Intro to Homeschooling August 18 2024

So welcome to our homeschooling workshop. I'm so happy to have you all here and I'm so grateful that everyone took the time to ask such great questions ahead of the workshop. I'm going to try to get to everything. So some of the things you asked just kind of A lot of people are starting homeschooling so you're wondering what is it all about? How do I even get started? How much does it cost? A lot of people had questions about laws and regulations in their area. Almost all of you are really excited about inspiring a love of learning in your children and getting them motivated, which ties into the choice of curriculum, which you are also very curious about how to choose curriculum, which ties into another question you had about how to track your children's progress, which is very closely related to their curriculum. Many, many of you were curious about how socialization works in homeschooling, how to handle child care in this new type of learning where you don't just send your child to a school. And then there were a couple very unique questions that I also want to touch upon such as how to homeschool for high school, how to start and find learning pods. And also just some of you aren't homeschooling, but you're just learning how to support your kids education and wondering if there are elements of homeschooling that you can and how. And then a couple of you had full time jobs and you're curious if you can make this work or not. We're going to talk through some of the pros and cons and strategies around that. How to homeschool siblings. There's a mom of four here. And then last but not least, just making sure your child is prepared for college, career or whatever they might want to do in life. So first of all, I know that a lot of you are just getting into this for the first time. So I wanted to share some of the reasons that I think homeschooling is so special. One more recent reason that a lot of people are getting excited about homeschooling is because of the profound impact they see in one on one teaching as opposed to group learning. Just how much time children have for their minds to wander, to explore their interests, to become self sufficient. Getting more time together as a family is one of the most beautiful benefits of homeschooling. Just being able to spend more quality time with your children, not when they're tired at the end of the day. Sleeping in is a big reason people choose to homeschool. And I feel like Sleep is getting a lot more credit, even in the kind of biohacking podcast world. And I've seen as a teacher how much it benefits kids to be able to get the sleep they need. And parents too. And then finally, you know, work is changing a lot. People want to travel, people want to have flexible schedules, and homeschooling really makes it possible for a family to explore the world and not be tied down to the same place. We're also going to talk more about the benefit of customizing your child's social experiences, customizing their childcare and customizing their education instead of glomming it all together in the way that school does. So where do I begin? This is kind of, I think that I've heard recently that people read my rather extensive 40 page blogs and feel even more overwhelmed than they started. And it can be really challenging and confusing when there feels like there's so much to do. Where do you even start homeschooling? And that's really up to you. But I have some suggestions. And first of all, before you start thinking about what step you take, I want to challenge the number one myth about homeschooling, which is that homeschooling takes a lot of time because a lot of people feel like they have to plan this huge schedule and six or seven classes a day. And once you start to understand that homeschooling doesn't take a lot of time, it really frees up your mind for creative ways to plan your homeschooling. So why doesn't homeschooling take up a lot of time? I have spent about the last seven years hanging out with homeschooling families in San Francisco, in New York. I've seen really a lot of successful homeschoolers whose kids are thriving academically, thriving socially, thriving emotionally. And I've noticed some patterns. And the good news is that the education part of homeschooling really only has to take one or two hours a day. And the reason for that is that when children are engaged in one on one instruction or with even self directed learning, they just learn so much more quickly and efficiently than they do in a classroom setting with one teacher and 30 kids. And there's a really famous study by Benjamin Bloom from MIT which dates back to the 50s or early 60s. I think it's called Bloom's Two Sigma problem. And what he observed is that the average student that was tutored one on one using mastery based techniques, that means they're taking the time they need to progress at the rate they need and not Miss any steps, that student performed two standard deviations above any other student who was learning in a group setting. And as a former tutor myself, I have definitely observed the power of one on one instruction. Certainly it makes logical sense. If your child is struggling in school or if your child is really strong in a subject, you want to get them a tutor. And the great thing is that there's been even more research done now by the Annenberg Institute that shows that person doesn't have to be a trained teacher. They can be a parent or a caregiver. So there's a concept I talk a lot about in homeschooling called mastery hours. This is the core subject for your power hours. So when you think about getting started and making sure that your child's learning is really accelerated, what I suggest to parents is they choose a math curriculum and an English language arts curriculum, or perhaps a full curriculum. And if their child doesn't know how to read, I would suggest math and a literacy curriculum or a math and a handwriting curriculum just to get those core skills in place. Just really all you have to do is choose the time that your child is most fresh and energized. Maybe that's 9am in the morning, maybe that's 4pm in the afternoon. Everyone has their biorhythm and try to use that really highly focused, energized time on these subjects that really need more concentration. For older kids, two hours tends to be the amount of time they can really focus on one task. And for younger kids, I would even say one hour, just 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of reading. And the thing that's special about this time is it's just really highly focused, energized time. And afterwards you'll see, especially if a child, when I talk about a younger kid, I mean a child under eight, their attention will start to dwindle and so the time becomes less effective. So even for me, I know I might spend two or three hours a day on a project that really requires a lot of attention. And then I'll spend the rest of my day on more creative mind wandering types of tasks. And then when you do spend those one to two hours on their education, you get all this incredible extra time where their minds can wander, where they can have self directed learning, where you can spend time with them. And if you're a parent who's trying to homeschool multiple kids, the way this can look is that you're, all four of you are around the table and you might help one child with mathematics for 30 minutes. While another child is reading independently, then you go on to the next. Maybe one of your older child helps your younger child with mathematics. And then children just accelerate like crazy. And we had a huge group of homeschoolers during the pandemic and using this method of 30 minutes a day or 1 hour a day on math, they just went through the entire math curriculum first through eighth grade in a matter of six months. It's just such a powerful way to learn and it doesn't work the same if you're doing it after school. It's really about what focusing your best