15 - How to Homeschool with Passion Driven Learning

Passion-driven learning naturally makes children happier and more motivated to learn. It also alleviates homeschool pressures for parents. Another bonus: it will help your kids soar ahead of those who are stuck on the government school's protracted system of conveyor belt to college. 

In this episode, you'll also get some tips on going to confession as a family and hear about a recent win for Mat and Maeve. 

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Transcript

  Welcome to home is where the truth is. My name is Matt, and I'm Maeve, and we have five kids that we're trying to raise in the ways of the Lord. We want our kids to know the truth of their Catholic faith and how to defend it. This is an everyday job and a lifelong commitment, and it is so important that our kids learn this before they head out and leave our home into today's culture, which is why we've chosen to bubble wrap or.

Homeschool our children, and whether you're already homeschooling or praying about it for the future, let me tell you, it's an amazing life to let the Lord guide your kids' education and your family's adventures. So please join us for some relatable stories because we are sinners and we deal with temptation on a daily basis.

We get overwhelmed and stressed out just like you guys, but we do get some things right. Thanks be to God. So laugh along with us or at us, and glean some parenting wisdom, tips to deepen the family bond so that you can have a family culture that's centered on the Lord. 

 We  on like Donkey Kong 

I'm gonna delete that. so woke up feeling a little sore today.

Tell me about it.

We did not wake up feeling dangerous. Okay, we woke up feeling sore because 

We had

a CrossFit competition yesterday.

And

yours truly, and Misses  second place in our division. Yes. 

But man, we're sore. And , it was a team competition, and Matt and I did , intermediate co ed team, and had some agonies and some joys.

true. 

I PR'd on the barbell complex, so I was pumped about that.  

I, not so much. I could have and I should have. I just

I

don't know how to explain it.



I couldn't finish what I started. And

should have probably got it. . We came in first place in one of the workouts. We smoked everybody. I mean, I mean, smoked. Even the announcer was just like, wow. , you thought we said a world record you would have thought was coming out of his voice. I mean, he was just amazed. 

thought was coming out of his voice. I mean, he was just amazed. Team our team was woke up feeling dangerous. He's like, woke up feeling dangerous. It's going to have another unbroken set of wall balls.

And every time he said our name or something, I was like, that's what it's all about, I just want the recognition because the wheels did come off on a couple of those workouts. I mean, we did terrible. Not terrible. Okay, but terrible

I set

you had higher hopes

okay? Dubs



.

Dubs are what some people call one of the hardest moves in CrossFit  It's where you're jumping rope But the rope has to go under your feet twice in one jump and it did take me three Years to get  and still to this day 

on a

great day, I can maybe string like 40 or 50 dubs together.

Oh yeah.  

Matt's really good at dubs.

 He can go pretty high with the stringing them together. And they just fell apart in the competition. I hit up, there was a chalk bucket, there was a weight plate.  That, my rope got caught on both of those. My shoe came untied. It,

came untied.

it,

If it could go wrong,

But one of the things about this competition is,

There were a lot of moves that were called synchro, like we had to do synchro wall balls.

Sometimes you, you might have synchronized pull ups. You might have synchronized, we had synchronized wall walks. And so what synchro is, is you have to do it at the exact time your partner does it. And if you get ahead of them or they get ahead of you, you're getting no rep. That's synchro. a no rep. That means you basically just did

Something for nothing.

an extra rep.

You just did something really hard that did not count and you're adding time to your score, okay? So What I realize is that's exactly like parenting, okay? 

if you're not on the same page, it don't count 

No, if you're not on the same page Your kids are going to know rep you if you're not synchro parenting, your kids are going to know rep you case in point.  Matt and I are talking about, it's going to be a heavy week. , who's taking who to this practice? Okay. We're not going to be able to make it to this practice this night. We're just going to have to tell the kids

And then what happens? is we don't , we don't sync up. We don't say, okay, here's what we're going to tell the kid.

We're going to tell them X, Y, Z, let's sync up and let's have our plan. And then what happens? They get you alone.  Can you take me to practice? I,

Conquer and divide, they know how it

they do, they're smart.



Divide

and conquer. How's that conquer and divide. You don't beat them and then split them

up. 

the same page for sure.

Because they know who's the weaker of the two.

On the same page for sure because they know who's the weaker of the two and they will exploit that

They've done it to us. They know who's the one that's gonna give in I'll be honest  If it's me and the boys and it's a no screen night.

I have on occasion given in And  watch the show with them so they know There's a chink in the armor. Let's go to that every time and we know who to go 

 Yeah, so that's why when you're on that same page, nope, it's not a screen night or whatever, you know, mommy and daddy agree on this. This is how it is. So much easier. Don't get no repped. Don't get no repped by your kids.

