Modular Learning as a New Education System

Welcome to Changemaker. Edu, a podcast that inspires powerful individual and collective transformation by sharing leadership, personal development and education change making ideas and stories to ignite people like you to create the change deep within your soul, embody your calling and bring your dreams to life. I'm your host, David K. Richards, and I share wisdom from my 25 plus years as an education innovator, school founder and CEO, mindset teacher and leadership coach, but also interviewing other diverse paradigm shifters. Join me in our grassroots movement to create lasting impact, one education change maker at a time. All right, welcome everyone. Manisha and I just had this great conversation and as always, I asked my guests at the end, which you haven't heard the conversation yet, but at the end to share what are some key takeaways that they felt like you're going to hear if you continue to listen to this podcast today. So, Manisha, what do you think was kind of. What were some of the takeaways from today's conversation?

Well, David, I think we had a real heart to heart about how getting in alignment with yourself and setting goals for your child's education can really support you. Along the way, we also debunked the myth of socialization and helped families understand how they can curate an ideal social experience for their child and really figure out how social experiences are in their homeschooling community near them. And then lastly, I will say you might get some insights into how you can build more confidence as a parent and you might discover that you're a much more talented teacher than you realize.

That is a great teaser. Absolutely. Yeah. So I really enjoyed the time with because she is definitely a homeschool expert and shared, you know, that. That it's possible. There's many resources, there's community. She has modulo which will help you explore the resources, build the community, put you in the right place. And it's not just a homeschooling conversation. It's about education in general. It's about, like she said, parenting confidence in you, knowing that you're your child's best teacher and what do you believe is best for yourself and your family. So we cover a lot of really cool topics and I think you'll learn a lot today. And it was really great having Manisha on. So thanks again, Manisha.

Thanks so much for having me, David. I hope it's the beginning of many more conversations to come.

Absolutely. Agreed. Hello everyone. Welcome to Changemaker. Edu. I'm super excited to be here with Manisha. Is that. Is that how you say your name? I Forgot to ask.

That is how I say my name. Thank you. It's great to be here, David.

Great to be with you. I want to start with reading Manisha's bio and then jumping into kind of some work she's doing and kind of the heart of the conversation. So Manisha is a teacherpreneur. I've heard edupreneur, but I haven't heard teacherpreneur. So I love that. And the CEO and co founder of Modulo, a curated online community for homeschooling families facilitated by experienced educators and certified child life specialists. I'd like to hear what a child life specialist is at one point. Over the last 20 years, Manisha has taught over 2000 children in three countries in private school, public school, and as a tutor. She's passionate about making a more inclusive educational system that values the individuality and autonomy of each child and helps parents and communities play a more active role in their learning. Yes. Exciting.

Sounds pretty good.

Sounds great. So let's jump in here and tell us all about Modulo. Why did you create it and what is it all about?