energy on these core subjects when you're most fresh. So the first thing I say to homeschoolers is just carve out that one to two hours of mastery hours. This is my suggestion. So if you're interested in learning more about mastery hours, I have a blog post about this and why I think it's effective. If you do care about academics and core subjects, you can go to teachyourkids.substack.com and it's mastery hours very easy to find. So if you choose the right curriculum, this is why I think it's just such an important part of learning. And I, and I know there are people here who are unschoolers and prefer a lot more unstructured time and this can work great for them. This approach is kind of balancing a bit of focused academic time and then lots and lots of free time. So what's amazing about getting the right curriculum is that first of all, there's just been an explosion of homeschooling resources in the last 10, 20 years. And there are so many wonderful curricula that are completely optimized for parents or caregivers. This means you don't have to hire an expensive tutor to teach your child math. You can choose an amazing learning app like Beast Academy Online or a wonderful nature based curriculum like Wild Math Get a Babysitter and they can guide your child through that curriculum. And it's all designed for people who might not be experts themselves. So whoever is leading the curriculum, whether it's a parent or a babysitter or an older child, is able to learn with the child and help them grow and expand their capacity for self directed learning using these tools. If you choose the right curriculum, the curriculum is mastery based, which means that it's not jumping around, the child is moving forward at their own pace and they're not missing any concepts. And then you don't have to worry about progress tracking because you know that your child is learning what they need to know because they're advancing through the curriculum and not moving on to the next concept until they've mastered the one before. And some of these apps actually will even track their progress as they go. They're kind of running an assessment at the same time. The other thing is that if getting into a high school is important to you and just making sure that opportunity is open to your child, many of these curriculum are either aligned with school standards or there's been so many children that have gone through them that they know that it's going to be aligned. So these are all the benefits of choosing the right curriculum. And then the most important one, which maybe some of you have already guessed, is that your child will love learning. So many families have come to me and said their child hates math or their child hates reading. And I ask them, okay, what does your child enjoy doing? Do they love playing video games? Do they love playing outside? Do they love playing Legos? And then I suggest a curriculum to them and guess what? Suddenly their child has confidence and loves learning and is self motivated. If your child loves learning, they're going to be self directed. It's going to be easy for them to be taught. They are going to grow into self directed learners. They're going to be curious and excited and entrepreneurial. So finding the right curriculum just solves so many pieces of the puzzle and makes it so that you don't have to get high priced tutors and you can actually who knows how to guide their own learning. So if you are interested in finding the perfect curriculum for your child, this is a problem that I focused on almost more than anything else. In the last seven years, I've interviewed dozens and dozens of families about their children, their learning needs and I've created this curriculum planner. It's totally free and it's based on 200 archetypes of children. So you can say what activity your child prefers, if they have any special needs like gifted, dyslexia, dyscalculia, autism, and we'll combine those and recommend a curriculum that your child is really going to enjoy and make them feel like a confident learner who wants to learn. If your child doesn't enjoy the learning process, just forget it. You are so behind. You really, really want to find something that they love. Even if you have to try a few times to get there. It will make such a huge difference. But what about socialization? Okay, so I see Tom and some other friends here and some people have already arrived saying okay, I am convinced on the academic part. Obviously if my child gets a one on one instruction and is free to pursue their interests, they're going to learn so much more than they will in any traditional school. But I really want them to make friends. Okay, so here are some myths about socialization which I spend my life debunking. First of all, there's this idea that peers matter more than parents, that kids really have to hang out with other kids the same age. There's this book by Dr. Gordon Neufeld called hold on to your kids. He really talks about how that secure attachment between a parent and a child is the foundation for every other social interaction they'll have in their life. This idea of a peer culture where kids need to hang out in these groups, almost like a Lord of the Flies type thing, is really only something that's emerged since the 1950s, before things were much more family oriented. And I see this time and again that when children really do have that close, trusting connection with their parents, they don't even have a teen rebellion. It's very easy, easy for them to relate to people of all ages. So if you have this idea that kids like have this huge need to hang out with peers, otherwise they won't be social, would really take a step and question that assumption. There's another myth that kids need tons of friends. Actually, that's not true. Some kids have a really high need for lots of friends. Other kids are really happy with just one friend. And that changes as they grow. I mean, until about the age of six or seven, parents are plenty. Unless a child expresses a profound need and says they're lonely and wants to have friends and expresses that you are really enough for them. And then once they're eight or nine, they might start wanting to hang around older kids, kids of the same age, maybe other adults. And then by the time they get into their teens, some of them really might want to grow their friend group and others might be fine just having one or two friends. So this whole idea that kids need to learn to socialize with other kids is kind of unfounded. And if you think about it, I mean, when you grow up, you don't really need to socialize with other kids. You really need to learn how to socialize with grownups. I was always a kid who never really could socialize with anyone but grownups. And now for some reason, I get along really well with kids. So go figure. And then this other idea is that school is a healthy environment for socialization. You know, in school you have these cliques, you have classes where kids sit with peers the same age all day, they're not necessarily very diverse environments. There's a lot of bullying. It's, it's not necessarily just by throwing a kid in a big school that they're going to learn to socialize and feel like they have a lot of friends. So here's some great things about homeschooling for socialization. And every homeschooling community is different. So this is not 100% of time. I know that there are homeschoolers who struggle to make friends, but first of all, you have mixed age groups. You have adults and older children around. And so if you're talking about learning social skills, another 8 year old is not going to teach you how to be a good friend. But an adult can help guide that relationship and navigate conflict and empower children to speak for themselves, themselves. It's really wonderful to have a group of adults and older children around to guide relationships. That doesn't mean a kid isn't going to learn to stand up for themselves. It just means that they have