December 11, 2014 • 49 mins
Back in the 1970s, homeschooling was illegal in the U.S., but after activists of all stripes lobbied lawmakers, schooling kids at home has become a viable option for parents. And as more and more have chosen it, it's become more mainstream.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Knowles with
us again, which means it's stuff it sounds I can
spell up the cliff I did. That would have been
(00:23):
good for the clip diving episode, remember that one man.
That was interesting. Uh you have parents, Chuck, who we're
both educators, right, um dead principal, mom, teacher And Uh.
I was wondering while I was researching this, because we're
talking about home school today. I wasn't homeschooled. You weren't homeschooled.
(00:43):
Now in a way, you were home schooled, because you're
right exactly. Um, but I wondered, like, if you were
raised with any kind of opinions one way or another
on home schooling because of both your parents professions. No,
not at all, because when I was in school. Uh,
and when you were in school, it wasn't super popular. Uh.
(01:04):
Well it may have been illegal for in a lot
of places. Yeah, I guess that's a good point to
bring up. Um schooling education history one. Uh it started
compulsory school attendant started in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in
eighteen fifty two, and by nineteen eighteen, UM Mississippi of
(01:25):
course was the last state to I'm so sorry Mississippi,
it was the last state to to UM demand compulsory
attendance by law. Uh. And then for many years it
was that way, like you had to go to school
between until like what the was the seventies. Uh, that
was when I think the movement really started, but I
(01:46):
think possibly into the nineties, like there were states where
you had to go to school. Yeah, and we should
point out up front that every state is different when
it comes to laws about home schooling. So this is
a super high view. UM. We would have to do
fifty podcasts to really get into the nitty gritty of
of the the finer points of homeschooling in each state
(02:10):
for sure. So yeah, we're gonna do an overview. But
you are right, like homeschooling was, it wasn't around until
like they started to really there was a group of
grassroots people who got together and started organizing UM and
got homeschooling laws passed. Apparently they were trying really hard
(02:30):
to get the Supreme Court to rule on a case
a homeschool in case once and for all that would
give it some sort of constitutional or federal protection that
may lead to like a federal law or mandate, but
they haven't gotten to that point. Instead, it's just been
state by state, which is fine. Very few kids go
to school interstate, right yeah, um, or interstate, I should say,
(02:53):
But there's no federal legislation. It's like you say, all
the states have different laws that they all have homeschooling
or allow for homeschooling, which is pretty amazing in and
of itself, considering in nineteen seventy it was illegal. And
hold on, let me say one more thing to chuck.
There's an article out there called a five Year Moment.
(03:14):
It's on a new magazine called Muria M O O
R I A. And the article was written by a
guy named Dougald Hind, who is an awesome thinker who
I believe is Scottish. I've only seen him online. Um,
but this is an amazing best article I've read in
years as far as content goes. But one of the
things he touches on is compulsory education and the history
(03:36):
of it and how it was used to basically turn
children into responsible, unquestioning little drones. And this is what
originally gave birth to the homeschool movement. Yeah, like I
want to be more in control of how my child,
how and what my child gets educated because that's free
(04:00):
public education. Does it in doctor nats your children? And
for some people it's like, great, this is free daycare
because I work, my husband works, or it's just me
and I work, and I've got to have a place
for my kids. And if they're learning along the way, awesome.
So there there is something that that free public education
gives to people. But a lot of people said, I
(04:23):
want to I want a better a better hand in
that because you don't really have much to say in
what your kids are taught in public school. Yeah, there
are polls conducted and generally, UM, states like to keep
track of why you are homeschooling so they can theoretically,
I guess, get better at their public schooling. So when
you in most states, when you apply to homeschool you
(04:45):
you have to give a reason. And um, this study
was actually from a while ago, but I saw a
recent one that the numbers are pretty close, So I
think the reasons are fairly consistent. About thirty percent or
so say it's out of concern about the environment of
the school, about or for religious or moral reasons, so
(05:05):
they could you know, a lot of you know, a
lot of Christians are up in arms about the secularization
of schooling over the years, and they want to be
able to teach their kids, um, stuff from the Bible
and stuff you know, regular like curriculum. Uh, and then
about six because they're dissatisfied, basically dissatisfied with the instruction
(05:26):
and either the curriculum or the teaching. Like I don't
think they're getting a good enough education. Escially, if I
put my kid through this meat grinder, I don't think
they're gonna come out as smart as I want them
to be. So I'm going to teach them myself. Yeah,
and this is not an indictment of teachers or public schools,
because boy, we know how hard you people work and
(05:47):
how what you're up against. Yes, but I went to
public school, and I just used the word myselves. Yeah,
but you're a big shot podcaster, That's true. A couple
of sort of not so fun things up front about taxes,
because I started wondering, if you're homeschool and your kid a,
do you get tax breaks because you're buying this stuff
(06:07):
the curriculum and be do you have to pay taxes
education taxes for your kid that's not going to public school. So,
since there's no federal law requirement or mandate or anything
regarding homeschooling, I would guess you have zero tax break
on the federal level, but probably on in state level.
In some states you would write boom, federal government doesn't
offer anything right now. Uh, some states, I think Illinois, Louisiana,
(06:30):
Minnesota offer tax credits you can write off a lot
of stuff. Um. I think in Louisiana specifically applies to
eligible expenses during a year up to five thousand dollars
per kid. Oh that's that's a nice break. Yeah, it's
not too bad. Well. Plus, also, you remember there was
this huge movement to get um tuition vouchers given to
(06:52):
kids to go to private school, like lower income kids,
to get more of a mixture of people in private schools.
Apparently in some states you can take that voucher and
just use it to fund your home school. Yeah. Um,
so that's actually opening up the home schooling door for
a lot of people who didn't have that opportunity before.
(07:12):
They just couldn't afford it. One way or another. Yeah,
and things are changing every year, so it's I mean,
this will be out of date a year from now. Um,
and now Ohio had it on the docket to consider. Uh,
they were voting, I think, to decrease property taxes if
you were a homeschool home. But I couldn't find Sometimes
it's fun. It's hard to find where the Senate bills.
Sometimes they just seem to disappear, which that means they
(07:34):
haven't been voted on. I guess no. I think that
the people like, really the senators really rallied behind them
around election time and then get re elected and they're like,
I got kickbacks to go. Get bothered with this stuff.
That's disappointing. And then California is one of twelve states
where homeschooling is um considered a private school exemption. So
(07:55):
you're sort of your own private school in the state
of California. You don't paid property tax. Is there anything
like that. I'm not sure about that for taxes, but
they basically consider you part of the private school pool.
That taxing, though, too, is a real reason. There's a
big there's a tug of war between homeschool people and
(08:17):
public school administrators, because for every pupil you have in
your school, you get X number of federal dollars. And
you start to lose kids to home school then you're
losing federal funding and your whole school suffers because it's
not like that money covers that kid down to the penny.
It frequently goes over and you can use that for
(08:38):
the school and for all this other stuff. So, um,
there's a I don't want to call it a vicious
cycle because it's not like, um, that's a pretty good
term for it. Actually, the public schools are perceived as
failing in their mission, so they lose students, and by
losing students to homeschooling, they lose funding, and so they
(09:01):
are doomed to fail even further in their mission. So that, yeah,
that's a pretty vicious cycle now I think about it. Yeah,
but they m The real truth is there aren't that
many kids that are home schooled still. Um three three
something is that where you got? Yeah, I saw a
more recent one. I got anywhere from one point seven
to two points something. But oh, I thought you're gonna
(09:22):
stay percentage. Yeah, I saw one point seven seven million. Yeah,
but of the overall school age population. Yeah, but I've
heard those numbers could be higher, as much as double,
just because um, it's I guess it's not counted. It's
a tough thing to count. Well, yeah, an aggregator or
maybe no one cares to. School districts have a lot
(09:43):
of reason to fudge numbers on the lower end. Yeah,
but that's up about from just like seven or eight
years ago. Well, that's actually double from fifteen years ago,
So there's a very steady increase. And I think the
reason that it's increasing, I mean doubling over fifteen years,
it's pretty significant, even gonna be like in fifty years, right, Uh.
And I think the reason that it's just picking up
(10:03):
steam and it's spreading more and more is because the
more people that have done it, Because the people who
originally started homeschooling had to figure all of this out
on their own, and there were very few homeschool textbooks available,
very few resources, very few websites, very few groups. So
the more people that tried it and were successful and
(10:25):
built momentum. Now, homeschooling is not some scary, weird thing
that parents who only let their kids watch PBS do.
It's it's like a viable option for a parent who
is considering where they want to send their kid to school. Yeah,
my brother and his wife homeschool their kids for a
couple of years and it went great. Because it's my brother.
(10:48):
He built a full on classroom. Quite sure, it was
awesome and um, you know you well, we'll get into it,
but it's it's something that you should treat like that. Um.
And they eventually went back to public school because they
wanted the kids wanted to but um, it was you know,
it was great for a couple of years, I think
for for everyone involved. So let's let's dig into this, Chuck, Like,
what are the considerations. I mean, this isn't something like
(11:10):
you just hit upon it. This isn't something you take lightly. No,
not at all. So Chuck, let's dig into it and
figure out what the considerations are. Because you just hit
upon it. This isn't something to take lightly. We'll do
that right after this. You're right, Josh, as you said
before the break, it is not something to take lightly.
You want to do a lot of research beforehand and
(11:31):
ask a lot of tough questions of yourself, of your child,
and maybe get some good books. There are a few
recommendations here in this article Real Life Homeschooling by Ronda
Barfield tells a lot of stories about homeschooling families which
can help homeschooling for Success by Rebecca Kulk and Duffa
and Elizabeth Conna. There's another going to check out in
(11:53):
the Homeschooling Almanac by Mary and Michael Leppard. And there
are scores and scores of more books, but read some
of the start thinking about it. Can you afford it?
Is the first question? Well, the first question I think
is why? Well, yeah, good point. Why do you want
to do this? Yeah? And Catherine Near, who wrote this
article How Homeschooling Works, says, be as explicit as you
(12:13):
can be, so use a lot of curse words in
your answer to yourself. But you you have to wonder why.
