EP 64: The Home Schooling Revolution w/Manisha Snoyer

And we are live back with another episode. Shifting narrative on everything autism. I'm Torrent Kearns. As usual, I'm joined by the autism stage herself, Mama Baden. How are you?

I am good. And I'm good not only because the sun is shining. Today we had rain last night. We never get rain, so it was exciting.

We had too much rain. I know is all we've got in this rain for like the last two weeks. We got record amounts of rain. So the sun is finally shining. I'm never going to complain about lack of rain again.

We have a guest today for our.

Listener before this turns into a weather podcast.

I love the rain. So we could do that. You know, we could talk about that too.

So, Manisha, would you mind introducing yourself? Tell us a little about us, a little about yourself.

And I'm good at introducing other people too.

I promise. I'm not gonna edit. I say I'm not gonna edit and I do. I'm not editing this because this is too funny.

I'm joined by my wonderful hosts, Stacey and Torrid, a wealth of expertise and childhood education. Autism. Yeah. I'm happy to introduce myself as well. I am Manisha and I've been a teacher for 20 years. I've taught in public school, private school, after school as a very high end tutor. I've also worked at after school programs for under resourced youths. And as a teacher, I really witnessed an education system that was broken at every level, not serving children and families, highly inequitable and slow to change. And so I became interested in the modern day movement of homeschoolers. Parents who were so passionate about their children's education or desperate that they had decided to customize it themselves. And I was amazed to discover that homeschooling looked nothing like I imagined, that it was highly social, that children were having incredible learning outcomes. It caused me to really question everything that we thought was important to learn in school and has given me great hope for the future of education. And so in the last, I guess, seven years, I've talked to hundreds of homeschooling parents. I've helped them develop curriculum plans. I've aided people through the pandemic, all kinds of families, all kinds of situations. And so I'm just really excited to be here and really help more families see that this is an option if maybe they're not happy with their child's current educational offering, or perhaps if they are already homeschooling, ways that they can do it in a way that supports their whole family and makes them happier and More relaxed.

Well, one of the reasons we wanted you on is we just got done with the whole rigmarole of school starting, which is an adventure like around September. A lot of the parents listening to this podcast will understand it's, it's quite frankly show and I saw your podcast or I, I, I, I, I came across your podcast right as we were dealing with all of that. And I'm like, okay, we need to have her on because she has some really good ideas, especially considering all the issues. And I won't necessarily get into all of them here because we have other episodes for that. My first question is and something I'm going to jump right into it because something I'm sure you get a lot. So I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask this.

I'm waiting for it.

It's sort of like an, it's an online app. I'm sure a lot of parents and a lot of teachers are probably worried, especially for autistic kids where social skills tend to develop late or not at all, are concerned about the lack of socialization because we found during the pandemic that even online socialization isn't the same as in light in real life socialization. So what would you say is sort of a leave some of those concerns that the kid is basically going to become a social recluse and not be able to get like the face to face interaction they need for development?

Absolutely. I'm happy to talk about socialization so much. In the same way that homeschooling families curate their children's educational experiences, they also curate their children's social experiences. And now the homeschooling population has grown so much that in most major cities and even smaller cities, there are very active homeschooling groups. And so when you think about school, where children sit in desks with children the same age, or perhaps if a child has been diagnosed with a learning disability, sit in the same room with children who also share learning disabilities. The children in homeschooling are on Monday going to forest school on Tuesday, they're doing a meetup in the park on Wednesday. They have their co op where parents trade roles. They might have a play date on Thursday, they might have a family potluck on Friday or take a weekend trip. And so most homeschoolers I talk to say that their child almost has too busy of a social life. And on the topic of autism, one of the things that I found really disheartening as a teacher is that when I was teaching in New York City. Sometimes it would happen that a child was told by a school that they could no longer be in that school environment because of a diagnosed learning disability, and they would have to go to a special school. And in order to go to that school, they would have to sue the state. And most of these schools, for example, all of the autistic children went to a school for kids with autism. You know, all of the children who were twice, you know, you know, different learning disabilities were kind of mushed together instead of putting in inclusive environments where we know that's how children really thrive. And so I think that actually homeschooling is a much better environment for any child to develop what I like to think of as their social capacity. And it can be so intense for a child to, especially if a child has sensory processing issues, to be in a huge classroom with 30 students and try to make friends. So I have a story I wanted to share with you, is that this is just an example of how wonderful homeschooling communities are. There's this beautiful group in San Francisco called Hugs. I forget what it stands for, but they're an incredibly inclusive, diverse group. And I went to one of their meetups. It was at the Blue Boat playground, and there was a big group of children who were, you know, playing together. And then around the edge was a child who kind of just circled around the group. And every now and then he would go in, and then he would come out. He would go in and come out at his own level of comfort. And I had an opportunity to speak to that child's father, and he was diagnosed as on the autism spectrum. But it was just so wonderful that he was free to make friends in the way that felt comfortable to him, whereas in school, I think he would have had so much pressure put on him to make friends in a certain way. And so I think that homeschooling really provides a wonderful opportunity for children to develop their natural social capacity in a way that's comfortable for them and inclusive. And the second thing I would say is that I really feel like we underrate the relationship between a parent and a child when it comes to socialization. This idea of a peer culture is really only something that's emerged in the last 50 years. Like, children should learn their social skills from their peers, and children, like, really don't have great social skills. If you were going to have your child learn math, you would not have them learn it from another kid. We'd want them to learn it for someone who knows how to do math well. And speaking as someone who felt very isolated all the way through school and really only hung out with adults, I think that, you know, parents think that their kid is going to learn social skills from other kids. But really what happens is children bully each other. They're mean, they're harsh. But in a homeschooling environment, there are parents there who can help navigate it. And even more fundamentally, when you have a secure attachment with your parent, when you have a loving relationship and you have time to spend with your parent, there's beautiful socializing flows from that because you're secure in every other relationship in your life because you have that foundation.