support in doing that. In homeschooling, you have so much time for unstructured play, especially if you're doing mastery hours. You have 8, 10, 20, 30 hours a week just to play and engage and have fun with your friends. You can choose your friends. You're not stuck with the same group. And you can see who you like, who you don't like, who you want to be with. You can decide how much friend time you want. It's not just, you know, 5 times 5, 25 hours a week. If you're a kid who likes 2 or 3 hours a week of friends, you can do that. If you're a kid who needs 100 hours of friend time, you can do that. And I will say on the opposite side, it's a real problem for a lot of homeschoolers who have too much of a social calendar. Like, they dive in and start doing all these classes and events and pretty soon they find they're just schlepping their kid around in the car 40 hours a week. So I would really ease in and maybe choose one class or one group when you start and also start teaching your kid how to use the subway and organize their friend groups themselves because it can actually be a bit overwhelming and a bit too much. So we ran a survey two years ago to see which was better for socialization, school or homeschool. It turned out 75% of homeschoolers are satisfied with their children's social Life, compared with 51% of kids in school, which was kind of a shocker to me. I didn't expect it to be so dramatic. And 2,000 people filled out the survey. Clearly, there's our own biases in our survey. But this does show that a lot of homeschoolers have very happy, vibrant communities, which is wonderful in an age where we can often feel lonely and disconnected. So how do you make friends as a homeschooler? First thing I say, you know, and when we talk about. Let's get back to the beginning. The first first thing you should do if you're thinking about homeschooling or if you just started homeschooling, is to find your local homeschool group. It's very easy. Go on Facebook, search unschooling your city or homeschooling your city and you will surely find a group. If you can't find one, just message me, I will find it for you. I am an expert at that. And just Jo. And often you'll see that there's a meetup or you can search for one and just go to a meetup that's already organized. And if you don't see a meetup, you can just post a message to the group and say, hey, I'm new to homeschooling, or I'm thinking about homeschooling. I have a seven year old, he loves Legos. Would anyone want to hang out on a play date? Because remember, it doesn't have to be a big group. One idea that I found works really well is hosting a weekly board game night at your house. It might take a while to take off or it might take off immediately, but the key is consistency so people always know it's happening that night at your house. And this is an especially good hack for introverted parents because a bunch of kids can come to your house and play board games and you can just hang out on the sidelines. You don't have to chit chat with other parents if that doesn't feel authentic to you. So for those introverts there, I highly recommend the board game night. Join one class. You don't need to start with 10 classes. When you start homeschooling, find one class. It could be an after school or a homeschool class that your child seems to be interested in and then just start hanging out with people in that class. I really recommend that you layer on classes slowly as you see what your child likes. So they're just not totally chock full of classes to start. It's really beautiful to grow your homeschooling organically. And the other thing, I just. It's so hard for me to convince parents of this, and I really, really wish that more people would take my advice to heart. But I do find that sometimes parents get their kids together for a playdate and there's not a click, and then it's just done. Our kids didn't click. But actually, you know, it can take time to get to know a person, and you might even feel like you don't resonate with your local homeschooling community. Like, oh, these people don't have the same views on politics or religion as me. These people, you know, are too hippie, or these people are too WASPy, or, you know something, you just don't feel like they're your people. But I do have to believe that there's kindness and goodness and beauty in each person, and I would just encourage you to give it a little time. I mean, I do understand if you're a secular homeschool living in the Bible Belt and everybody is. Is super Christian, you might just not be able to fit into that group and their politics and vice versa. If you're Christian and everyone's a bunch of, you know, grungy atheists, you might not want to be in that group. Sorry not to be stereotypical. I mean, I can understand there are differences that are hard to overcome. You know, if you are black or queer and people are very racist and anti lgbtq, that is not an environment you should force yourself to be in. However, it is nice to give things time. You know, occasionally. If parents are really passionate about homeschooling, I will recommend moving. I mean, some parents move to Brooklyn. You know, there's some. Richmond, Virginia is a wonderful place to homeschool. Portland, Sacramento. There are cities that are more hub spots for progressive, diverse homeschooling, and so that can also be an option. But, you know, all I'm saying is just give it a time. Especially if you're in a rural area, your kids have a play date, it's not their best fit, unfortunately. If they were in school, they would kind of be forced to be together for months until they finally got along. But in homeschooling, we're a little bit more online date y sometimes, and we don't give it more than one chance. The other thing is that it really is good to center your playdate around an activity like a board game, so it doesn't feel like the kids really need to talk about common interest. Interests online friendships can be great, too. We connect kids all the Time for online play dates. We have a Minecraft club where a lot of kids have connected really well. So if you want to make a friend somewhere around the world, just let me know. I'm happy to be a kid matchmaker for you. And just, you know, as I'm talking about these communities, I realize I might be using some words that feel stereotypical to people and it's only things that I'm echoing that I've seen people say in homeschool groups that have made them feel uncomfortable about one group or another. So if my language, you know, is something that you feel uncomfortable with, I do apologize. And I hope that some of you are aware too that you have your own prejudices and that's okay. And part of building community is, is for us all, including me, to recognize those and overcome and connect with people who feel different than us to expand our minds and our hearts and, and grow together and transform our society. So if you want to learn more about socialization, my opus is in modulo app Homeschool social. I have every single thing you would ever want to know about making friends and homeschooling versus school for socialization. Okay, so what about child care? This is a huge question and I would say that that not education and not socialization. But child care is actually the real challenge in homeschooling. So child care. So if you are a stay at home parent or a grandparent or have a family member, that can be a great option for keeping your child engaged. If you are, you can also consider hiring a full time caregiver or a family helper. A lot of parents go into homeschool co ops that meet one or two or three days a week. And then other options are a childcare swap. A lot of families who work from home use block scheduling where they give their children a calendar. And there's two hours where parents are working, children choose an activity and two hours where the parents where they choose another activity. And the great thing is that as your child grows, they will learn to