Back to Homeschool: With the Founder of Secular Eclectic Academic (SEA) Homeschoolers - Blair Lee

Hi, everyone. I'm Manisha and this is Teach your kids. We are a podcast about how to optimize your child's learning by tailoring it to their individual needs. And today's guest is. Is such a special guest for me because she is the founder of C Homeschoolers. And C Homeschoolers has meant so much to me as someone who cares about homeschoolers and who is in this space. It is a Facebook group with almost 90,000 members and I go to see whenever I have a question about curriculum and I always get an answer there. Or if a question about social, emotional needs or almost any aspect of a child's development, it is just such a treasure trove of wisdom. In my first episode, I talked about how one of the really extraordinary things about the homeschooling movement is that it's constantly evolving and that in fact, people are sharing information and resources and influencing each other in local groups, but also in online groups. And I think really at the center of of this evolution is the C Homeschoolers group on Facebook. So it's just such an incredible honor to have Blair Lee here today who founded C Homeschoolers. She is a professor, a scientist, she's written several amazing textbooks. And today we're going to talk about how she came to found C Homeschoolers and get some really great information from the expert as people start homeschooling for the first time this fall or continue to homeschool school. So thank you for being here, Blair.

I am so happy to be here and thank you for having me. I'm really excited about being a part of your podcast. I've listened to your other two episodes so far where you've got three episodes and they're just awesome.

Oh, thank you so much. Well, it is such an honor to have you here. So I thought we could just start off if you could share your story with us. You are a homeschooler. We why did you start homeschooling and what did homeschooling look like for your family?

So my story to homeschooling, like a lot of academics, started before I even had a child who ended up being homeschooled. Well, I should actually start by saying I've got three stepsons, two of whom I did a lot of hands on work with them in learning. One I did was homeschooled for a year and the other one, son who's two e twice exceptional, needed a lot of help through school. And so but really my, I was teaching chemistry in College and teaching chemistry in college. I'd always been fascinated by learning theory and teaching chemistry in college made me realize that we were blowing it in a lot of ways in how we teach. It really started with me questioning how we teach chemistry. When you're teaching chemistry, the people who take that class as an elective, they take that class if they want to be a vet or a doctor or a nurse, that's who takes that class. Everybody wants to pass that class. It's really a high investment in passing that class. And people were struggling in that class. Like, people would come to me and say, I've never struggled in another class. I'm actually working really hard in your class. I can't pass your class. And I started to give thought about why that was, and I realized we're really failing at teaching chemistry. I'm not going to. That's a. Could be a podcast in itself, making chemistry and applied math class all through high school, but we don't even teach chemistry before high school. And chemistry is really a foundational science. And if you skip it until high school and then teach it as a math class, you end up with people who should know some chemistry, who come into chemistry classes, and they're clueless. So I started looking at that, and the more I looked at how we were teaching, the more I began to question whether we were really working so that we could teach each individual student. And by. And I was not a homeschooler at this point. I wasn't thinking homeschooling at this point. Then I got pregnant. I got pregnant two weeks before, so I knew I was pregnant Two weeks later, they offered me tenure. Wow. And in California, as I turned it down and went on sabbatical. And so, like a lot of academics, the minute I knew I was pregnant, I started thinking about my child's education. And I really came to think of an education as a journey through learning. I started thinking about the way we focus on education in a way that is meeting certain standards but doesn't really honor. Learning is like this profound thing that human beings do, how we connect with the world around us and other people in the world. And so I started thinking about that, and then I got cold feet. And so I did start to look into homeschooling, Got cold feet, sent my child to kindergarten. And it was my son's kindergarten teacher who said, didn't you retire so that you could, you know, stay home with your child? And I said, yes. And she said, every time, because we would pull him out and go on these Two or two week to four week adventures. And she said every time you pull him out of school, he jumps in reading and math level. And when he's in school, he's pretty stagnant. And that was in part because he was at the very top group in his cohort in his class. And this was during the no Child Left Behind. Those students just didn't get a lot of attention in class. I did come to homeschool with homeschooling, and this is something I want you to think about if you're a new homeschooler. A lot of people look at homeschooling as narrowing, but most people that homeschool homeschool so that we can do more, so that we can incorporate. For us, it was travel and we're a sectoral homeschooler, but we do a lot of service work without the proselytizing. And so that is, we homeschool to do that. We homeschooled to add breadth. So I had a child who was an early reader. No one can read all the good books at any level. And so if you're not worried about your child consistently jumping in levels, you can stop and relax and read for depth and breadth and for interest. And so the other thing in was that my son, we lived in the mountains in California and so he started skiing. Both my husband and I love to ski. I have skied since I was 3 years old and my son started skiing at 3 as well. And he was a competitive skier for almost up until he was about 12 years old. And so that's what we did. We then homeschooled to do more, but we also paid attention to the academics. And for me, because of my experience in college with chemistry, it was really important to me that his education was conceptual and that I worked not just in science, but in all disciplines so that there were connections across, across the disciplines, but within a discipline, so that we were able to make connections, so that if you look at learning a subject as a tapestry, so that all the pieces of that tapestry were connected or like a map, so that you've got every state in there, you haven't just been choppy with the states. And I see when I look at K12, really K5 education because of the need, the financial need of schools to teach to the test, what you really see for a lot of kids is this choppy education where that doesn't really connect in a way that helps a learner understand the whole picture around that topic. But now you heard my story. So the one Thing I want you to realize about homeschooling is that it is an education that focuses on the individual. And unless your child is just like mine. What I hope you get from my story is the importance of having a vision for why you're homeschooling and what you hope for your child and then working to implement your vision. Because what I did with my son is not the perfect answer for you.