And that's probably a pretty easy question for most parents
who are considering homeschooling to answer. Yeah, you probably got
that reason already in your head, right. But if if,
if your answer is like, because I don't want to
let my child out of my sight ever for the
rest of his life, it's not maybe you should talk
(12:36):
to some other people about that idea and see if
they can talk you out of homeschooling. Yeah, that's a
good point. Um. The next question that I alluded to
is can you afford it? Because, uh, there's a couple
of expenses. One or all the things that you need
to buy to support the education, all those field trips
to those aren't cheap. Sure, all that stuff costs money. Um.
(12:56):
And the other one is depending on your situation in
your house, you may be dropping a salary if you're
not going to take a job as as a spouse
to homeschool your kids. Yeah. That's in economics called an
opportunity cost, and that is a big one for a
lot of people. That's what's prohibited a lot of people
from being able to go to homeschool their kids, like
(13:17):
they just can't afford it. Sure, So that's why those
tuition vouchers have come into play and helped a lot
more people be homeschool teachers because you can use that Yeah. Um,
that's not to say. I mean with today's modern work
trends like telecommuting, working from home, creative scheduling, you can
tag team it with the parents or you know, you
(13:38):
might can work it out where you both still have
an income and you can home school. But when you
traditionally think of homeschooling. You think of like one of
the parents isn't gonna work and they're gonna be the teacher, right. Um.
Another option for you, too, is to have grandparents do it.
Umi's boss never thought about that. Umi's Boss's daughter is
(13:58):
just sharp as a tag. She's homeschooled by her grandparents.
So yeah, they're responsible for her education and they're apparently
doing like a bang up job with it. I bet
that's a very patient teacher too, the grandparent. Yeah, that
a good scene. Yeah, But but the point is with
the grandparents, they're already retired, they already have income, and
if you have money from your job, you can kick
(14:21):
them a little bit too. Yeah, so everybody would. Yeah. Plus,
you're not doing that parent thing where you're just trying
to like a little make a little mini version of
yourself that narcissistic like here where this ramon shirt and um,
I'm gonna give you a mohawk and an earring at seven. Man.
Grandparents don't care about that. They just want the best
for you. They're mellow, they're mellow, all right. The next
(14:42):
question is are you qualified, um to teach just because
you have a college degree or a high school degree
doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher, right,
And and the whole concept of homeschooling too, I think,
kind of comes out of this sense that you are
qualified because kids, not every kid, but a lot of
kids are homeschooled in some way, shape or form sure,
(15:04):
where they learn to read or recognize words, or how
to run or walk or crawl or all the stuff
they learned before they have to go to school. Um,
I want that head start, you know these days. Right,
But even even without a head star, even just basically
being there absorbing the information that you get from a
family and from being around family members, that that is
(15:27):
a form of homeschooling. And a lot of people think like, hey,
we're on a roll with this stuff. Let's keep it
going and I'll be this kid's teacher. Yeah, it's something
to think about for sure. Um, you want to think
about your kid and talk to your child, like do
you want to be homeschooled? What do you think about it? Uh?
They may be ready, they may be not ready. Do
(15:48):
you want to I wouldn't say treat them like adults,
but treat them as if they have their own opinion
Because they do. You know, it's probably not something you
want to force on your kid if they really really
want to go to a public school. Uh, of course.
You know, everyone's gonna make their own decision about their children,
not gonna tell you how to parent. But I think
it's a good idea to have a good, open, honest
(16:09):
line of dialogue with your kid about homeschooling first. And
I mean if your kid is just dug in like
I do not want to spend all day every day
with you, like it's not going to work. Yeah, maybe
you should consider that answer. Yeah, and it doesn't it's
not doesn't have to be the final word either. You can,
like my brother, they did it for a couple of
years and you can try it and see if it works.
(16:30):
And it's not like the public school is gonna say nope, Smarty,
you left us, you abandoned us. Then that'd be weird. Principles.
Just guy's arms crossed at the watchfront door. That's how
local government works. So let's say everybody's on board, Chuck,
everyone's on board. Um, you gotta get in touch with
(16:52):
your state and find out exactly what the rules are
to do this legally incorrectly, right, and Catherine Near says,
don't just look at synopsis of laws, go to your
state's education website and find out the laws. And she
uses these, um these, she uses North Carolina as an example. So,
(17:12):
for example, in North Carolina, you would have to you
file a notice of intent, which basically says you don't
need to worry about my kid. I got I got
my kid covered. And why right you would? Yeah? Why, um?
Am I doing this for religious reasons? Am I doing
it because the bullies are really bad at the local school? Whatever?
And that would also be your claim for whether you
(17:33):
were a religious school or just an independent non public school. Um,
you in North Carolina have to have at least diploma
or g e d from high school level to be
a qualified homeschool teacher. That's probably a pretty good idea. Whatever.
North Carolina is obviously a nanny state. Um. And then, uh,
(17:53):
you need to keep track of attendance. You also need
to do immunizations, which I was kind of surprised by. Yeah,
I don't know if that's still accurate in North Carolina.
Looked up. Yeah, the only one that's not on here
is annual standardized testing. Well, this is North Carolina because
that's where Catherine lives, right, and that's the only states
website that they're allowed access to. UM. But like we said,
(18:16):
every state is going to be different as according to
like UM, whether or not you have to pass standardized tests,
whether or not how many quote unquote vacational holidays are
allowed during the calendar year, what months of the year
you were required to be in school. Some states, there's
eleven states out there. They're like, you don't have to
(18:38):
tell us anything, just do what you want. You don't
even need to tell us your homeschooling your kid. That's
that's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, UM those are there's eleven,
there's two or three that UM. One of the homeschool
associations quality say is UM like highly regulated, like New York,
(18:58):
like we'll have people come visit at your house to
make sure you're doing things right. UM, and then most
other states fall in between where it's kind of like, yeah,
you have to tell us what you're doing, but UM,
other than that, it's your's your show, yeah, and that
this might inform your decision on whether or not you
want to follow through on it too, depending on what
how lacks your state is, I mean lax but how
(19:20):
permissive I guess, or whether or not they have like
a lot of rigid standards that you're trying to get
away from in the first place, like standardized testing, which
a whole different kind of worms. Uh. So, if you've
got this figured out, like I think, if you're if
you're thinking you can homeschool your kid, you can probably
navigate your state's regulations. Yeah, if you can't, or let's
(19:40):
say the other way, if you can't do that and
probably shouldn't come school you. I think that's a good point, Chuck.
So you've reached this point where you're like, Okay, my
kids excited. Um, we've chosen our school mascot. Uh, We've
gone over the state's website together, we've agreed. Yes, now
you have to get it immunized, whether you like it
or not, because we're doing a home school and Carolina, Um,
(20:01):
what what teaching method should we use? This is a
pretty big it's a big decision, but it's also one
that is not a final decision, like the even the
decision to homeschool. It's it can change and evolve him.
Apparently with most people it does. Yeah, it's weird to
say that, but I totally agree. I think it is
(20:22):
the most important decision you can make. But don't freak
out because it's not written in stone. You can evolve
your teaching method according to what works. The traditional approach,
Catherine points out, is when I just want to school
my kid at home, I'll use the state's curriculum. I'll
get all their books and I'll kind of try and
(20:42):
mimic what goes on at the public school in my home,
or I'll get all of my sources from Oral Roberts
Universities curriculum or whatever. But it's it's like, I imagine
your brother's house was you walk into this special room
and it looks like a classroom or at least all
this stuff that's going on is what you'd find in
a classroom too. Yeah, And you know, you don't have
(21:04):
to build out a special classroom. If you don't have room,
you can do it how however it works for your family.
But I think they found just having that separate room,
um was beneficial for sure. Well, yeah, there's fewer distractions,
I would guess. Yeah, And it's just the psychology behind
it is like when you're in this room, you're learning, Yeah, exactly,
like this is what this place is for UM classical education.
(21:25):
If you want to talk about the three UH principles
known as the trivium or the three phases UM. You
have the grammar school age students which UM they focus
on memorization, gathering facts, the logic, which is middle age students,
and that is when you start to focus more on
critical thinking. Middle school aged what I say middle aged.
(21:46):
Those are called non traditional student. I'll watch Back to
School the other day. By the way, I think that's good.
It was so great. Man. If you said it didn't
hold up, it totally holds up. Of course it does.
Very funny triple indy, Oh yeah, is still so funny
to me. Um, alright, middle school aged. Yeah, And that
is when you're concentrating more on critical thinking and you're
(22:07):
putting all this stuff into context. And then the final
stage is rhetoric UM, which sounds like a bad word
these days because you think of rhetoric is just a
bunch of gob But someone's spouting off some gas bag. Yeah,
but that's not what rhetoric is. I don't know what
he's talking about. These are high school age and that's
when they can actually articulate UM a language focused discussion
(22:30):
about topics and education. And yeah, the whole thing behind
classical education is that is language focused, in language oriented
and all. This probably sounds pretty familiar to you. If so,
it's because it has its roots in the Middle Ages.
Not middle aged students, but the Middle Ages. Um, so
it's been around for a little while and a lot
(22:51):
of people out for that one. There's a lot of
course material out there based on classical education. Uh what else, Chuck, Well,
you have Montessori, which is a type of schooling based
on this really awesome, awesome Italian physician, uh named Maria Montessori.
And she basically was like, somebody needs to make a
(23:12):
movie about her. She was so awesome. She was basically like,
I'm looking around and I think this stinks. And this
is the early nineteen hundreds. This wasn't like you know,
in the nineteen seventies when some hippie lady and she
was saying, this is the way we're teaching our kids
is wrong. And so she started doing things like, you
know what, get up, get this heavy furniture out of here.
Let's put some kids furniture in here that they can
(23:33):
move around. It's like child size. Let's lower the bookshelves
to where the kids can access this stuff. Let's teach
kids how to care for pets and gymnastics and how
to cook, and let's put these big open air sections
where they can move about freely if they want to,
and really just sort of opened up. Um really revolutionized
(23:55):
education and night, you know, early nineteen hundreds of Italy. Um.