 What else did I want to say about the contest?



 The There's,

 There's teammates that team up for whatever purpose or whatever reason, right? And I will say that having your spouse as a partner,  some could say that's good. Some could say that could be really bad because depending on how you work together, it's kinda like, do you golf with your spouse?

I don't know that I've heard horror stories and I've heard really good things. But I will say that we. Connect, because A, we're both very competitive, so we hold each other to a high standard. We do communicate, though there were times where we were yelling at each other a couple times, so, but we got that taken care of.

But at the end of the day, especially when you come out on top, it's like,

Well, second place we weren't on top and you know what, that is true because one of the girls came up to me and she's like, Oh me, my husband and I could not do this together. , but she's like, but you guys work out all the, all the time together.

So I'm sure you guys are great. And The other thing we, we both found out about ourselves is , we go into this game face mode.  I don't want to talk, between the workouts, cause there are four different workouts we had to do. It's like, I just want to go into a dark hole and concentrate.

I'm nervous. I'm scared  My adrenaline's still pumping.

the people around

All the people around are  sitting there. Oh, ha ha. They're laughing. They're talking and I am tunnel vision And then you got is then you got your kids  asking a hundred

Yeah. Silly questions. A million things , what's going on with the workout.

Just explain this and that to me. And I'm

Explain this and that to me, and I'm just like Yeah, I just walked away. No , the ten year old, we were getting ready

away. No the 10 year old, we're getting ready to do our competition. And it was  like two minutes before. And I'm pacing back and forth. Cause I've got that nervous energy. My 10 year old asked me a question. I just looked at him like,  are you kidding me right now?

I walked away. , I don't want to think, okay, this I'm putting all my strength and energy into what I'm about to do. I don't want to divert any of that to sitting here trying to figure out The answer is to your question.

your question. Laser focus. Oh yeah, what did my dad ask you? Our number one podcast listener. Hey dad.

Oh yeah. I'm sitting there , between competitions and , I'm in the zone just thinking, what am I going to do next? 

Your dad leans over. He's like, Hey, Matt. I got a question for you

you And he's always got the deepest questions. I tell you

like, okay. I thought it's gonna be something simple. He's asking a question about a podcast and it's  a philosophical question

Yeah about when I threw out your I donated your shoes. What did he

Yeah, some something to the effect of  did you feel Worse about the fact that she donated them to some needy homeless people or the fact that  God was gonna rain down wrath on you and you were being God or something like that like something deep and I'm just like

I'm just like, huh? I just

I just, I just smiled and looked away.

I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I can't even think right now. I couldn't, I couldn't do a math problem right now. If you ask me. So don't, don't ask me something deep right now. That's yes or no. I could probably get away with, but you make me think I'm going to shut down.

Right?  It was a fun day. Our team name, . Woke up feeling dangerous. This morning we woke up feeling sore.

Yeah. Yeah.

But ready

and when the other  caveat, I'm I think we come to find out that we were the two oldest competitors

yeah. I mean, I don't always like to use that as a crutch. Okay. I don't, but Hey, it was, we were the two oldest competitors there.

yeah, and we were second place in our division.

Yes. So, okay. Good job, honey.  Okay. So we're, we're coming to you on divine mercy Sunday 

  . So divine mercy.  The, the Lord just has a ocean of mercy ready for us and our priest homily. It was one of his better homilies ever. It was great. And it's saying, , don't be so hard on yourself because the Lord has so much mercy. He's not saying just go out and live whatever kind of life you want to live.

No, he's saying we do all fall back into sin, but the Lord's mercy is so deep and fast that , just. Take his mercy. And he was saying that the confession lines were literally around the church and that, you know, Easter has taken effect or that there's been an effect when the confession lines are around the church, even after Easter.

, we briefly talked to you guys last week about.

guys last week about

Me taking the kids to confession at the sacred acre in St. Augustine. And I wanted to say this because we also talked about Matt and I are just two sinners trying to do the right thing and trying to let the Lord guide us.

But of course we fail,

fail.

Fall short all

fall short all the time.  In fact, in my last confession it had been, I thought it had been a year since my last confession. Upon more reflection, I realized it had only been six months, but I did tell the priest it had been a year since my last confession. So after I confessed all my sins, he goes, okay,  do you go to mass every Sunday?

And I'm like puffing up my chest like, yeah, of course. Yeah. And he's like, So, okay, if you're receiving the Eucharist, you have to go to confession more often. 

Like,

So he wasn't, yeah, he wasn't   asking me if that's something I do for , checking where my heart was. He's saying, girl, you've been going up there to get that Eucharist  and you're not in a state of grace is basically what he told me. 