Absolutely. And that is the beauty of homeschooling is that you can create the ideal education for your child if you're intentional about it. I love that it was your teacher who encouraged you to take this leap. And I've actually, actually heard that before. And I have to say, I really admire a teacher who has the humility and also the commitment to learning that they'll say, it's not about me, it's about you and your child, and recommend the choice that's best for your family. And then just this thread of a love of learning. I think we forget that so much when we think about education. We get so stressed and learning is so much fun. I love learning. I mean, why can't it be about that?

Well, I actually get a little frustrated when I listen to people talk about education and learning. And it happens even in the education space. If I want you to think about this, if your child was really good at soccer, you'd be talking to everybody about how great they are and, oh, they'd be going to camps and, ooh, they're skilled in this. And we're working on that. We should be bringing that same energy and excitement to our child's learning. And we just, we just. And I actually, you do sometimes see it in the homeschool community. You see that sort of energy and excitement. Join C if you're. Join our Facebook group if you don't. Because we really have people who are energized about their children's learning. And then actually, I left out one part of the story was that my child had within one year, had two complex concussions. And so I went from educating a child who had been at the very top of his class to having some learning challenges that we had to work through. And so his success story is that there was a time when he didn't think he'd ever be able to move out of the house. He didn't think he'd be ever go to college, that he didn't think he would ever be able to have a job because he had really debilitating headaches and some short term memory loss. And we worked really, really, really, really, really hard to reroute his brain so that he just made new neural connections. So it was really interesting. So it really kind of brought within one person. It brought. He was really lucky. We were homeschooling, let me just say that. Beautiful.

I just think it's such a testament to you and how much you love and care for your children that you provided this gift of an education that could support him when he was high and when he was struggling.

It made me realize how many people we'll get into the C stories. We realized how many people needed that kind of community, for sure.

And how did you go about finding C Homeschoolers when on this journey did this group evolve and did you ever expect it to turn into what it is today?

No. Since it's 1144 in California, I think we've added 150 people today.

Oh, my goodness.

Texas just did some, you know, implemented some of Florida's stuff. And so people are joining from Texas and yeah, some other. Couple other places. This has been insanity. We can't keep up with the join requests. But see, homeschoolers, by the way, is not just a Facebook group. We have, I think, one of the most killer blogs in the entire homeschool community. I agree. And then, as you know, we have conferences, because I know you've been at a couple of the sessions, and we have a magazine, and so we really. We are a support community. So C Homeschoolers founded in 2014, and it founded around my belief that every child is entitled to an education that supports them. And so I'm in the perfect sphere is the homeschooling sphere. I already had a following when I formed C in 2014. I had a blog. I was already doing conference talks, and I had my RSO books. But even with that, I was absolutely. So I figured a hundred people would join. I was overwhelmed with the number of people joining from the very beginning. So many people were also looking for a community because that's what I wanted when I formed C. It was. For me. It was. I wanted a community. So. So everybody was talking about the issues with education and how we should be more innovative, but nobody was talking having meaningful conversations about how to innovative. Oh, I mean, you'd hear people that say, if you want to be innovative, you have to unschool. Well, that's not a good answer. Or if you want to be innovated, do you have to use this one specific pedagogy or methodology? That's just not a good answer. That's not what innovation is, especially not when you are creating an education for the individual. So I wanted a place sort of like a teacher's lounge. I wanted a place that we could get together and talk about what we could do to a community where people would get together and brainstorm, help each other. And SEE is one of the most engaged and energized communities surrounding education that you can find anywhere in any sphere. Because its entire goal is to support each other, to help each other educate with our children's education. It does not assume that everybody educates the same way. In fact, it's sort of antithetical to see you get. Every once in a while you'll get people on there and say you're doing that wrong. And that's a good way to have a comment removed in C. And we learn about those comments because your fellow members of SEE report them right in 20. In 2000, I'm sorry, 2022, we received a community accelerator award from Meta Facebook. We are the only homeschool organization that has ever received that. It's a grant. So we're really excited. And it was really them recognizing that there's a lot of Facebook community, there's a lot of homeschool communities on Facebook. It's really where most homeschoolers hang out and they realize that we really are serving our community with a high level.