There's another, I guess, turn of the century educator. She
was British though her name is Charlotte Mason. She came
up with her own method that I think it's kind
of clever in a way. Charles Manson, Yeah, he's hope
with his education idea. Charlotte Mason, she said, UM, just
(24:18):
teach your kid a bunch of stuff, and I'm not
exactly clear on how like it's taught, maybe in a
normal structured environment, but also teach them fine arts and
a bunch of other stuff that most schools just kind
of are getting rid of these days. The thing that
makes her the revolutionary is like, you don't use testing.
(24:40):
Instead use what's called narration, where you say, okay, kid,
I've taught you everything that I know about wales, stand
up and tell me about whales, and the kid narrates
everything he or she knows about whales and not not.
I did my book report on whales. Whales live in
the ocean and the salt water, and they are large
and blue. Because I guess you probably wouldn't be able
(25:01):
to have notes because you're not really narrating. Yeah, they
have to understand it in order to talk about it exactly.
That's the whole key, is that to narrate something, you
have to understand something. Of course, you could be like
a complete BS artist, which is kind of awesome in
and of itself. I means your kid has got some skills,
and another those are creative skills. But Charlotte Mason's point
(25:22):
was if your kid can stand up and tell you
about whales in a smart, intelligent way, and your kid
has learned about whales, Yeah, that seems like a pretty
cool notion if you asked me. And the next one
is my all time favorite, the Waldorf method. Oh no, sorry,
the second to next one. Okay, you were thinking the
Waldorf salad, Yeah, which, man, those are weird. Another one's
(25:42):
grapes and stuff. Grapes and like apples but also mayonnaise.
It's not a winning combination. Uh. Someone wrote in with
that cotton candy grapes. Did you see that? No, she
said that they had them at Whole Foods and they
are grapes that tastes like cotton candy. Crazy. Is it
called mutants? Um? The Waldorf method is based on Austrian
(26:04):
scientists uh Rudolph Steina and he has the concept of
educating the whole child. Um. Basically concentrates on creative topics. Um,
fine arts, painting, music, drama, foreign language, gardening, sewing, things
that you are, like you said, are kind of going
by the wayside in a lot of public schools, did
(26:25):
you say, sadly? But then you build upon these things
based on the kid's age. That determines what the kids
studying at any given points. Yeah. So, if you've ever
heard the head, heart and Hands method, that is the
Waldorf method. Um, here's my favorite one, the unit studies method. Yeah,
I like this one. That's gonna cool. It's a little vanilla,
but it makes sense to me. Basically, you choose a
(26:47):
topic or a theme and you stretch it out over
say like a week or a month or a semester
or whatever, and the theme is say, um, but by pirates, okay,
and then you you pirates to investigate, or you investigate
every aspect of pirates using math, science, history, UM documentaries, uh,
(27:09):
projects like all visits to a like a pirate ship
if you're in the San Diego area, all that kind
of stuff. So sort of finding the individual lessons within
a topic, like you can teach economics through talking about
pirates or history or like all those things were. And
so in the end you you fully get pirates, but
(27:29):
you also get a really great good understanding of how
everything has all these different aspects and components to it
that come together inform it form a whole. It's our
like trade. That's what you and I do, Like we
take that hole and break it apart. I think that's
why it appeals to me so much. I was right
there with you on that one. Uh. Then you have unschooling,
(27:53):
which they call child directed learning or natural learning, and
this is I was originally used by author John Holt,
and this just sounds like kind of crazy way, not
crazy way, but basically let your child learn how to
manage their time and run the show, which is really
(28:13):
super interesting. He was one of the early homeschool UM
activists that was like agitating in the early seventies agitating. So, um,
your kid is still learning and you are still teaching
and guiding. But um, they interviewed Um Catherine. I don't
know where she got this quote, but one of the
unschooled students has a really great quote. I'm planning what
(28:35):
I do, so I have an overwhelming sense of commitment
to what I'm doing. Instead of being told what to
do and when to do it and simply being shuttled
back and forth from activity to activity, I get to choose.
So your kid is learning planning and logistics and scheduling,
and uh, this seems like a really good, real world
way of teaching. Oh yeah, for sure, you know, I
(28:56):
think I would guess everybody would choose this. The problem
is is a fear that accompanies this, of like what
if your kids committed to like eating Captain Crunch and
Jack all day? What do you do with that? You know, Well,
then they're not a good candidate to run schooling. Oh
that's a great point, you know, great point, Like I
think you only do this if your child is a
(29:18):
good candidate, and that way your kids, like, you know what,
I want to do science experiments all day. I just
want to go to the library and read today. Then
go for it. But part of the key to unschooling
is the kid isn't like so take me. It's and
I noticed that you have a slot in your schedule
where you could take me to the library and then
you could pick me up two hours later. Uh, let's
(29:39):
work this out. And then you go, hey, don't get
smart with me, right, don't point that your imaginary watch.
You're not wearing a watch. I can't even read time yet, kid.
How do you know when I have yoga because it's
on the fridge. I imagine you'd have to have a
family schedule of stuff on the fridge for unschooling. Yeah,
I think that's pretty smart anyway. And then after that, Chuck,
(30:00):
you have to figure out what kind of learner your
kid is. Yeah. Well, there's also the eclectic method, which
we didn't mention, and that is just sort of a
cornucopia of all these different methods. Um, it's kind of
cobbled together. I guess that's the best way, best way
to say it, right. Yeah, And apparently most parents who
are new to homeschooling start off their kid with a
(30:22):
much more rigid structure method and then apparently by like
year three, it's much lucy goosey. Yeah, much more loosey goosey.
Um or lay back, I guess is a better term
for it. But it's not necessarily just unschooling or just this.
It is probably along the lines of the eclectic method. Yeah,
that makes sense. And like we said, you're not locked
(30:43):
into any of these. You gotta find out what works
for your kid. And a good way to start is
before you start, UM, figure out what kind of learner
your child is and what kind of learner and teacher
you are. Maybe you want to figure out apparently if
your kid is one of the four there's four modalities
I guess is what it's called of learning. UM there's visual, auditory, TecTile,
(31:08):
and kin aesthetic and visual learners basically, like you see
things and you get it, whether it's a pie chart
or a drawing or a photo or something like that,
you see, you learned through seeing. So that's that's visual
learning style and that's pretty common. Auditory obviously is going
(31:29):
to be listening and speaking. It's akin to the Charlotte
Mason method. UM. Tactile has to deal with touch, it does,
and I was wondering which one would have to do
with like writing stuff down, because that's how I remember
stuff now I get it into my head is through
writing or typing it out. And apparently that falls under
tactile doodling to people who doodle or tactile learners, I
(31:50):
think I'm a much more visual learner. Yeah, I get
it when I see it too, but it doesn't I
don't get it until I write it myself. Actually, I'm
a combination between visual and kinneth addic because kin aesthetic
is um really being involved. Like she's an example of
a sailboat. If you want to teach a kid about sailboats,
that came sailing I know to to research for this episode,
(32:12):
you went and sat in on a homeschool class for
a couple of weeks. I did not. That's that's the method,
isn't it. Oh and acting, Yeah, it would be method
podcasting I think. So. Uh, if you have once you
figure out what kind of learning your child is though,
you're gonna have a good And those aren't the only
(32:32):
teaching methods that we mentioned, but those are some of
the leading teaching methods for homeschooling. But you're gonna have
a good head start on figuring out a good place
to start and then just observe go from there and
do the the eyeball test, as they say, and if
things seem to be working, then great. So there's one huge,
huge thing that's still outstanding, Chuck, and that is that
(32:53):
a lot of people worry that if you take your
kid out of school, even a crummy school, but that's
standard course that a school provides, then they're gonna have
a harder time getting into college. And most homeschool resource
places say no, if anything, your homeschool kid is going
to have an easier time getting into college because it
will be more well rounded, probably smarter. Um. Homeschool kids
(33:17):
tend to excel more academics and other stuff. Um, But
I couldn't find any quantitative evidence on that like that
homeschool kids get into college more easily than non homeschool kids.
I couldn't find anything like that was all anecdotal. Yeah,
I don't know about actually getting into college. Um. But
as a parent, um, in a homeschooler, you need to
(33:38):
keep really good track of their scores and records. Um,
if they did any and this is a benefit of homeschooling,
if they do any like apprenticeships, all of that stuff
is gonna help, um, because that's what's gonna take the
place of like being in the Beta club or whatever
it called the beta club. Yeah. Um, like those school
activities that supposedly looked at on college transcripts. I don't
(34:01):
even know if that's true. By the way, Well, there's
a lot of homeschool groups that form so that they
can do things like have a beta club, or have
debate club, or have a sports team go on field trips. Yeah. Um,
so there are there. Like, if you do homeschooling, it
doesn't mean like you can't do any of that, you're
just not doing it with your school. The other elephant
(34:21):
in the room is concern over socialization, as your kid
gonna be weird if you homeschool. Yeah, And all the
evidence and the research that I saw points to no, no, no,
your kid is not gonna be weird and they're probably
gonna be better for the real world because they aren't. Um,
(34:42):
they aren't like, like you said, trapped in a school
of peers, constantly worried about what their peers think and
being judged or trying to fit in. Uh, they're kind
of doing their own thing. Um. This is great article
and Of course this is from a homeschool advocate, so
it's pretty one sided. But um, it's called Socialisa shinclin.
Homeschoolers are in the real world. And it was by
(35:04):
Chris Klicka and his His notion basically is that your
kid is already in the real world. They're not gonna
be you know, shuttle off the college and be like
what in the world's going on, I'm gonna go hog
wild and crazy or these people exactly. Uh, they say
that they overcome this potential for isolation by being on
these um and like in the y m c A
(35:25):
or the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, uh, singing groups,
little League. Basically, they are all kinds of ways to
socialize your kid outside of a school that parents in
schools do too. They probably don't think about. I mean,
it didn't have to be in a classroom. No, And
it's entirely possible that we take the damage that's done
by um elementary and grammar school and high schooling uh
(35:48):
as for granted like that that you have to be
damaged as a result, and you don't necessarily and you
can isolate your kid from that kind of stuff and
maybe they'll turn out better than they would have if
you had to put through regular school. Yeah, it seems
like research indicates that self esteem, UM, what they call
self concept and self esteem of a homeschooled child is higher.
(36:09):
They generally score higher on on tests UM. This one guy,
what's his name, Smedley Thomas Smedley h. He did a
thesis of Master's thesis and he had a pretty cool quote.
