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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#111: Breaking Free: From Teaching to Unschooling
What if everything your child needs for academic success could be learned during their high school years, and everything before that could just be play?
Katie from Illinois, a former teacher with a master's degree in gifted education, reveals how her perspective on education transformed when she began homeschooling her three young children. Witnessing her oldest child write perfectly formed letters without any formal instruction became her lightbulb moment – children naturally learn without our intervention.
Breaking free from the politics and constraints of traditional teaching wasn't easy. Katie candidly shares her journey from trying to replicate school at home to embracing unschooling, where learning flows from her children's natural curiosities. "I've instructed them with nothing and they're spitting out knowledge," she explains, challenging the notion that parents need teaching credentials to effectively educate their children.
Most refreshingly, Katie dismantles the myth that homeschooling must look Instagram-worthy. She admits to days with too much screen time, moments of frustration, and plenty of mess – yet reminds us that children are still thriving compared to institutional alternatives. "They were fed without chemicals, they were not privy to any shelter-in-place drills, they got fresh air, they were loved, and they were not in combat training – that's enough."
Whether you're considering homeschooling, already deep in the journey, or simply curious about alternative education approaches, this conversation will challenge conventional wisdom about how and when children truly learn.
Curriculum: More before 5 in a Row
Games: Alice in Bibleland books, Color cube for preschoolers, Tactile Tic tac toe, ALL versions of memory matching games, Genius Cube (a must- comes with 2 per box so I recommend buying more than one so the whole family can compete), Rack-o, Charades for kids (has picture clues for non readers), Poop tracks - nature lovers fun!, Guess who- strong deductive reasoning, Carpet checkers, Mimiq/Body mimiq card games (go fish style game with fun twists and charade skills- kids LOVE!), Old maid, War, crazy 8s- recommend teaching with regular deck of bicycle cards first for good number skills and then get the fun themed decks once they understand. BEST card holders from Amazon.
What is the most important thing we can teach our kids?
HOW TO HANDLE AN EMERGENCY!
This could mean life or death in some cases!
Help a child you know navigate how to handle an emergency situation with ease:
Let's Talk, Emergencies! -and don't forget The Activity Book!
The Tuttle Twins - use code Cheryl40 for 40% the age 5-11 series!
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region? And should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with me tonight I have Katie from Illinois. She is a former teacher and unschooling, homeschooled mom. Katie, thank you so much for joining me tonight. Hi, cheryl, so happy to be here, I say tonight, but that's because I'm getting. I'm getting ready for these to be live interviews here and I had to move our our interview from the afternoon to the evening. So this is exciting for me. We kind of went back and forth a little bit. You had heard me on the Sam Tripoli's tinfoil hat podcast, which was like a year and a half ago now. So that's cool. What made you even reach out to me to begin with?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, so I have been. I'll give a short version. Our dishwasher broke and I hadn't been a big podcaster and so I had tons of dishes to do every night. And I found Sam Tripoli's podcast and'm I'm a big tinfoil hat girl and you were on it. And so when you kind of threw the question out of I want to homeschool my kids, if anyone's listening, I'm having a really hard time teaching history, or like thinking about teaching the history to my kids, when I'm starting to believe most of history is false. And so I emailed you saying, as a retired or former teacher pull them out now. You know too much, take them out. And then you're I. I switched over from Sam's podcast and pretty much every night after that started listening to yours.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, it's been very enjoyable, and I myself have kind of just discovered that there was a word for what I was doing. I really didn't know unschooling was a term and you know I was kind of like breaking my own back of wanting to fit my teacher mode into my homeschool life, and I have three young kids, so I wasn't really even ingrained in needing to do it. I have right now I have a two, four and six year old. So at the time, you know, my oldest was only four and a half five years old. So I just had already figured out that natural learning occurs without any instruction and what I was thinking I was doing so much of as a teacher was way too much at all. And so I think I was in this place of I'm a stay-at-home mom. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom my whole life, and yet I thought I wasn't going to be able to homeschool, because you cannot be a stay-at-home mom and an actual curriculum teaching mom at this little, at their little age. Right, I think eventually I'll get somewhere where we maybe tap into curriculum, but I kept feeling like I'm not doing it right, I'm failing at both. And yet every day my children were showing me I've instructed them with nothing and they're spitting out knowledge, and so that was kind of, you know, hearing, hearing what you had to say, and then hearing lots more people come on your show. I was like wow, there's a term for this, right, like we really don't. I had already bought some curriculums. I had, you know, I taught summer school programs. I ran a summer camp, you know, hired teachers, you know, recruited children like I have a big background in. You know, my degree is special ed, elementary ed and then I got a master's in gifted ed.
Speaker 2:So if, like you know, you're thinking of, you know, spectrum of children, I've got it all and I had to stop pushing myself of. You know, I tried, I tried to print the pretty pictures and want to get things organized. And you know we just start in the red every day. The house isn't clean, the kitchen. Take. You know we just start in the red every day. The house isn't clean, the kitchen. Take. You know breakfast takes too long, whatever it is, and I just kept realizing like I've done nothing but talk and sing and drive in the car with my kids, parks and nature and they are learning without any instruction. So yeah, it was a gift hearing you on his show.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, that means so much, so so all right how long had you been a teacher?
Speaker 2:so? I had been a teacher for almost nine years, never anywhere consistently, so I had multiple different titles and districts.
Speaker 1:Experiences, bosses what made you decide that you didn't want your kids going into the public school system?