be hopefully even more independent and self sufficient. So my personal favorite, I actually don't have kids of my own and I hope to homeschool one day is hiring au pair. A lot of agencies you can have someone live with you, it's $7,000 a year and they can help care for your children. And the great thing is if you do choose the right homeschooling curriculum, you almost anybody can help your child learn. Even you know, especially if you're really tired at the end of the day and you don't have time for the mastery learning or the energy for the mastery learning. You can have a caregiver help. Okay, so when you're thinking about child care, I would just really suggest don't make these mistakes. Younger children really need significant time with a caregiver. And you know, you just, you know, parents want to encourage self directed learning too much by engaging with them, by encouraging grit. But they do need to hang out with either you or a babysitter or someone else. You can't really expect them to spend a really long time periods of time alone. And then if you are in this great position where one parent is doing most of the homeschooling while the other one works, you really need time to yourself as a stay at home parent. So if you don't, you need to find, think about like how much time do you need? Is it three hours a week? Is it a day to yourself? And make sure that you get your partner or a child care provider to give you that me time that you need. Otherwise you're going to be unhappy and everything is going to fall apart. I would say it's probably the biggest mistake in homeschooling that I see is the stay at home parent not carving out even a few hours to be alone and with themselves. If you want to know more about child care, you can go to Modulo app Homeschool child care. I'm almost done. Ready for questions. I think that maybe through seeing the mastery hours and knowing the rest of the time is for play and classes, you kind of get a sense of the organization of it all. These are some sample schedules just to give you a flavor. You can wake up and have breakfast. You might do math with Beast Academy, literacy with Bob Books, some self directed time, piano lessons, play date in the afternoon or a class. And then we have as kids get older, I'm happy to share these schedules with you. It might kind of branch into a little bit more math and English language arts. Maybe one full day at Brooklyn Apple Academy, a homeschool co op in Brooklyn where they can see other kids along community meetup as they get older, there's a little bit more math, more English language arts, much more independence in terms of hanging out with friends. Maybe you bring in some volunteer work. And then in high school, by the time they're in high school, they really start to become incredibly independent, especially if they've been homeschooling since they're children. And this is a great time to bring in a day of work opportunity or volunteering. And you can Figure out more about creating a schedule at module app homeschool schedule. So this is kind of wrapping up what you asked in your questions. A lot of people were concerned about staying on track and I think that really doing the one on one math and the one on one ELA with a good curriculum resolves a lot of that. But there are some really good resources like Homeschool BOSS and the Map Growth test. You can always just take a test to see where your child is doing and kind of target those areas. Is this doable for a stay at home mom of four? Absolutely. It's a lot of work. I think it does require that kind of rotation of mastery hours and older kids helping younger kids, which is so good for their own mastery of subjects. You know, probably the hardest is if both parents work outside the home. And I think in that situation, you really do need to find a caregiver and the caregiver can absolutely do some of the homeschooling and bring kids around to the activities. If you don't have a lot of money, you can swap. There's lots of single mothers who homeschool. I'm not saying that it's easy, but parents who send their kids to school also have a child care problem. But what's nice about homeschooling is that people do really share and care and share resources. It's a really beautiful, vibrant community. I know that there are people here who have kids over at their house all the time supporting other families while they work and try to figure out their lives. There are more and more funds emerging to support homeschooling. I would say the curriculum itself can be free or maybe $500 a year. Classes can get more expensive, but there's something called essays. And a lot of like Arizona and Florida are offering funding for homeschoolers. And there's ways, if you have an iep, which is your child is diagnosed with special needs, you can sometimes get special funding for that as well. And you can learn more about tracking your child's progress at Modulo app Homeschool Accountability. And I'm also happy to share. So back to question one and then I'll open it up to your questions. I would say if you are kind of feeling overwhelmed about where to start, my personal recommendations would be number one. Just get inspired and excited. Maybe read a book about homeschooling, listen to a podcast, definitely join a homeschooling Facebook group. Just go to a local meetup that is going to give you such a sense of what it's like to Homeschool in the community. You're going to get tons of recommendations about local regulations, et cetera. Homeschooling laws are very easy to find and I'm happy to also message anybody and tell them what the laws are in their state. You basically just go homeschooling. New York City laws come straight up. If you want you can copy and paste them into ChatGPT and say explain this to me like a 10 year old. If the law seems strict, there's always a ways to get around it so you can do unschooling and more self directed learning and the path you want. And yeah, choose a math curriculum your child loves. Choose an English language arts curriculum your child loves. Make sure you pick those one to two hours where they're really focused and energized to do that hardcore learning. And again, this is a perspective. If you really are anti teaching your kids math and ela, I am all open to your thoughts, but if you really care about academics and them keeping on track, these one or two hours are going to be plenty. And then you have the big task of figuring out a child care plan, whether that's a stay at home parent who gets some time to themselves, child care swaps au pairs. But that's really the big challenge you're going to have to surmount if you decide to homeschool. And then but you know, even in school child care can be a problem. So maybe it's better that you have a flexible plan. And if you have three kids and you hire a babysitter or a teacher, that's going to be a lot less expensive than private school or even after school care. And then I would say just start with one class a week, don't overdo it and layer on. And then you know, if you're concerned about progress, you don't even really have to track your children's progress except for certain state reporting. But it can just kind of give you peace of mind and there's just great tools like homeschool bus to do that. And I really encourage you to track progress within the context of, of your own goals for your child's development rather than goals that have been imposed to you. So that is my presentation for you and I am sorry, I think that someone wasn't able to see all the slides and I wasn't able to fix it. But I'm really, really excited to hear your questions. So I think I'm going to try to attempt to stop screen sharing now and then we can, we can talk if anyone has questions Just feel free to unmute themselves. Let's see. I was curious for. You mentioned the younger children needing more time with the caregiver. What's your sort of cutoff for when you can sort of start tapering that or like what's the sort of like.