He said, in public school systems, children are socialized horizontally
and temporarily into conformity with their immediate peers. Home educators
(36:31):
seek to socialize their children vertically towards responsibility and service
and adulthood with an eye on eternity. Pretty cool. Yeah,
and all of this is just intuitive, you know, the
idea that if you have that much more attention and
your education is is tailored to you the individual, how
can you not benefit nixcel. Yeah, Well, we have a
(36:53):
list of people here that have excelled that we're home schooled,
people like Irving Berlin, Ansel Adams, Da Vinci, Agatha Christie
Einstein does the Vinci count. Yeah, Okay, Peter Jenning, C. S. Lewis,
Abraham Lincoln Well, Abraham Winkol was Backwood so I don't
know if that counts. That's schooling. I mean that was
the origin of homeschool Benjamin Franklin, Agatha christ said, Agatha Christie,
(37:15):
Thomas Edison, and um our colleague from stuff Mom never
told you, Kristin Conger was homeschooled. And you're in for
a treat because right for this message break, we're gonna
get cogs in here and we're gonna talk to her. Okay,
(37:37):
we're back, and we have a third person in the studio,
Stuff Mom Never told you, Kristen Conger. Hey, guys, thank
you for joining us, Thanks for having me. Uh So,
we were doing this show on homeschooling, and obviously, obvia
you came to mind because you were home schooled. Yeah.
I was homeschooled from second through eighth grade. Yeah. Well,
(37:59):
just get this a little background. We kind of want
to know, um, why you guys made the decision, who
taught you, and just sort of how it went down,
what methods you guys, methodology you guys used. Okay, So
in terms of the why, we were a little bit
of the hyper religious family who wanted a little bit
(38:20):
of sheltering from secular education. Okay, so there's that we
gotta fit that homeschool stereotype, which still persists today. But
there was also a desire at my parents part to
provide a higher quality education than they thought we would
get in public schools because my mom at the time
was teaching in public schools and she did not like
(38:43):
what she saw and she was like, I can do better,
she said. Yeah, he was like, I am doing a
terrible job, So I will try this on my on
my children. I want to focus that on you. Uh
so your mom is a public school teacher. What grade
did she teach? She taught high school? Okay, yeah, um,
and quit her job to teach home school to you, So,
my mom stayed at home with my siblings and me
(39:06):
full time for the first two or three years, and
then she actually went back to work teaching once we
were a little bit older and had the hang of things,
which might sound wildly irresponsible, but we stayed on task easily,
and she had assignments for us every day, and since
she taught, she got home from work by the early
(39:27):
afternoon anyway, so it was minimal lack of supervision. But
my siblings and I were so well behaved and she
was so good at organizing and leaving us tasks to
do that. We were just kind of do our school
work while she was gone. Yeah. I don't know if
that was legal, But did she change? She didn't need
(39:53):
to job, That's the thing. I was just that good
of a child and I loved reading youngest. Yeah. So brothers.
You have a brother, right, I've got brothers and sisters. Yeah.
So one thing I've been trying to figure out. We've
been talking about homeschooling. This is the end of the episode. Um,
(40:13):
there don't seem to be any drawbacks to it, Like,
where was there anything negative about homeschooling that you encountered
in your experience? It was? It all just good. For
the most part, it was really great. Um. I think
it worked well for our family. It worked really well
because my mom knew what she was doing. We had
formal textbooks. She like formally taught us and even though
(40:34):
I probably made it sound like she just let us
run wild all day, we would sit down every day
and do school work one on one with her to
check over tests and work. And so she kind of
used the method where you basically take the school's curriculum
and just try and replicate it out of the school.
What's they called structure, the structured homeschooling or school at home. Yeah,
I mean she she hand selected all of our curriculum
(40:58):
and put together lesson plans for all of us. So
it was even more intensive than something like that, but
she had the background to be able to do that.
And as far as drawbacks go, probably the biggest one
was just the socialization factor. Yeah, we talked about that,
and that's all a lot of research that says like
that's sort of a non issue these days. There are
(41:19):
so many ways to socialize your kids outside of a classroom,
and we you may be doing your kid a favor
by not having them in a classroom, But these were
written by homeschool Well, there were absolutely social outlets that
we had during home school. For instance, I played on
a soccer team, I took ballet. We went to church,
(41:39):
so we had youth group activities and things like that. Um,
And especially in elementary school and middle school. I don't
think that I really missed out that much socially. UM.
When I started high school in what we called regular school,
much of my mother's chagrin, UM, there was a little
(42:00):
bit of a transition simply of having to deal with
kids peers day in and day out in a more
intense way than I ever had before. And there are
still some socialization factors I think I'm trying to figure
out at almost thirty. No, I mean, I joke, but
(42:21):
sort of. I mean. Um, On the one hand, I'm
really grateful that I did not have to go through
middle school because everyone I know who went to middle
school that sounded like a horrific and confusing time to
be in school. But um, there were some humps here
and there because my concept of school and social life
(42:41):
and getting along and even high school dating and all
of that was largely just based on TV and movies.
So I had a few missteps. Yeah. Interesting, Why did
you eventually go back to school? How did that all work? Well,
there was a decision on my parents as part, largely
because I was the youngest in my family, so by
(43:03):
that time I was the last one at home. It
would have just been me by myself, and they could
kind of tell that I was sort of jostl ng
for a little bit more so. Plus, your mom was done,
She's just done. She was so tired of me, Josh.
She was like, I've had it with you, not really,
so you were the last kid, so it was basically
(43:23):
just kind of felt like the right time. Yeah, so
did your older siblings graduate from high school through your
mom's homeschooling. Two of my siblings graduated homeschool, so that
was a little bit of a sticking point when I
got to go to real high school. They were jealousy,
maybe maybe a little bit that I got to get
(43:44):
a spring break I got from my older my older
sister and brother. But I mean, is that the dream
of all homeschool kids to go to regular school or
is it like when you're in home school, you're you're
kind of like I have it way better than my
peers in high school. Well, first of all, I don't
want to speak on behalf of all home schoolers, but
I get the sense, especially from what you guys are
(44:07):
talking about, in terms of homeschool today, I don't think
there's as much of that longing for quote unquote regular
school as maybe they're used to be. Um, what were
you home school in the fifties. No, I would have
been in the nineties. Um. So I think for again,
it has a lot to do with age, probably for
(44:29):
elementary schoolers, middle schoolers even who Cares Elementary school. Home
school was awesome. Can hang out on my pj's. I
could go play in my FOURT when I wanted to
home now exactly, I could do my math in the
woods if I really wanted to. But I think once
you get older, you just naturally want to start sort
of finding your place outside of the home a little
(44:53):
bit more. What about your siblings that graduated home school,
what did they go to college and what was that
process like they went to college, Um, it was a
little more challenging for them with I think they had
to take the A C T and the S A
T and perhaps some S A T twos because there
(45:14):
were there are S A T twos and they are
a bear. Um. But people were a bit more skeptical
of the quality of homeschooling back then. I don't know
that it's as stringent today. But they both went to
and graduated from college and are well adjusted adults with families,
and one of them is actually a teacher now, which
is an interesting Speaking of families, if you had kids,
(45:37):
or if you do ever have kids, would you ever
consider homeschooling them? No question, no, But that's largely because
I am horrendously lazy, I've forgotten how to read, and
I just would make a terrible teacher. I don't have
the patience for it. Would you ever hire your mom
(45:58):
as a homeschool teacher for your kids? No, because she
want to be a full time grandma. Well we did see.
That was one of the big questions that you should
ask yourself, Like, just because you're super smart and that
means you're a good teacher? Yes, yeah, I've I've definitely
seen some questionable homeschooling attempts on parents who are clearly
(46:18):
not qualified. And there are kids too, I think who
benefit more from structured classroom environments, who might, especially if
they have perhaps a learning disability or something like that,
who need more um specialized attention. I got nothing else
I don't either. That was super enlightening. Hey, thank you,
(46:41):
And you can catch Kristen and her colleague Caroline every
week what they does? Stuff mom ever told you? Come
out Mondays and Wednesdays on iTunes on your site. What's
the website? Stuff mom never told you? Dot com appropriately enough?
Thank you for joining us, Kristen, Thanks again, joh and Chuck,
And if you want to know more about homeschooling, you
(47:01):
can type those words into the search bart how stuff
works dot com. And since I said search parts, time
for the listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna call
this Crop Circle email. Just listen to the Crop Circle podcast.
It was particularly amused to hear you take a romantic
view on overhearing people conspiring to make crop circles in
a rural English pub because I am from Salisbury, Wiltshire.
(47:24):
I'm here ten miles from Stonehenge. That's the epicenter. It is.
One of my favorite pubs in Salisbury is called Wyndham Arms.
What special is They have a very very local crowd. Uh. Secondly,
the pubs brew their own ale, one of which is
called Crop Circle. Uh. If you let me know your
shipping address, I'll happy happily send you some bottles of it. Boy.
(47:45):
Oh yeah, Um, I was quite excited to hear you
mentioned my home country, home county, excuse me of Wiltshure,
And I thought i'd share a local legend. Uh. The
collective nickname people from here are moon rakers. Um. Now,
once upon a time, long ago, there were a group
of bootlegger is making illicit booze somewhere in North Wiltchire,
these guys are walking along the road and with their wares.
(48:05):
All of a sudden here comes the custom officials. Thinking quickly,
they placed the booze in a nearby pond. The custom
officials here the racket, investigate and they see these guys
in the pond, ask what they're doing. The Wilsherman noticed
the reflection of the full moon in the pond and
say to the officials that they were just trying to
get this giant cheese out of the pond. The officers
supposedly looked at each other and said, Hey, look at
(48:27):
these stupid yokels. S no cheese. They're trying to rake
the moon. So that's where moon rakers came from. Is
there where the James Bond title comes from? I don't
think so. Uh. And that is from Chris near Stonehenge.
Thank you, Chris nice. Thank you very much. Christ. And yeah,
we'll send you the address because I would love to
drink that beer. Heck, yes, i'll send you the address
(48:48):
to you'll get it at least two three times. If
you want to send us some beer, we would love that.
