A concise, first-person overview of homeschooling by Manisha Snoyer (founder of Modulo). She defines homeschooling as families legally electing to educate children outside traditional schools and emphasizes its flexibility, social opportunities, and benefits such as one-on-one instruction, mastery learning, and improved family life. The talk highlights community resources (local co-ops, enrichment providers, online platforms like Outschool and Modulo), special programs (Florida ESA), and claims that homeschooling enables faster, individualized progress (e.g., K–8 math in months).
Chapters
Hi, everyone. I'm Manisha, the founder of Modulo, and I'm here today to give you a quick overview of homeschooling. I fell in love with homeschooling because it's such an amazing way for families to curate their child's education in a way that works best for them as an individual learner. Today in the United States, There are over 5 million homeschoolers, and that population has tripled since before the pandemic. So, clear, clearly, a lot of families are getting a lot out of this type of learning. So first of all, what's important to understand is what is homeschooling? Technically, all that homeschooling means is that you have gone to the Department of Education in your state and said, I have decided to educate my child myself instead of sending them to a private school, a public school, or an online school. But in essence, homeschooling is much bigger than that. What homeschooling really is is a family curating their children's education. For example, some families who attend online school or do an independent study or are signed up for the ESA program in Florida that gives scholarships for a modular approach to learning do consider themselves homeschoolers. The second thing to know is that contrary to popular belief, homeschooling does not usually happen at. So actually, instead of the typical image of a family sitting around the kitchen table memorizing multiplication tables with this very nice, ever peaceful mom for hours on end, what's actually happening is that maybe students might spend an hour or two studying math and English language arts with a curriculum. Could be an online program, could be a parent, and the rest of the day they're going out and participating in homeschool classes. They're playing in the park with their friends, maybe they're volunteering or doing an independent study at their local university, taking classes at a community college. It's an incredibly vibrant community where there's all types of options for children to explore their interests and meet a great diversity of friends. The second thing to know is that homeschooling is social. Many homeschoolers have lots of friends. And actually, this is my favorite part of homeschooling for two reasons. First of all, homeschoolers get to spend a lot more time with their families. And a lot of research shows that when people have a healthy relationship with their mom and their dad and their primary caregivers, that helps them to make friends more easily. And you might be surprised, a lot of homeschoolers that I know are incredibly grounded, incredibly capable of connecting with adults and children their own age. So the way that homeschoolers make friends is they're often local groups and they'll meet up in the park, they'll do classes together. What's super fun is that sometimes some of the families, a lot of people who homeschool are teachers. So for example, a science professor who's a homeschooling parent might offer a science class to kids. Or a parent who knows how to play chess really well might offer a club. And there's actually resource centers like Brooklyn Apple Academy in Brooklyn or Different Directions in Manhattan, Cultural Roots Homeschool Co Op in Richmond. I could go on that offer tons of classes to homeschoolers. Parents have gotten together, they've hired teachers, and kids are honestly just with a subway card running around the city, going to all these amazing classes. They also make friends in online classes. There's great classes that people take at Outschool. Modulo has its own clubs, and some of the kids have been in our Minecraft club for five years. And there's an Australian girl who has friend in Morocco and New York. So homeschooling is really social. And actually these communities are quite wonderful because there's an idea in a book by Scott Peck, the idea of true community. And true community is built around caring and sharing. And I really found that ideal realized in the homeschooling community. A lot of times in traditional school, parents are kind of left out of what happens in school. In some cases, parents are even allowed in the school building. But in homeschooling, families are often getting together with their children. And as I said, they share skills, they share childcare, they share ideas and resources. So it's actually really a wonderful way to connect and make friends. So the other thing to know about homeschooling is that it can have a wonderful impact on the quality of your family's life because instead of being forced to stay in one place at one time, you can travel whenever you want to. You can find a schedule that works for you. Funnily enough, a lot of every now and then in one of my parent groups, someone will say, what's your main reason for homeschooling? And people will say, well, I like to sleep in. And that's no joke. I mean, we're seeing it more and more, the benefit of sleep and how teenagers especially need to sleep in, not get up at 5am to go on a bus to school at 8am where they're too tired to think. And homeschooling can be a way where you say, hey, my family likes to sleep until 10am and that's when we're going to start our learning. And my family wants to be nomadic and travel the world. And because we don't have to go to a traditional school, we can bring our kids along with us so it can drastically improve the quality of family life. Another aspect of homeschooling, which is important to understand, is that you don't have to be a teacher to teach your kids. In fact, when a child is learning one on one, the outcomes are so much higher. Higher than when a child is learning in a group setting. I was a teacher for 20 years and a lot of my training was around how to differentiate learning for different types of children and quite frankly, how to manage behavior in a big group of kids the same age. But in homeschooling you're really just working one on one with your child as a guide. You don't have to develop curriculum, although you can and you're capable of that. There's so many wonderful programs for homeschoolers. And I will I go over that in more detail in my guide guide to homeschooling programs and you can even find some on modulo. But for years, teachers, parents, ed tech companies have been developing these super easy, open and go curriculum that kids can use independently with the support of their parent or that a parent can guide them through. There's online ones, there's physical ones, there's anything that you can imagine. Nature based programs, digital apps. Really there's no limit to what children can learn on their own with a parent who cares. And the other thing to note is that you don't have to teach your child nine hours a day or six hours a day or five hours a day. In fact, this one on one learning is so impactful that families say that kids go through the Entire K through 8th grade math curriculum in six months because they're not wasting time waiting for other kids to catch up when they're ahead or getting lost when they fall behind. They can get their questions clarified right away. And especially now with things like ChatGPT and AI tutors, it's really so easy and fast to learn on your own. So homeschooling can be especially useful for kids who are gifted or kids who have special needs because they have the ability to learn at their own pace. And we call that mastery learning. And it's a really key reason that a lot of families choose to homeschool. So if you want to be part of a wonderful community, if you want your child to love learning and learn faster. If you're interested in traveling the world, you may want to consider homeschooling. I think it is the most beautiful and wonderful way for a child to learn. And I hope that you will join us in this beautiful adventure of curating your child's education.