Sure. So I was a teacher for 20 years. I tutored 18 different subjects in three countries. I taught at private schools, public schools. At one time, I became a bilingual sub in the New York City Department of Education. So I got to go around to all kinds of schools in different neighborhoods. And I really experienced something that seemed crazy to me. I don't really know how else to put it. And whenever I think I'm alarmist, I just step back in a classroom and realize that I still feel that way, which was really an education system that I consider to be broken at every level. I tutored children with wonderful, caring parents who are going to some of the most elite private schools in New York City. And I had students throwing up during my tutoring sessions because they were so stressed, or we'd be studying French and they just. They had been studying French for four years and had no ability to speak the language, you know, and it was very. That was very confusing to me. Similarly, in math, and you see children who are naturally have a natural aptitude for the way that math is taught in school, and other children who don't as who just automatically go to, I'm not good at math. And then even in some of the best public schools with classes where children had IEPs, which means those classes get extra funding. I had 25 to 30 students in a class. Anything that was a resource. I mean, when I taught music, every single musical instrument was donated by the PTA on top of that. I mean, these students, it was a 20. New York City is a 22,000 per pupil allotment. And there was just nothing. And so I started feeling like if I had 22,030 kids in my classroom, I could build a palace. I could build the most incredible school in the world. And so I started kind of thinking about this concept. And along the way, I discovered that there was this segment of parents in New York City who were starting to create their own homeschool co ops where they couldn't. Public school was just not an option for their child. Maybe they were autistic, maybe they had high anxiety or behavioral problems. And private school was just so expensive. And even if they could afford 60, 70, $80,000 a year, there were huge waiting lists. And so I got really interested in this homeschool co op model because it seemed really cool. You have a great teacher, they design a school according to what the children need. There was a New York Times article about this really cool school called the Rad School that was started by a famous photographer and a journalist at the New York Times, where they had eight kids and they were hiring instructors. So I got really interested in homeschool co ops. And then via the homeschool co ops, I started getting really interested in homeschooling, which completely blew my mind because I had an image of these very antisocial religious families of a mother in an apron at the kitchen table teaching her kids six hours a day. You know, I really thought homeschoolers are just so weird, you know, I mean, who would ever want to do that? And what I found was techies, teachers, entrepreneurs who were innovating their children's education in such an extraordinary way. And so the more I started hanging out with these people and learning their ways, I guess you could say, the more I got interested in what basically was a new education system that had emerged from the secular homeschooling movement that really started in the 1970s, 80s with John Holt and John Taylor Gatto. So at the same time, I had become a host on Airbnb. And that's what gave me the idea to start Airbnb for childhood education. So my first startup was a marketplace for micro schools where teachers could sign up and people could enroll in their micro school. And it was very successful. We went through techstars, we got investment from one of the founders at Airbnb, but somehow it always kind of felt limiting to me. And what I ultimately concluded is that we were still recreating school with a Teacher, a group of students and a class. And what we really needed was something more modular. And there was a precedent for that in the homeschooling community. And so Eric Reese, who, you know and who introduced us and wrote the Lean Startup, was also very interested in homeschooling at the time. And he approached me and said, how would you like to start a new company where we are really focused on this type of modular learning where families are curating their children's education? And so he. And I said, sure, I'll do that. Why not? You know, and that's kind of my attitude, right? So he's, do you want to build a new public education system? Yeah, that sounds fun. So Eric and I got started. The beginning was just a lot of interviews, a lot of talking to parents and their needs. And then I did a huge review of different curriculum options available. And then as we just started working on this, the pandemic broke out and Eric said, we have to do something. So overnight I built schoolclosures.org, which was the largest network of nonprofits and 300 volunteers, the largest network of organizations. So there were tech companies, nonprofits, all types of people Twilio built as a hotline. And then we had 300 volunteers who were working around the clock, just responding to parents needs in real time. And that gave me so much information about what was needed to build a decentralized education system. I mean, we weren't really ready to scale, but in terms of learning, it was just a huge gift. Like, what do parents need? They need meals, they need childcare, they need tutoring, they need curriculum, and they need computers. And that was all there. And so then I started building out Modulo. We also started a free tutoring platform called masteryheart.org we started innovating a lot in the way online learning happens. Online learning does not have to be a student sitting at a desk. We drew heavily on if we're going to be online, let's choose the best online teacher. Let's use Art for Kids, Art Hub for Kids, and use Cosmic Kids Yoga and combine that with a live teacher. Let's combine adaptive learning apps with a live teacher. Let's get a 3D camera so kids can bounce around their room, the best mic, you know, so they can be heard and seen. And so we did a lot of innovation around that. And at the time, actually, Jeremy Howard, who founded Fast AI, joined as a parent. And so he was helping me a lot in trying to think about what how to integrate online learning. And while continuing the in person part which was finding tutors in person, classes in person, all that, that was our journey. And today we have a platform where families can find tutors, classes, get support. And the child life specialists are actually, it's a special term for someone who's certified to work with children in hospitals. But the field is starting to expand beyond hospitals. And what's really interesting about child life specialists is that they're trained in whole child development. So they understand, they're teachers, they know how to teach, but they understand every single developmental stage and how trauma impacts learning. And what's even better is they know how to communicate with all of a child's stakeholders, their parents, their teacher, et cetera. So I found them to be the ideal teacher of the future. Because right now teachers are trained to help children memorize formulas and facts. But these teachers are really prepared to help children develop holistically. And with a little nudging and support, support can also help students become self directed learners. And so a lot of the work became what are the resistance? Where's the resistance to self directed learning? Unlocking that and going from there. So that's what brought us to where we are today.

That is an amazing story. You did it well.

Good, good.

I know you, I mean, I know when you ask these questions, I told her, I'm like, I'm going to ask you this why question at the very beginning. But it really does get to the heart of what you're doing. And I didn't know all the details and that's really cool. And we had met three or four years ago when I had talked to Eric Reese and he was like, my kids go into kindergarten. And he'd met me through some of public schools and he was kind of like, I know you guys are into the lean startup and so you definitely need to talk with Manisha. But we had kind of lost touch. And I did see your school closures.org and was super impressed by that. And I really love what you're talking about in terms of, if I think about what education needs to move to and from or from and to, whatever, from and to is that right now it's like this bureaucratic factory model system. And to your point of I love to see innovators literally creating a different system.

Right.

I feel like that's how we're going to change it. And I also really believe that it comes from the grassroots and the, you know, the parents and not the top down, but bottom up. And I feel like you're incorporating, integrating.