Of engagement, wonderful project based learning and innovative. It's such an amazing group. I mean there are plenty of homeschooling groups on Facebook, but yours is so beautifully moderated, I think. I actually didn't mention the full name, which C stands for. Secular Eclectic Academic Homeschoolers. Could you share a little bit about what each of these words mean and what are the core values of C that really differentiate it from the other homeschooling groups people might find.

Well, so that I was going to say that, but that what really differentiates us is that we have gone to vendors and sponsors to get them to so that we can keep providing the things we do for people for free. Our conference, we had an August conference that had over 43,000 attendees at it. So and we have a magazine that's got thousands of readers and it's really, it's the vendors and sponsors who and our Facebook group, they help make everything we do sustainable. We and all of them believe in the same thing that we do. So we are see founded as really an innovative place to talk about academics. But I'm a scientist. It was a given that it was going to be secular. I create science Curriculum that is secular. And so there's a couple of things that set us apart. We are a highly moderated group, and that means that if we. Things that are not secular academic aren't. We don't have. We don't have those posts in our group. So we. You can trust people who want to only purchase secular academic materials. They come to our group because they know that we are really. We have strict rules around that. We believe that there is no one right way to educate. And so you will see. And including when it comes to, yeah, I write materials, but when it comes to, like, science materials, I'm not the. I don't have the only science materials that people on there are talking about loving. At the end of the day, what I really care about is that your child learns science. And so we are founded around just. That's why it's so important that you know that our mission is really to help you find the support you need to educate your child. So that's the secular academic part. And then the eclectic part is that there's no one right way to educate your child. And if it's. I always tell people that if it's working for you, it's working. And don't listen to anybody else who's telling you that there's a way that's better because your family's unique, your children are unique. You will sometimes see in the homeschool community, in the homeschool, larger homeschool community, people saying, no, no, you're not doing it right. Now, I find that humorous because the whole thing about homeschooling is it's an individualized education. And so people, the same people who don't have their children in school because there's no one right way to educate their child, then get on and tell other homeschoolers that they're not doing it right because they're not doing it the way they think it should be done. And it's just ridiculous. Ridiculous. So if it's working for you, you nailing it this year. Good job.

Yes. I think that you bring so much compassion and empathy and encouragement to families. And I mean, as a teacher, I also can't help wondering, is there a right and a wrong way to homeschool? I mean, you have met thousands of homeschoolers and facilitate a group that's posted tens and thousands of questions about homeschool, some allowed, some not allowed, and people homeschool for all kinds of reasons. I think some people homeschool because they don't want their children to Learn about science. Some people never teach their children how to read. Do you think that there's a right or a wrong way to homeschool? I don't know if we're diving into dangerous territory here.

We are a highly moderated group and so that means that we do things, that there are some truths. Okay. We think that as far, I think that every child deserves an education. And if you are in the homeschooling community for any length of time, you do know people who have adults who have homeschooled their children, who when they become adults, can't read and write, can't fill out a job application and don't have any learning challenges. I don't think that's right. And I will tell you from the kids I know who have also been homeschooled, my son, friends of his, friends of mine with, you know, kids who are in college, they think that that is an issue with homeschooling that needs to be dealt with. I mean, children deserve to be an education. It just provides options. As far as people not using evidence based material with their children. That is a situation that we are really dealing with on a large scale in our country. In the United States right now you probably have international listeners, but there's dealing with it all over the world right now, this misuse of social media so that to these unprincipled people. And then it has a snowball effect. And what we're seeing right now are people who are working to educate kids in a way that I don't think it's okay to brainwash kids. I don't think it's fair to young people to tell them that the problem isn't climate change. The problem is that we're starving communities because we won't let them use coal. Which is a video that just that both Florida and Texas just have approved for. The video was designed for middle school students. It's approved in Texas and Florida for K through 5, 5th students. I don't think it's okay to treat enslaved people as if they benefited from their enslavement. I don't think that that helps. And so on a larger, in a larger context, yes, I think that there are some issues and that is one reason we have come to be the best known secular academic and by far the largest and most influential secular academic group in the homeschool community. And that is not going to change. We believe strongly that children deserve that. The education that children deserve is one that teaches them honest history, honest science, honest civics in a way that does not further marginalize marginalized, including in ways that do not further marginalize marginalized communities. We feel really strongly about that. And that is when you go in to see, you will see people. We're a very diverse group and we have really support people of color, indigenous homeschoolers, which. That's a group I feel very strongly. I've done a lot of service work in those communities and we very LGBTQ friendly.