Speaker 2:You know what? It's funny Before I had kids of my own, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to Teaching was hard for me, the politics of teaching, right. So I was a young teacher in a school full of almost many tenured teachers, teachers and you're just fighting to get to the top and like get a safe place of you know being able to teach the same grade the next year and build you know a classroom on experience, instead of, oh, this year you're second grade, well, next year you're sixth grade. And it was a struggle. So I kind of already knew that I would never be able to be a good teacher and a good mom, and I had always wanted to be a mom, a stay at home mom at that. And I would say that my last two years in I was in a two year contract and I had a very political issue go on and I had to hire a school appointed lawyer. You know I'm kind of one that speaks out against things that might not be going along the grain and it didn't work out well for me. So I actually had to like fight to keep my job and then at the end of that contract I just thought I'm definitely not going to work.
Speaker 2:In this district I found a family and we had just bought a house. I had no kids yet. And I found a family, a pediatrician, who had just had her third baby. It was a gift, but she had a 10 year old, a five year old and a now three month old and she did not want to backtrack what she had built and so she hired me at my teacher salary right up the road and was willing to take me on if I had kids in the future, and just seemed to be a perfect fit. So I kind of became a nanny, professional nanny, which was awesome. And then I knew right from there I was never going back into the schools.
Speaker 1:All right. So you know, I never thought about what you mentioned with the politics of first year teaching like a second grade class, and then you don't even know what you're teaching the next year. They kind of tell you, okay, well, now you're in six, that I and I've heard my friends that are teachers talk about that. In fact the other day we were at a birthday party and the girl was saying, oh yeah, I do eighth grade right now, but I think a spot's opening up for nine, so I might. But that is really an interesting thing. When we think about, like, how qualified these teachers are, it's like, okay, just cause you are have been teaching second grade for 10 years now, but they might. You might have someone teaching it for the first time who's used to teaching a different grade, who might be resentful that they got moved to this grade. You know that's so interesting it's. It's not like we're sending our kids to school with a teacher that wanted to do that job in particular. Yeah, they're going to spend eight hours with somebody who may have just gotten placed there because they were the bottom of the chain. So I never thought about that part before. That's big and all right.
Speaker 1:So I love, like, like you were talking about how the unschooling just it happens naturally because we do it when they're born, like, do they know how to eat? Do they know how to tie their shoe, do they? They don't know how to go to the bathroom on a toilet. We teach them all of that, so why do we think that we can't teach them some math or you know? Like you said, there are curriculums. If you want to use curriculum for certain things that you don't know, you can. It's right there. You're just kind of being the liaison for it or guiding them. It is so funny that how, how do you look at it? From what teachers are told they have to teach in school, and then what's actually necessary, like you mentioned before, that the schools demand so much from these kids or or teach way more than necessary. Why do you think that is, and are there any examples?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think it falls both ways. It demands a lot of the kids, and the demands on the teachers take away from what they can really walk in and give their best at too. They're not shutting down and paying attention to their family or feeding their own interest. It's a pretty much seven day a week job for the teachers as well, and most of what we're doing in school is and really this was also, you know when you asked like how did you know you weren't going to stay?
Speaker 2:in it when I grew up wanting to be a teacher my second grade teachers. That's why you want to be a teacher, because you have these memorable teachers, right, you did all these fun days and things. I don't remember those hard test days, as this is why I want to be a teacher. I remember the fun days and you know, when I became a teacher in 2013, 2015,. None of that was available. Johnny Appleseed day you can't take a day and make applesauce anymore. You know, none of those fun moments were there for me to like, really feed my soul. It was all really to teach for the test, right? Your job was dependent if your students were showing these test scores and if they weren't, right. So what we're teaching in school is nothing about what you want to teach in life and what you want to do, especially as a stay-at-home mom, right? So as a stay-at-home mom, most of your life in those little years are cuddling and snuggling and reading, and you know you don't have that type of time. If you're also trying to force this three-year-old to trace these letters and do it right the next day and thinking you have to do that because that's what they're doing in the three-year-old preschool room, right, in order. They're only doing that in three-year-old preschool to help that kindergarten teacher that will have to merge the gaps. Yeah, a lot of it goes against what you feel as a mom. You know when and I say this all the time to people I think every school teacher, there should be one requirement and you should be a mom, you know when and I say this all the time to people I think every school teacher, there should be one requirement and you should be a mom before you can be a teacher. The teacher I would be today, knowing what I know, how I would be able to approach the parents. Everything was very intimidating to me until I had my own kids. And now I could, if I could go back and talk to some of those parents and change the pressure they felt. And you know, because being in and I then had to sit in these meetings, you know as a leader of the meeting, and take 10 teachers in one room and the parents they basically it was you know, 10 teachers telling the parents like your child struggles here and English is not their strong suit, and you know we might have to drop them from Latin because they need more time for the history class and it was just bad news all over because this child with a high IQ.
Speaker 2:This school was one of the best places I've ever been. It's changed a lot since COVID and new principals and things, but what it was founded on was truly a private-based homeschool, in my opinion. When I was brought in, it was child-led learning. All teachers got to do what was best for each child. And then, you know, like I said, when my boss got fired and I was put in her position, it turned into all these children had to start aligning to a bigger picture of the school instead of individualized learning.
Speaker 2:So in that position, I just started realizing, like with parent-teacher conferences, I don't want to be the bad news giver and helping these parents take anything away. I just started speaking about their child's character. Right, like, it's okay, they're struggling with their reading. Yeah, we know they're dyslexic. Of course they're going to struggle. They might not get it. You know, and I didn't have this parenting mindset, this homeschooling mindset I had this. I'm terrified to tell these parents, who are twice my age, this horrible news about their kid, that they're paying gobsons of money, you know, for their kid to be there in the first place. And so I just kept focusing on the characteristics. You know they're struggling in reading, but what they just did on the playground with you know, a little boy who didn't have a friend, I saw it, you know. And they bring in. You know they come in and they are like sunshine in the morning. They're so happy and you just speak to their character.
