your homeschool kid is going
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: to have an easier time getting into college because it
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: will be more well rounded, probably smarter. Um. Homeschool kids
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: tend to excel more academics and other stuff. Um, But
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find any quantitative evidence on that like that
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: homeschool kids get into college more easily than non homeschool kids.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I couldn't find anything like that was all anecdotal. Yeah,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know about actually getting into college. Um. But
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: as a parent, um, in a homeschooler, you need to
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: keep really good track of their scores and records. Um,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: if they did any and this is a benefit of homeschooling,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: if they do any like apprenticeships, all of that stuff
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: is gonna help, um, because that's what's gonna take the
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: place of like being in the Beta club or whatever
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it called the beta club. Yeah. Um, like those school
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: activities that supposedly looked at on college transcripts. I don't
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: even know if that's true. By the way, Well, there's
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of homeschool groups that form so that they
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: can do things like have a beta club, or have
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: debate club, or have a sports team go on field trips. Yeah. Um,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: so there are there. Like, if you do homeschooling, it
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean like you can't do any of that, you're
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: just not doing it with your school. The other elephant
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in the room is concern over socialization, as your kid
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: gonna be weird if you homeschool. Yeah, And all the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: evidence and the research that I saw points to no, no, no,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: your kid is not gonna be weird and they're probably
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: gonna be better for the real world because they aren't. Um,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: they aren't like, like you said, trapped in a school
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of peers, constantly worried about what their peers think and
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: being judged or trying to fit in. Uh, they're kind
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of doing their own thing. Um. This is great article
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and Of course this is from a homeschool advocate, so
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: it's pretty one sided. But um, it's called Socialisa shinclin.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Homeschoolers are in the real world. And it was by
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Chris Klicka and his His notion basically is that your
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: kid is already in the real world. They're not gonna
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: be you know, shuttle off the college and be like
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: what in the world's going on, I'm gonna go hog
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: wild and crazy or these people exactly. Uh, they say
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that they overcome this potential for isolation by being on
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: these um and like in the y m c A
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: or the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, uh, singing groups,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: little League. Basically, they are all kinds of ways to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: socialize your kid outside of a school that parents in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: schools do too. They probably don't think about. I mean,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: it didn't have to be in a classroom. No, And
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: it's entirely possible that we take the damage that's done
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: by um elementary and grammar school and high schooling uh
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: as for granted like that that you have to be
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: damaged as a result, and you don't necessarily and you
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: can isolate your kid from that kind of stuff and
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: maybe they'll turn out better than they would have if
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: you had to put through regular school. Yeah, it seems
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: like research indicates that self esteem, UM, what they call
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: self concept and self esteem of a homeschooled child is higher.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: They generally score higher on on tests UM. This one guy,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: what's his name, Smedley Thomas Smedley h. He did a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: thesis of Master's thesis and he had a pretty cool quote.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: He said, in public school systems, children are socialized horizontally
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: and temporarily into conformity with their immediate peers. Home educators
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: seek to socialize their children vertically towards responsibility and service
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and adulthood with an eye on eternity. Pretty cool. Yeah,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and all of this is just intuitive, you know, the
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: idea that if you have that much more attention and
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: your education is is tailored to you the individual, how
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: can you not benefit nixcel. Yeah, Well, we have a
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: list of people here that have excelled that we're home schooled,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: people like Irving Berlin, Ansel Adams, Da Vinci, Agatha Christie
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Einstein does the Vinci count. Yeah, Okay, Peter Jenning, C. S. Lewis,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln Well, Abraham Winkol was Backwood so I don't
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: know if that counts. That's schooling. I mean that was
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: the origin of homeschool Benjamin Franklin, Agatha christ said, Agatha Christie,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Thomas Edison, and um our colleague from stuff Mom never
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: told you, Kristin Conger was homeschooled. And you're in for
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: a treat because right for this message break, we're gonna
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: get cogs in here and we're gonna talk to her. Okay,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: we're back, and we have a third person in the studio,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never told you, Kristen Conger. Hey, guys, thank
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: you for joining us, Thanks for having me. Uh So,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we were doing this show on homeschooling, and obviously, obvia
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you came to mind because you were home schooled. Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I was homeschooled from second through eighth grade. Yeah. Well,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just get this a little background. We kind of want
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: to know, um, why you guys made the decision, who
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: taught you, and just sort of how it went down,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: what methods you guys, methodology you guys used. Okay, So
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in terms of the why, we were a little bit
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of the hyper religious family who wanted a little bit
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: of sheltering from secular education. Okay, so there's that we
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: gotta fit that homeschool stereotype, which still persists today. But
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: there was also a desire at my parents part to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: provide a higher quality education than they thought we would