All of those Philosophies yes, absolutely. And I think it's really important to note that I did not develop this new education system. Homeschooling families developed this education system. And that's what's so cool is I mean we learn in product development that it's all about listening to your user and iterating. And these families said, okay, education isn't working for me. I'm going to make something that works for my child. And then they started collaborating with other people in their community, sharing information and support as their child evolved. And so it's just evolved into something amazing and there are specific patterns. And you know, we talk a lot about school being designed to prepare children for jobs in factories. And that is true. And at the same time I think there's a high level of awareness within the school system that it's not working and efforts to bring in more project based learning and such. But what I feel is the fundamental issue is not that it's preparing kids to work in factories, but that parents are outsourcing their children's education. They're outsourcing raising their child. And to me that is the most insane, widely accepted idea that exists. And if you really think about it for more than one minute, it just doesn't make sense. Why would I want someone else to raise my child?

So you know, I started a school that's now kindergarten through seventh grade doing a lot of things. You mentioned social emotional learning, project based learning. And yesterday I still advise the school, I don't work there anymore, but I'm on the email list and I saw an email that was really powerful to that point and it was please copy the after school program directors or teachers on your parent emails because most of our kids are actually in this building more than they are with their parents. So to illustrate that point, this is a working class community. Kids are dropped off, parents work 7 to 7 or 7 to 6, you know, and so they drop off. We when I was opening the school, to your point of asking your users, the number one thing every single parent said is please ensure there's affordable child care.

Absolutely right.

And so I did that. And now we have a school where the kids are dropped off at 7am and picked up at 6pm and then they see their parents from like 6 to 9. So no judgment on the parents, but to your point that this is what we've widely accepted as it's normal to outsource our children and like I would like to think that our school is doing a better job or at least philosophically trying to do a better job than a lot of schools. But regardless, we're still just saying we're going to outsource our children to strangers, essentially and kind of cross our fingers.

Yes. And I just want to emphasize I have so much empathy for that. I mean, homeschooler. There are a lot of single moms who homeschool. And actually I just interviewed Cheryl Field Smith, who's an expert on black single mothers who are homeschooling. And the sacrifices that these mothers are making to homeschool their children is just wild. And so I guess I would say there are a couple things that give me hope. I mean, first of all, the creative ways that these single mothers have found to homeschool their children, I believe it sharing childcare, doing remote work, and having blocks where their children study and blocks where they work, you know, after school activities. But then, you know, some of them are even creating homeschool co ops in their home and inviting other children. And the coolest story I ever heard was a mom who ended up taking her kids to a volunteer farm, a sustainable farming community in Bolivia. And they're all learning Spanish and working on the farm and that's eating there and living their life there.

Amazing.

They're living this luxe life. And she's been able to homeschool her children because she just kind of broke out of the mindset of I can't do this and found a way. And then I think another thing that encourages me a lot is that, that we do have this trend towards remote work. And, you know, when parents think about working remotely during the pandemic, it's horrifying because their companies were offering them very little to no support and they were trying to support kids who were doing online zoom school, which required just tremendous efforts from the parents. But homeschooling looks quite different. You can get in a really nice routine with your child where they play or they hang out with a friend or they do their studies and you work and then you switch. And there are definitely jobs that are more conducive towards this. Some parents, you know, they have a co op they attend once a week and it's free. They just have to do one of the months and they just sit there with their laptops and, you know, and there are spaces like yours that are opening up where parents can work, which is also really, really nice. But, you know, for sure, like, we have a huge problem in there's no childcare during summer, there's no childcare after three, there's no child care. You Know, parents have to get up ridiculously early, and I just say to parents, like, is school really giving you that great of child care? I don't know.

Exactly. Yeah. And to your point, I mean, as someone who had my child in Zoom school, he wasn't at my school. We moved him right before the pandemic, which is probably not a great choice based on what happened. But anyway, he was. My son and my daughter were in second and fourth grade, and their Zoom school was a replica of what the teachers were doing throughout the day, more or less, which was like an hour of direct instruction on Zoom.

Right.

Never used a breakout group. Never. And again, I'm not even criticizing the teachers, because you and I were in these. In the system. We were. Teachers respect them.

What room do you have to change? None.

Yeah, exactly. So it's like they're doing what they know best, and they didn't know how to deal with it. So essentially, we had 9 to 10 in the morning where the kids were on Zoom and they were bored to death, and my son just was like, I don't know why I'm going to this Zoom. And then they might have had an hour of, like, work to do school work. So we literally had, like, school for two hours a day max. And then the rest of the day, we're like, we can't go anywhere. We can't do anything. So it was incredibly difficult. So I think that was the. The scary part of, like, well, I can't homeschool. Look what happened during COVID Right. However, we also highlighted and amplified for parents that don't pay attention as closely as we are to say, like, wow, that's a lot of time that. What are the kids doing all day if they do one or two hours of Zoom a day during Zoom school and started to make parents say, like, hey, I'm not sure if I want to do this anymore. And to your point, I thought maybe homeschooling was kind of like affluent white parents, but I'm learning more and more that. Or like the, you know, more like conservative Christian parents, like the kind of stereotypes. But it sounds like that's changing.