Like I don't know, framework for thinking about that?

Yeah, so I just realized, I think that you guys didn't even see my slides at all. I was trying to share them with you. Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry, yeah. You mentioned for younger, for young children to not try to do as much sort of autonomy and like self focused time because they need more time with the parent. I was curious like is there like.

A guideline for, for a given age.

About how much time is needed with the parent or like when is it? When can you sort of start doing more self directed time versus yeah, so I think that all time can be self directed time. I mean it really depends on what, you know, your child's own kind of motivation is. Like I was a child who could probably just like read for hours on my own starting very young. But some other children need more attention. And so I think that, you know, like what's just really important is that there's a caregiver around that's connecting with them on some level. So I think that like when you're, when you're with your child you just need to be like really conscious about like whether they're lonely or whether they're engaged in an activity and then just kind of like allow them to be bored. Like resist that temptation to just try to entertain them all the time. And that will help cultivate self directed learning. I don't know. I know we have some amazing unschoolers here. If Bill or maybe angel had some thoughts on that, they're here. Do you, when did your children start being self directed?

You know, I started out with these kinds of, of the kind of thinking that my children were in charge of their learning even before they were at of the age of schooling. And I don't feel like there was ever some kind of transition. They, they've just been in charge of it the whole time. But I think that my perspective is a little different from parents who have a sort of mental timeline of what skills they want at different ages. I've been very relaxed about that and decided to just let things run their own course. But I think that other parents have a very different perspective on when to introduce things and the definition of self directed or sufficiency of self direction I think intersects with the definition of what you want the child to be doing with that self direction. And you might think, oh, I need to control them until this age because you have your own idea.