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: get in public schools because my mom at the time
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: was teaching in public schools and she did not like
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: what she saw and she was like, I can do better,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: she said. Yeah, he was like, I am doing a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: terrible job, So I will try this on my on
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: my children. I want to focus that on you. Uh
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: so your mom is a public school teacher. What grade
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: did she teach? She taught high school? Okay, yeah, um,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and quit her job to teach home school to you, So,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: my mom stayed at home with my siblings and me
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: full time for the first two or three years, and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: then she actually went back to work teaching once we
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: were a little bit older and had the hang of things,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: which might sound wildly irresponsible, but we stayed on task easily,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: and she had assignments for us every day, and since
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: she taught, she got home from work by the early
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: afternoon anyway, so it was minimal lack of supervision. But
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: my siblings and I were so well behaved and she
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: was so good at organizing and leaving us tasks to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: do that. We were just kind of do our school
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: work while she was gone. Yeah. I don't know if
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: that was legal, But did she change? She didn't need
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: to job, That's the thing. I was just that good
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: of a child and I loved reading youngest. Yeah. So brothers.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: You have a brother, right, I've got brothers and sisters. Yeah.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: So one thing I've been trying to figure out. We've
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: been talking about homeschooling. This is the end of the episode. Um,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: there don't seem to be any drawbacks to it, Like,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: where was there anything negative about homeschooling that you encountered
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: in your experience? It was? It all just good. For
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the most part, it was really great. Um. I think
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: it worked well for our family. It worked really well
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: because my mom knew what she was doing. We had
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: formal textbooks. She like formally taught us and even though
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I probably made it sound like she just let us
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: run wild all day, we would sit down every day
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: and do school work one on one with her to
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: check over tests and work. And so she kind of
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: used the method where you basically take the school's curriculum
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: and just try and replicate it out of the school.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: What's they called structure, the structured homeschooling or school at home. Yeah,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I mean she she hand selected all of our curriculum
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and put together lesson plans for all of us. So
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: it was even more intensive than something like that, but
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: she had the background to be able to do that.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And as far as drawbacks go, probably the biggest one
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: was just the socialization factor. Yeah, we talked about that,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and that's all a lot of research that says like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that's sort of a non issue these days. There are
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: so many ways to socialize your kids outside of a classroom,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: and we you may be doing your kid a favor
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: by not having them in a classroom, But these were
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: written by homeschool Well, there were absolutely social outlets that
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: we had during home school. For instance, I played on
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a soccer team, I took ballet. We went to church,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: so we had youth group activities and things like that. Um,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And especially in elementary school and middle school. I don't
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: think that I really missed out that much socially. UM.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: When I started high school in what we called regular school,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: much of my mother's chagrin, UM, there was a little
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: bit of a transition simply of having to deal with
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: kids peers day in and day out in a more
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: intense way than I ever had before. And there are
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: still some socialization factors I think I'm trying to figure
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: out at almost thirty. No, I mean, I joke, but
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: sort of. I mean. Um, On the one hand, I'm
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: really grateful that I did not have to go through
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: middle school because everyone I know who went to middle
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: school that sounded like a horrific and confusing time to
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: be in school. But um, there were some humps here
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and there because my concept of school and social life
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: and getting along and even high school dating and all
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: of that was largely just based on TV and movies.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: So I had a few missteps. Yeah. Interesting, Why did
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: you eventually go back to school? How did that all work? Well,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: there was a decision on my parents as part, largely
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: because I was the youngest in my family, so by
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: that time I was the last one at home. It
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: would have just been me by myself, and they could
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: kind of tell that I was sort of jostl ng
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: for a little bit more so. Plus, your mom was done,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: She's just done. She was so tired of me, Josh.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: She was like, I've had it with you, not really,
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: so you were the last kid, so it was basically
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: just kind of felt like the right time. Yeah, so
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: did your older siblings graduate from high school through your
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: mom's homeschooling. Two of my siblings graduated homeschool, so that
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: was a little bit of a sticking point when I
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: got to go to real high school. They were jealousy,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe a little bit that I got to get
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: a spring break I got from my older my older
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: sister and brother. But I mean, is that the dream
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: of all homeschool kids to go to regular school or
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: is it like when you're in home school, you're you're