You can tweet to us for some weird reason about
it too. S Y s K Podcast You can do
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how Stuff Worst dot com, and as always, joined us
at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
(49:09):
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
is it how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff
Works dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Knowles with
us again, which means it's stuff it sounds I can
spell up the cliff I did. That would have been
(00:23):
good for the clip diving episode, remember that one man.
That was interesting. Uh you have parents, Chuck, who we're
both educators, right, um dead principal, mom, teacher And Uh.
I was wondering while I was researching this, because we're
talking about home school today. I wasn't homeschooled. You weren't homeschooled.
(00:43):
Now in a way, you were home schooled, because you're
right exactly. Um, but I wondered, like, if you were
raised with any kind of opinions one way or another
on home schooling because of both your parents professions. No,
not at all, because when I was in school. Uh,
and when you were in school, it wasn't super popular. Uh.
(01:04):
Well it may have been illegal for in a lot
of places. Yeah, I guess that's a good point to
bring up. Um schooling education history one. Uh it started
compulsory school attendant started in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in
eighteen fifty two, and by nineteen eighteen, UM Mississippi of
(01:25):
course was the last state to I'm so sorry Mississippi,
it was the last state to to UM demand compulsory
attendance by law. Uh. And then for many years it
was that way, like you had to go to school
between until like what the was the seventies. Uh, that
was when I think the movement really started, but I
(01:46):
think possibly into the nineties, like there were states where
you had to go to school. Yeah, and we should
point out up front that every state is different when
it comes to laws about home schooling. So this is
a super high view. UM. We would have to do
fifty podcasts to really get into the nitty gritty of
of the the finer points of homeschooling in each state
(02:10):
for sure. So yeah, we're gonna do an overview. But
you are right, like homeschooling was, it wasn't around until
like they started to really there was a group of
grassroots people who got together and started organizing UM and
got homeschooling laws passed. Apparently they were trying really hard
(02:30):
to get the Supreme Court to rule on a case
a homeschool in case once and for all that would
give it some sort of constitutional or federal protection that
may lead to like a federal law or mandate, but
they haven't gotten to that point. Instead, it's just been
state by state, which is fine. Very few kids go
to school interstate, right yeah, um, or interstate, I should say,
(02:53):
But there's no federal legislation. It's like you say, all
the states have different laws that they all have homeschooling
or allow for homeschooling, which is pretty amazing in and
of itself, considering in nineteen seventy it was illegal. And
hold on, let me say one more thing to chuck.
There's an article out there called a five Year Moment.
(03:14):
It's on a new magazine called Muria M O O
R I A. And the article was written by a
guy named Dougald Hind, who is an awesome thinker who
I believe is Scottish. I've only seen him online. Um,
but this is an amazing best article I've read in
years as far as content goes. But one of the
things he touches on is compulsory education and the history
(03:36):
of it and how it was used to basically turn
children into responsible, unquestioning little drones. And this is what
originally gave birth to the homeschool movement. Yeah, like I
want to be more in control of how my child,
how and what my child gets educated because that's free
(04:00):
public education. Does it in doctor nats your children? And
for some people it's like, great, this is free daycare
because I work, my husband works, or it's just me
and I work, and I've got to have a place
for my kids. And if they're learning along the way, awesome.
So there there is something that that free public education
gives to people. But a lot of people said, I
(04:23):
want to I want a better a better hand in
that because you don't really have much to say in
what your kids are taught in public school. Yeah, there
are polls conducted and generally, UM, states like to keep
track of why you are homeschooling so they can theoretically,
I guess, get better at their public schooling. So when
you in most states, when you apply to homeschool you
(04:45):
you have to give a reason. And um, this study
was actually from a while ago, but I saw a
recent one that the numbers are pretty close, So I
think the reasons are fairly consistent. About thirty percent or
so say it's out of concern about the environment of
the school, about or for religious or moral reasons, so
(05:05):
they could you know, a lot of you know, a
lot of Christians are up in arms about the secularization
of schooling over the years, and they want to be
able to teach their kids, um, stuff from the Bible
and stuff you know, regular like curriculum. Uh, and then
about six because they're dissatisfied, basically dissatisfied with the instruction
(05:26):
and either the curriculum or the teaching. Like I don't
think they're getting a good enough education. Escially, if I
put my kid through this meat grinder, I don't think
they're gonna come out as smart as I want them
to be. So I'm going to teach them myself. Yeah,
and this is not an indictment of teachers or public schools,
because boy, we know how hard you people work and
(05:47):
how what you're up against. Yes, but I went to
public school, and I just used the word myselves. Yeah,
but you're a big shot podcaster, That's true. A couple
of sort of not so fun things up front about taxes,
because I started wondering, if you're homeschool and your kid a,
do you get tax breaks because you're buying this stuff
(06:07):
the curriculum and be do you have to pay taxes
education taxes for your kid that's not going to public school. So,
since there's no federal law requirement or mandate or anything
regarding homeschooling, I would guess you have zero tax break
on the federal level, but probably on in state level.
In some states you would write boom, federal government doesn't
offer anything right now. Uh, some states, I think Illinois, Louisiana,
(06:30):
Minnesota offer tax credits you can write off a lot
of stuff. Um. I think in Louisiana specifically applies to
eligible expenses during a year up to five thousand dollars
per kid. Oh that's that's a nice break. Yeah, it's
not too bad. Well. Plus, also, you remember there was
this huge movement to get um tuition vouchers given to
(06:52):
kids to go to private school, like lower income kids,
to get more of a mixture of people in private schools.
Apparently in some states you can take that voucher and
just use it to fund your home school. Yeah. Um,
so that's actually opening up the home schooling door for
a lot of people who didn't have that opportunity before.
(07:12):
They just couldn't afford it. One way or another. Yeah,
and things are changing every year, so it's I mean,
this will be out of date a year from now. Um,
and now Ohio had it on the docket to consider. Uh,
they were voting, I think, to decrease property taxes if
you were a homeschool home. But I couldn't find Sometimes
it's fun. It's hard to find where the Senate bills.
Sometimes they just seem to disappear, which that means they
(07:34):
haven't been voted on. I guess no. I think that
the people like, really the senators really rallied behind them
around election time and then get re elected and they're like,
I got kickbacks to go. Get bothered with this stuff.
That's disappointing. And then California is one of twelve states
where homeschooling is um considered a private school exemption. So
(07:55):
you're sort of your own private school in the state
of California. You don't paid property tax. Is there anything
like that. I'm not sure about that for taxes, but
they basically consider you part of the private school pool.
That taxing, though, too, is a real reason. There's a
big there's a tug of war between homeschool people and
(08:17):
public school administrators, because for every pupil you have in
your school, you get X number of federal dollars. And
you start to lose kids to home school then you're
losing federal funding and your whole school suffers because it's
not like that money covers that kid down to the penny.
It frequently goes over and you can use that for
(08:38):
the school and for all this other stuff. So, um,
there's a I don't want to call it a vicious
cycle because it's not like, um, that's a pretty good
term for it. Actually, the public schools are perceived as
failing in their mission, so they lose students, and by
losing students to homeschooling, they lose funding, and so they
(09:01):
are doomed to fail even further in their mission. So that, yeah,
that's a pretty vicious cycle now I think about it. Yeah,
but they m The real truth is there aren't that
many kids that are home schooled still. Um three three
something is that where you got? Yeah, I saw a
more recent one. I got anywhere from one point seven
to two points something. But oh, I thought you're gonna
(09:22):
stay percentage. Yeah, I saw one point seven seven million. Yeah,
but of the overall school age population. Yeah, but I've
heard those numbers could be higher, as much as double,
just because um, it's I guess it's not counted. It's
a tough thing to count. Well, yeah, an aggregator or
maybe no one cares to. School districts have a lot
(09:43):
of reason to fudge numbers on the lower end. Yeah,
but that's up about from just like seven or eight
years ago. Well, that's actually double from fifteen years ago,
So there's a very steady increase. And I think the
reason that it's increasing, I mean doubling over fifteen years,
it's pretty significant, even gonna be like in fifty years, right, Uh.
And I think the reason that it's just picking up
(10:03):
steam and it's spreading more and more is because the
more people that have done it, Because the people who
originally started homeschooling had to figure all of this out
on their own, and there were very few homeschool textbooks available,
very few resources, very few websites, very few groups. So
the more people that tried it and were successful and
(10:25):
built momentum. Now, homeschooling is not some scary, weird thing
that parents who only let their kids watch PBS do.
It's it's like a viable option for a parent who
is considering where they want to send their kid to school. Yeah,
my brother and his wife homeschool their kids for a
couple of years and it went great. Because it's my brother.
(10:48):
He built a full on classroom. Quite sure, it was
awesome and um, you know you well, we'll get into it,
but it's it's something that you should treat like that. Um.
And they eventually went back to public school because they
wanted the kids wanted to but um, it was you know,
it was great for a couple of years, I think
for for everyone involved. So let's let's dig into this, Chuck, Like,
what are the considerations. I mean, this isn't something like
(11:10):
you just hit upon it. This isn't something you take lightly. No,
not at all. So Chuck, let's dig into it and
figure out what the considerations are. Because you just hit
upon it. This isn't something to take lightly. We'll do
that right after this. You're right, Josh, as you said
before the break, it is not something to take lightly.
You want to do a lot of research beforehand and
(11:31):
ask a lot of tough questions of yourself, of your child,
and maybe get some good books. There are a few
recommendations here in this article Real Life Homeschooling by Ronda
Barfield tells a lot of stories about homeschooling families which
can help homeschooling for Success by Rebecca Kulk and Duffa
and Elizabeth Conna. There's another going to check out in
(11:53):
the Homeschooling Almanac by Mary and Michael Leppard. And there
are scores and scores of more books, but read some
of the start thinking about it. Can you afford it?
Is the first question? Well, the first question I think
is why? Well, yeah, good point. Why do you want
to do this? Yeah? And Catherine Near, who wrote this
article How Homeschooling Works, says, be as explicit as you
(12:13):
can be, so use a lot of curse words in
your answer to yourself. But you you have to wonder why.