Speaker 2:So now you know, I think you you as someone with a background in teaching you get told, I get told a lot. Oh well, you're a teacher. Of course you can homeschool, and I am so far from that teacher. I am so far from what I was forced to do in the classroom and who I am as a homeschooling mom. So it's a poor misconception, right, and I think that's the perception that a lot I hope I can give some more people is you don't have to be a teacher, you don't have to have a background in anything. You have to love your kid and want to be around them, right? So it is built for everyone to do it. It's okay if you cannot spend this amount of time with your children, right, it is a very difficult thing to do. It's so rewarding and you know there's so many good things that come out of it, obviously, but I never want it to come across that, just because I'm a teacher, we're succeeding. I am teaching nothing and we are succeeding.
Speaker 1:When it comes to teaching my kids, I choose the Tuttle Twins curriculum because it's not just for them. I'm learning so much right alongside them. What I love is how engaging it is for kids. They take real world concepts and weave them into stories that kids can actually understand and relate to. Whether it's US history, critical thinking or even the Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies, it's all presented in a way that sticks. I especially love learning about government, because I never learned this stuff in school how the government is supposed to work versus how it actually works and it's so cool that I get to have these conversations with my son about it and he gets it. They've got books for toddlers, a fantastic series for ages five through 11, and so much more. They even have a Tuttle Twins Academy. I can't wait to get started on that, because they have classes for business and entrepreneurship. You can get 40% off select items using code Cheryl40. That's C-H-E-R-Y-L-4-0. Just grab the link in the show's description and start learning together as a family. Trust me, you'll love what you're going to learn, because they never taught this to you in school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a mindset, and before I started on actually homeschooling, to me it was like oh my God, it sounds like so much planning and I don't see myself on Sunday nights like sitting there and seeing what lessons we're going to go through during the week and what crafts I have to get and am I going to have to do crafts? I didn't really like doing crafts in school. I it was just, you know, like a waste of time to me. But you know I like dreaded all of that. And now that we're in it and you know we started, just like most people do, you kind of replicate school at home and okay, here's our curriculum and this is what time you got to wake up and we're going to start at first and right after breakfast and this and that, and then you know obviously your butt heads and you argue and you don't think this is not for me. I'm going to send them back to school.
Speaker 1:But I think hopefully everybody gets to that point that you're talking about, where you realize, oh, it's in everything we do. And yeah, you can throw in a curriculum if you want to work specifically on phonics and breaking up words and the sounds and stuff. But it doesn't have to look like them sitting at a table and doing worksheets on it either. It can be, just as you're in the car. Hey, if I say cat, can you pick out the middle sound? And so they don't even really know. Or maybe you're on a nature walk or you know.
Speaker 1:It's like in what you're doing, not regimented, where like we're sitting at the table and this is what we're doing and it sounds like, oh my God, how would I ever remember to say what's the middle part of cat if I'm just driving? But you'll realize it just starts coming more naturally to you. Like everything your child asks you could lead into a week long study about that thing, like if you wanted to, right, and that's kind of what unschooling is. You just let the child lead with what's curious to them and you know, after a five minute video on it they might be like, okay, now I don't need to know where what else snow, you know where else it came from. Like I'm good, but it might spark something else. Where they then ask another question. And then you're taking out books from the library, watching a documentary, pulling up videos on youtube and just having discussion.
Speaker 1:I think. I think we don't put enough emphasis on just discussion with our kids and conversation. It's that's something you don't get in school. Really, it's a teacher talking at them and telling them this is how it is. It's not really that.
Speaker 1:And in the classes that I feel like we did have we were supposed to have discussion in, you're intimidated because it's 30 kids and you don't want to. There's a couple of the students that wanted to talk and they did, but they always sounded really smart, and so the normal people like me, it's just. You know, read Goosebumps books. I didn't speak up, so it wasn't this conversation happening. And then they busy society so much, like off to work, come back, put something on the table, get the homework done, shower, get into bed, do it all again. You're really missing out on the discussion, and I do find that that is a lot of just where the learning comes from in our day. Something just as simple as I don't know what were we talking about earlier. I don't know, but just just when was that created? When was that invented? You know? Right, okay, that could take you on a whole journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think you know when you like I said when I heard you talking on Sam's show and I was like wow, unschooling there's a term for not schooling. You know, I mean I had kind of just naturally fallen into this rhythm of I know we're learning, right. So here, here was my light bulb moment. I've never taught my oldest a thing. We had a really great neighbor right across the street, she was, so my oldest didn't speak until he was almost three and a half. I mean, he was barely putting three words together and everyone you know knew that, like if he was in the system, he would have been labeled as speech delayed. I was never concerned with it because he was able to get what he wanted, right, he was communicating, but he just it was a delay and so he was not being taught anything I know, up until he showed me what he was able to do, and he was just about three and a half. He had asked me for the neighbor's name and I wrote her name on our board, and he took a big cardboard box. He had wrapped something in it. So he was already like taping and tinkering and you know he was fully independent in his creative abilities and he looked at the word wrote the letters perfectly. And I was like, wrote the letters perfectly? And I was like what the heck? He wrote letters, you know, I mean that to me was eye opening and so once I like, I said I heard that there was a term for it and you know there's a lot of pressure of feeling like you're at home and if you're not producing something also for, like my husband, who really didn't understand, what did you do today? You know, and that's hard to convince him that it's happening until he's seeing it himself, right, and there's not a lot of moments that he's seeing. So I started to kind of leave the learning till the end of the day, or where he'd be walking in on something, or like at the dinner table I would play the word games we play and he would then catch on and try. You know, 20 questions describe an animal, give a couple clues and he would start guessing it, and you know that's deductive reasoning to be able to put things together. So, without even telling my husband what he's doing, he's seeing that my son was just progressing Right and it was just game based. So that was that's what really started me on the.