Yeah, I feel part of a movement as a member of C homeschoolers, a movement towards evidence based curriculum, personalized learning, compassion, inclusivity. It's really extraordinary. You're clear on your values and I love that. I think that most of the people listening today are pretty much on board with your views on learning and inclusivity and if anything might be just terrified of making mistakes in their children's education. And and so I love Blair. You use the phrase a handcrafted education a lot. And I love this. If you go look at Blair's blog on see homeschoolers, I agree it's the best blog on homeschooling out there. But we see this theme of handcrafted learning coming up a lot and tailoring an education that meets the child's unique needs, which is something I believe in so passionately as a teacher. It's just, it seems obvious the way to go. But, you know, a parent who's starting this for the first time might feel a little intimidated. So how do you even start going about this process? How do you look at your child and start to identify what their individual needs are and how to build around them?

That is really challenging. In fact, actually I'm writing a. I'll have to come back. I'm writing a book about it right now. The working title is actually Handcrafted Education. So the first thing, so the first thing that you need to do is for a lot of you, it's going to be taking a couple step backs. Whether you're homeschooling or you're thinking about homeschooling. The first thing to do is to answer the question of why you are homeschooling, why homeschooling is attractive to you. What is it about it? Because that's really. I don't know if you're familiar with Stephen Covey's the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, but his second habit really speaks to this. And it is that you begin with the end in mind. And so you should really think in overall why you're homeschooling. Get that down on paper and I like to. And if you're. When you. Some people will struggle, if you struggle, think to yourself what. And it can be really idealized, but think to yourself, what is the education of my dreams that I want for my child? Now, at this point, when you start to write that down, you can make. If you, once you've got that down, look at it and decide if it's personal for you. A lot of people go there and it ends up being very personal for who they are. And if that happens to you, then write down, even if it's just free writing, a bulleted list of the things about your child and then look to see how you can fit those in. At this point, you should not have done anything, any planning about homeschooling because you haven't figured out what you want to do. Okay? So at this point, when you start to write some things down about your child, you're actually getting to the point of, who is your learner? I call it, who is this learner of mine? How does your child learn? How do they access and process information? Okay, you need some of that. And then, even though you probably don't realize it, almost every single one of us is going to need a paradigm shift. As you start thinking about your child's learning, homeschooling your child, you're going to need to shift from thinking about an education in terms of best teaching to best learning. What do you need to do to reach your learner so that you can scaffold, facilitate, and mentor them while they're learning? And if this is starting to sound kind of huggy, loving, warm, holistic, it should how you approach, because that's something else for you to remember, how you approach your child's education, how you think about learning, how you behave about yourself as you're taking on this new endeavor and you're learning along with your child, how you talk about yourself, how you treat yourself, how much confidence you have, you are the number one model for your child in all things. But once you're their primary teacher, you're also the model for them. And how you behave around learning and around the. When you don't get it exactly right by your definition and what it means to show up and do your best, and how you're going to evaluate that in a way that's fair, all of those things, your child doesn't just watch as you do to them, they watch as you do to yourself. And then I want to give you complete and utter permission to be innovative. Don't get scared. I love scared. Don't say, wait.

I was.

I listened to Blair talk on Manisha, and this is what she said she did. Don't do that. Manisha asked me one time about whether something frustrated me. I said, you know what kind of frustrates me? It's when homeschoolers hear that someone did, oh, you got that outcome with your child. Tell me exactly what you did. Well, unless you have cloned their child, that is not. You should not be directly copying. Be innovative the most honestly, connect your child. Now, I'm an academic homeschooler, and so I believe in being innovative and keeping it academic. But I also believe that you get to define what academic means for you, and I get to define what academics means for me.

Exactly. And I just so agree with you on this idea of a paradigm shift. I mean, in order to step into a new way of learning, we really do have to kind of throw everything we thought about education out the window. It's so focused on teaching strategies and how well the teacher is doing. But if you change your point of view, you realize that all that really matters is how well your child is learning. And if you can just focus on, does my child like listening to podcasts? Or are they really love being out in nature? And. Or maybe they love video games? Can I find some adaptive learning apps that they would like? It just completely shifts everything to. I mean, it seems obvious that you would think about how well is my child learning? Whether instead of how well am I teaching? But for some people, it's. You just do have to take a leap because that's not how it's done in school.

One of the things that I actually think is a paradigm shift and really, honestly shouldn't be. And when I give talks about this, I have 10,000 people, 12,000 people at these talks. It's learning skills. I think it's really important that we start thinking of learning as a skill in the same way we would think of soccer or football or skiing or any of those. So that. So how can your child become a more skilled learner? And so what you were saying, Manish, is when you were talking about, does my child love this? Yes, you absolutely should bring some of that in. But you should also look at the things that your child areas. Your areas of learning where your child might be struggling. Now, I'm not talking about struggling in math. I'm talking about do they short term memory, those sorts of things. I'm talking about things like metacognition or does my child struggle with reading, writing, learning. Those are things that you are going to want to address. Because for someone to be a lifelong learner and, and love learning how skilled they are at learning, that's an act in and of itself that we should be thinking in terms of how skilled somebody is at the act of doing.