And that's probably a pretty easy question for most parents
who are considering homeschooling to answer. Yeah, you probably got
that reason already in your head, right. But if if,
if your answer is like, because I don't want to
let my child out of my sight ever for the
rest of his life, it's not maybe you should talk
(12:36):
to some other people about that idea and see if
they can talk you out of homeschooling. Yeah, that's a
good point. Um. The next question that I alluded to
is can you afford it? Because, uh, there's a couple
of expenses. One or all the things that you need
to buy to support the education, all those field trips
to those aren't cheap. Sure, all that stuff costs money. Um.
(12:56):
And the other one is depending on your situation in
your house, you may be dropping a salary if you're
not going to take a job as as a spouse
to homeschool your kids. Yeah. That's in economics called an
opportunity cost, and that is a big one for a
lot of people. That's what's prohibited a lot of people
from being able to go to homeschool their kids, like
(13:17):
they just can't afford it. Sure, So that's why those
tuition vouchers have come into play and helped a lot
more people be homeschool teachers because you can use that Yeah. Um,
that's not to say. I mean with today's modern work
trends like telecommuting, working from home, creative scheduling, you can
tag team it with the parents or you know, you
(13:38):
might can work it out where you both still have
an income and you can home school. But when you
traditionally think of homeschooling. You think of like one of
the parents isn't gonna work and they're gonna be the teacher, right. Um.
Another option for you, too, is to have grandparents do it.
Umi's boss never thought about that. Umi's Boss's daughter is
(13:58):
just sharp as a tag. She's homeschooled by her grandparents.
So yeah, they're responsible for her education and they're apparently
doing like a bang up job with it. I bet
that's a very patient teacher too, the grandparent. Yeah, that
a good scene. Yeah, But but the point is with
the grandparents, they're already retired, they already have income, and
if you have money from your job, you can kick
(14:21):
them a little bit too. Yeah, so everybody would. Yeah. Plus,
you're not doing that parent thing where you're just trying
to like a little make a little mini version of
yourself that narcissistic like here where this ramon shirt and um,
I'm gonna give you a mohawk and an earring at seven. Man.
Grandparents don't care about that. They just want the best
for you. They're mellow, they're mellow, all right. The next
(14:42):
question is are you qualified, um to teach just because
you have a college degree or a high school degree
doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher, right,
And and the whole concept of homeschooling too, I think,
kind of comes out of this sense that you are
qualified because kids, not every kid, but a lot of
kids are homeschooled in some way, shape or form sure,
(15:04):
where they learn to read or recognize words, or how
to run or walk or crawl or all the stuff
they learned before they have to go to school. Um,
I want that head start, you know these days. Right,
But even even without a head star, even just basically
being there absorbing the information that you get from a
family and from being around family members, that that is
(15:27):
a form of homeschooling. And a lot of people think like, hey,
we're on a roll with this stuff. Let's keep it
going and I'll be this kid's teacher. Yeah, it's something
to think about for sure. Um, you want to think
about your kid and talk to your child, like do
you want to be homeschooled? What do you think about it? Uh?
They may be ready, they may be not ready. Do
(15:48):
you want to I wouldn't say treat them like adults,
but treat them as if they have their own opinion
Because they do. You know, it's probably not something you
want to force on your kid if they really really
want to go to a public school. Uh, of course.
You know, everyone's gonna make their own decision about their children,
not gonna tell you how to parent. But I think
it's a good idea to have a good, open, honest
(16:09):
line of dialogue with your kid about homeschooling first. And
I mean if your kid is just dug in like
I do not want to spend all day every day
with you, like it's not going to work. Yeah, maybe
you should consider that answer. Yeah, and it doesn't it's
not doesn't have to be the final word either. You can,
like my brother, they did it for a couple of
years and you can try it and see if it works.
(16:30):
And it's not like the public school is gonna say nope, Smarty,
you left us, you abandoned us. Then that'd be weird. Principles.
Just guy's arms crossed at the watchfront door. That's how
local government works. So let's say everybody's on board, Chuck,
everyone's on board. Um, you gotta get in touch with
(16:52):
your state and find out exactly what the rules are
to do this legally incorrectly, right, and Catherine Near says,
don't just look at synopsis of laws, go to your
state's education website and find out the laws. And she
uses these, um these, she uses North Carolina as an example. So,
(17:12):
for example, in North Carolina, you would have to you
file a notice of intent, which basically says you don't
need to worry about my kid. I got I got
my kid covered. And why right you would? Yeah? Why, um?
Am I doing this for religious reasons? Am I doing
it because the bullies are really bad at the local school? Whatever?
And that would also be your claim for whether you
(17:33):
were a religious school or just an independent non public school. Um,
you in North Carolina have to have at least diploma
or g e d from high school level to be
a qualified homeschool teacher. That's probably a pretty good idea. Whatever.
North Carolina is obviously a nanny state. Um. And then, uh,
(17:53):
you need to keep track of attendance. You also need
to do immunizations, which I was kind of surprised by. Yeah,
I don't know if that's still accurate in North Carolina.
Looked up. Yeah, the only one that's not on here
is annual standardized testing. Well, this is North Carolina because
that's where Catherine lives, right, and that's the only states
website that they're allowed access to. UM. But like we said,
(18:16):
every state is going to be different as according to
like UM, whether or not you have to pass standardized tests,
whether or not how many quote unquote vacational holidays are
allowed during the calendar year, what months of the year
you were required to be in school. Some states, there's
eleven states out there. They're like, you don't have to
(18:38):
tell us anything, just do what you want. You don't
even need to tell us your homeschooling your kid. That's
that's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, UM those are there's eleven,
there's two or three that UM. One of the homeschool
associations quality say is UM like highly regulated, like New York,
(18:58):
like we'll have people come visit at your house to
make sure you're doing things right. UM, and then most
other states fall in between where it's kind of like, yeah,
you have to tell us what you're doing, but UM,
other than that, it's your's your show, yeah, and that
this might inform your decision on whether or not you
want to follow through on it too, depending on what
how lacks your state is, I mean lax but how
(19:20):
permissive I guess, or whether or not they have like
a lot of rigid standards that you're trying to get
away from in the first place, like standardized testing, which
a whole different kind of worms. Uh. So, if you've
got this figured out, like I think, if you're if
you're thinking you can homeschool your kid, you can probably
navigate your state's regulations. Yeah, if you can't, or let's
(19:40):
say the other way, if you can't do that and
probably shouldn't come school you. I think that's a good point, Chuck.
So you've reached this point where you're like, Okay, my
kids excited. Um, we've chosen our school mascot. Uh, We've
gone over the state's website together, we've agreed. Yes, now
you have to get it immunized, whether you like it
or not, because we're doing a home school and Carolina, Um,
(20:01):
what what teaching method should we use? This is a
pretty big it's a big decision, but it's also one
that is not a final decision, like the even the
decision to homeschool. It's it can change and evolve him.
Apparently with most people it does. Yeah, it's weird to
say that, but I totally agree. I think it is
(20:22):
the most important decision you can make. But don't freak
out because it's not written in stone. You can evolve
your teaching method according to what works. The traditional approach,
Catherine points out, is when I just want to school
my kid at home, I'll use the state's curriculum. I'll
get all their books and I'll kind of try and
(20:42):
mimic what goes on at the public school in my home,
or I'll get all of my sources from Oral Roberts
Universities curriculum or whatever. But it's it's like, I imagine
your brother's house was you walk into this special room
and it looks like a classroom or at least all
this stuff that's going on is what you'd find in
a classroom too. Yeah, And you know, you don't have
(21:04):
to build out a special classroom. If you don't have room,
you can do it how however it works for your family.
But I think they found just having that separate room,
um was beneficial for sure. Well, yeah, there's fewer distractions,
I would guess. Yeah, And it's just the psychology behind
it is like when you're in this room, you're learning, Yeah, exactly,
like this is what this place is for UM classical education.
(21:25):
If you want to talk about the three UH principles
known as the trivium or the three phases UM. You
have the grammar school age students which UM they focus
on memorization, gathering facts, the logic, which is middle age students,
and that is when you start to focus more on
critical thinking. Middle school aged what I say middle aged.
(21:46):
Those are called non traditional student. I'll watch Back to
School the other day. By the way, I think that's good.
It was so great. Man. If you said it didn't
hold up, it totally holds up. Of course it does.
Very funny triple indy, Oh yeah, is still so funny
to me. Um, alright, middle school aged. Yeah, And that
is when you're concentrating more on critical thinking and you're
(22:07):
putting all this stuff into context. And then the final
stage is rhetoric UM, which sounds like a bad word
these days because you think of rhetoric is just a
bunch of gob But someone's spouting off some gas bag. Yeah,
but that's not what rhetoric is. I don't know what
he's talking about. These are high school age and that's
when they can actually articulate UM a language focused discussion
(22:30):
about topics and education. And yeah, the whole thing behind
classical education is that is language focused, in language oriented
and all. This probably sounds pretty familiar to you. If so,
it's because it has its roots in the Middle Ages.
Not middle aged students, but the Middle Ages. Um, so
it's been around for a little while and a lot
(22:51):
of people out for that one. There's a lot of
course material out there based on classical education. Uh what else, Chuck, Well,
you have Montessori, which is a type of schooling based
on this really awesome, awesome Italian physician, uh named Maria Montessori.
And she basically was like, somebody needs to make a
(23:12):
movie about her. She was so awesome. She was basically like,
I'm looking around and I think this stinks. And this
is the early nineteen hundreds. This wasn't like you know,
in the nineteen seventies when some hippie lady and she
was saying, this is the way we're teaching our kids
is wrong. And so she started doing things like, you
know what, get up, get this heavy furniture out of here.
Let's put some kids furniture in here that they can
(23:33):
move around. It's like child size. Let's lower the bookshelves
to where the kids can access this stuff. Let's teach
kids how to care for pets and gymnastics and how
to cook, and let's put these big open air sections
where they can move about freely if they want to,
and really just sort of opened up. Um really revolutionized
(23:55):
education and night, you know, early nineteen hundreds of Italy. Um.
There's another, I guess, turn of the century educator. She
was British though her name is Charlotte Mason. She came
up with her own method that I think it's kind
of clever in a way. Charles Manson, Yeah, he's hope
with his education idea. Charlotte Mason, she said, UM, just
(24:18):
teach your kid a bunch of stuff, and I'm not
exactly clear on how like it's taught, maybe in a
normal structured environment, but also teach them fine arts and
a bunch of other stuff that most schools just kind
of are getting rid of these days. The thing that
makes her the revolutionary is like, you don't use testing.