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: kind of like I have it way better than my
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: peers in high school. Well, first of all, I don't
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: want to speak on behalf of all home schoolers, but
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: I get the sense, especially from what you guys are
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: talking about, in terms of homeschool today, I don't think
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: there's as much of that longing for quote unquote regular
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: school as maybe they're used to be. Um, what were
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: you home school in the fifties. No, I would have
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: been in the nineties. Um. So I think for again,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: it has a lot to do with age, probably for
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: elementary schoolers, middle schoolers even who Cares Elementary school. Home
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: school was awesome. Can hang out on my pj's. I
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: could go play in my FOURT when I wanted to
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: home now exactly, I could do my math in the
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: woods if I really wanted to. But I think once
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: you get older, you just naturally want to start sort
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: of finding your place outside of the home a little
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: bit more. What about your siblings that graduated home school,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: what did they go to college and what was that
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: process like they went to college, Um, it was a
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: little more challenging for them with I think they had
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: to take the A C T and the S A
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: T and perhaps some S A T twos because there
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: were there are S A T twos and they are
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: a bear. Um. But people were a bit more skeptical
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of the quality of homeschooling back then. I don't know
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: that it's as stringent today. But they both went to
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and graduated from college and are well adjusted adults with families,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: and one of them is actually a teacher now, which
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: is an interesting Speaking of families, if you had kids,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: or if you do ever have kids, would you ever
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: consider homeschooling them? No question, no, But that's largely because
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I am horrendously lazy, I've forgotten how to read, and
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I just would make a terrible teacher. I don't have
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the patience for it. Would you ever hire your mom
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: as a homeschool teacher for your kids? No, because she
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: want to be a full time grandma. Well we did see.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: That was one of the big questions that you should
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: ask yourself, Like, just because you're super smart and that
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: means you're a good teacher? Yes, yeah, I've I've definitely
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: seen some questionable homeschooling attempts on parents who are clearly
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: not qualified. And there are kids too, I think who
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: benefit more from structured classroom environments, who might, especially if
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: they have perhaps a learning disability or something like that,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: who need more um specialized attention. I got nothing else
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I don't either. That was super enlightening. Hey, thank you,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And you can catch Kristen and her colleague Caroline every
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: week what they does? Stuff mom ever told you? Come
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: out Mondays and Wednesdays on iTunes on your site. What's
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: the website? Stuff mom never told you? Dot com appropriately enough?
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, Kristen, Thanks again, joh and Chuck,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: And if you want to know more about homeschooling, you
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: can type those words into the search bart how stuff
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: works dot com. And since I said search parts, time
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: for the listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna call
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: this Crop Circle email. Just listen to the Crop Circle podcast.
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: It was particularly amused to hear you take a romantic
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: view on overhearing people conspiring to make crop circles in
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: a rural English pub because I am from Salisbury, Wiltshire.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I'm here ten miles from Stonehenge. That's the epicenter. It is.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite pubs in Salisbury is called Wyndham Arms.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: What special is They have a very very local crowd. Uh. Secondly,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the pubs brew their own ale, one of which is
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: called Crop Circle. Uh. If you let me know your
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: shipping address, I'll happy happily send you some bottles of it. Boy.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Um, I was quite excited to hear you
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: mentioned my home country, home county, excuse me of Wiltshure,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: And I thought i'd share a local legend. Uh. The
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: collective nickname people from here are moon rakers. Um. Now,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: once upon a time, long ago, there were a group
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: of bootlegger is making illicit booze somewhere in North Wiltchire,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: these guys are walking along the road and with their wares.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden here comes the custom officials. Thinking quickly,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: they placed the booze in a nearby pond. The custom
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: officials here the racket, investigate and they see these guys
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: in the pond, ask what they're doing. The Wilsherman noticed
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: the reflection of the full moon in the pond and
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: say to the officials that they were just trying to
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: get this giant cheese out of the pond. The officers
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: supposedly looked at each other and said, Hey, look at
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: these stupid yokels. S no cheese. They're trying to rake
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the moon. So that's where moon rakers came from. Is
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: there where the James Bond title comes from? I don't
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: think so. Uh. And that is from Chris near Stonehenge.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Chris nice. Thank you very much. Christ. And yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: we'll send you the address because I would love to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: drink that beer. Heck, yes, i'll send you the address
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: to you'll get it at least two three times. If
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: you want to send us some beer, we would love that.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: You can tweet to us for some weird reason about
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: it too. S Y s K Podcast You can do
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: how Stuff Worst dot com, and as always, joined us
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: is it how Stuff Works dot com