Homeschooling: Not Just For Hippies and Religious People Anymore

I was wondering while I was researching this, because we're talking about home school today. I wasn't homeschooled. You weren't homeschooled. 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. 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 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 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 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 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,

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. 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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

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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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

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, 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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

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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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

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 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, 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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, 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 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. 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. 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. 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 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 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 dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how Stuff Works dot com