(24:40):
Instead use what's called narration, where you say, okay, kid,
I've taught you everything that I know about wales, stand
up and tell me about whales, and the kid narrates
everything he or she knows about whales and not not.
I did my book report on whales. Whales live in
the ocean and the salt water, and they are large
and blue. Because I guess you probably wouldn't be able
(25:01):
to have notes because you're not really narrating. Yeah, they
have to understand it in order to talk about it exactly.
That's the whole key, is that to narrate something, you
have to understand something. Of course, you could be like
a complete BS artist, which is kind of awesome in
and of itself. I means your kid has got some skills,
and another those are creative skills. But Charlotte Mason's point
(25:22):
was if your kid can stand up and tell you
about whales in a smart, intelligent way, and your kid
has learned about whales, Yeah, that seems like a pretty
cool notion if you asked me. And the next one
is my all time favorite, the Waldorf method. Oh no, sorry,
the second to next one. Okay, you were thinking the
Waldorf salad, Yeah, which, man, those are weird. Another one's
(25:42):
grapes and stuff. Grapes and like apples but also mayonnaise.
It's not a winning combination. Uh. Someone wrote in with
that cotton candy grapes. Did you see that? No, she
said that they had them at Whole Foods and they
are grapes that tastes like cotton candy. Crazy. Is it
called mutants? Um? The Waldorf method is based on Austrian
(26:04):
scientists uh Rudolph Steina and he has the concept of
educating the whole child. Um. Basically concentrates on creative topics. Um,
fine arts, painting, music, drama, foreign language, gardening, sewing, things
that you are, like you said, are kind of going
by the wayside in a lot of public schools, did
(26:25):
you say, sadly? But then you build upon these things
based on the kid's age. That determines what the kids
studying at any given points. Yeah. So, if you've ever
heard the head, heart and Hands method, that is the
Waldorf method. Um, here's my favorite one, the unit studies method. Yeah,
I like this one. That's gonna cool. It's a little vanilla,
but it makes sense to me. Basically, you choose a
(26:47):
topic or a theme and you stretch it out over
say like a week or a month or a semester
or whatever, and the theme is say, um, but by pirates, okay,
and then you you pirates to investigate, or you investigate
every aspect of pirates using math, science, history, UM documentaries, uh,
(27:09):
projects like all visits to a like a pirate ship
if you're in the San Diego area, all that kind
of stuff. So sort of finding the individual lessons within
a topic, like you can teach economics through talking about
pirates or history or like all those things were. And
so in the end you you fully get pirates, but
(27:29):
you also get a really great good understanding of how
everything has all these different aspects and components to it
that come together inform it form a whole. It's our
like trade. That's what you and I do, Like we
take that hole and break it apart. I think that's
why it appeals to me so much. I was right
there with you on that one. Uh. Then you have unschooling,
(27:53):
which they call child directed learning or natural learning, and
this is I was originally used by author John Holt,
and this just sounds like kind of crazy way, not
crazy way, but basically let your child learn how to
manage their time and run the show, which is really
(28:13):
super interesting. He was one of the early homeschool UM
activists that was like agitating in the early seventies agitating. So, um,
your kid is still learning and you are still teaching
and guiding. But um, they interviewed Um Catherine. I don't
know where she got this quote, but one of the
unschooled students has a really great quote. I'm planning what
(28:35):
I do, so I have an overwhelming sense of commitment
to what I'm doing. Instead of being told what to
do and when to do it and simply being shuttled
back and forth from activity to activity, I get to choose.
So your kid is learning planning and logistics and scheduling,
and uh, this seems like a really good, real world
way of teaching. Oh yeah, for sure, you know, I
(28:56):
think I would guess everybody would choose this. The problem
is is a fear that accompanies this, of like what
if your kids committed to like eating Captain Crunch and
Jack all day? What do you do with that? You know, Well,
then they're not a good candidate to run schooling. Oh
that's a great point, you know, great point, Like I
think you only do this if your child is a
(29:18):
good candidate, and that way your kids, like, you know what,
I want to do science experiments all day. I just
want to go to the library and read today. Then
go for it. But part of the key to unschooling
is the kid isn't like so take me. It's and
I noticed that you have a slot in your schedule
where you could take me to the library and then
you could pick me up two hours later. Uh, let's
(29:39):
work this out. And then you go, hey, don't get
smart with me, right, don't point that your imaginary watch.
You're not wearing a watch. I can't even read time yet, kid.
How do you know when I have yoga because it's
on the fridge. I imagine you'd have to have a
family schedule of stuff on the fridge for unschooling. Yeah,
I think that's pretty smart anyway. And then after that, Chuck,
(30:00):
you have to figure out what kind of learner your
kid is. Yeah. Well, there's also the eclectic method, which
we didn't mention, and that is just sort of a
cornucopia of all these different methods. Um, it's kind of
cobbled together. I guess that's the best way, best way
to say it, right. Yeah, And apparently most parents who
are new to homeschooling start off their kid with a
(30:22):
much more rigid structure method and then apparently by like
year three, it's much lucy goosey. Yeah, much more loosey goosey.
Um or lay back, I guess is a better term
for it. But it's not necessarily just unschooling or just this.
It is probably along the lines of the eclectic method. Yeah,
that makes sense. And like we said, you're not locked
(30:43):
into any of these. You gotta find out what works
for your kid. And a good way to start is
before you start, UM, figure out what kind of learner
your child is and what kind of learner and teacher
you are. Maybe you want to figure out apparently if
your kid is one of the four there's four modalities
I guess is what it's called of learning. UM there's visual, auditory, TecTile,
(31:08):
and kin aesthetic and visual learners basically, like you see
things and you get it, whether it's a pie chart
or a drawing or a photo or something like that,
you see, you learned through seeing. So that's that's visual
learning style and that's pretty common. Auditory obviously is going
(31:29):
to be listening and speaking. It's akin to the Charlotte
Mason method. UM. Tactile has to deal with touch, it does,
and I was wondering which one would have to do
with like writing stuff down, because that's how I remember
stuff now I get it into my head is through
writing or typing it out. And apparently that falls under
tactile doodling to people who doodle or tactile learners, I
(31:50):
think I'm a much more visual learner. Yeah, I get
it when I see it too, but it doesn't I
don't get it until I write it myself. Actually, I'm
a combination between visual and kinneth addic because kin aesthetic
is um really being involved. Like she's an example of
a sailboat. If you want to teach a kid about sailboats,
that came sailing I know to to research for this episode,
(32:12):
you went and sat in on a homeschool class for
a couple of weeks. I did not. That's that's the method,
isn't it. Oh and acting, Yeah, it would be method
podcasting I think. So. Uh, if you have once you
figure out what kind of learning your child is though,
you're gonna have a good And those aren't the only
(32:32):
teaching methods that we mentioned, but those are some of
the leading teaching methods for homeschooling. But you're gonna have
a good head start on figuring out a good place
to start and then just observe go from there and
do the the eyeball test, as they say, and if
things seem to be working, then great. So there's one huge,
huge thing that's still outstanding, Chuck, and that is that
(32:53):
a lot of people worry that if you take your
kid out of school, even a crummy school, but that's
standard course that a school provides, then they're gonna have
a harder time getting into college. And most homeschool resource
places say no, if anything, your homeschool kid is going
to have an easier time getting into college because it
will be more well rounded, probably smarter. Um. Homeschool kids
(33:17):
tend to excel more academics and other stuff. Um, But
I couldn't find any quantitative evidence on that like that
homeschool kids get into college more easily than non homeschool kids.
I couldn't find anything like that was all anecdotal. Yeah,
I don't know about actually getting into college. Um. But
as a parent, um, in a homeschooler, you need to
(33:38):
keep really good track of their scores and records. Um,
if they did any and this is a benefit of homeschooling,
if they do any like apprenticeships, all of that stuff
is gonna help, um, because that's what's gonna take the
place of like being in the Beta club or whatever
it called the beta club. Yeah. Um, like those school
activities that supposedly looked at on college transcripts. I don't
(34:01):
even know if that's true. By the way, Well, there's
a lot of homeschool groups that form so that they
can do things like have a beta club, or have
debate club, or have a sports team go on field trips. Yeah. Um,
so there are there. Like, if you do homeschooling, it
doesn't mean like you can't do any of that, you're
just not doing it with your school. The other elephant
(34:21):
in the room is concern over socialization, as your kid
gonna be weird if you homeschool. Yeah, And all the
evidence and the research that I saw points to no, no, no,
your kid is not gonna be weird and they're probably
gonna be better for the real world because they aren't. Um,
(34:42):
they aren't like, like you said, trapped in a school
of peers, constantly worried about what their peers think and
being judged or trying to fit in. Uh, they're kind
of doing their own thing. Um. This is great article
and Of course this is from a homeschool advocate, so
it's pretty one sided. But um, it's called Socialisa shinclin.
Homeschoolers are in the real world. And it was by
(35:04):
Chris Klicka and his His notion basically is that your
kid is already in the real world. They're not gonna
be you know, shuttle off the college and be like
what in the world's going on, I'm gonna go hog
wild and crazy or these people exactly. Uh, they say
that they overcome this potential for isolation by being on
these um and like in the y m c A
(35:25):
or the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, uh, singing groups,
little League. Basically, they are all kinds of ways to
socialize your kid outside of a school that parents in
schools do too. They probably don't think about. I mean,
it didn't have to be in a classroom. No, And
it's entirely possible that we take the damage that's done
by um elementary and grammar school and high schooling uh
(35:48):
as for granted like that that you have to be
damaged as a result, and you don't necessarily and you
can isolate your kid from that kind of stuff and
maybe they'll turn out better than they would have if
you had to put through regular school. Yeah, it seems
like research indicates that self esteem, UM, what they call
self concept and self esteem of a homeschooled child is higher.
(36:09):
They generally score higher on on tests UM. This one guy,
what's his name, Smedley Thomas Smedley h. He did a
thesis of Master's thesis and he had a pretty cool quote.