Speaker 2:I want. I'm a type A, right, and I don't know if anybody else can agree with this, but motherhood will, if you're a type A, break yourself before kids, because motherhood will break you into a type B that you're going to thank yourself later for. But it's a hard process to get there. I look at a lot of type B moms and I'm like it's a gift, treasure, that gift right, that you're so laid back and you can sit down at a table with literally a mess all around you and still talk. That took me a long time to get there, to let the toys stay on the floor and think that you can play a game in the other room. You know that it was very hard for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm sure if I could take a video of my house right now.
Speaker 2:I know yeah, and no one would believe it Right Like it's. So it's been a process of also like convincing people that without doing anything, they're getting there Right. And then you have more kids and then they obviously learn quicker. And so, after I had my second and now my third, they're all like oh okay, she's doing fine, right, they're all talking and they're all writing Right. But like until you get somebody to buy in on, they're seeing it. You question yourself is no instruction really going pan out?
Speaker 1:yeah, and especially grandparents or cousins. You know they have your child's best interest at heart, but they're also like you're crazy, you are stepping out of society, right, what are you doing all day? But you know, and especially like your child and mine are the same age where my son's not fully reading on his own yet and most kindergartners are, I believe. I mean, I, I do think they, yeah, for the most part, are.
Speaker 2:So it's like now, but will they be reading in 20 years? You know right.
Speaker 1:That's where I'm at, exactly Right, because the love of reading comes from it, not being pressured upon you. Right? And just before this, now, don't get me wrong, the screens are on sometimes too. And just before this, now, don't get me wrong, the screens are on sometimes too. But just before this podcast, my son brought a book over and said could you read this to me? So it's like that's what we're looking for, right? Like can you read this to me? Now, sometimes he'll do it before bed because he knows it'll like let him stay up a little bit longer, but when, know when, when he's coming over in the middle of the day saying can you read this to me? Like that's gold. Right there, you know you are giving them the love of story and that is not put into children in school.
Speaker 1:I think back to the amount of stories or books that were read to me, like maybe if we went to library class which wasn't every day, and maybe in reading class, but I do not remember a teacher reading to us every day, reading a book and showing us the pictures and talking about the story. It happens sometimes, but not every day. So that's so interesting too. And like I didn't even grow up with parents reading me books. So I think that there's definitely this push now with, like Sarah McKenzie's read aloud revival and you know different, you know people on Instagram or whatever, pushing the homeschooling that they're saying like you don't need the formal instruction as long as you're reading to your kid and there's so much more that that does for them anyways, just with the bonding, and you, you know the story there, you know synapses are firing in their brain and it's really awesome. So okay.
Speaker 1:So, as, what kind of regulations do you guys have in Illinois? Cause I'm in New York, so we are pretty strict on what we have to report and the different subjects and like our reporting looks like. In the beginning of the year, we say what we intend to do for the year and then every quarter we say what has been completed of that, and there are specific. It's one of them's reading, one of them's writing, one of them's spelling and one of them's English. I'm like you, seriously, people you come on, I know those are literally you can entwine them all in the same thing. I are we, you just trying to confuse people here, and then there's a few other ones, but how is the reporting in Illinois? Because, as an unschooler, that can get tricky.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if you were to, if I were to have to regurgitate verbatim, I couldn't tell you. I know I've looked into it and I know it was something along the lines of make sure you're doing at least 180 days of instruction, keeping some type of proof of that, and I think it's the basic subjects of, yes, english language arts, so ELA, math, I'm not sure, but only because I know we're touching on all of it and the proof is in my library card, what we've checked out. I keep a portfolio of the organic things that take place and if I were to say anything about someone feeling like they need to do some sort of curriculum, it would be a curriculum based on reading and not like reading phonics. It would be a curriculum based on read-alouds phonics. It would be a curriculum based on read alouds and everything else falls into that, right. So that's essentially.
Speaker 2:I like to read. Not everyone does I like to read. I like to read to kids, I like to read to myself, so that came naturally to me. I've been reading to them since, you know, my son was in my stomach just knowing what that can do, right, but as soon as you pick up any type of children's chapter book. Um, so I don't plan things, I don't know. I don't look ahead and think, oh, we're going to do this chapter book and then that one, and then that one. I just figure out. You know, like my son was really into Indians last year and so we read Indian in the cupboard and my daughter joined along just listening to it. But inside of that now you know, there's your history. We learned about Indians, we learned about several tribes of Indians, right, that ties into everything, ties into God, by the way, and so it all, it all intertwines.
Speaker 2:We're reading another randomly found winter book right now and it takes place in Paris. We've never looked into Paris. I've got a little folder of when we read a book and it has to do with the country. We color the map flag, and all that is is me. You know we're five chapters in and I'm like, okay, we got to go to the library this book this week. They've mentioned a few places in Paris, so we'll get that book, we'll touch on it.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be that day when we taught. You know, as a teacher, you think, oh, we're going to read this part of the chapter and we're going to talk about it in this book. It doesn't have to be that way. You will literally find everything you can teach them while just enjoying reading with them. So there's a program I think it's called All About Reading I think that's what it's called and I bought it specifically to just get their book list and it's rich. It's a rich book list. It's got a good book. You know, a good base of like.
Speaker 2:Here's seven different ways you can use this book. It touches on you know multiple different ways you can touch on subjects. It's great, but trust yourself, right. You know exactly where you can go with an interest you know, and so like I don't, you know I think the unschooling method is. It's also like it doesn't have to be no curriculum. It's child interest led.