Yes. And especially in this era where people might have many careers in the course of their lifetime or they might start their own business, which requires you to be constantly learning and evolving in order to create something. I really, I think that's so important to remember. You know, look at where your child is struggling where they can, can maybe develop a little more grit in pushing through obstacles or a new perspective. And that's a really important balance. If I may, I would love to talk more about curriculum because C is an extraordinary resource for finding high quality secular homeschooling materials or even if you're going to school, supplements for your child learning it. And I just, I really see it as the best place to find materials that, that meet a couple criteria that are important to me. The families I support evidence based materials, obviously materials that are inclusive and comprehensive. I mean, black history, women's history, indigenous history and literature. This is part of our history. It's not being nice. This is actually a full view of history materials that teach evolution and climate change, mental health, the most important issues of our generation. I also look for mastery based materials. I don't think every subject needs to have a mastery based approach, but generally it's better. When I'm looking for curriculum on C, which I do a lot, I really use it a lot, I just go to the group and there's a little search icon and I can search something like writing and dysgraphia and ADHD and find 10 parents who have tested different curricula for their 8 year old with ADHD and dysgraphia until they found one that they loved and for different reasons. Or I can look for a math curriculum for a child who's autistic and has dyscalculia and doesn't like cartoons. It's amazing how specific I can get when I look in the group. And the people in the group are so brilliant. I mean you find engineers, teachers, people with PhDs, people like Will tell you about a science curriculum and like you there they are scientists. I'm sure there are people who have won the Nobel Prize in this group. The parents are just brilliant. It's amazing.

So the C community knows that it. They don't wait for me to answer because they know, hey, a certain math curriculum for A AUTISTIC child who has dyscalculia. That's a really hard word for me. And who doesn't like video cartoons. Yeah, they know that I'm not the best person for that. And so that. But there's some. Somebody will know that answer. And that's what makes it such a cool group.

Yes, it is such a cool group. And I mean, even the other day I was. I'm evaluating an article about math curricula for homeschoolers and there was this program I never heard of. I went to the group and they were actually highlighted. Parents had highlighted a question in the curriculum in the middle of the curriculum that was demeaning towards women. I won't mention the name, but it was like about the wife wants to lose weight to please her husband. There's no way I would have have read through 300 pages of curriculum and found that. So just great. So just along this topic, I was hoping that maybe you could kind of talk about a little bit about things that maybe families should be on the alert for when they're looking through curriculum. Things like neutral science apologia, science things, you know, that people might not be aware of, that they. If they care about inclusive scientific curriculum that they should. They should know as they're going into their searching.

Well, so one of the things. So I have written extensively on this for science and a little bit on this for history. And the place to ask is in a group like C is the best thing, but things you can look for. How are marginalized communities presented? Are they treated as central to the history in a way that honors their contributions regardless of the community they're from? I just finished reading A Life. If I were going to include Martin Luther King and if I were writing history, including Martin Luther King, would it be because he's African American or would it be because he was one of the most important activists in the civil rights movement who just happened to be African American? The fact that he's African American isn't separate from that story, but what you're looking for is. So what happens a lot of times in history curriculum that aren't really inclusive is there's a lot of tokenism in there. And so you're going to look to see how central the individuals are now, however, in order to normalize certain things, it is important that the. That we include. So sometimes you might include a woman in something just because. In. In something just because you realize.

But.

And so. Or you might get to the end and think we didn't include any indigenous people. And so you might pull that in and we. That imagine member from the. An indigenous person into. From the United States into it. I guess I'm thinking US History here. It's really. So you're going to look for the inclusivity of these marginalized communities and how the presentation is around them. If you are looking to see if certain curriculum is secular, academic, is evidence based, you can look to see if they start to. A lot of homeschool materials will redefine terms. So we were. So one of the things, I'm a scientist and so I define terms. I don't assume that you and I, you know, if I'm going to use the theory of evolution, I'm going to start by defining the word theory so that, you know, I'm not using it in the common usage, I'm using the scientific usage. So one of the things I did is I defined the word secular for our group. And first we started getting a lot of pushback from people who said, you can't define the word secular.

And I said, yes, I can define.

The terms how I use them. We're only, we're not, you know, I'm not rewriting Webster Dictionary. I'm telling you that I foresee this is how we define secular. And if you define it somewhere else, somewhere other way, we're not the group for you. So then. So at first we got that kind of pushback. Then when we were really successful in a lot of other people, then started using the definition that we put forward. We started seeing people redefine the term for themselves. And so one of the things you're going to want to look for is go to somebody, go to the facts section and look at how they correct. The publisher is defining core terms because that'll tell you a lot about their values. This. And it's not that they're wrong to redefine those terms, although it can create hassles for a group that like ours, that default might have a different definition of secular. It's them telling you where they stand on something. And one of the things that has happened is that curriculum has started labeling the ling itself. Well, they did about a decade ago, non sectarian. And those are materials that tend to be neutral. They've taken out the reference. They no longer. They took out all references to God in Jesus, but they didn't make any other changes.