Yeah, well, first of all, homeschoolers have never been richer or poorer than the general population. It's the same income level. And the fastest growing homeschooling group is black homeschoolers. It's the general homeschooling population has grown three times since pre pandemic levels, and the black homeschooling population has grown five times, and there's a full 16.1% of Black families that are homeschooling right now, which means if you talk to six black families, one of them is going to be homeschooling their kids. And probably that's a more in certain communities. So it's really quite something.

Yeah. And so, okay, so I feel like I get a lot of phone calls saying I want to homeschool my kids and I don't know what to do. So you, you pointed out the number one problem, which is we work in this box of nine to five jobs. Even though we're starting to move out of this and have more remote work, we're still working in this 9 to 5 kind of deal. So, right. Parents are like, how am I going to homeschool my kids? You know, what do I do? And how am I even qualified to be teaching them?

Right.

Because I'm a parent. So what do you say to that question?

Well, it's kind of two separate questions. How do I homeschool with a full time job at the office, which is a whole topic in and of itself. And then I don't think I'm qualified to be a teacher, which is. Let's start with that one. Okay, so first of all, I just want to, the first thing here is confidence, right? Like, why don't you feel confident you want to do this thing, but why don't you feel like you're good enough? And that is a lifelong struggle. I mean, parents have been so conditioned by the school system to feel like they don't know best what's right for their child. And it can be very challenging to unravel all of that conditioning and start to imagine that perhaps you might know what's best for your child. And in fact, some of the best teachers that I know have actually told families in their classroom, especially parents of gifted children, that their child would be better off homeschooling. So that's something to keep in mind. So just, I think it's important to start with, you know, I, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a female entrepreneur. I started out as a non technical female entrepreneur without a co founder. I was having a lot of trouble with confidence. And one of my mentors, actually it was Eric, who told me, you know, that ultimately a lot of people were saying just fake it, like act confident on these investor calls. And I just couldn't really, that didn't really work for me. And so Eric said something which was that ultimately confidence is about integrity, which is that you've made, you've thought really hard about Your plan, you've weighed the pros and the cons of, you know, school versus homeschooling. You made an informed choice. You have a strategy and you follow that strategy. Sometimes you're going to fail. That's a learning. And you work around that failing and then you move ahead a little bit further. And so for me, I don't know, but might not impact other people. But that changed everything for me. I thought really hard for two years about building what company I wanted to build. I chose this. I have a certain skill set. There are other skills I don't have. And I used all the information I had at the time to make the best choice and make a plan. So I might be wrong, but I'm in alignment with myself. So to me, that's what confidence is. That's the first part, you know, getting what is your underlying lack of self confidence. Then it gets really challenging because parents face so much external judgment, it's out of control. And if you're ever like judging a parent, stop, because that is the hardest job that someone can have. And you do not know what's going on with them. And your judgment is not helping anything. Even if they're doing a bad job. It's, you know, if you see a parent spank their child, the best thing you can do is go to them and say, you have such a lovely child. You know, that's it. That's. That's the limit of your power. Well, I mean, there are other things you can do too, but in general, you know, it's. They face so much judgment. And then it's also grandparents and friends and community. And the worst fear of a parent is failing their child. So there's just so much external pressure. So a beautiful antidote to that is community. How can you connect with others? The first thing that you really need to do as a homeschool parent is just join a community. You can join modulo, you can join a local Facebook group. See, homeschoolers is great. Connect with other homeschooling families. That's part two. You have inner work, community. Then let's just talk about are parents qualified to teach their kids? I think they are, because as a teacher, most of my training was on how to manage behavior. How do you actually teach in a class with 20 students? You need to know positive reinforcement so there's enough quiet in the room for people to actually hear you. You need to know how to differentiate to different types of learners. One child might have autism, another might have adhd, another might like project based Learning and, and that is actually a really great skill to have if you have 20 students. But if you're a parent, all you need to understand is your own child. And so that is actually not so hard to learn. And even if you're not homeschooling, it's a good thing to learn. Like, how does your child think? How do they learn? And there's a very strong likelihood that you are going to learn, they are going to learn in a similar way that you learn. Maybe they're very different than you, but you went through a lot of education and you discovered who you are as a learner. I hope, and it's very possible that your child learns similarly and you are constantly watching them as they evolve. You can change constantly what you're doing. So you have just this huge advantage over a teacher. I mean, you really know your child better than anyone else. So, so that is like, that is just massive. And the other thing I would say is, okay, you're not trained to be a teacher, so read a book like learn how to teach. I mean, it's not that hard. It's like, okay, growth mindset. Which means don't praise them for being smart. Praise hard work, grit, you know, model failure and being excited about failure and push past it. And then, you know, if they're not, you know, just different modalities, like if they are a hands on learner, give them hands on projects. If they learn visually, let them watch videos. If they are an auditory learner, bring in some podcasts. I mean, this stuff is pretty basic. I know I have one blog about teaching strategies. That's probably all you need, you know, and so, so, but then, you know, it's good. I mean, even so, I mean, there's a great book that I make every parent read called how to Talk so kids can Learn. And it's just like, it's wonderful, you know, if you're confused about how to communicate with your child, do that. So the other thing is that a lot of parents say, okay, but every time we talk about, if I. Every time I try to help them with homework, we get in a fight.