And I, I think that. I'm sorry, Tron, go ahead.

Oh, I. I'm very sorry. I just want to make it clear that actually this is a topic me and Stacy disagree on. We've gone back and forth over a bunch of episodes. She's. She's more on your side of things. I'm a big socialization guy because I believe, like, when I was in school, I'm on the spectrum. So when I was in school, I was bullied a lot. I had the whole thing where I had to learn how to defend myself.

I.

And built character because characters, what men refer to as trauma. I'm sort of like, I guess an old school guy of kids need to have that. Those experiences because. Builds a little bit of toughness. But I also get the other side that, like, too much of that is not productive because then you just shut down. But I would. I will concede that you would, Stacy, are probably right on the issue.

If you feel like your child needs to be both bullied, you can put them in a homeschool environment where there's a lot of bullying. But, I mean, I just, I do, I. I am happy that that was your experience. And I want to acknowledge that you feel that that bullying helped you build character. I think that there are other ways that you can build character in a child besides subjecting them to violence. I think that, you know, if. If a child, you know, if a child is in a situation of conflict and they can ask an adult for advice, that adult can help them learn how to navigate that, and that builds strength. You know, I mean, ultimately, hopefully, in your job, people aren't going to be, you know, punching you, but you might have a conflict that you need to address.

That was going to be. My point is, so Torrin and I, you know, we have this wonderful relationship that we have found each other, and it's almost like we do agree and we do have the Same perspective. We have the same viewpoint, but from different perspectives. So part of me is, yes. I mean, clearly, I do homeschooling because I think homeschooling is wonderful. Right. I think it's a wonderful way to navigate education, especially now, because school's a disaster. It's a disaster. I'm an educator. I was a speech therapist in the schools. I'm a teacher. I Teachers in my family. I loved school. It's not the way it used to be. It's not. And so I'm glad. Parents have choices. However, I think that Torrin and I have the perspective of. Torrin is a black male in America. I am the mother of two black males in America. They cannot live in a bubble. And the other part of it is that on the job, Manisha, people are office. It is like kindergarten, middle school all over again. Adults do not mature. It's the same thing.

Teachers act like. When I became a teacher, that thing shocked me. I was like, y' all act like the kids.

Yeah, Yeah.

A lot of the bullying is coming from adults.

Of course it is. Of course it is.

But I'm being a bit tongue in cheek. But like. Like Stacey says, I do have a belief that certain things like being able to resolve conflicts and self advocacy are important. And I want to make sure that in any homeschool environment, those sort of things are still being taught. And it sounds like you do have that cover.

Oh, absolutely.

Nurturing environment. I think that's what I think. We all agree that for kids to develop the skills, it needs to be in a nurturing environment. And if parents can provide that in a co op community, that's a wonderful thing. Because the reality is we don't all have to like each other. We don't all have to get along, but we need to be respectful. I can work with anybody. I don't have to like you to work with you. We're just here to do a job. People get caught up in. I don't even know what they get caught up in, because they don't both.

Yeah. I mean, I think that we. I mean, there's been. People feel very threatened by homeschooling because parents are taking back power over their children's education. I mean, and you look at the black homeschooling community, which has grown five times. 16.1% of US black families are homeschooling their kids, and they're teaching them about black history, you know, and people feel scared about that because the status quo is changing. And I think that, you know, I mean, It's a tricky thing to know. You know, I do believe we heal where we're wounded. I also wish that those horrible things hadn't happened to me in middle school. I don't think that I needed to be wounded in that way. You know, I accept my path, but I think that there, you know, there is a better way. But. But I think one other point here I think is kind of interesting is there's a study by a Stanford professor called Daniel McFarland who talks about the network ecology of a school. On really huge schools that kind of unite around a sports culture. There tends to be a lot more clicks and bullying and mental health issues, whereas smaller communities, where there's a shared value of education or perhaps there tends to be a lot less bullying. And what's interesting at homeschooling communities is they do tend to be smaller and they are united around this value of education, which is intriguing to me.