I mean, I.  I'm just curious what you told him that triggered his response.

can't talk. You can't say that. You can't ask that. Okay.

okay. I'm just saying,

Anyways, I've been cleansed, but  I mean, that hit me  right between the eyes.  And he said, just like you take a bath for your body, a confession is a bath for the soul and more important, way more important  than, taking a bath for your body.

Well, , I've been to confessions and there's been stints where there was a long dry period

And

 I've been told he's like, yeah, obviously you should come  more regular but he wasn't putting that little caveat like, oh, you receive communion too. Maybe 

he

to go hand in hand, buddy.

putting that little caveat, like, oh, you, you can eat me too. Maybe use a human hand, buddy.

Yeah

I'm checking them all, okay?

So, and I just read it off. I'm not gonna just sit there and try to explain my sins. Here they are, buddy.

Right

so I don't know if you're completely honest, maybe.

So I have listened to priests say when you go to the confessional  Don't tell me every little nitty gritty detail that you think you've done wrong Just kind of  hit me with the general stuff because he doesn't want to hear  The story behind why you did what you did

Okay. True. Yeah. I need to know. Yeah. Okay. Well, I took

Okay. True.

don't

You don't need to justify. Yeah.

all

Okay. Well.

I'm just

I took it as.

big

You don't have to give me all the details.  So I'm just hitting the big ones.

big ones are more

I don't know. I think the big ones are more important.

yeah, I've been

But anyhow. But yeah, I've been told that..

Okay, well we do try to get the family to confession once in a while, but I will say this. I have a couple of little ones who, well, I have one little one who he's deathly afraid of confession. He's done it, but literally he will cry and, and like start shaking.

And what I wanted to say about that is

is 

I had a priest tell me, one of my parish priests is like, if the child is that afraid to wear their, you know, they're, they're afraid, don't force them to do it. Oh,

just put them in the confessional and shut the door and walk away and  say, okay, good luck. I'll see you in a couple of minutes. Oh, he's just thinking, oh, I've got plenty of time and it's going to come around and you're going to have the same discussion again next year. I promise you. 

to have the same discussion again next year. I promise you. Well, I

Well, I, ,



 face to face. If I was given a choice, I would do,  the screen. Yeah. Yeah, there's just something about looking father in the eye and just letting them have it. Just I don't know for me. I can't I just can't

Even if it's a priest that you might not know?

 I don't know. I mean i've done it twice.

I go face to

I just look down I look at the ground

yeah, I prefer face to face. I just

I  stare at the floor and say Kind of like that dog that's in trouble He won't make eye contact That's how I feel

Okay, well, we do get to confession as a family and one, one time after waiting like 45 minutes for my entire family to go through the confession line, I realized, okay, I got to teach these kids some door busting skills, like, you know, black Friday where people are trying to get in there to get the sales, it's like.

like, you

You have to go, , if it's a confession night where there's a few priests,

like, as soon as they

, as soon as they do that prayer that, you know, they read a reading, do a prayer and , okay, the lines are open. You, it's like that play in basketball where they're like break and everyone just scatters,

to get

you got to get to the front of the line.

Okay.

don't care if there's like, if

I don't care  if there's an old lady in her walker and she's in front of you, if you got to power slide around her

slot, well, okay,

to get that slot, well, okay, you can ask for forgiveness and confession, but y'all need to get to the front of the lines,

of the

One time,

time we

We had all went and we even took, our daughter brought her friend with her and we, we all scattered.

We are all first in line. Well, here's

Well, here's the thing though. It's the important thing is so it's in different sections of the church, right? There's some in the front like three in the front two or three in the back And it you put the plan together who's going up there who's going up there, right?

Because we don't all want to just  scatter and head toward the same one

We even sat in different pews. This was how strategic we were. Yeah,

Yeah, we split up in as soon as he said go It was a b line and we went in all different directions. So that's the main thing is to Everyone know where they're going And don't hesitate. Well, I didn't hesitate and I beelined it to the back.

Cause I knew there was, there's this one tiny room in the narthex that nobody sees because it's behind the other confessionals. So it's in the hallway and it's  this little bridal room. So unless you know where it is, most people don't go back there. So I'm like, okay. This is my chance. Cause I'm going to go to the secret room.

I walked back there all confident and chest puffed up. I see him. I make eye contact with a priest. Cause the doors open,  boom, little old lady with a Walker.

I don't know

And I don't know if it was her son or a usher or somebody was right there. And she looked at me. And the guy was like, do you mind if she gets in front?

Because.  She's got a walker. Yeah. 

I mean what sins does she even have? I don't know.