Right?

This is a really, really common thing. So it's more complex than I'm going to make it out to be. But I would say it's really important to remember that when you're helping them with homework, you don't have any context for what went on in class. You're not choosing the curriculum. You are trying to teach a child a way of learning something that their teacher taught them. And you were not there. And naturally the kid is going to be frustrated that you had no idea what's going on and you're teaching them in the wrong way.

Right?

So that solves a huge amount of issues. And then the. So one more thing is that you get to choose the curriculum when you homeschool or supplement your children's learning. And I mean module. I built a free curriculum planner built on different child archetypes. And so if you find a curriculum that your child loves or a digital learning app, it becomes very easy to teach them. Like, there's so many tools and technologies that have emerged that are specific, specifically designed for parents with no teacher training to teach their children at home. And then from there, all you really have to do is learn with your child. That's it. You don't have to teach them, just learn it together. If you're confused, go on YouTube, ask an expert. And modeling learning is probably going to be the best skill that you'll learn. And you can continually ask for support along the way. You can ask for people in the modulo community, see homeschoolers, other friends, teachers. You can absolutely do this. And it's quite fun. And then the last thing I'll say is that a lot of times, once or twice a year, homeschoolers will have a big freak out where they're afraid that they're failing their child. And there's a really easy fix to this, which is just to take a standardized test and find out how are they doing on math, algebra. Are they where they need to be? There's actually a test I love called the Map Growth Test. Test Maps Growth Testing. Homeschooler is gonna take it on homeschool boss, and they'll just have all the information you need there, you know, so that's, that's my, that's my. What I think about. Are parents qualified to teach their kids? Yes.

Amazing. Amazing. I was writing so many things down, you know, that you would like, really like getting me going. I'm like, oh my gosh, yes. I have so many questions and follow ups. But, you know, but what I will say is, I think what I heard, other than like a great practical advice, is that you're saying that, you know, we really need to get away from the conditioning the way we've been conditioned to think that, like, parents don't have the power and schools have all the power. And what I'm working on with changemaker. Edu is that we are building a program. This is kind of in the early stages, which I know you'll understand and appreciate. We're building a program where parents come to us, teachers, educators that are like, we just know the system's not working for us, but we're not sure what to do. And the first step is a journey within yourself to get clear on what you so important, right? What do you want? What do you believe in? Because I've seen people that are like, I want to homeschool or I want to change my child's school or whatever, but they're not super clear. So I want to help people get super clear on that. And then I think part of that experience is unlearning, unconditioning. What you've been taught as a parent about how you don't have the power, you don't know your kid. And you know to your point, you know your kid best. And like helping your kid with homework is not the same as, as teaching your kids something that you've learned. And, and again, if you go back to like the point of learning, it's not about the education system was built on the empty vessel concept, right? Like they're just passive learners and we're just giving them information and then they're repeating it back. If you're actually saying like, life is learning, I'm a learner as the parent and my kid's a teacher, I'm a teacher, the neighbor's a teacher, the tree's a teacher, everything's here to teach us and we're just going to go in this together and be learners together. I feel like that right there will change everything. And then to your own point about your confidence, that's why I want to help people do the inner work. Because once you've started to really get clear on what you really believe in, and it comes from the depths of what you believe in and you're like, this is what I want for my child. And you might even try to then change your mind, but at least you feel like a hundred percent certain that you're like, this is what I want to do. And then you're, you're gonna have those moments where like wait a minute, are they learning anything? And to your point, there's wonderful communities like modulo that can be like, hey, if you're having a freak out moment, it's actually pretty normal. It happens in, you know, usually this time of year or. And we actually have tools for you, like do the map test and talk to this person. And you're supporting people because what you're asking people to do is go against the Grain. And when you're going against the grain, what's the first. I mean, people will go into my charter schools acting like they've abused their child. Like, I didn't send them to the 2000 student high school, so I must be a bad parent. You're asking them to actually go, like, even farther outside of this box of like, no, I'm going to be the teacher and I'm going to believe in myself. And I know that it's going to.