At one point I spent a lot of time with a very young child around the age of three and essentially what we would do is go to the park and I would sit while he would play. And I didn't really feel like running around the park in the way that he did as a crazy 3 year old. And so I would just kind of just almost like do a meditation. My body like being present to my own boredom and being present to, you know, like him asking me to play and me wanting to or not and sometimes engaging and sometimes not. But I think the thing is that at that age I was really fully, fully present with him while allowing him to do that activity. And if he was bored, I was really just reflecting like, oh, you're bored. How does that feel in your body? You know, instead of trying to change the boredom situation. But in the outdoor environment it wasn't like a place you could get distracted with, you know, like I want to watch TV or, or do something like that, but I do. You know, it's kind of a two sided coin because there's also, you know, if you want to work at home while you have a young child, you kind of them being self directed really does save you time. Like if you have to be in a meeting, you kind of want them to do their own thing so there can be a balance of that. You know, like maybe they have a certain set of activities they do when you're in a meeting and you've both discussed why it's important for them to do their activities while you're in the meeting, whether it be reading or drawing. But you know, I do think that having even just a parent helper or someone around is valuable. I mean, I know kids. I had a single mom and I just really literally went with her every single place she went all throughout my childhood, whether she was presenting study skills or whatnot, I was just always there and she was kind of, it was the 80s, you know, that was not necessarily appropriate to just take your child to every professional environment you went to. And you know, like it was only like in my 30s where she's like, you just like can't just walk into my office unannounced. This is not appropriate anymore. But I don't know, I think that it really benefits them to be around their parents. I don't know if that, that answers your Question. Well, but it's so different for every child and it's. Yeah, I see.

Angel.

Angel. Oh, angel has great thoughts, I'm sure.

No, I was gonna say as somebody who has worked while having, while homeschooling a kid and that whole shuffle thing is really remembering that just because you're together doesn't mean you are spending time together. And then what we're talking about is that giving your child your undivided attention for a period of time. And I think when we're together with somebody all the time, we're like, but I was with you all day. I've been answering all those questions. But you've also had a divided attention that they felt that they have to compete for and making sure to set aside time where they can just talk about what they're excited about. They're learning new things. They're little sponges that like, that's like, even if they are learning on their own, like, we know when we're excited about something, we want to tell somebody about it. Right?

Like, I learned this new thing.

I saw this new thing. We're sharing a meme with somebody. We're whatever, you know, and it's the same thing for them very much. They want to be able to express that. They want to be able to share that and, and having your attention undivided to really listen to what they're saying and sharing that excitement and be like, oh, but did you notice this? And then you can really sort of expand on it too and take advantage of it being a little learning window sometimes too.

That is just such a fantastic point. And it makes me think about the kind of investment you're putting in with that level of attention. I mean, if your child has had like a really difficult day and been really kind of needy of your attention all day, it, you know, maybe they haven't gotten that really present one on one time with you. And I know parents who just are spending, you know, five minutes in the morning meditating with their child or headspace has some really great parent child meditations. And it just, just pays off so much. And you know, when you're able to be present with your child in that way, and then you see them grow up to be a teen who doesn't rebel because they have such a secure attachment with you that grows up to be a teen who knows how to take the New York City subway and meet up with friends because they have that trust and safety and foundation. It's just. Yeah, so it's, you know, I think if something goes off maybe, you know, especially it happens a lot with siblings where maybe one child isn't feeling like they're getting enough one on one time and just 20 minutes with mom and then it's just kind of things become calmer and easier. The other thing I would mention is that in the Reggio Amelia approach we talk about the child has three teachers and it's the teacher, the parent and then the environment. And there are really clever ways that you can set up your environment to have activities that your child might enjoy that feel safe and that can really help encourage a spirit of self directed learning as well. Anybody else have a question? I want to hear all your questions. I'm trying to see if there's anything that I left off of these amazing list of things. What, what did you guys feel about my child care suggestions? Did that feel unreasonable, overly optimistic? Well, people were curious about how to find and create learning pods. We I got my start in homeschooling working with an amazing homeschool co op learning pod called Brooklyn Apple Academy. And the teacher had set up a little program at the bottom of a, a basement of a synagogue and next to Prospect Park. And this little group of children would come one or two or three times a week and tinker around maker space, write what activities they wanted to do every day. And now it's grown into a thriving homeschool resource center in Brooklyn. And we, you know, starting a learning pod, it really can be as simple or as complex as you want. You can. Again, it really starts with that local Facebook group going in and saying like, hey, would anybody else want to join one or two days a week and finding a teacher or swapping parents and the kids can bring their own curriculum or you can have an activity they all do together. There's one homeschool co op in San Francisco I love. It's three hours Tuesday morning. It's a parent share and they have have three month arcs. So basically one parent I think takes over a month and they do that month and then the other parents can actually go and you know, have run some errands or do whatever they love. And it's just a really nice way to share community and skills. And then there are others that are one or two or three days and. Yeah, so lots of good options there. Oh, Bill? Yes.

In your original outline we talked, you mentioned the question around career preparation or college preparation. I'm not sure. Yeah, zoned out, but I don't remember you covering it.