Right, exactly. And it's almost like an absence. Right. Like, I'm not going to talk about whether evolution is real or not or whether climate change is real or not. I'm just going to kind of not.

Talk about it because that's too controversial and science. But. But if you're writing science, they're not controversial. They're. They might be politics. If you were learning about science and you don't use science materials from someone who claims to write high quality science materials and then tells you that these politicized ish things, science topics are controversial in science because the only thing you should be looking for in science curriculum is science. That is, it should only be how well and how adequately and accurately are they teaching this, these materials.

That is a really great overview just in terms of like helping parents to know what to look out for and, you know, make sure that your curriculum is comprehensive and based on the science. And you can find that in c. So, Blair, you know, you and I know all the myths about homeschooling. They're very easy to debunk. I don't think we really need to spend time on it today. Like the myth of the weird, lonely and antisocial homeschooler, easy to debunk. The myth that parents can't teach their kids, easy to debunk. I mean, none of that stuff is really a concern. But there are challenges to homeschooling. So beyond these myths, what are some of the real challenges of homeschooling that parents should be aware of as they step into this and in particular unexpected ones?

Confidence is key. I very surprisingly, based on the number of people that showed up, I had 12,000 people attend a talk on imposter syndrome and homeschooling this summer. I there confidence is key. Just remember, just remember something I already said. Your mindset is really important. And that's something people don't. You don't necessarily understand and recognize. You are modeling for your child. You're learning along with your child. And so the way you talk about yourself, the way you treat yourself, the amount of confidence you have in the job you're doing, your child is watching you, a learner. You're modeling that for them. Be a thoughtful model. I recommend if you're not, if you've never really given a lot of thought to mindset, really spend some time thinking about having a growth mindset, how you can use a growth mindset. I am telling you there there's nothing that you, you might encounter some challenging things like your son has a complex concussion and all of a sudden you have to change everything and get a lot of help from some neurologists, a neuropsychologist, that might happen. But if you have A growth mindset. You believe that you can do everything and as long as you're willing to show up and learn along with your children. So your own confidence is key. The other thing that I see that a lot of homeschoolers don't understand is they, you really need to recognize that learning is a long game. You don't learn to write in a year. And so, so homeschoolers will often get frustrated because they don't see the sort of progress in their child that they expected. And every child is unique. So are the families. What I tell people is I recommend that you save work samples. First of all, make sure that you, if you're starting homeschooling, having your child take a map test. An map test so that you can make sure that you're teaching. Start teaching where they are is a really great idea. Don't worry about where they are. Woohoo. Share with everybody. If your child is reading a couple grade levels ahead, but that can be challenging too because then you have to find books that are appropriate for someone who's a younger. But at that level.

Calculus with fart jokes.

Right, right. So, but then you, so you, so you know you want to be thoughtful and then save work samples. So you start where your child is and then just try to teach a page with the head all the time. Don't worry too much if they don't make the progress you expected and yay if they go. If they learn in leaps and bounds, don't be surprised by that either. A lot of when an education is targeted to the individual, it often happens that they make leaps and bounds. The other thing that a lot of homeschoolers don't think about is why are you evaluating work? I encourage you to sit down and ask yourself why you're evaluating work. If the answer isn't to nurture growth, I want you to rethink why you're evaluating work.

Nurture growth. That's a great framework.

All evaluations should nurture growth. Now homeschoolers don't tend to be experienced. And one of the things you don't want a piece of paper that's got a hundred red marks on it. You want to be thoughtful and look at what your child needs to work on and then choose one to three things. Nobody should be working at more than three things at the, at a time in that sort of, you know, like writing. Pick three things that your child needs to work on, scaffold them, and then once they started to have some ownership, some mastery of those skills, you can bring in other skills. And so that can be. That can require some thought. I touched on the other two. Find the courage to be innovative. People think they're going to be courageous about being innovative and then they would want to do it just like everybody else, because that's safe. And then really work to figure out how your child learns.

Yeah. And I think if you do manage to keep the focus away from yourself and the failure and the fear and on nurturing growth, that's a really good way to get going with that. Actually. I used to be an actress and we talked a lot about this idea of the actor and the target. And one way that you can help cure the self absorption is just really focusing on the person you're communicating with. Are they listening? Do they understand what I'm saying? And you know, I think, you know, growth mindset is such a great principle. Carol Dweck wrote a great book on the topic, not just for you, but also for your child that you're both thinking about not how well am I doing, but what am I doing well, you know, where if I run into an obstacle, oh, how fun I can work around this obstacle. Another good idea is grit. Grit. Angela Duckworth wrote a wonderful book and I think it's been really important for me. I had a huge imposter syndrome when I started becoming an entrepreneur. And when I learned to embrace my failures and say, wow, if I can figure out this problem, then I'll be this much more ahead than other entrepreneurs. And now when problems come my way, it's become more fun for me. So I love that. And then, you know, when you do, I mean, pretty much, I mean, I see and see twice a year, parents panic and they feel like they're failing their child and there's a really easy solution. Just go out and take a test. Like go take Homeschool Boss administers the math growth test. You can just take a test and see where your child is doing well and where they need support. And you know that that can be helpful too. So I love these suggestions so much.