And I. I think that, you know, I don't know your age, Manisha, but I am over 55. So 35 years ago, I started in education, and we had. Our schools were our communities, but it's not like that anymore. Now it's charter schools, private schools, and everybody's dispersed on street. There could be 10 different schools that the kids go to. So there's no sense of community to build your neighborhood school, because everybody's going to different schools. And that's just, you know, life changes. And I know that things can't stay the same. So I think that just that component has, by default, taken away the community. Because I remember when we had communities. I remember when we all supported one another, and that doesn't happen anymore. I mean, I can recall my own school days where it was a sense of community, and I was bullied. And, you know, like Torren said, you know, I'm thinking Torrent. I don't know. I think. And I have no idea, but I think maybe in terms of. I was having a conversation with one of my colleagues in Australia, and I told her, I said, listen, as a black woman in America, we are like, we know we're going to get crapped on, right? Like, it's part of the deal of living in America. So our parents teach us how to deal with that. And so it's not. It was not fun, but I don't feel that it was traumatizing, per se, in terms of, you know, I feel like I have a lot of strength because of it, but I do not want children to be bullied. That is not what we want I want children to be nurtured. I want children to learn. And I think homeschool school is wonderful. I want to go back to the socialization because I feel like I'm going on a big trip here. The socialization part. So this is the part where I get sort of sticky in terms of the push for socialization, like if I'm in an IEP meeting, which I don't go to anymore. But when I was and the parents, we decided homeschool was going to be the choice. And of course, you get pushed back because parents now have the power and the schools don't want you to leave. The school would always say the same thing. Well, what about socialization? And so my pushback was, okay, so how many minutes a day are they actually socializing? Because now we have silent lunch. We don't have PE. We don't have recess, we don't have art. Everyone's sitting for 90 minutes and listening to the teacher and doing their work. So what do we have, like 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day of socializing? And who is navigating the environment with this autistic individual who is supporting their needs to make sure that when they do go on the playground for that 15 minutes, that they have the skill set and the support to be able to do it in a safe way. And of course, no one has an answer because they're.

The supports aren't there.

That's why the supports are not there.

Exactly, exactly. The other part is in regards to parents with the socialization, when I hear parents say they're hesitant about homeschool because of socializing, and I say to the parents, because I usually know the parents very well. So how many social events do you do as an adult? And most of the time, introverted parents, introverted kids, because they live in an introverted world and they hang out with family, which is fine. I think that this need for having a bunch of friends and getting invited to all the birthday parties and. And all this socializing. Everybody has a different level of socializing that they want to do. And just like you said, boy, come in, come out. Some people like to go the party, the whole party, half of the party. And I think homeschool gives the option for parents to be able to structure it in a way where if they don't want to go, they don't have to go. Right. It's not an obligation. It's just.

Absolutely. And I think the answer to that question can be pretty simple, too. But what about social socialization? I'll Join a homeschool group. I mean, that's it. It's there. There is socialization. Right. And then there's all the rest. Like, you know, children need so much time for play. They need so much time for self directed learning. And they're getting 30 minutes of recess or none. They're waking up at a time of day that's completely out of rhythm with their sleep. You know what they need for sleep? They get home, they're completely exhausted. There's no time for quality interaction with their parents. So I mean, you can't even, you know, I get started on socialization at school, but I talked to a developmental psychologist recently named Gordon Neufeld, and he wrote a book called hold on to your kids why parents matter more than peers, which just changed my entire outlook. And he really encouraged me to start using the words social capacity rather than socialization and think about, you know, what children need at each stage. You know, when they're very little, they really do not need to hang out around other babies. That just doesn't do anything to them. Like, they need an inordinate amount of time with their parents. And then it's only really when they're around 6 or 7 that it's like, oh, hey, I'm learning to read. And you're learning to read too. Like, there's kind of a relatability there. But still, it's more of the parent relationship. And I would say it's only really when kids get to be 13 or 14 that some children start craving being in those bigger groups and others not. And that's fine. I mean, it's like you said, I mean, some people are fine with one friend. It's good to push your boundaries a little bit. And you know, in our job we might need that. But I think that if you're secure, confident, if you're a confident, secure person, that the social capacity grows from there.

And I think that that's what homeschool does. It provides your child with a, with a safety net and they develop such confidence that they can go out. Right. They're not staying in the house all day long.

No, I mean. And teens don't rebel, right? Homeschool teens don't rebel. There just doesn't exist because they have a relationship with you.

So I have two things. So I have one more quick question on this topic and then I want to give you a chance, Manisha, to really explain about your app and how it works.

Sure, yeah, I'd happy to talk about the work I'm doing the last Thing.