Oh, yes. Yeah. So I think my first point was that if you Choose a really great curriculum, you're going to be on track. Oh, baby. Oh, my gosh. And well prepared for, for college. But I will just say, say first of all, that colleges, especially more elite universities, love homeschoolers. Stanford and MIT especially are very, very homeschool friendly. And part of it is just because these homeschoolers aren't used to being told what to do for the past nine or 10 years. So they take a lot of initiative over their own education and they're just so excited about this wealth of resources that they can take advantage of of. So homeschoolers are seen as very entrepreneurial, very creative. They often have really cool projects that they've done and there are very, they're kind of different pathways to get into college. I know some homeschoolers who took a bunch of AP exams and these are basically tests that you can use for college credit, but they also show your level of skill. So it's, for example, really impressive to get a 5 on an AP history or AP calculator. Obviously you can take the SAT. And now there's so many micro credentials. Like, I know a homeschooler was 16 who has a Python certification from Google. It's, you know, that's really changing the game. And then also you can create a portfolio. Many parents just take pictures, you know, every day and start creating a journal. They can just share it in a, save it in a Google Drive. People also use that if there's an annual report that you have to give to your state and kind of just tag the photos with the activity. So, but yeah, I mean, homeschool, you know, these colleges and universities really love homeschoolers. And you know, there, it can be helpful to work with an admissions counselor or someone who focuses on homeschooling, but just kind of having that creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. You, you really have a leg above. And then, you know, if you're trying to be strategic about how to get into college as a homeschooler, I would definitely recommend, you know, trying to connect with homeschooler at the school that you want to go to and asking them about their experience, what they submitted. It's pretty easy to get a homeschool transcript. You just Google homeschool transcript and you're good with that. A lot of homeless floors take the ged. Many high school kids take community college courses, so they're already set with a bunch of college classes and certifications before they even apply. Yeah. And then just in terms of getting into, I guess what you would Say like a private high school, making sure you're not held back. Again, like I think the Map growth test is really great. It shows progress and growth and you know, you can use that to show where your kids at and also just to assuage your own fears if you're worried they're not where they need to be. But the world is changing so much and the skills that schools are preparing, you know, the schools, the skills schools are teaching are not necessarily the skills kids are going to need to thrive in the world. And so you know, a lot of people, when I go to education conferences, a lot of people are even unclear if college is going to continue to exist. So really kind of building up those micro credentials and you know, thinking, having that time to think what do I want to do in the world? What do I want to be? And having those skills to learn and be self directed that will allow them to change careers multiple times in their lives is just so impactful. But I mean micro credentialing is just like is the newest thing and I think that's going to benefit homeschoolers a lot. Anything else I'm leaving out here? Anything I said that you disagreed with or found really confusing? Oh, I think some people are putting a question in the chat. What would it feel like while teaching a great well fitting curriculum in terms of kid enthusiasms? We're halfway through 100 easy lessons and is required a fair bit of bit of pushing. Not awful. Have had more enthusiasm for Khan Academy Kids games but it doesn't cover reading the same holistic way. Oh thank you Andrew. I think 100 Easy Lessons is one of the most boring books I've ever seen in my life. It is very effective. But unless a kid is like one of those types who can just sit down and focus, it's going to be a tough sell. And Khan Academy kids doesn't have the literacy and that's one of the reasons I always say to parents choose a separate math and a separate literacy. They are so specific that they are generally not very good as part of a full curriculum. It really depends on your daughter and I would suggest you use the modulo curriculum plan. But I love wild reading. If she's nature and outdoor based it's just a beautiful nature based phonics based aligned with the science of reading. If she likes homer is so fun for early literacy. It's just an adaptive learning app for early math and early reading and that is just great. Nessie is really fun if she likes adaptive learning apps. Depending on what level she's at. We've had some success with Alpha Blocks, which is a Fun show on YouTube and you can pause it and ask questions. But I really think that, you know, if you want to see the same enthusiasm she's had for Khan Academy kids, you just need to switch out of 100 easy lessons. Like that is not going to be the one to get her excited about reading. But I would also say regarding reading, it's an area where parents often start to feel nervous if their kids don't know how to read at age 4 or 5 and think that it would benefit them to learn earlier. I tend to have a lot of fights with people on Twitter who are building AI literacy apps for kids to learn to read at 2 because I feel like kind of, what's the point of knowing how to read at age 2 and the way that your mind forms, you're just not developmentally ready to learn certain reading concepts until your brain has formed certain parts of itself and you can get turned off to reading because you're pushed to read too soon. I'm not at all saying that you're doing that, Andrew, and I don't think you are. But learning to read earlier is not necessarily better. Like, you learn to read and then you're done. You know how to read. It doesn't really matter when. If you wait until you're 10, it might be kind of embarrassing being around other kids and not knowing how to read. But I just, I really don't see any need to learn how to read earlier. If you want to learn French. Yes, your brain is more plastic. Learning language is a natural process, whereas learning how to read is not a natural process. So kids will acquire reading skills naturally, but not reading skills, language skills naturally, but you know, reading. I just say, like, take your time, read books together and then use a good phonics based curriculum that they like, love and they will have so much fun. Can I ask for curriculum from San Francisco public schools so we can stay on track with her peers? Sixth grade, if she will read integrating back to school at some point? Absolutely. You absolutely can. And you should ask, ask, ask from the public schools all the time. Sometimes they will give you a lot. Like you can participate in sports, you can get special services. Just ask. And the more you ask for stuff, the more all homeschoolers are likely to get stuff. Sometimes you can file even independent study with San Francisco public schools. But I would say I would not go that route. I would choose a curriculum she enjoys that's aligned with school standards and then she'll be perfectly able to get back on track when she returns to school. You know, so something, you know, try the modulo curriculum planner, find a good ELA and math and the ones we recommend will keep her aligned with school standards. And if you're worried, you can take a quick test like Map Growth or mobimax is also a good one. But I would definitely go with something she likes that we have vetted than just the San Francisco curriculum. Because the other problem is that curriculum is designed for in public schools for trained public school teachers to teach. And sometimes it can be very confusing for people outside the system to understand how to use curriculum. Whereas homeschool curriculum is specifically designed for homeschool parents. And it will also ensure that she's staying on track with school standards if it's a good curriculum. So, you know, that's why a lot of parents in the pandemic felt overwhelmed because they were trying to help with homework given by school that was designed for trained teachers. So it's just much better to homeschool with a curriculum that's designed for you. My opinion. Tom. Hi Manisha, it's so nice to hear your voice. You're a veteran homeschooler.