Be the best thing for my child 100%. And I just, I feel like what you said about getting clear on the goals is so important. I mean, it doesn't mean that your goals can't change. But if you are, if you do that deep work around what you want for your children's education, I mean, do you want them to get into Harvard? That's fine, if that's your goal. And you might want to think through why that goal is important to you. For better or for worse, your goal might be. I just want them to be happy. Well, if they don't know how to read and they're happy, is that good for you? I don't know. You know, and also to incorporate your child in setting those goals. I mean, if you decide that it's not important for your child to be aligned with state standards, you really have to commit to that because there might be a moment that you notice that their math skills are one grade below other children their age. And you're the one who made the decision that that wasn't important to you. But maybe they have a really strong conceptual understand of algebra. So it's, it's really important to think this through and to involve your child in that process. So they're part of the goal setting. And it doesn't mean that it can't change, but that does really help kind of the, those freak out moments.

Yeah. And I feel like as parents, you know, we are their first teacher, you know that maxim. Of course. And we, I say this because I have two children. And it's like I saw my wife through the pandemic because I was so busy doing all these other things. And she actually left her job, which was the best thing that actually, that ever happened to her. But she stayed home with the kids and I saw her adapt, you know, being the trained professional educator, quote, unquote professional. She was like asking me questions and I'm like, you don't need to ask me questions. Like, literally what happened today? And she's like, well, he started yelling and throwing the Pencil because of math. And I'm like, okay, well what do you intuitively feel? It's like, oh, I felt like he was stuck and this and that. And I'm like, he's in fourth grade. So it's not that you don't understand the math or not that you can't Google Google math or watch a YouTube or go to Khan Academy, whatever. Like you can figure out the actual content. So what's the block within yourself that's making you feel like you don't have the power or the confidence or the knowledge to teach your child? And she's like, yeah, you're right. So then she just started really to find her own rhythm. And I also saw them going to the park, you know, because it was obviously the pandemic. So it was like, go to the park and do this. And they got into a routine and we didn't even have the resources that you're offering, Right. And it was just done by our own belief and what we know what's best for our children. And nobody knows them as well as you. And I remember when I would sit down with ninth graders and we would do. When I was a high school teacher, we would do annual meetings where we did like, had an advisory group of 15 kids and I would sit down with the parents and they would say like, I'd be like, oh, well, tell me, you know, what was their goal for these four years, you know, in ninth grade. And each year we'd talk about. And the parents would always be like, well, they've always been like this. And I remember this from when they were six months old. And I always thought like, was it, did you really know what you're in? And it's like the parents would just give me all this information and I'm like, why don't I just talk to the parents every day? Because I'm sitting here trying to figure out this kid and they could tell me every single thing about what makes this kid tick. So why don't we trust ourselves and why don't we trust parents to actually be the most involved partners on our child's education instead of the way the traditional system does it, which is let's just kind of put them on the outside, give them the pta. If, you know, for the email I got yesterday from my son's middle school, 6% of the parents are on the PTA, right? So 94% are not really actively engaged in the thousand student middle school. So that means that a lot of parents probably don't really know what's going on or they're kind of just checking things. And that's again what we accept as normal. It's like, okay, well we're gonna outsource to this school and kind of hope that our kids do okay. And then we're going to accept these letter grades as a way of saying like this means they're doing well. And there's just so much more.

There's so much more. And I think that sometimes as a parent you do have to unravel some of that conditioning, thinking that school at home needs to look like school at school. Or you know, you have to take a look inwards. You know, I mean, sometimes I see that parents like it's really important to them that their kids know how to read or learn math. And, and this can kind of put like an unconscious pressure. I don't know if that's the right word. Like the kids can feel that even if the parents don't want to put pressure on them. And so there's a lot of things in ourselves we have to look at. But parents can make just wonderful teachers. And if you feel like that's right for you, then go with it. Right? Find a community to support you. And if you don't feel like it, stay at school. Fine. I'm not going to try to convince you. My interest is in the people who want to do it but are afraid to. They sense it's right in their gut and they just need a little help making the leap. And then to speak to your point about, I have a full time job from 9 to 5. How can I do this? What I have observed from speaking to just hundreds of homeschoolers and asking them what a typical day looks like is that most successful people who are doing this to optimize learning for their child. I'm not talking about ultra religious homeschoolers or unschoolers who just don't want anything to do with formal education. I'm talking about people who say the best education for my child. Yeah. Usually is about two hours of one on one mastery learning, an hour of math and an hour of English language arts or full curriculum. This is something you can do from 5 to 7pm or one hour a day. And children can't really even focus for much longer than that on a really intense subject like math and English language arts. And the kids that I've seen have gone through the Entire K through 8th grade math curriculum in six months with an hour of math a day. When you're learning at your own pace, and you don't have to be a math person or good at math, but just supporting your child, learning just in the same way. You probably don't know second grade math if you went to a traditional public school, you know, because they don't teach it very well. So if you sit there and you model your own frustration trying to learn something with your child as the way you teach, and you sit there every single day and you take a movement break, then you do English language arts, and then you just let them do whatever they want, whether that's playing outside, whether that's reading a ton of books, going to the library, whether that's watching a documentary with you, you know, anything that you want to do. But if you have an hour of math and English language arts, you'll be, you'll be fine. You'll be good.