I contemplated for like three seconds thinking,

seconds, thinking should

I be that guy and just walk right in or, but no, I let her do it. She went in front of me.  What was awkward was  in that room. If you're the next in line, you're supposed to wait back in inside the church. Well, I was still in the hallway and the doors open.

So it's kind of like, , you know,

know, you need like,

I'm just like twiddling my thumbs looking up, , whistling cause,

need elevator

yeah, I need to  plug my ears because this is going on  five feet from me

Meanwhile, she's like, I complained. Like, what is it? What are her sins? I grumbled when the baby cried in church. I mean, 

Yeah. So I'm like, Oh gosh, this is just awkward. Cause I don't want to lose my place in line. So I just kind of like pace back and forth, but I eventually went in  and I'm like, okay, thank goodness. So I sit down this priest, a Spanish priest obviously had a thick accent and I started doing my thing. And at the end,

thing.

I've never had this happen, but he looked at me and said,

looked at me

Have you, do you go get your palms

get your palms

And I'm like,

like, what? Wait, now let me back up because Matt is Filipino, okay?

 And we know philip so if you're filipino, you know other filipino people and this is a cultural thing Where they will get they'll go to palm readers. 

so this drew me, I've never done it. So that was even weird. But the fact that he asked me if I've done this.

if i've done this

And I'm just, he like caught me off guard and I had, I actually had a slight double take. I'm like, huh, Paul, I didn't even know what he said at first. He's like, Palmer, you, you do palm readers.

like, no. What

I'm like, no,

about?

what are you talking about?

What do you

I'm like,

what

who do you think, what are you talking about? So yeah, he's like, oh, and he didn't like going any further. He just went on to the next thing,

the next thing.

I'm like, I've never been interrogated before. And you know what the

And you know what the other, the other funny, I mean, it makes it, it adds to the story that  our town is next to another town and it, this town is called Casa Dega and it's known for all these weird, like all these palm readers, tarot card readers. There's a cemetery that has the devil's seat, the devil's chair.

Okay. So. So this whole town is focused on that. So I'm sure he gets lots of people if he's from this area that can confess that. But here, here's another story about that. When I taught high school,

had a

had , freshmen in one of my classes in this kid, I'll never forget him. Zeke. He was like, yum. He had long hair and he was just kind of unorthodox, you know?

And he's like, yeah

We

He's, we were talking about the spookiness of Casadega and he said, yeah, I went and sat in the devil's seat and nothing happened to me. And I go,  how do you know?  And I saw this light bulb kind of go off on in his head. Like,  yeah. Like,  how do you know that some bad, a demon is now like you opened yourself up to that. 

But this is just  the mindset of, , public government school kids with probably not much religious background.  My dad told me, boy, you don't play a Ouija board at a party. You don't do those seance things. And I remember  I would be at slumber parties and they would, and I would not touch that Ouija board.

No way. And they would. And it's like, wow, we're playing, we made a board game of calling on demons and spirits. Oh wow. People. Okay. 

Yeah. Okay. Anyhow. So,

So what I want to talk to you guys about  on the homeschooling realm is.

homeschooling realm is passion driven learning.

this is something that is also going to make your homeschool run more smoothly. And I want to reference a couple of TED Talks, in fact, the two most popular TED Talks of all time  and  tell you guys about passion driven learning.

you guys about

 in the most popular TED Talk of all time, it's called Do Schools Kill Creativity?

And it, it was the International Advisor on Education, Sir Ken Robinson, who is, has passed away now. In this TED Talk, he's saying that degrees are becoming worthless amid educational inflation. And we should quit ruthlessly squandering our children's talents and put creativity up there on a pedestal just as high as literacy.

So creativity is just as important. As literacy is what he says, quote,  if you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance and the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not because the thing they were good at in school wasn't valued or was actually stigmatized.

past

quote, so think about it in recent past generations, maybe you're good at dancing, , or you're an artist and your parents might say, well,  that's not going to get you a job, you

course.

go  get business administration under

administration

you're not going to be a starving artist.

, and what he's saying about that conveyor belt educational mentality is. It's just this long drawn out process to get into college, but I'm going to invite you guys on a better way to get your kids  to good at something . Because when we allow our children to follow their passions, to create their own course of study, then our homeschool is going to be filled with more joy

with more

and our child's going to be more motivated to learn.

.



It's our kids who need to find their own path. We can't find it for them. So you might've heard of, you know, those Tuttle twins books by Connor Boyack,

Tunnel

Tuttle twins. , they teach about conservative values through a story. We've read a few of them. He read, he wrote a great book called Passion Driven Education.

And he, what he says about passion driven education is these passions are the ideas that resonate with our kid's soul and augment their sense of wonder. They allow us to speak to our children in language they already know and love.

know

Providing our children with the freedom and time to focus on their passions honors their individuality.

and validates their positive choices.

positive

It allows them to be themselves rather than saying and doing what others tell them.

them.