He said, in public school systems, children are socialized horizontally
and temporarily into conformity with their immediate peers. Home educators
(36:31):
seek to socialize their children vertically towards responsibility and service
and adulthood with an eye on eternity. Pretty cool. Yeah,
and all of this is just intuitive, you know, the
idea that if you have that much more attention and
your education is is tailored to you the individual, how
can you not benefit nixcel. Yeah, Well, we have a
(36:53):
list of people here that have excelled that we're home schooled,
people like Irving Berlin, Ansel Adams, Da Vinci, Agatha Christie
Einstein does the Vinci count. Yeah, Okay, Peter Jenning, C. S. Lewis,
Abraham Lincoln Well, Abraham Winkol was Backwood so I don't
know if that counts. That's schooling. I mean that was
the origin of homeschool Benjamin Franklin, Agatha christ said, Agatha Christie,
(37:15):
Thomas Edison, and um our colleague from stuff Mom never
told you, Kristin Conger was homeschooled. And you're in for
a treat because right for this message break, we're gonna
get cogs in here and we're gonna talk to her. Okay,
(37:37):
we're back, and we have a third person in the studio,
Stuff Mom Never told you, Kristen Conger. Hey, guys, thank
you for joining us, Thanks for having me. Uh So,
we were doing this show on homeschooling, and obviously, obvia
you came to mind because you were home schooled. Yeah.
I was homeschooled from second through eighth grade. Yeah. Well,
(37:59):
just get this a little background. We kind of want
to know, um, why you guys made the decision, who
taught you, and just sort of how it went down,
what methods you guys, methodology you guys used. Okay, So
in terms of the why, we were a little bit
of the hyper religious family who wanted a little bit
(38:20):
of sheltering from secular education. Okay, so there's that we
gotta fit that homeschool stereotype, which still persists today. But
there was also a desire at my parents part to
provide a higher quality education than they thought we would
get in public schools because my mom at the time
was teaching in public schools and she did not like
(38:43):
what she saw and she was like, I can do better,
she said. Yeah, he was like, I am doing a
terrible job, So I will try this on my on
my children. I want to focus that on you. Uh
so your mom is a public school teacher. What grade
did she teach? She taught high school? Okay, yeah, um,
and quit her job to teach home school to you, So,
my mom stayed at home with my siblings and me
(39:06):
full time for the first two or three years, and
then she actually went back to work teaching once we
were a little bit older and had the hang of things,
which might sound wildly irresponsible, but we stayed on task easily,
and she had assignments for us every day, and since
she taught, she got home from work by the early
(39:27):
afternoon anyway, so it was minimal lack of supervision. But
my siblings and I were so well behaved and she
was so good at organizing and leaving us tasks to
do that. We were just kind of do our school
work while she was gone. Yeah. I don't know if
that was legal, But did she change? She didn't need
(39:53):
to job, That's the thing. I was just that good
of a child and I loved reading youngest. Yeah. So brothers.
You have a brother, right, I've got brothers and sisters. Yeah.
So one thing I've been trying to figure out. We've
been talking about homeschooling. This is the end of the episode. Um,
(40:13):
there don't seem to be any drawbacks to it, Like,
where was there anything negative about homeschooling that you encountered
in your experience? It was? It all just good. For
the most part, it was really great. Um. I think
it worked well for our family. It worked really well
because my mom knew what she was doing. We had
formal textbooks. She like formally taught us and even though
(40:34):
I probably made it sound like she just let us
run wild all day, we would sit down every day
and do school work one on one with her to
check over tests and work. And so she kind of
used the method where you basically take the school's curriculum
and just try and replicate it out of the school.
What's they called structure, the structured homeschooling or school at home. Yeah,
I mean she she hand selected all of our curriculum
(40:58):
and put together lesson plans for all of us. So
it was even more intensive than something like that, but
she had the background to be able to do that.
And as far as drawbacks go, probably the biggest one
was just the socialization factor. Yeah, we talked about that,
and that's all a lot of research that says like
that's sort of a non issue these days. There are
(41:19):
so many ways to socialize your kids outside of a classroom,
and we you may be doing your kid a favor
by not having them in a classroom, But these were
written by homeschool Well, there were absolutely social outlets that
we had during home school. For instance, I played on
a soccer team, I took ballet. We went to church,
(41:39):
so we had youth group activities and things like that. Um,
And especially in elementary school and middle school. I don't
think that I really missed out that much socially. UM.
When I started high school in what we called regular school,
much of my mother's chagrin, UM, there was a little
(42:00):
bit of a transition simply of having to deal with
kids peers day in and day out in a more
intense way than I ever had before. And there are
still some socialization factors I think I'm trying to figure
out at almost thirty. No, I mean, I joke, but
(42:21):
sort of. I mean. Um, On the one hand, I'm
really grateful that I did not have to go through
middle school because everyone I know who went to middle
school that sounded like a horrific and confusing time to
be in school. But um, there were some humps here
and there because my concept of school and social life
(42:41):
and getting along and even high school dating and all
of that was largely just based on TV and movies.
So I had a few missteps. Yeah. Interesting, Why did
you eventually go back to school? How did that all work? Well,
there was a decision on my parents as part, largely
because I was the youngest in my family, so by
(43:03):
that time I was the last one at home. It
would have just been me by myself, and they could
kind of tell that I was sort of jostl ng
for a little bit more so. Plus, your mom was done,
She's just done. She was so tired of me, Josh.
She was like, I've had it with you, not really,
so you were the last kid, so it was basically
(43:23):
just kind of felt like the right time. Yeah, so
did your older siblings graduate from high school through your
mom's homeschooling. Two of my siblings graduated homeschool, so that
was a little bit of a sticking point when I
got to go to real high school. They were jealousy,
maybe maybe a little bit that I got to get
(43:44):
a spring break I got from my older my older
sister and brother. But I mean, is that the dream
of all homeschool kids to go to regular school or
is it like when you're in home school, you're you're
kind of like I have it way better than my
peers in high school. Well, first of all, I don't
want to speak on behalf of all home schoolers, but
I get the sense, especially from what you guys are
(44:07):
talking about, in terms of homeschool today, I don't think
there's as much of that longing for quote unquote regular
school as maybe they're used to be. Um, what were
you home school in the fifties. No, I would have
been in the nineties. Um. So I think for again,
it has a lot to do with age, probably for
(44:29):
elementary schoolers, middle schoolers even who Cares Elementary school. Home
school was awesome. Can hang out on my pj's. I
could go play in my FOURT when I wanted to
home now exactly, I could do my math in the
woods if I really wanted to. But I think once
you get older, you just naturally want to start sort
of finding your place outside of the home a little
(44:53):
bit more. What about your siblings that graduated home school,
what did they go to college and what was that
process like they went to college, Um, it was a
little more challenging for them with I think they had
to take the A C T and the S A
T and perhaps some S A T twos because there
(45:14):
were there are S A T twos and they are
a bear. Um. But people were a bit more skeptical
of the quality of homeschooling back then. I don't know
that it's as stringent today. But they both went to
and graduated from college and are well adjusted adults with families,
and one of them is actually a teacher now, which
is an interesting Speaking of families, if you had kids,
(45:37):
or if you do ever have kids, would you ever
consider homeschooling them? No question, no, But that's largely because
I am horrendously lazy, I've forgotten how to read, and
I just would make a terrible teacher. I don't have
the patience for it. Would you ever hire your mom
(45:58):
as a homeschool teacher for your kids? No, because she
want to be a full time grandma. Well we did see.
That was one of the big questions that you should
ask yourself, Like, just because you're super smart and that
means you're a good teacher? Yes, yeah, I've I've definitely
seen some questionable homeschooling attempts on parents who are clearly
(46:18):
not qualified. And there are kids too, I think who
benefit more from structured classroom environments, who might, especially if
they have perhaps a learning disability or something like that,
who need more um specialized attention. I got nothing else
I don't either. That was super enlightening. Hey, thank you,
(46:41):
And you can catch Kristen and her colleague Caroline every
week what they does? Stuff mom ever told you? Come
out Mondays and Wednesdays on iTunes on your site. What's
the website? Stuff mom never told you? Dot com appropriately enough?
Thank you for joining us, Kristen, Thanks again, joh and Chuck,
And if you want to know more about homeschooling, you
(47:01):
can type those words into the search bart how stuff
works dot com. And since I said search parts, time
for the listener mail. All right, Josh, we're gonna call
this Crop Circle email. Just listen to the Crop Circle podcast.
It was particularly amused to hear you take a romantic
view on overhearing people conspiring to make crop circles in
a rural English pub because I am from Salisbury, Wiltshire.
(47:24):
I'm here ten miles from Stonehenge. That's the epicenter. It is.
One of my favorite pubs in Salisbury is called Wyndham Arms.
What special is They have a very very local crowd. Uh. Secondly,
the pubs brew their own ale, one of which is
called Crop Circle. Uh. If you let me know your
shipping address, I'll happy happily send you some bottles of it. Boy.
(47:45):
Oh yeah, Um, I was quite excited to hear you
mentioned my home country, home county, excuse me of Wiltshure,
And I thought i'd share a local legend. Uh. The
collective nickname people from here are moon rakers. Um. Now,
once upon a time, long ago, there were a group
of bootlegger is making illicit booze somewhere in North Wiltchire,
these guys are walking along the road and with their wares.
(48:05):
All of a sudden here comes the custom officials. Thinking quickly,
they placed the booze in a nearby pond. The custom
officials here the racket, investigate and they see these guys
in the pond, ask what they're doing. The Wilsherman noticed
the reflection of the full moon in the pond and
say to the officials that they were just trying to
get this giant cheese out of the pond. The officers
supposedly looked at each other and said, Hey, look at
(48:27):
these stupid yokels. S no cheese. They're trying to rake
the moon. So that's where moon rakers came from. Is
there where the James Bond title comes from? I don't
think so. Uh. And that is from Chris near Stonehenge.
Thank you, Chris nice. Thank you very much. Christ. And yeah,
we'll send you the address because I would love to
drink that beer. Heck, yes, i'll send you the address
(48:48):
to you'll get it at least two three times. If
you want to send us some beer, we would love that.
You can tweet to us for some weird reason about
it too. S Y s K Podcast You can do
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
how Stuff Worst dot com, and as always, joined us
at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
(49:09):
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
is it how Stuff Works dot com
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