Yeah. I also remember before the pandemic when I was really starting to ask a lot of questions about this, and one of my friends was in Orange County, California, and she was telling me that there's, there's a program where you can. There's like a. I don't remember how it all works. You probably would understand it, but it's basically where homeschoolers can send their kids for certain hours, certain times of day for extracurriculars. And then somehow this center gets some sort of like independent study or charter school public funding or something like that. So everybody wins. Or maybe the parents get funding, but somehow the parents, I think, are getting 500 where the school is. You can tell me what you think it is. And essentially they're coming together as a community so that the kids can go and be in other places other than just sitting in their house. Is there, are there models like that that you're familiar with?

Oh, totally. I mean, there's. I mean, I know, for example, like, there's some businesses popping up where homeschoolers can hang out, but there's so many homeschool co ops, there's meetups in the park. I mean, there's so many different homeschool activities going on all the time. Field trip days, forest school. You know, most homeschoolers are like, they just have to kind of rein it in because their kids have too many friends and too many activities, you know, all the time.

So there's not an issue with socialization, like, aren't being alone.

I should say yes and no because as I mentioned before, it looks different for every family. So if you live in San Francisco, where there's a lot of homeschoolers you're going to have no problem just joining a group or New York City or, you know, Los Angeles, for example. It's going to be, if you just go and attend a homeschooling meetup, you are, you are set. And if you're curious about homeschooling, not sure if it's social, go on Facebook, search for, I mean, if you're a secular homeschool, you might want to look for unschooling or secular homeschool. Say, hey, I'm the mom of a 9 year old. Are there any meetups going on? You know, there's a wonderful meetup on Fridays at a playground. San Francisco, you go to the meetup. You can also just go to a playground during the day. That's where homeschoolers tend to hang out. Right. During a weekday. But yeah, just go to a meetup. There's tons of people. They're incredibly diverse, inclusive communities. A lot of, you know, there's a lot of families too who are black or gay or trans who've been excluded from traditional schools. So they're just very ready to welcome people in. There's conservative Republicans. It's great. There's just so many activities going all the time. There's a science professor will teach a science class and there are these homeschool co ops like Brooklyn Apple Academy in Brooklyn where kids can go one, two, three or four days a week. Or you can just say, hey, I want to play date. If you're more introverted, I've seen parents who've set up a weekly board game night. So yes, it's highly social. There are a lot of advantages to homeschooling socialization, mixed ages, parent supervision of the social interactions, etc. But if you live in the Bible Belt, in a small town, you might have difficulty connecting with homeschoolers who share your values. Yes. If you live in a rural area, it might be hard for you to connect with other homeschoolers. And just in the same way, you know, if you go to a big school that has cliques and bullying, your child might have a horrible socialization experience. So it's, you know, you can't really compare. There's, I had, you know, I was incredibly isolated, teased, I felt like I had no friends from basically 6th through 12th grade. It was, was very traumatic. Everyone thought I was really weird. And you know, I know other people who loved high school and had tons of friends. So.

Right.

I don't, I don't think that I really just writing off homeschooling because they heard somewhere it wasn't social, or they met one person one time who seemed weird, and so they decided that all homeschoolers weren't social. I mean, that just doesn't even make sense.

It really doesn't make sense. And even if it did, even if it were true, it's obviously changing.

So. And as more people join, it gets even more social. And just, I think, you know what, really, I've been studying this for a while, and there was still a part of me that was kind of holding back from being full on. Every family should do modular learning and not go to school. And what really clicked for me was when I started reading Gabor Mate and Gordon Neufeld's book hold on to your kids. And what I learned is that this emergence of a peer culture as being something to aspire to, like hanging out with kids your kids age, this ideal has only emerged in the last 50 years or so. And that actually, like, from what we know about how children develop healthy social skills, it really happens because a child has formed a secure attachment with their parent that they. That is the foundation that allows them to interact well with others in their life. And, you know, we see, like, when teens, you know, have an addiction like drugs or alcohol, which is happening way too much at school, almost always, the interventionist will focus on the relationship with the parent. They don't focus on their relationship with other teens. So that is the, you know, spending time together as a family is really key. And the other thing, especially before the age of six, children learn social skills by watching their parents. It's only when they start to become seven or eight that they even start to kind of look at other, like, test out how to interact with a child their age. And sometimes there's a kind of a level of empathy because a child might be going through the same difficulty as them. Like, wow, addition is so hard. You know, it might not be able to relate to that in the same way. So there's some advantage there. But the other thing is that we really undervalue just a parent being there to supervise social interactions. Like, kids have terrible social skills. Like, why would you want to learn social skills from another kid? It doesn't make sense. Like, adults. Like, it's like, I would, like, I don't want to learn math from another kid. Like, they don't know math very well. I want to learn math from someone who knows math better. And it's the same with social skills. Like, learn it from someone who has good social skills. Or older kids and parents and so the final piece is that in school there's very little adult supervision. And one thing that I just can't is when people say, like, kids need to be teased in order to learn how to stand up for themselves, that is just untrue. That is not how kids learn how to stand up for themselves. They learn because maybe someone teased them. They talk to a parent and the parent says, when someone teases you, you say, I don't like that, you know, and you know, if a kid hits another kid, that's not going to be effective. That's not a tool that you can use in your adult life. And so having parents around to navigate these social relationships is just, just so great for developing social skills. And you know, personally, I just find some of these homeschoolers to be the most articulate, self possessed, incredible, incredible people. They're just so at ease talking with adults and other kids. And it's really amazing.