Hmm. I wish I had that when I was growing up. Mmhhm, It's great wisdom.,

And also

don't realize is

something that we don't realize is

A child who's learning their passions and who's in kind of in control of what they're learning, as a parent, and you're allowing them to do that, you're going to save them from a lot of anxiety that comes from lack of control of their own life.

So

 here's the thing you're guiding them to discover God's path for their life through their passions that a, he's wired in them. Okay. So you're actually doing the Lord's work. You're helping to guide your kids to that, which God has wired in them, which that's fun right there. When you're doing that, you're going to save them some from some dark journeys through anxiety and depression.

I read this book and I highly recommend this book to any parent of a 12 year old and above, and it's called the self driven child.

called The

And, you know, I've talked

you know

it kind of, it changed, it shifted my parenting paradigm it's Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson.

And they say that a low sense of control is enormously stressful and autonomy is key to developing motivation.

It's literally a matter of brain science.  When you give kids the freedom to make their own decision, it makes them feel in charge, because their brain is learning to make hard choices,  while it's figuring out how to protect itself from that helpless feeling caused by stress.

So the more struggles they overcome, the better they'll manage their own stress, And the more , their prefrontal cortex will be able to regulate their amygdala.

amygdala, I'm not going to ask you

I'm not going to ask you if

what the

is because you're going to say I always set you up with

I will set you up in bad way.

Right.

okay, the amygdala is that part of, think about fight or flight. The amygdala is.

part of the brain that regulates fear and aggression, reward processing and decision making.

Okay, so you want them to work that muscle  because the more control kids have, the better decision makers they will become. So let

So let me ask you a question.

Okay. What

What about the parent that's asking, right now, well, There's going to be a time when my child needs to learn something that they don't want to learn or they should learn, right?

If they're not math oriented or reading oriented and they just rather do one or the other.  What do you say to that parent that says,

math

causes my kid a lot of anxiety because they can't stand it. It just doesn't click. I'm always constantly fighting for them to want to do it. And it's like pulling teeth, .



Okay. Well, it depends, I think, on what that kid's



goals are in life. Okay. So each kid is going to be different. If a kid wants to go to college, well then yes, there's going to be things that they are going to have to learn that they don't

they

Okay.



So that's when you sit down with the kid and you say, okay, here's, they, they give in this book, they give so much great advice on here's how you steer your kid to making the right decisions and not doing it for them.

Let's make a pros and cons list. Okay, here's, we do, we do those all the time. And you say,

you say, I'm 

I'm not going to force like this is your decision. You're the boss of you.  You have a brain in your head. You want your life to turn out good. Okay. So here's, here's the situation. And when you can break it down, you know, math, that's a toughie.

I mean, you're, if you, do you want to go to college? Well, you're going to have to do math. Maybe they don't want to go to college, you know, so it, it just, it does depend on the path that they're going to take. You could also think , well, what about the parents saying, my kid's too blank, fill in the blank,

in the

young to my kids, too wild.

My kids too scatterbrained, my kids too obsessed with Minecraft to, to make their own decisions. Well, yeah, that all went through my mind too, but here's the thing.

mind too,

We simply cannot wait until their prefrontal lobes are fully developed before we relinquish control to our children over their own life.

Because not only will we be contributing to an unmotivated, anxious, depressed adulthood,



We would be waiting until their late 20s to early 30s.

And it's the same kind of thing.

And it's the same kind of thing, we were talking about,  you need to suffer a little. And, and what happens is

you're going to make some bad choices that are going to lead to bad consequences. You forgot your lunch.  This is for kids who,  I've seen schools where they're like, no parents can drop anything off because they're like, no, you forgot your gym shoes. 

You sit out, you get a zero, you forgot your lunch, you're going to get, you're going to hungry. My, some of my examples,  Oh, you brought ankle socks to the skating rink when I told you to get high socks. Well, you're going to go home with some blisters.  And or like, think about it. You missed the deadline to apply for that scholarship.

apply

I bet you'll be more careful next time because what happens is that's where emotional intelligence starts to take. Takeover what matters to them?

them? 

They need that input. They need that emotional input. Like what happens when they experience envy, remorse, admiration, compassion, anger, resentment.

They have to walk through those, work through those emotions and use them to make healthy decisions.



We wish we could but we can't override their emotions for them, right?

Oh yeah. Cause right at their age and I'm talking, , preteen whatnot, they're a mixed bag of emotions. I mean, you don't know what you're getting from hour to hour sometimes.