I was going to mention, you mentioned teens don't rebel. And maybe this is coming from personal experience, but one of my overall concerns about homeschooling, I think the upsides are amazing. I think the upsides cards on the table. I think the upsides more than outweigh the downsides by a significant margin. But one of my concerns is you get some parents who can be controlling or abusive. We. You made the joke if you want to be in the bullying environment. But I do worry about that in terms of a lot. There are some parents. I don't want to say a lot. There are some parents who are very controlling. And then what happens is I saw this when I went to college with people around me, and I see this with the kids I work with. They get out in the school and their parents control controls. Controlled. And they're on their own for the first time, and they don't know how to function. They just go to different extremes and do all sorts of wild stuff because their parents been controlling everything for their entire lives. So I guess what worries me is, and like I said, homeschooling, I believe the goods outweigh the bad. What worries me in some cases, and I'm not sure what you can do about it, is basically parents who are not nice people and aren't doing the best by their kid are effectively using it as a form of control and not letting their kid become their own person for sure.

And I think it's really important to acknowledge that in the homeschooling community, there is child abuse, there is neglect, there is. You know, I think you're referring to tiger Moms, and that also exists in the public school system. And as a teacher, I felt I had very little power to make any change when I witnessed that.

Pretty much no power. Yeah, but.

But in homeschooling, there's more of an opportunity to mask that, for sure. I would say it happens less in homeschooling because these are already parents who have made this decision to, you know, do something more for their children. And it's really tricky because on one hand, I mean, it's. We don't really have a great solution in school, and we don't really have a great solution in homeschool. And we need a better system for being accountable to all our children, to making sure that they're well fed, that they're cared for, that they're not abused. And so I think that, you know, I have a friend, her name's Carrie McDonald. She's a big advocate of school choice. I myself go back and forth on it, but basically what she has shown is that as we've given parents more freedom, they've started to develop better parenting techniques. Like spanking has gone way down in the U.S. all of this positive parenting movement has emerged. And so I think that in general, the trend is. Is more positive and that, you know, I mean, homeschooling exists and we do have to keep thinking about how we can be more accountable to our children. But I guess I like to focus on how can I support the families who do really care about their kids and want better options for them, which I think is the majority of people.

No, I. I love that with your app.

I am so sorry.

With my app.

Talking all over each other today.

It's wonderful. I. I love it. I think you. You guys are really amazing.

So Stacy's acting like this doesn't always happen. It does. Like this isn't something that's just.

So. It's good, it's good. We're all, you know, we are all people who like to talk a lot. That's positive. We have opinions. So I'll talk about my app. So socialization is a big issue. Right. And I'm trying to help bring people together. I think that homeschooling presents a unique opportunity for true community, which is a community of sharing resources. Child care, food, shelter. You know, with the kind of more people becoming non religious, there are fewer places to gather and share those resources. And I think homeschooling is a really amazing example of true community where people are uniting around their kids. So that's one aspect of it. And I. But I do feel like the biggest thing I've been focusing on lately is confidence because parents have been so disenfranchised when it comes to their children. I mean, if you look, if you believe in evolution, which I do. Billions and billions of years of evolution have prepared parents to raise their children. And yet the school system, the government, everybody is telling them that they need to outsource that most important job. And I think there's like kind of an analogy of like, if you're building a tech company, don't outsource your engineering. That's your core competency. And as a parent, raising your child is your core competency. And I just think it's so sad that we're just sending them away for six hours a day. And so many teachers. I mean, I'm talking like professors at elite Ivy League universities are saying, well, I wouldn't teach my kid because I'm not a trained Teacher. And so what I, you know, what I want to really encourage parents to do is have confidence in themselves to look into their gut and realize they do have the capacity to raise their children well. And I would also say that choose someone who's super controlling because that person is also in fear. They don't think that they have this innate wisdom about how to raise their children well. They think they need to control the process. And so I love this idea of permissionless education that a parent say, I don't need permission to raise my child the way that I know they need. You know, I don't need to listen to a learning specialist if I know that they need these kind of skills, supports. And I know you guys have talked about advocacy in your show and how important it is to talk to that learning specialist and that doctor about things that you observe and think that your child needs. And so coming back to my app, it's an online community for homeschoolers. And so what we do is we connect families with the resources they need. It's a step above a Facebook group in that we have certified child life specialists. Who are these? They're actually that certification is you're trained to work with children in hospitals. And I found that these, they have this incredible training in development, in medical issues, in learning, special learning. They know about autism, dyslexia, twice exceptional gifted kids. And they're really great at supporting the family holistically. So if any family has a question about something that's happened with their child or they're learning, they can ask a learning specialist or a child life specialist. And then we say like, hey, I have a five year old. I want to meet someone in my area. We'll connect them with a friend. If the family wants to find a tutor, we will find them an in person tutor, an online tutor. If they don't have any money, we'll find them a free tutor. We also have a nonprofit that does free tutoring. We'll find them local classes or online classes and help match them with the right curriculum for their child. And I hope we can talk about curriculum too, because this is something really important. And I don't want to divert the conversation, but I'm not an expert in autism. But what I have observed from some of the families who have come to me with children on the spectrum is that their kid will say, I don't see the point in learning math. And the mom will say, like, oh, my kid doesn't see the point in learning math. I'll say, well, did you Answer their question. Did you explain the point of learning math and do you know the point of learning math yourself? And this I think is just like, it's so, it seems so obvious, right? Like if someone doesn't understand why they're learning what they're learning, that you would explain that to them in a way that they understand. But it's just so not what we're used to.