Speaker 2:So like my son is really into time right now. So we're just talking clocks out of nowhere, you know, and my, actually my daughter is really into writing and learning how to spell and you know being able to do the phonics. She is right where my six-year-old son is. She's almost four. She'll be four in a couple weeks.
Speaker 2:So last summer, when I thought I'm just going to check if my five and a half year old knows all of the letters, sounds and a few of the you know digraphs and blends, like I just basically I would draw a letter with chalk and he'd say the sound in the letter and then I would just check with my daughter.
Speaker 2:She was right on par with him and she had not been instructed with anything, she had just been in the background. So I thought, okay, we're going to finish summer and then into winter I am going to legitimately teach them together, on pace, together, and she's picking up the linguistics much quicker and she's more interested in that. And my son is like, okay, fine, I'll do it, but can I be done now, you know? And then she wants to go further and he'd rather do time and talk about numbers. And so you just follow that right and don't put pressure on yourself, because what's the end goal? The end goal isn't first grade. The end goal isn't what can he do by seven. I care about what he's going to be doing at 18. And a lot of that is life skills. Right now still can learn everything from what I'm finding out. You can learn everything through life skills.
Speaker 1:You're so right and it sounds like you have the same children as I do, except my daughter's two and my. So I just don't have that middle child. But, um, I haven't taught her anything formal. Now, my son, he did go to daycare. He went to a private preschool that was three days a week for two and a half hours a day, and I took him out for kindergarten and first grade and, uh, I haven't taught my. My daughter's never been in a daycare, so she never been to school.
Speaker 1:That girl picks up everything. They were just playing hide and seek earlier today and she starts counting and she's like counting up to 15. I was like what in the world? I can only attribute it to miss Rachel on YouTube, but I never did any of that with her. So it's so funny that a two year old can say and like no, the context. I have to stand here with my hands over my eyes and count to 15 and then go look for him. So I've never taught her that either. So you're right, and I never taught her to talk. And she has. She comes out out. She surprises everybody when she actually does open her mouth to speak. They're always caught off guard like whoa, I didn't know she could even talk because she's kind of miserable looking. But when she does, she comes out with these full sentences, perfect grammar.
Speaker 1:Where my son we did a lot of speech therapy because he had lisps and we fixed all of that also. I don't talk about that nearly enough and I should because I fought with the school to try to get them in to get the right speech therapist and this and that and it was a whole thing and I was like you know what? Let me contact anyone. I know who's a speech therapist. They can recommend whatever to me a person or a YouTube video. They did that. I've watched YouTube videos. I worked with my son on the exercises and he doesn't have a speech issue now.
Speaker 1:Like it's insane, it took YouTube videos and then just every day saying okay, get the little pom pom and let's blow it across the table with a straw, let's touch our tongue to our you know roof of our mouth and then over to our right cheek and over to our left cheek and like just doing that every day for I don't know, six months a year, it probably wasn't every day, it was probably three times a week. But I mean we can do this stuff as parents. I mean, I didn't go to school for speech therapy it's like crazy what we have access to if we just give ourselves the credit to say like, yeah, I'm smart enough to do this. And it's like, if you don't think you're qualified to teach your kids, why are you going to send them to the same place that educated you, that didn't make you qualified? Amen, yeah, yeah, and I love what you said about what's the goal, cause that's what I've started really focusing on too.
Speaker 1:Why are we doing it? I just wrote an article for the quite frankly podcast, their newsletter on why are we even educating them in the first place? We get we, we send them off to school because they're five years old and that's what everybody does. But nobody stops to say do you want to send your kids to school? It's actually a choice, just like when you have the baby in the hospital. Or you know, do you want to have a baby in a hospital or do you? They don't even ask you do you want to vaccinate this baby? It's like, just, this is what you do because society tells you this is what you do. But, um, you know why are we doing it? And when we stop to think about it. It's like, all right, well, do I want a test taker? No, I kind of want someone that's going to be self-sufficient and knows how to grow food and build a shelter and find water. Or you know someone that knows a little bit about how to run a business, you know how to do their taxes, how to find information, how to think critically, which just means not believing everything you hear or read, and thinking about the other side and let's hear another opinion. And who benefits off of this? Like, who's making money? You know, it's like we're never taught that in school. It's so crazy.
Speaker 1:What are, like, I guess, goals that you think of long-term? Like, how are you going to prepare them if they want to go to college? Like I know? You said that you know if curriculum comes into it at some point, that's fine because it's child led, and I think that's a big point that you made too. Just because you unschool doesn't mean you're never using curriculum. It means you're going to use curriculum that interests your child, because that's what they want to learn about. So that's a really good point that you made. I hadn't thought about that before. How do you think about preparing them, since you do have the teaching background. What do they really need? Do they need SATs and trigonometry and chemistry and biology and all that stuff? Is it necessary?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, if we're talking about our tinfoil hat right now, will that even be around in 10 years, right? Will we be sending kids to college, right? So I am. I'm definitely looking long-term at by 18, before they go off into college or right before they have to be admitted into college, will they be prepared for a certain test, right? I mean, I think it was just.