So the growth mindset. When I talk about becoming a skilled learner, actually having a growth mindset is an important part of being a skilled learner. So I think I might I just to be. There's a really specific tip. If every parent save work samples at least monthly. And then when you're like, we haven't learned anything, you can go back and look at the progress. And if you don't see any progress or it looks like your child might have little, little There, then you might want to look through. You definitely want to look at the resources. You want to think about what the case might be. Maybe it just wasn't a good work sample. The most recent. But the other thing to be aware of is, is that as the brain developments, like when kids, I just was talking about middle school learners. And when kids are going through a growth phase, their brain, your brain can only do so much. And so a lot of times there'll be sort of a cognitive slide. So be thoughtful about the whole person and what's going on.

Yeah. And children learn at different paces. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it slows down. And, and if you do go to see and find a strong mastery based curriculum, often it's an adaptive learning app that will track their child's progress as they go. They won't be moving forward until they've mastered a concept or the textbooks. They have evaluations and quizzes so you can see if they've mastered the material. So having a good curriculum supports this a lot. All right, Blair, I want to switch to a fun one. So in addition to parents, we have tech entrepreneurs, curriculum developers and, and app developers listening who are excited to build new products to support this rapidly growing homeschooling community. And so from what you've seen, I'm wondering if you think there are any resources that need to be developed or would like to see developed for the one that I keep on harping. See, so many people tell me they're building a new literacy app and I get so annoyed. I'm like, we don't need more literacy apps, but I would love to see a fantastic adaptive learning app for high school that's focused on conceptual math rather than test prep. I feel like Beast Academy is so great for up to eighth grade and there's really a lack of resources in the high school department. So I was wondering, is there anything that you think people should build and this is your opportunity to throw out suggestions to the entrepreneurs here.

The problem with developing for the homeschool community is that it's individual and yet it's really important that we have cool stuff developed for us. Now, I will tell you that one of the things that I see a lot of people who design things for the homeschool community at this time, they don't understand it, they don't include homeschoolers in the development and the design, and then they want to know why it's not picked up right away because it's so cool. So I'm going to recommend all of you that you include people who understand what's going on in the homeschool community and what people might want at least, you know, to reach out to and ask questions of. Okay, so homeschoolers spend way more time on topics besides ELA and math than their traditionally schooled peers do. I mean, way more times. So resources that are not subscription kids, resources that aren't like, oh, gee, I got this mother thing my kid built, but they didn't really learn anything. We would love more stuff that are not subscription kits for topics other than for. For these topics that aren't ELA and math. Okay, I hate to tell you, Manisha, but the number one thing that my admin thinks that is needed is secular integrated language arts that is not literature based.

Not literature based. Yeah.

That is something people ask for all the time. Academically rigorous unit study guides for middle school and high school. Our middle school, high school group. This is a regular complaint because people make these great unit studies and then in fifth grade, they. They're gone. They're really hard to get after fifth grade. Secular world and US Geography curriculum that is not a workbook. Some app developer needs to do this because. I know, I know.

So I'm getting sick of the word. All.

History of indigenous groups in the US that presents their history is varied, not as if it's a monoculture.

Right, Exactly. Yep.

More curriculum that takes a multimodal approach to learning. This is something that I've been talking a lot about, multimodal learning. And so we're starting to see our community want more things that have reading, writing, kinesthetic, visual, and auditory all built into one program. Materials that have an online or even asynchronous video component and offline written course materials. That's the list.

Wonderful. That is so great. So get on it, people. Let's start building. I would love to see more of this.

If you are listening to this and you build it based on these recommendations, reach out.

Exactly. And I'm actually curious. I mean, maybe quickly someone might say, well, I would love to get advice from homeschoolers. How do I do that? I mean, can people post and see asking for feedback or what's the best way to solicit feedback from the community?

Start with adminhomeschoolers.com and someone on our team will talk to you about it.

Yep. Yeah. And we didn't go too much into it, but I do feel that volunteering is such a critical component of homeschooling or curating your child's education. And also so Important for children's mental health. And we have so many issues in the news and. Yes, please.

I did not realize that you also felt that. I think that service work is one of the number one ways you can help your child through service. Your child can understand, can feel that it matters that they're on this earth. My son, we've had him do illiteracy. We worked on a literacy project in Delhi, India. We've been to the Lakota reservation on Pine Ridge. We have fed. We've worked at a homeless shelter, unhomed shelter. I don't know what if they renamed the shelters as well. But we have done a lot of work in different areas rescuing wildlife in. It doesn't have to. You let your child find something that is personally meaningful for them and let them do it. It is so important that kids feel connected to the world and, like, it's really purposeful and with everything that's going on and people are like, oh, the world's going to hell and basket or whatever, the world's. All these perfect problems. Let kids recognize that by. That they are part of the solution. And I think that's something. I don't think that's just a homeschool thing. I think that's something everyone in every sphere should be doing for these children completely.