It's just what you do. You learn things, right?

Yeah. So like, yeah, I mean that's what's so incredible is these kids are actually asking what's the point of me learning this? Which is such a great question. And if they knew they might be motivated to learn it. It's such a fair question. And then the other thing is that I've often found, I mean if you can change the curriculum, it's just night and day for the child and you know, some children will thrive with a nature based curriculum. A lot of kids, but not all of the kids by any means I've seen on the spectrum like love these online adaptive games that you can play and it can just be a game changer for them. So that's I think a really core part of what we do as well.

No, that's good. So I, I saw, I looked over some of the stuff. So what it sounds like to me just I didn't dig a lot. Well, no, no, I didn't dig too deep because I wanted our listeners as parents. I wanted to ask the questions that parents would want to know. Right. Like so when I look at it, absolutely. I'm like okay, so it says that we give it's it initially I'm like, okay, it sounds like a community that is gives you access to resources that are aligned with what you want to do with your child. Right. That's what I kind of sort of think about when I looked through a little bit of it initially and then I was like, okay, so are the in tutors part of the the curriculum or do you guys have like list of people that you vet that you pass on to or are people that you already have? So just explain a little bit so our listeners can understand what they're so.

Sure, I will completely tell you. So the first thing that you can do for free is find the ideal curriculum for your unique child. That's I've automated based on I think I have 200 different archetypes that I've used to help families sel a math and an English language arts program. And I found, you know, a lot of families think they need to replicate the school day. But if you're just doing an hour of English language arts and math, you're really going to have the core skills that you need to do whatever you need. And, and especially with children on the spectrum, I often recommend an unschooling approach where you're really following the children's interests as opposed to, you know, forcing them to learn certain subjects. And it can be really great to let a child explore their passion like that. So, so that's just a free thing anybody can use. And if you, so if you sign up for the membership community, we can match you with local and online tutors, we can match you with local or online classes and we connect you to friends and then you can chat with other parents in the group about your concerns. So we are working on automating some of that, but at this stage a lot of it is still manual when trying to build a really unique experience. And it's, it's $15 a month. There's a two week free trial and any family who emails me and says I can't afford this gets a full scholarship because it's just trust based. I don't, you know, want anyone to feel like they have to prove that they don't have enough money. I just believe parents and I'm happy to. And we have funding to give them what they need. So if you can't afford to pay $15 a month, great, you're helping us keep going. And if you can't, then you know, you're still really welcome. And sometimes we earn a commission when people buy the curriculum, but it's none of it is stuff that we create. I mean I have had in house tutors, but now I mostly am just recommending people to the best resources that I've found.

It's taking the research legwork off the plate of parents and that's what I do in my, my service that I do as a parent coach. They don't have time to look for the right visuals or what it is or what curriculum and so I help them figure that out. So it's great that this is in one place and is. So I have two questions. One is I saw that there was a cool button where people can gift something to do you all have, I don't know, corporations or connections or sponsors that actually spread that out. I mean not spread out, what's the word? Send it out so people know. Because a lot of times people are looking for things to donate to, they just don't know what to donate to.

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, our biggest sponsor is the Vela Education Fund and they gave us. That's a considerable grant. And then in terms of if people want to donate, that goes to the families who request scholarships.

Perfect, perfect. I love that. I love that when there's an option for folks who have money to donate and don't even have kids that can donate because they have to donate. So I wanted to try to understand, and this is for the listeners, what is the difference between an individual and membership and a group membership? Can you clarify that for listeners?

I think that it's just less expensive. So if you have 10 friends who want to join with you, you get a discount.

Got it, got it, got it. So it doesn't have to be that you're all in the same co op. It could be, you know, your aunt and your sister in Virginia is homeschooling. Your, your homeschooling in Texas. And you guys all want to put together to have access to. Got it. Thank you.

Yes, exactly. And some people join our community who aren't even homeschooling yet or they just need extra tips on how to curate their children's education. And sometimes homeschool entrepreneurs join just to be part of the community.

Oh, that's pretty interesting.

So I'm, I'm curious, when you were starting this, since you're a former teacher, did you, what were some of the reactions did you receive or did you receive any, like, pushback from people who were concerned about this? I'm sure you're familiar with this line of thinking of the only way we can make the public schools better is by just effectively shoving more and more people and raising awareness to how much of a flaming disaster they are. So the government is more likely to fund it. You could tell by the way I'm describing this, it's not a line of thinking.

This is not how I usually pitch my company. Did I receive negative reactions?

Not to the company itself, but to the idea of forming a company?