Speaker 2:It was just told that I don't know if it's in all states or some states, but they're not even requiring teachers anymore to pass a basic skills test anymore New Jersey, if that's occurring, that's insane to me because I studied my butt off for it, which proves I was not educated enough. Through all of it. I still had to study to do it. Those are the things you want to be able to do at 18 and acquire the knowledge, right. So I hope at some point we do deep dive into some fun curriculum. But you know, it's not always about us needing to teach it to them either At 15, if my kid is really into I don't know right physics, which is not my world at all, I may not even think I'm prepared at that point to teach him or her that, but we can find someone. That is right. There's tutors, there will be programs, there might be who knows? There might be people offering, you know, experience-led internships and things like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So my main goal right now is by 18, I know they'll be able to acquire the knowledge if you're instilling the characteristics of that now. Right, and I was not raised with God and I I had probably 15 people that have come through my life at some point specifically. I tell this often specifically speaking God into my world, happily comfortably, and my response was always the same I don't not believe in God. I wasn't raised with it. It's an extremely intimidating subject to me. I'm a very black and white girl. I have so many questions and starting that journey by myself was overwhelming. Trying to maybe have a career takeoff, trying to finish a master's degree right, I'm not going to start reading the Bible from the front to the back when I don't even know the answers of anything that I'm reading. I always knew I wanted to raise my kids with God, even though I had no idea, and I always thought, well, I'll just have to learn alongside them. And that's exactly what's happening right now.
Speaker 2:Everything ties into the Bible somehow, some way. You know your phonics lesson. You'll, if you're reading, or you know practicing verses or whatever, find words in want to give any spoiler alerts, it was a great movie. I don't love the company Disney, but we are engrossed in Disney. Okay, disney lyrics, disney songs, disney movies, vocabulary. You know everything you can pull out of some of the things they're very much interested in. You know they watch Tangled today and we're potty training I potty train off movie promises and my son, out of nowhere, was like mom, what does the word smolder mean? You know he had said it twice and I was like I mean that happens once a day. Right, if we're singing in the act, they ask. So you got vocabulary, we have, you know whatever. So Mufasa tied into its two brothers, right and jealousy. And we had just happened to read the story of Cain and Abel. They connected that on their own right. There is somehow things touch back to God all the time and so, if I were to say anything, focus on reading and building a spiritual connection.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, this is Cheryl. I wanna thank you so much for checking out the podcast. I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because I know your time is valuable. I wanna ask you a serious question Do your kids know what to do to actually save their life in an emergency? The most important thing we can talk to our kids about is knowing their first and last name, knowing mom and dad's first and last name, mom's phone number, dad's phone number, their address, what to do if they get lost, what to do if someone who's watching them has a heart attack, a stroke, an accident where they fall and your child needs to get help.
Speaker 1:We live in a world where there's no landline phones anymore, basically, and cell phones lock. Does your child know how to call 911 from a locked cell phone? It is absolutely possible, and my book demonstrates how to do that, whether it's an Android, whether it's an iPhone and, most importantly, it starts the conversation, because I was going through homeschooling curriculum with my kids, realizing that, gee, maybe they skim over this stuff, but they don't get into depth, so my child's not gonna remember this should an accident occur, right? I asked a couple of teachers what they do in school and they said they really don't do anything either other than talk about what to do in a fire during the month of October fire prevention month. So I wrote a book because this is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 1:I have had multiple friends that have lost kids in tragedies and I don't want to see it happen again if it doesn't have to. We were at the fair over the summer and the first thing I said to my son when we walked through that gate was what's my first and last name, what is your first and last name and what is my phone number? And if you get lost, what are you going to do? You can get my book on Amazon and I will put the link in my show's description Again. It's called let's Talk Emergencies and I really hope you'll check it out because there's just no need to be scared when you can choose prepared.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be my God, but find the belief in a higher power, or find the belief in faith and a fearlessness that if you're a good person and you have a good sense of direction, of you, know who you want to be, your learning will come. It will all come to you. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had kind of a similar journey where I was like, well, I want to raise my kid with God because you know I, I am not always going to be here and I want to give them comfort If, god forbid, something were to happen to me earlier than I want it to. You know, I want them to be able to have a place for comfort in that and, which is a very probably weird things that way. That's so morbid. But you know, I, you know, got children's Bibles and I'm reading it with my son and I'm like, geez, this one's pretty. This is pretty rough in that, you know so, but it's like that was the old Testament. So then I get learning about okay, well, what's the difference between the old Testament and the new Testament? And I'm sort of finding out, like, what do I believe in? And questioning things. And and I think that stuff's important too, because learning never ends, like it doesn't start in kindergarten and end with your bachelor's degree or master's degree. It starts from the day you come out of the womb and it ends the day that you die. You're always learning something. So why do we feel like it just has to be in these years in the childhood, where their brains are developing. And that's exactly. It's exactly why it was planned out that way.
Speaker 1:When you look at the history of education and you know Horace Mann and John Dewey bringing it over from the model where they just wanted to influence the way the young minds were thinking, they didn't want people philosophizing about God. And well, if I have faith in this God, I don't have to follow the rulers, because God's more important. Like they wanted to shift all of that to know we are the rulers, you will praise us and listen to us and everything else is secondary. You know we want you to fight for us if, if we come under attack, and you know so. They were grooming people this whole time and you know they brought it over to the United States and, um, you know we actually started the school system like 120 years ago. That's it.
Speaker 1:We've been around. Humans have been around for thousands and thousands of years homeschooling kids learning in the community. You know they had one room school houses in the 1800s, but that was all the kids learning together, just your basic skills. You know reading, writing and some math, and then your house, your family, your community taught you more of what you needed for survival, and it's just crazy that it turned into that and just a hundred years went from you go to this one room schoolhouse or or not at all to you send them off at six weeks to a daycare because you have to go back to work because of this women's movement, that doubled the tax base for the government. You know, and then you're. You're basically in an institution your entire childhood till you're about 22 or 24 years old. It's insanity.