Right

So

hormones Are up and down and  they have to work through that and  we have to be that soft landing place I heard that the great metaphor is those emotions can be a roller coaster. Your hormones are up. Your hormones are down. Especially girls. I heard this fact that in a tween girl, her, Estrogen can be 50 times that of a normal woman at some point  So  you don't get on that roller coaster with them You're just there at that landing pad when they're ready to get off it.

You're that calm presence 

and the thing with boys I think it's important that, as the father, do I want to see my son Cry over the littlest things because he gets so emotional over it well, no,  I want to say Dude, why are you crying over this?

This isn't worth crying over  I want this kid to toughen up, , I'm just like, let's go shoot something.  I mean, come on. But part of me too, is that I don't want to be too tough on him because what I don't want is for him to fear me and not be able to talk to me.

I mean, I still want to give  a solid, Hey, come on, buddy. Tough it up, cause what I don't want is I just coddle his emotions. So he's an emotional. ball of jello every time we deal with something. He needs to kind of be able to control that to an extent, but without me telling him what to do or me

causing extra anxiety because he's scared of me.

Right. I don't want that either.

Yeah. So, and, and that's the thing is giving your kids, yeah, they're, they're going to be these little emotional outbursts that they can't control but a sense of control and autonomy over their lives is very calming for them  and I want to also add.

Some people might think, well, what if we do give our kid control and they fail miserably? And then wouldn't that cause kid to become depressed?  We gave them that control, they failed and now they're depressed. But no, Dr. Stixrud emphasizes that adolescents are more likely  to become depressed from a lack of self control than from failure. 

To that point too, is to build up their self esteem



so when they do have control, they can do it with

 Confidence knowing that, okay, I can do this,

definitely will

Yes, it definitely

build their confidence when, and especially when they're

 Passionate about what they're learning about or what they're going to go do.

So the other, the other Ted talk, I want to reference the second most viewed Ted talk. Well, at least at the time of the writing of my book home is where the truth is.

second

This was the second most viewed Ted talk of all time. It's this kid, Logan LaPlante. He was 13 at the time and he's like a skinny little guy and he's got a pink beanie on pink And he would have rather been skiing at the time, but he did a Ted talk at the University of Nevada and it was about his way of educating himself, which brought him happiness.

And , he hoped for like a thousand views, but so far like I said, the second most viewed Ted talk out of 40, 000 Ted talks. And he told viewers how he hacks his education. With the creativity of a hacker's mindset, he bases his learning

on the study and practice of being happy and healthy.

So , his innovative learning methods include learning what he wants in the ways most enticing to him. So he'll pepper in classes and camps, internships, online resources, he basically makes his own education up

From whatever

from whatever ways he wants to learn it. So he wants to make, or this was a few years ago. I think he's grown up now, but he wants to make skis. He's obsessed with skiing. So, you know, that's what he would go learn about.

Now is every

to make skis, he's obsessed with skiing. So, you know, that's what he would go learn about.

why are you saying that though?

saying that though? I

That, but you, I think you're so used to the government school mindset because

of a

do, I've seen it.

I mean, I see it in our kids. Like, did we say this last week? Education is not the filling of a bucket. It's the lighting of a fire, the lighting of a spark.  I think we said that. And it's okay. It's, it's attributed to Plutarch and, and, and all these other great people are Socrates or whoever. So no, when, when that spark is lit.

They're going

They're going to go learn about it because it's like an intrinsic motivation. It's a, it's a desire. It's a passion that they want to, yeah, some kids will need help and guidance and here, find this resource here. That's where we step. We come in as parents. We're more of a consultant. And passion driven learning.

It, depending

It, depending on the kid's age, you know, Is it a little bit different like when our kids were young we did unit studies Okay, so what did we learn about we learned about everything we learned about one thing all at once We would learn the history the math

For weeks,

Yeah, we learned about lewis and clark robot Benjamin Franklin creation camouflage in the eye, the brain when we had our youngest baby, we're like, okay, we're going to learn about the brain.

And cause we're like, how did this brain person grow? you're just  giving them this gentle feast of all these different subjects and you're going to find their passions that way. You know, like for a while, my son,  all he wanted to do was set up battles with his little men, military battles.

And he would print, he would, and then he would do research. What is, what does their flag look like? What is, then he was obsessed with Rome. You know, that thing going around the internet, like how many, how many times do you think about Rome? If you're a man, did you see

man?

Yes, I

And I saw it in my nine year old and he's , he was obsessed with Rome for a long time and battles and all that.

all that. Yeah, I

How many times do you think

don't think I ever did. I'm just like, wow.

school product. Yeah, yeah, because I'm telling you as a homeschool mom who reads about, has, was reading about Rome, it's fascinating. And I didn't know about it before I was a homeschool mom, of course. So

I watched Gladiator like 50 times. I like that. 