And that's been my experience too. And whenever I would have kids when I was a teacher and in my current school that come from homeschooling, they're always the most like confident and curious and engaged and kind of like looking around like, what is going on here?

Right. And I don't, I'm the last person to want to sugarcoat it. You know, I don't want to say, wow, homeschooling is so amazing and school is so terrible. But honestly, most people don't even try. They don't even take that step of checking out a local, you know, homeschooling group. They just say, oh, it's not social. Just try, look, see what's going on.

Yeah. And to your point, I mean, I also feel like some people could do it just for a few years. Like, they could say, like, I'm gonna do it for sixth grade, then go back and do it in 10. Right.

Or for the summer, try homeschooling for the summer. By the way, why do we stop learning in the summer? Like, doesn't make sense.

Yeah, try it in the summer, like in the spirit of innovation. You're.

Yeah.

You're going to test.

Nothing to lose.

Yeah, nothing to lose. And give it a try. Well, thank you so much. And what I, what I really appreciate is, you know, for people that are interested in homeschooling, because I do get these phone calls regularly from a lot of the people that I do my coaching programs with with that are trying to get out of this box of the kind of traditional system. And they're like, but one of the issues they have so what? You know, like, I also want my kid to be out of the box. And they're like, well, what do I do? And so a lot of times they'll say like, what do you know about homeschooling? I'm like, well, I'm not really an expert, so I love having people like you to speak with. Obviously you're quite the expert. So the fact that you even had one moment of not being confident as somebody who coaches people, I'm like, that is hogwash. Okay, so you're amazing and you know your stuff.

Thank you.

Very articulate. And I think the listeners heard a lot and learned a lot. And you were very honest and open and shared so many great tidbits. And I'm really excited, like I told you before, before we hit record, I'm really excited for what you're up to because there's a resource now, so I can just point people right there and be like, hey, if you're not sure, go right to Modula. So tell us where they can find you. I know you have a podcast. Tell us the website.

Sure, sure, yeah. And I'll just add. A lot of people are afraid to ask for help, but asking for help is the best thing that you can ever do for your child. And we really need to break out of this nuclear family framework if we really want to optimize our children's learning. So people can find me, there's the teach your kids podcast. My website is modulo app. You can sign up and you can get weekly newsletters or you can become part of our premium community. It's $15 a month. We'll help you find in person online tutors. We'll answer any question you have about homeschooling, modular learning, whole child development, anything. There's. The people in my community are brilliant. It's just the most incredible homeschoolers in the world. It's pretty wild. And then also I will just say that if you want to find a friend in your area, we'll do personally matchmake you. And if we're really committed to equity in education, we just got a large grant from the Vela fund, so. So seriously, if anybody doesn't feel like they can afford $15 a month, all you have to do is email me and I will give you a scholarship, no questions asked. It's a trust based system. You don't have to explain why. You just say, I need a scholarship to join this community. And you know, and that's. I think I almost end every one of my podcasts by saying, please ask for help. That's. That's what we're here for. And as you can tell, I love giving people advice. I try to give it when it's solicited, not unsolicited, so.

Well, people can choose solicitor, not. That's a great thing about a podcast.

Exactly.

All right, Manisha, thank you so much.

It was great having you so much. It's been so wonderful talking to you. And I mean, you have such a deep expertise in education, and you're doing so much by helping people get more in tune with themselves and their goals so they can bring the best possible education to their children and their students. So thank you for what you're offering.

Thanks so much. Thank you for listening to the Changemaker Edu podcast. Every guest and listener is a valued part of this co creation. We're honored that you listened, and we hope that this helped you in some small or big way today. This is a community and a movement, and without you, it wouldn't be possible. If you want to learn more about me, go to davidkrichards.com and as always, if you're so moved, please rate and review the podcast. And finally, our greatest compliment is when you share an episode with someone who you believe will benefit from the message sending you immense love and courage today. Thank you.