Speaker 2:It really is. And it's heartbreaking because I mean, that's essentially another reason of why, you know, I was. I was a teacher for the school year and I wasn't making enough. I had no kids, by the way. I wasn't making enough for me to like reach goals without kids. So then I became an administrator for the summer camp all summer and that's, you know, that job starts in the middle of my school teaching year. So I was, and a master's degree, you know, four nights a week and honestly, I mean, if I had kids I would have, I would have lived in a shoe box before pushing through all of that, because I was still only making $70,000, maybe, maybe, but that was with two jobs, right, I mean. So I wasn't. It was overwork, underpaid, and then you then you add kids into it.
Speaker 2:So there are moms out there that are killing it and walking away from a much bigger paycheck than that. Mine would have been pennies. Comparing, if I leave my kids all day, what am I bringing home? Right, a couple thousand dollars. So I can understand the moms that are making six figures and feel like, a I might be the breadwinner of the family and B that's a really hard amount of money to walk away that I worked so hard to get to right. I worked really hard and I wasn't making that much money, so that was an easy choice for me. But also anyone that knows me or you know would say like, okay, I've, I've wanted to have 10 kids since I was 10 myself. Right, it's just been who I was and not everyone else was growing up to say that and yeah, I'm all about working moms and I'm all about, you know, hustling and bringing in as much as you can. These years go really fast and that money will still be there. And you know, I think that's, you know, the moms that are working, the breadwinning moms.
Speaker 2:Much of what this unschooling approach looks like is we go all day long just surviving 15 minutes at the dinner table I'm like, oh well, look at that, we're counting up. Now We've just accomplished a math task that in a classroom I would have spent seven days teaching a group of 30 kids and then figuring out how many of them got it. We would have touched on the same topic for 45 minutes of math every day that week and my kid just proved it in 15 minutes it's possible to do it all. You know the parents that are sending their kids to the private school because it's a better choice than the public system. Save that money, get a private nanny, let your kids just be kids all day long and you know, keep that nanny or bring that.
Speaker 2:You know I don't I'm not solving everyone's problems, but it's. There are ways around figuring out where that 25 minutes a day can come into. Or, you know, push it, push it to the weekend and really do nothing all week and spend three hours on your Saturday and Sunday right In a different way than guess what. Can't go to that birthday party this weekend and we're not gonna go on that date night this weekend, or whatever it might look like. The time is so short now, but it's crucial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I find that, even with just letting my kids sleep in until their body's ready to wake up in the morning, that's gotta do wonders for just your overall wellbeing. Letting your body sleep If it's going through a growth spur or fighting off uh you know a cold or some sort of illness, or your, your brain is trying to make connections and synapses and it's tiring, you're just letting them sleep until they're ready to wake up and also, just like the morning isn't. Come on, we got to go. Come on, we got to get a house. Come on, we got to do like that. I think that's why I am such a spaz the way I am, because that's all I heard. My mother was just always rushing us from here to there that she, she doesn't even have anywhere to go anymore. She's 77 and retired and she's still that way.
Speaker 1:So it's just like it ingrains in you, and I don't want that for my kids.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think that's another important thing is I'm not perfect. I am a school teacher and I was a really good teacher and handled the stress in the classroom much differently than I handle the stress under my roof. So you know, like I don't ever hide who I am. Or you know, like I think birth order is really interesting right now, now that I have three I came from three I'm a middle child. I think there's so much into that, right, so I'm.
Speaker 2:I am not perfect and our day includes happy moments, touching moments, snuggles, calm, slow mornings, some chaotic lunch moments. I shout, I have threatened to take things away. Right, you know, we have throw everything to the wall and see what sticks. So, like you know, gentle parenting. Ok, let's see how good I can do at this. Oh, wait a minute, I'm not sure I agree with gentle parenting anymore. Oh, wait a minute, I'm not sure I agree with gentle parenting anymore. You know, I mean really honestly, everyone, I think, has to shut off all the noise and figure out who they are, who they want their kids to be. It's you know, take yourself out of that rat race. You have the time with your kids, whether you're working, whether they're in school and you still want to instill some of the homeschool benefits you can. You know it's and it's not always going to be pretty. It is not Instagram pretty, it is not just what people you know those short little reels of. Oh look what we did today.
Speaker 1:Heck, no, heck, no so true, it's, yes, it's the mess, the chaos, sometimes the screen on, just way too much more than you are, yeah, willing to admit and but you know what I always say at the end of those days. I'm like you know what? They were fed without chemicals. They were not getting the chemicals, that's in all the school breakfast and lunches. They were not privy to any shelter in place drills today and they got outside we usually always get outside unless somebody is really really sick, you know. So they got some fresh air, they were loved and they were not in any combat training. So, and that really, I'm like that's enough, it is yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, I, I don't know, I, I, I kept thinking to myself like what if someone was listening, cause I gain a lot from your episodes? And you know, I, I don't know, I, I, I kept thinking to myself like what if someone was listening, cause I gain a lot from your episodes? Someone you know mentioned something. You mentioned something, and I jot it down. I'm like I don't even know what that was. I got to look into it. Or that sounds like a great book. I got to look into it. Right, I don't know if I've shared anything that someone can take away. I just, oh, yes, away. I just want people to know that there is, there's a way around it all, and especially in the young years, just play.
Speaker 2:It's so hard to feel like you're doing something when you're just playing. That is, that's what fuels their soul. It'll feel your own soul and you will see it show out in tenfold, right, I mean, I think, most of what we do. I mean I've got my daughter's almost four, but she's been playing cards, grasping concept of a deck of cards, and she had just turned three Deck of cards. Lots and lots and lots of books, cards, lots and lots and lots of books, board games, word games, right, like puzzles, big on puzzles, and those are hard. When you feel like you're, it's like, oh my God, that puzzle will take us 45 minutes, right, and I've got to cook dinner and I've got to do this.