And you know how realist, like that really is a realistic movie.

Alas, it's not child, kid friendly. Can't show the kids that for a unit study on Rome. But okay. So think about, here's a life hack. I don't know if you guys know this life hack. You take that bag of popcorn out of the microwave after you've popped it and

For three and a half minutes. No

no longer than three and a half, or it's going to smoke

Yeah. You don't want it to be burnt. PSA.

Yes, there's your nugget of wisdom for this whole podcast.

Mm

hole or half inch, whatever, and you shake it upside down over the trash can. You're eradicating all those unpopped kernels. Okay.

it's those pop kernels that are hard to eat hard to digest okay now imagine

wants to eat a unpopped hard kernel? Every kid in

every kid in America will eat the unpopped kernels

That's nuts. Those are so hard.

to eat them just to get a loose tooth bro okay anyways Yes, you should do a poll on our kids and ask, have they ever eaten unpopped kernels?

kernels?

I think I will, because I don't think any of them would do

Okay, we'll give you that update next week, guys. But this is what kids can do with their education.

Dumping the stuff that's too tough to digest, the rubbish that they don't care about, and focus on those tasty morsels that they want to shove in their face by the handful. Now, unfortunately, government schools use the opposite approach, making them consume all the roughage, stuffing their brains with multitudinous, unrelated facts and forcing them to regurgitate it nine weeks later or worse at the whole end of the year, nine months later on an end of course exam.

So by the end of high school, most kids have been conditioned to think



that there's only one path to success, which looks like this. And Matt, tell me if you didn't think this, this is exactly what I thought. I must make good grades, accrue lots of activities and club participation for my college resume, get into college, earn a degree.

Also, since any little mistake can derail those plans, autonomy has long since been squelched. And then there's like one or two room for electives so music speech or creative writing and then Creativity falls by the wayside. So Did you kind of feel like that was the only path to success?

I would say yes, because that seemed like the norm, right? Now, did I go that route? No. But in my panacea, Yeah, that's what I should have done. Right. Got good grades, do all these extra activities, , student government, this and them, I didn't really care about that, but yeah, , I had friends that had like four or five different things going on.

I'm like, wow. But yeah, and then go to college, get your degree in something good and get a great job, right. Making whatever. And unfortunately for the rest of us, normal people who realize that is not. The only way to make it, because I can tell you, I have plenty of friends that did not go that route and I can say  firsthand, I squeaked by high school by the skin of my teeth and I do any of that, none of that.

I don't even think I spoke to a guidance counselor. I didn't even know we had them , available to us. I only took the SAT because I heard other people were doing it and I just signed up to take it.

Okay, Matt is the quintessential government

Yeah, oh, yeah, oh it was awful 

But yeah, you're kind of herded through like cattle that this is the this is how you do

Well, and I want to make the point here that, You told me your parents were hands off.

Oh, yeah, nothing to

me, okay, and you didn't go to a guidance counselor. You were just out there. You're just ,

Flailing

and that's not what a homeschool family is.

Okay. So let's just make that stark contrast, , as a homeschool family, your kids have a, the parent who loves them the most in the world that are.

Helping guide and make that decision. 

You're so, you're so keyed in to where they are, what they're in life, where they are mentally, what their goals are.

You are so keyed in that, what you just described. I mean, yeah, I'm sure it can happen for plenty of homeschool families who maybe they don't care, but I think most homeschool families are, on that kind of stuff. They're more focused on that. 

A couple more things I want to say   , we want to take care not to pooh pooh our kids obsessions and instead seize them as opportunities to imbue your kids with relevant information to that which they're already interested in because it's a way to speak to their hearts.

And in the teen years, believe me, you'll need this  no matter how well you get along with them. And now, you have com, it'll be common ground. So whatever their

are, we just

and interests are, we just need to continually feed into those. And when you're, yeah, when your family is cruising along

through that passion

that passion driven learning, you gotta kinda resist that urge to do something that'll suck the fun right out of it.

Thank you. Don't go assigning book reports or drawing up a quiz or requiring a thousand word report by the end of the week Okay, if they're reading for the sheer joy of reading and learning about a subject your job is done okay, 

You know some people like veteran teachers Government school graduates, and people that are, like myself,  extrinsically motivated by praise, might insist that grades are a necessary paycheck for the learner to continue to work.

But I gotta say, most of the time that isn't the case when the learner's  motivated by passion. I mean, yes, we all have a streak of laziness in us. So if you provide structure, like consistent start times in the morning or a consistent daily schedule, or, Hey, here's time for research and regular field trips.

So you're still providing you know, co consistency and  structure.

be the external

Those will be the external motivators you need and your kids take off from there. And, when given autonomy, your little learner, they're going to value your feedback and they're going to look to you as a sounding board.