You know, honestly, I felt like this company formed itself. I mean, it was the weirdest thing. I was teaching, I was trying to find something new to work on. I was thinking about maybe forming a summer camp for teens to help them build world changing projects. And I started, you know, I was actually a host on Airbnb at the time and I was just on a plane to San Francisco and someone said, you know, I don't know what to do. Private schools are so expensive. Public schools are a mess. And I just said to this guy, well, let's just find a Group of friends and start your own school. Everybody's doing it. And he basically convinced me over a six hour plane ride to build a company to help teachers start their own micro schools. This is before anyone was talking about learning pods or micro schools. I had. I didn't know anything, anything about technology except like zilch really. I mean I'm like the last person to buy an iPhone. But my background is in the theater. But as I got more interested in technology and started building this company, I realized that a lot of the same skills that I used to create a role in the theater were very similar to how you build a product and a user experience. So that I became really excited about technology. So as I was building this kind of microsystems school company, I discovered homeschoolers. And I was just amazed. I was blown away. And I started being exposed to people like Peter Gray who are talking about self directed education. And this whole concept that children could drive their own education naturally was really new to me. But I saw how well it worked in practice. So it really, I felt like I had this like fire. I mean I was just going at 180 miles an hour. Like I never chose this idea, it just chose me. Like the weirdest sensation. And now, I mean, some days I'm still thinking, what am I doing working on homeschooling? This is so weird. But you know, and I mean, but, but I love it, you know, but, but I think that one thing is that I've gotten resistance from both people who don't homeschool and people who do homeschool. Because on the non homeschooling side, people say, but what about socialization? But what about parents aren't qualified to teach? There's a lot of stereotypes around. It's all just religious nuts who are homeschooling their children. People are concerned it's hurting public school. There's all of that. Then from the homeschooling side, I think there's a lot of fear around people trying to sell something to the homeschooling community. I mean, they are so disenfranchised by the school system. They have just been, I mean a lot of these kids were being bullied at school, they were not thriving and so they decided to exit the system. So a company coming in and saying, hey, I want to help you, I want to build a product to support this community can feel very threatening. So that has also been kind of a dance. And some people have been critical of me because I don't have children of my own that I would be building something to serve homeschoolers. And so all I know is that I have a lot of experience teaching a lot of different children and I have absolute confidence in the parents ability to teach their own kids from my experience observing so many families. And so I continue to support families and I also see so many children who don't have access to any education at all. And I see this pathway where you can empower their parents to teach them and you can connect them with resources and then you can show them how to share childcare. And it works. And so I remain excited about it.

Yeah, that is great. You know, I always said that some of the best principals I've worked with are principals that don't have children of their own because they actually have so much time to commit to the school.

That is true. People who are parents do not have a lot of time to build companies.

It's parenting is a lot of work. So.

But also, I will say, Torin, I saw one of your tweets which I thought was brilliant, where someone just wrote the name nastiest thing to you about like, I don't even know. I don't want to even repeat their words. I'm sure you know what I'm referring to. And you were just like, hey, I'm so glad.

I'm going to need you to be specific only because that happens often enough that I don't know.

So it was some like super racist gaslighting type of comment and you just were like, hey, I'm so glad this person boosted my social media algorithm. Yeah. And I was really admiring that because I do. I mean, people, people say really absurd things to me and I feel hurt all the time. And I really had to build myself up in that way. And just remember, what's your mission? Don't get distracted from your mission. Because once you start a company, you just expose yourself to all kinds of meanness. It's hard.

I really, I really wish I could, I could do that. I really, I keep trying to find a way to piss people off because then you like, get like, everybody knows who you are once you, like, get a whole ruckus started. So I wanted to ask about.

Everybody loves you too much. Is that your problem, Stacy?

So I don't know if everybody loves me. I think that people, you know, and I'm not saying that I haven't pissed off people, but I think in the workplace specifically, I will say that people who I have probably pissed off, they don't even come and approach me like, they're like, I'm not even going to like approach Stacy because I will probably come back not something cute and savvy like Torrin, but I'll come back with some intellectual response and they'll just be like, okay. And, and that's the way I got through bullying in school. I just would respond intellectually and they would just be like, huh? And then I'd walk away and I wouldn't get beat up that day.

Stacy's thing is she's very. No nonsense. She's someone where she's one, especially in the teaching environment. She goes in, she wants to do what's best for the kids and she doesn't really care about all the other minutiae, drama and stuff. And that tends to strike some people the wrong way because they think like, like drama and banter and high school stuff is part of the work environment when it really isn't, at least doesn't have to be. It should alive comes from. In my opinion, as an outsider, that.

Makes sense because I'm there for the kids. But what I want to ask about the socialization because I'm thinking of my, my parents. I'm thinking of our listeners. Right. So what I thought was wonderful in terms of the community is parents who homeschool feel isolated. I don't know if it's about so much socializing for the kids, especially little kids. I think the parents need.

Yes.