Speaker 2:And working moms, stay at home, moms, everyone has that never ending list. But, like you said, your son came up and had asked you to read that book. Never say no, push dinner, always take those moments, right. Not that you can like cancel a meeting if you're working from home or whatever, but grab that book and tell him we'll do this in 25 minutes. Do not forget those things that they're bringing to you. You know I teach my kids games, and then the ones they really want to play. We play 17 times an hour, right, we don't get to play nine different games. We are playing the same game over and over and I know they're getting something from it, you know. So, I don't know, maybe I'll send you an email after this with some of our favorite card games. Um, you know, uh, brain games that you know you can list somewhere where people can click.
Speaker 2:I'll put it right in the show's description yeah, because I think, if anyone, if you can take away any, whether they're in school or not, the time you spend with your kids should just be phone free, play, just play, and they'll tell you what they like to do. You know I mean, every parent knows that, but commit yourself to playing, that's you know. Don't feel like, oh well, yeah, you wanted to cook this big dinner tonight, but tonight she was really interested in this, so we'll cook that tomorrow. Right, that's the type A of me. Now I've been broken into the. You can push it, let loose.
Speaker 1:That's really what it is. Yeah, I, that's. It's. That's beautiful and what a great way to round up the hour. And we've been playing.
Speaker 1:I talk about it a lot lately, now that my son's six and he's, you know, the last year he's been into playing games. You know, skip or mancala, all the double shutter. It's so cool as they start to kind of become these little people that can grasp these concepts and it's really fun. You know, I think it's hard for a lot of us to like.
Speaker 1:Some of some of us struggle especially depending on how your childhood was with, like, actually sitting down with a one year old or a two year old, and OK, I'm, I'm a dolly like that. It doesn't come quite as natural. But when they get to that which that's really important too it's gotta be done. But when they get to that age, we're like you're playing a game against each other or, you know, with each other. It's just so cool and it brings just such a bonding, a beautiful bonding moment together and yeah, they, and then they start asking for it all the time. So it's just a really cool way to keep the screens off and find a way to enjoy each other, and they're always learning from the games they're all educational in some way.
Speaker 1:Oh, katie, thank you so much for being with us tonight. Anything else that you wanted to make sure you said I will put any of those games in the description. Any that you want to send me will be in the description for folks to check out. I sometimes forget to put that stuff in the description, but I'm trying to be really good about that, because I do like a copy paste thing and I'm going to like write a little post it on my desk.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, I can't promise I'll get you the list tonight, but at some point you can probably even throw it on your no rush Somewhere yeah.
Speaker 2:But, no, I think I'm hoping more moms want to whether they don't want to come on the podcast, but I'm hoping they want to share more insights. I'm looking for so many more unschoolers who have successfully pushed their kids into college and can say you're on the right path. Right? We said it in the beginning. I question myself every day if I'm doing this right. I have probably my husband and I have both probably said I think it's time for us to put them in school. We're not built for this too many times. Right, you question yourself all the time, but the end goal is so far out if you're, especially if you're starting from the beginning. But either way, unschooling is literally the point of take them out wherever they're at and let them be right, get out of that bell schedule, get out of what school is supposed to look like at home and just trust yourself as parents that you'll find the right things for them when they need it. So thanks so much.
Speaker 1:I had heard once that everything your child needs to learn to be successful in life can happen in their high school years. Everything before that should just be play. How would you feel about that?
Speaker 2:1000%. I mean, yeah, I like I had a list of here, of, like, if I were to say anything, what are my homeschool must? Right, if you want to try and do not even just unschooling, but the homeschool must and it's a library card teach them some sort of type of competitive learning. Right, that comes with our games. My son loves to have some sort of chocolate chip at the end right, some sort of. He picks the movie next time if he wins. My daughter and him are now playing together competitively and they both can lose and there's no crying over it. Right, they're good winners, good losers.
Speaker 2:A big one on here for me also is like we sing at dance parties. Music gets us through anything. We do a lot of chores. I'm very proud of what my kids can do at this age. They help me throughout the house, right. Prep dinner, they cook basically everything with me. It's much easier to let them cook with you and make the mess than to manage them somewhere else in the house while you're trying to cook Chores. Right, you want them to be happy unloading a dishwasher every day, right, and in order to do that, you have to be right, you find the reason to do that. We're lucky to be cleaning dishes that we got to eat good food on and listening to music. While you do it right, you just find a way to make it all fun and that's all play-based.
Speaker 2:And, honestly, what I learned in high school, I needed to relearn in college. So high school wasn't even the best time for me to learn at all. If we're being honest, I'm you know, I am learning so much more at my six-year-old's level than I ever did. You know, and you know some of the other day I forget who it was Someone said. I said you know, we're really only I'm making sure my kids are literate. I want them to be able to read and write. So the only thing I could say I've like instructed or, like, you know, wrote on a board or things like that is the phonics. And they were like, well, what is phonics? And I thought, well, there you go. Right, we don't even know some of the typical names of what you yourself learned in school. So right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was the same way. I didn't know what phonics was before talking to homeschooling families. Oh my God. No, I love everything that you just said. I'm so glad that you kind of threw all that in as your closing, because you had like two closings there. They were both phenomenal. But oh my gosh, yes, I love all that and I'm thinking of like you turning into a type B personality, as you're like vacuum for me and you're like, oh my God, you're leaving all that dog hair still. But it's being that type B. You got roll with it, cause each time they do it, they're going to get better and better. That's awesome, and that's why all my plates are chipped, because I my six year old will unload the dishwasher for me and every time I like take another plate on, I'm like why, where did all these chips come from? But I'm going to blame him. At least it is probably me. But yeah, it's a type B now. Katie, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Cheryl, it's been a pleasure. I can't wait to hear more of what you have.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the homeschool how to. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you.