There's going to be copious conversations about these passions and you might sometimes  find yourself painting on a smile and forcing enthusiasm, you know,

enthusiasm, you know, like Yeah, so that's great. Oh, good job. Yeah. Yeah, because yeah, it's hard. Well, for me, Our one son, he loves  talking about sports.

I mean, he's asked me a million questions right now about basketball.

about basketball.

Oh, he is a fact. He is, okay go ahead,

 He's , ask me all these questions and I want to be there to, pump him up that, yeah, this is great that you're doing that. But at the same time, I could give two flips you know, about,

The tallest guy in

yeah. I don't need to know those

When we first started letting him kind of chart his own course through his passions, I, there were, I admit there were many times I wanted to say, okay, come read or,  let's do math.

But that want of nagging did fade when he ran up to me with this watermelon rind smile saying, I'm having so much fun. So much fun. And then he hugs me. He immediately runs back to his office chair, , flops in the seat, swings his  legs for momentum and goes to continue his eager research.

He is logic smart. I mean, this guy is motivated by facts. He's a Bing search engine except with blonde hair and a retainer. Okay. Hands free. 

Counter

We were at the meat counter of our local family owned

saw

meat market, and  I saw the guy, but we always get shish kebabs, these chicken, bacon wrapped shish kebabs, the kids love them.

And I saw the guy, it was football season, and I saw the guy behind the counter had a Jets hat on, so I'm like, , quick bud, give me a tidbit about the Jets so I can chat this guy up. And instantly, his, this little football fact machine, he's like, They just lost to the Lions and they're on a three game losing streak.

So then I'm armed with this knowledge. I step up to the glass of the glass dome counter.

How about them jets?  Classic. He's like, I've only heard that 12 times   today.

one of his earliest memories. And it was that  in 1978, he met the Jets team at his dad's mechanic shop in New York and. You know, I don't know if you've gotten to tell one of your earliest memories lately but it's always a poignant conversation to be a part of. I mean, this guy shared his earliest memory with me and it was a cool one. 

And then he goes, we still hold on to hope, , as he hands me the bacon wrapped shish kebabs. So we're walking away and I'm like, how long has it been since the Jets won the Superbowl?  And then  he  winces he's like if they haven't won since 1969 and

they haven't won since 1969.

He's he has

Actually corrected commentators on national tv.

He's like that's not true He's like tom brady didn't throw a shutout until da da da He used to do this thing where he would Say You can score, he knew how you could score any amount.

doing

So he was doing math in his head. He's like, here's how you score 15 versus 17 in football. You get two touchdowns , and a safety  and he would do that math in his head.

Or then I loved it. He was be like, okay, hold on 

follow me

me here. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Washington commanders.

huh.

Then the Washington commanders beat the Green Bay Packers, but the Green Bay Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys in a three week span. So he's analyzing data like turnovers, interceptions, passing and rushing yards all to  figure out this life's greatest mystery,

huh.

which is, it don't matter if you don't get the ball over the end zone, right?

into

But he's having fun with data analytics, Something I would be loathed to teach, but it's the number one career in terms of increasing demand

and it averages six figures.

That or maybe he'll be like an accountant. 

and See where this goes.

figures.

You know, six figures. Hello. 

Does that include the decimal point and the two numbers after it in the six figures?  Hopefully not.

 Another thing I want to close out with this.

out with this.

Let's have faith in the God that created our children, that he has them in the palm of his hands  when we rely on him to guide our children's education, he'll set up appointments and work out details and guide us in divine 

omnipotence.

So, we

So we have a really cool story, but we'll tell that next week because I want to talk more about creativity being really important.

you



And, passionate learning being really important. And we'll talk next week about.

You dropping a teaser right now?

Yes.  

Robinson said,

you remember Sir Ken Robinson said creativity is as important as literacy. So we'll share another story with you next week. Oh, but you know what? It might be a couple of weeks.

Before we post another one, because speaking of passion driven learning, we have a little trip out to see some

Lloyd Wright architecture.

Frank Lloyd Wright architecture.

So we're going to go on a road trip to see Frank Lloyd Wright's falling waters. His greatest,

you

well, I don't know if you could call it his greatest cause he did do the Guggenheim, but it's

As far as residential. 

Yep. That's passion driven learning. We're going to learn about that on the road. So we will catch you guys in a week or two and talk more about creativity and your  📍 homeschooling

 We  

 

hope you've enjoyed home is where the truth is. Would you like some more parenting pro tips and homeschool help? Well, then you should grab my book. Home is where the truth is. Why you can and should homeschool your child. Grab it for yourself or for a loved one who's thinking about homeschooling.

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