Thanks for, thanks for this presentation. I just want to throw in my 2 cents about the last question. Not everybody might agree with me about.

This, but.

Certainly you can look up stand up standards on school board websites and to have those, you know, as a comparison point is, is useful. But I've often found that even if you don't necessarily align to those standards or strictly align to those standards, kids have a way of being able to, you know, a lot of homeschooling kids, not everyone I'm sure, but a lot of homeschooling kids are so used to self directed learning and are so used to figuring things out for themselves that they often adjust rather quickly even if they feel like they're behind on stuff. And they often adapt really well once they get used to it a little bit. So it's not something that I feel like people needlessly have a lot of anxiety about.

That's been my experience as well, Tom, that they are very flexible learners and are good at learning systems very quickly and school is a system and the same with socializing that if kids, sometimes a homeschool kid will want to just see what a bigger high school is like and they very quickly become incredibly popular. They're just really good at relating to lots of different people and understanding how these systems work. Along those lines, there is a parent on Instagram who asked me, how do children adjust to more structured environments when they are much older and need to work or stick to some type of schedule as an adult if they have been allowed to be self directed in their learning all along? So it's really a curious thing. The homeschoolers and I work with a specific segment of homeschoolers who are doing those one or two hours of mastery hours and have a lot of self directed learning time and have parents who are willing to let them fail because it's a mindset that you have this incredible foundation of trust for your child. So you're giving them that freedom because you have this faith in their intrinsic motivation. So within that segment of parents that I'm working with, these children develop incredibly good executive functioning skills. So if what they want is to work in a highly structured office, they can game that system very well. If what they want is to be a crazy startup entrepreneur, they learn the game of startups. If what they want is to do the high school click thing, they learn the high school click click thing. They're just really able to adapt to different systems without much difficulty. Now, on the opposite side, an older child who has been in school and then transitions to homeschooling tends to have a lot more difficulty because they are used to being told what to do and they don't know what to do when there's no one else to structure their day. So it can be very challenging for someone who is kind of like getting orders all the time, has this very, very, you know, very prescribed system that they're supposed to operate in and then all of a sudden they have freedom. What do I do with that freedom? I don't know. But homeschoolers are very comfortable. That has been my experience. And talking to also others I know who have worked in the space for 30, 40, 50 years.

Bill. Tom, I didn't, I didn't really want to put you on the spot so you can pass, but I saw that you were seeking inspiration for setting up your schedule for this year and I'm wondering if Manisha has given you that inspiration or if you have any more questions or you want to share any challenges you're facing coming up with that new schedule.

Well, I'm in the brainstorming phase right now and right now I'm, I'm just tossing a lot of ideas out and so I've been seeking.

Just.

I'm not exactly sure if it's particularly concrete ideas, but just to be able to get. I think it's more just psyching myself up for the year and for the season, coming up and getting myself into a mentality of organizing my thoughts. Thoughts and. Yeah, and it has been inspirational. It's been good to check in and to once again hear how great it is to have these opportunities and how much freedom we have in terms of. And flexibility that we have.

Have.

It's good to be reminded of all those things.

It's nice to be around others and to learn in community, I think. I mean, it just shows that it's so cool seeing what Bill's doing or seeing what Tom is doing or Daniel or Angel and saying, hey, maybe I want to try that. And the same for kids, I think. Contrast to the isolated, lonely homeschooler. It's a community that's united around learning and. And learning collaboratively and socially. I think that, you know, a couple people are saying they would like kind of more of these meetings where we can share ideas and strategize together. That'd be really fun. Well, if that's all the questions, I guess we will wrap it up right on the dot. Very proud of myself. And anybody can stay on and. And talk to me for hours, too. I'm really happy to continue this conversation as long as we need to.