Other parents because they're so much that agree with homeschooling, you know.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So that's what I thought was really great about the community component. And it doesn't have to necessarily be religious based. Right. Because that is not something that is, you know, this is America. I mean, there's other people in the world of course, that can have access, but there are different religions. And so finding a community that's not just religious based for homeschool is very helpful. So do you find or do you all have supports for the parents? Like parents who feel run down if they're homeschooling, you know, like several children, like what do you guys have available for parents for that?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I mean I would just add like if you are wondering about homeschooling, you're saying, but what about socialization? Just step one, go on Facebook, I guess it's called meta, or join our group and find a homeschool group in your area. And some areas have, you know, if you want a secular homeschooling group, maybe look for unschooling. But I would also say like it's okay to join a Christian group if you're not Christian, as long as they're welcoming. I mean, our country is so divided. You know, you can join groups where people don't share all of your viewpoints, as long as it's supportive. But there are so many secular homeschooling groups, and that part is essential. Like, you're going to feel overwhelmed, you're going to feel burnt out. There's going to be a moment where someone says, like, you're failing your child because you're homeschooling them. Because parents, people are so critical of parents. Like, that community is step one. So in terms of what support we offer, I mean, first of all, love, like, all the love of my heart. You know, when someone is feeling burnt out and overwhelmed because it's so freaking hard to be a parent, Especially if you have a child who. Whose brain is colliding against the status quo, so to speak. You know, who isn't necessarily fitting. I mean, who fits into this crazy world that we have built? Or if your child is being diagnosed with a learning disability, you know, it's. It's really, really hard. So having a community support you is really important. And I would say the other aspect of it is schedule, because I always say parents need to build in at least three hours a week of time to themselves, and some people need much more. And not everybody can afford a babysitter, but people can do a childcare swap. And if your child is on the autism spectrum and you don't feel comfortable leaving them with an ordinary parent, you can find another parent who understands and who can help your child. But that type of time is so key to making this all work out well. So I really. I really hammer that home. And then I think parents also have freakouts around. Is my child on track? And they can get nervous if their child's skills aren't lining up with what's going on in traditional schools. But most of the time, they take one standardized test and they realize their kids are doing so much better than the kids.

I always say, who cares?

I mean, I agree with you, but it's hard. It's hard not to.

I know, but I tell my parents, you, we human beings are not checklist. We are not checklist. That checklist was designed by a bunch of people in a room who just decided this is what we all need to look for. And, you know, our curriculum's so outdated. It's just ridiculous. So outdated what we're teaching kids. So in terms of parents having support and access One of the things that I always think about is we, you know, America is not. The majority of America is not big city. The majority of America is small town, rural towns. And there are so many parents. And we found out the hard way. Well, other people found out the hard way during COVID There are a lot of people in America who do not have access to Internet because it's not available in their area. So what is that? Is it? Is it? And I'm not saying that you're responsible for that, but I am Internet. So parents who don't have access to Internet as easily as other folks, because we don't all live in a big city. The majority of people live in small towns, in rural areas, grow our food that we eat in the grocery store. And so it's important that we support them. So what would you say to listeners who are in those areas who would like to be a part of the community and feel like maybe they couldn't because of technology?

Yeah, thank you so much for asking that question. And the first thing that I want to say is that, you know, I have a phone. And also in our free tutoring sessions, there's, you know, there is a call in option for Zoom, and there are nonprofits that will mail free curriculum to your family. And I don't have those resources off the top of my head, but I will send them to you so we can include them in the notes. And the other thing is that, you know, sometimes in order to get WI fi, they literally need to lay down a cable. And I know that there's a lot of efforts to try to bring Internet everywhere, and we're not there yet. But there are also ways to get free WI fi to your family, and there are nonprofits that are working on that as well. So it's a tricky one for sure. But then, you know, I mean, however they're tuning into the podcast, there's also learning resources available. There's so many really interesting, informative podcasts. Wow. In the world, some kids are doing almost all they're learning via podcasts. So that's also an option. I hope. I hope those. Some of those things are helpful.

No, that. That's good.

I have one last question, so before.

You answer, Esther, I want to also just say the library is such a great resource. And then you can ask those still exist resources, too.

They are bringing them back. They're bringing libraries back. Torrent. I see them coming. They are.

That's just. That just tells you my age, because I, like, I'm 31 now. I'm remembering, like when I was a kid going to the library because we didn't have Internet where I was growing up for a long explanation I will not get into. So library was big for me.

And I should also say is that, you know, some parents might be concerned that they'll lose access to special services at their school. And in a lot of states, you can still get access to special services via charter school or doing an independent study. So your school, I mean, some schools are really unsupportive, but some schools are really excited to try to help support children if they're homeschooling. So it's really important to look into those resources. And there might even be certain laws in your state that requires. Require the schools to give you access to those special services. So I just want to highlight that.

Yeah, you're right, that is a big concern. Like, oh, well, I lose my services. And the majority of the time, to be honest, because the services at the school suck because nobody knows what to do with our neurodivergent kiddos. The parents aren't losing anything anyway if they lose services, because it's usually not anything that's very helpful. I'm not saying everywhere, but I'm saying I've been doing this long enough, I've set enough meetings, and the majority of people do not know how to support our kiddos. So sometimes even the hesitancy to let go of the related service, I'm like, you see that you're getting from it, right? You could use the energy you're using to battle the speech therapist to actually do some stuff at home that you could do in a nurturing and use your energy there.