And I mean, if you're feeling sad today, if you're having problems in your marriage, if your child is having mental health problems, I mean, just pick up the phone, drop into your local soup kitchen. I mean, that is the cure. Just that practice of gratitude. Gratitude. Serving it will cure all ills for sure. Yeah. And even. I mean, I just want to mention the dean of Stanford, Julie Lifeguard Haymes, did an incredible TED Talk. And she talked about how one thing she consistently saw undergrads missing is work experience and how important she thought that was true intellectual vitality and being really ready for college. So volunteering is great. So, Blair, we are running out of time, but one last question. I love learning so much, and I know you do, too. And I think that's one of the reasons, even though we recently met, I just feel so connected to you. I mean, when I'm meditating and I have an insight or I read a book that I'm really excited about, or when I'm having a conversation with a relative and I realize something about the world of our relationship, I just feel so full and happy to. Just to me, I mean, I think learning is my religion. It's such a gift that I was given an education and I'm able to learn. And you know, it's so exciting to learn everything I have from you today. So I just wanted to ask you if there's anything cool you're learning right now that totally unrelated to what we've been talking about. I ask every guest and I would love for you to share.

Well, I'm always learning something just because that's how I roll. Yes, I have. Have. But I've really been. I'm working on a series of articles and I'm writing this book. And so one of the things that I've been spending a lot of time learning is cognitive theory. There's a lot of new studies coming out about how the developmental stages of the brain and how that impacts learning. And so I. That is an area that I've been spending a lot of time learning about. Yeah, I find it fascinating my. My life's passion and so it sounds like we have a very similar passion is how people learn. I just, I just find it fascinating.

Wonderful. And I think, you know, one of my frustrations as a teacher and now moving into the homeschooling space is that people don't. There's so much cool information coming out about how people learn that's not being applied. When you homeschool, you have the opportunity to apply that information as it comes out. So Blair, we're going to have a link to the C Homeschoolers website with the amazing blog, your incredible textbooks and also a link to the C Homeschoolers Facebook group which every single person who's listening must join. It's amazing. Is there anything coming up that people should be aware of? How do they get involved and as a family or as a business, how do they take advantage of opportunities to advertise with?

See, we have many opportunities. I am not the person that's in charge of the marketing. Just reach out through admin homeschoolers.com we.

Have.

Like I mentioned, we are an organization that is funded by. We've received a medigrant. We just recently received a Velo grant but most of our funding comes from sponsors and advertisers and to be honest, our community. We tell people in our community and they know it. We only take dollars from people who are present or use evidence based presentations of facts and theories. But it is the C Homeschoolers community because of. We're a community organization run and organization. You are supporting the entire secular academic community because it is through those dollars that we make everything free to our members and the. As far as homeschoolers you join by joining C, you are a part of a community of over 100,000 families across our different. We have subgroups, we have a main group and you will find the support that you need in that community. Posts don't go unanswered. It is like Manisha said, you want to find this, this and this for someone, you go in there, you look for that and you can find it. And we get thousands of and thousands of posts. It's overwhelming sometimes and it would be completely overwhelming if we didn't have the members of our community showing up and answering those. And we don't allow spamming. So when you get people on there recommending things, it's because they have used them or they have experience with them. It's not because. Because it's the curriculum developer. And then that's the other thing. We have a lot of community marketing opportunities.

Fantastic. And I believe you have some 101 workshops and conferences coming up.

Well, we have a 101 workshop that is in our YouTube channel. That's on our YouTube channel. We only do the 101 workshop in June and August and so I'll do it again next June and August. We have, I have some science focused how to helpful things on the Pandaya Press website like how to use a microscope. In September there's a two part series. But then we have a conference coming up in November and I'm going to talk about ages and stages of learning for elementary school and we've already. That. That is almost full. I want Monisha to come on and do some.

Oh, I would love to do a talk. Oh yeah, for sure.

Our community would really appreciate your point of view. I know they would.

Thank you. Well, I love your community. I mean my community. I think it's your community. It's not my community. Yes, it's our community.

I'm the best known sea homeschooler but I'm just one of a hundred thousand.

One hundred thousand. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, Blair. Thank you for creating C which is treasure for me. Anybody has questions on our substack, There's a place where you can write comments. I'll be replying to comments. And definitely join C Homeschoolers. It's an incredible resource. Thank you so much for being here today. Blair and I can't wait for the.

Next time we chat when I'm done with my book. Let's get together.

Let's. You'll have to read it.

I'll send you a copy and then.

We can meet I can't wait.

Okay, bye. Bye, everyone. Don't ever feel alone. Now that might sound trite, but that's really what C is about. C is about making sure that everyone feels supported on their journey.