And see, those are the people who tend not to like Stacy. We were talking about that earlier. Do you see what I mean? She's straight to. She's straight to the point people who tend not to like her, like the speech therapist and the people. Are you telling me how to do my job? My last thing is so looking at older students, like high schoolers, is there a way so in New York, so I'm from New York, so is there like a track where they can get like, we have the Regents diploma, which is the series of state tests that you have to pass in New York's called the Regents or like SAT preps and things that you need to get that universities required to get into a college.

Yeah. So some schools require a ged, but colleges are looking more and more favorably on homeschoolers. And if you can provide a portfolio, a lot of students will take AP tests. I mean, if you've gotten four or five on a bunch of AP tests, people are not going to really care about a high school transcript. So there's. And also now there's so many different online classes you can take where you can get micro credentials. And so. Yeah. So colleges are looking very favorably on homeschoolers. And I would just say the GED is kind of the most important thing that they need.

And thank you for sharing that for the listeners because I do think a lot of parents don't know that GED is now cool.

GED is cool. I mean, look at the MIT admissions site. They talk so specifically about homeschoolers.

Tattoos and GED are cool. Now, tattoos and GED used to be.

That wasn't cool, but it's very cool. I mean, and also homeschoolers have volunteer experience. They have work experience. Like the dean of Stanford said, intellectual vitality was something that homeschoolers ranked very high for. It was very rare to see an application.

I love that you said that. I'm just going to share really quick because I know we have to finish Torn, but. So one of my homeschool students that I've been working with for a while, he is actually coming. He turns 16 in 2025 and he is going to come and spend three weeks in Mexico with me for his Spanish immersion for his college applications. Like.

Stacy and Torn, I really would like to give families a way to reach me if they don't have access to Wi Fi. I don't know if I want to share my personal phone number on the show.

Yeah.

Is there anybody that you. You know, but you can have it. So if there's anyone who does have that issue that you've been touched with, they can definitely reach out to me and I'm very happy to talk. We actually, I ran a nonprofit during the school closing called school closures.org the site is not active anymore, but we had a hotline that was run by Twilio so people could call us anytime. And we helped troubleshoot them through Zoom and whatever they needed.

Where. Because I do a lot of global. So is it something that folks outside of the United States can access? Like, what is it?

Yeah. So homeschooling is illegal in many countries.

Wait, what?

Yes, a lot, especially in Europe. But our families are in all 50 states and 60 countries around the world. So, I mean, any parent, even if their child goes to school, they can still customize their education. I mean, we have a little boy in Norway who Does math tutoring and English language arts every day after school because his dad thinks there's just too much play in the Norwegian schools. He's not learning enough skills. So, yeah, any and a lot of times, you know, the biggest problem with parents is just not having enough time or being stressed out. And that's a really important thing to ask for support around. It does take a village. I just made that up. Okay.

Well, since we have to start bringing this in, is there anything else you'd like to say before we go?

I would just like to reiterate, since we talked so much about socialization, that if that is a concern, just go to a homeschooling meetup. Just go to one meetup before you say, but what about socialization? And the second thing I would say is that, you know, parents don't ask for help enough. They really think they're supposed to do it with them and their kid or them and their partner and their kid. And so there's anything you're having a hard time with that you're ashamed of, just ask for help. I mean, I am, like, one email, one phone call away, I will send you a very detailed response for free. And it's just so hard to feel alone. It's not natural to be alone. You need support. So if you want to change your situation, the best thing that you can do is reach out, because there's so many people who want to help you and have good advice, and it can just even change everything to not feel alone. So. So do that. Have the courage to ask for help.

Stacy, anything else?

No, I think it's.

Oh, my gosh. You know, I thought you were going to be talking to me so much about autism today, and I was a little bit nervous.

No, no, I actually, I'm glad you brought that up, because I just want to say real quick, you mentioned that you're not an expert, but there are a lot of experts, scare quotes about autism that don't know about autism. And the stuff you were saying, you get it, and that's what matters. You get it, and some people just get it. And you don't need a PhD in autistic research to get it, because some people have that and they don't get it. So you either get it or you don't, if you get what I mean.

Yeah, and. Yeah. And I guess just along that topic, I mean, if your child is in school and they've been diagnosed with a disability, it can be terrifying. You can feel like you have a problem child. There's all kinds of stress, but when you start taking them out and making your own rules, you realize, I mean, every child has a unique path in this world and so much possibility, and. And just remember that a lot of it is about perspective.

Now, that's perfect. I'm going to end it there, because that is just so perfect, Stacy. That's why we're working to shift the.

Narrative on everything autism, including homeschooling your autistic child.

Well, thank you so much for having me. You both are wonderful, and I can't wait for my community to discover your work. I think that you can bring a lot of support to them, and it's just such a pleasure to know you. I'm so happy. Happy.

See ya.