Guiding and Connecting the Homeschooling Community

Welcome to the Future of Education.

And now here's your host, Michael Horne.

Welcome to the Future of Education, where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think through that journey today we have a very special guest, Manisha Snoyer, who has worked with several, several thousand families and students providing teaching, tutoring, education and more. And she's the CEO and founder of Teach your Kids, which is a podcast and online homeschooling community. And we're going to hear a lot more about that in just a moment. But its mission is to really change the way families engage in homeschooling and make the customization inherent in the choice to homeschool much more accessible to many, many more individuals. So with that as prelude, Manisha, it's good to see. Thanks so much for joining us.

It's so great to see you. I feel like we connected almost 10 years ago and it's so wonderful to be having our first face to face conversation right here with everybody else.

I was thinking the same thing and I would love you to just tell your own journey into education because as you mentioned, you and I met well before the pandemic. I remember very well when you were developing an earlier startup cottage class, which was on the bleeding edge, I think, of the microscope movement. But tell us in your words own journey into education and homeschooling.

I would be very happy to. And I was actually just thinking about this today because I know there are a lot of exercises around writing out your life purpose and your vision and mission for your life, but I really feel like I fell into this territory completely by accident and almost never chose it in a way. So I was pounding the pavement as an actress in New York City in the early 2000s and needed a way to make a living. And everyone in my family is a teacher, so I kind of reluctantly became a tutor because that seemed like the easiest thing to do. And before long, not making an income in acting, I found that I had taught over 3,000 children and 18 subjects in every kind of learning environment you could imagine in three different countries. And so including teaching at some of the most elite private schools in New York City because I was also a substitute teacher and some of the, I guess you could say worst public schools and everything in between, including I had a three month stint as the music teacher at PS 29, which is one of the most wonderful public schools in Brooklyn. And after several years of doing this, I really started to feel Deep in my soul that our education system was broken at every level, from these $60,000 a year schools to even the best of the best in the public education department, but with a lot of really amazing teachers who wanted to do the best they could and just had so much knowledge and expertise. And through thinking about this, I discovered that there was this incredible homeschooling movement. And just to take it a step back, I felt like I needed to quit acting and focus on this, because at the same time, I was getting very concerned about climate change. And I discovered that actually giving access to education is one of the best ways that you can fight climate change. Help people get out of poverty, equal rights, human rights, all the issues I care about. So my initial idea was, okay, there's all these amazing teachers, but the system is really broken, so let's just have teachers start their own schools. So I was an Airbnb host at the time, and I kind of liked this legal gray area that Airbnb had and found an analogy in these homeschool co ops that were springing up all over Brooklyn. And I'm thinking, okay, this is really cool. Like, all you need is a teacher, a space, a group of students. There are these parents creating micro schools and homeschool co ops. You do it under three hours a day for preschoolers and two or three days a week for homeschoolers. You could get around all the legislation around schooling. So I suddenly was building a tech startup. I mean, it was the most random thing. I knew nothing about technology besides being a person who uses it, but I did know a lot about being an Airbnb host. So ultimately, one of the founders of Airbnb invested in me and was a great mentor, and I went through techstars and we started all these wonderful homeschool co ops in Brooklyn. But I just felt like there was something that was not quite working. And as I looked more deeply into the homeschooling movement, what I realized is that these families had created a way to build an incredibly curated education for their children that was cost effective for them, and that that was incredibly riching socially, emotionally, and academically, and in essence, had built a new education system. So a couple years into that, I started talking to Eric Reese, who wrote the Lean Startup and is really interested in homeschooling. And we decided together to start this new company that was specifically focused on helping families homeschool. And so we've been working together for four years, and it's been really an amazing ride. The pandemic broke out right after we launched the company. So we kind of pivoted and built this nonprofit that helped over 100,000 families who were forced into homeschooling and were able to identify the main needs there. And today what it is is a online homeschooling community and a podcast. And families can use our curriculum planner to find high quality secular learning materials based on 200 different children's archetypes that I've ident. And we really offer a lot of information and support because what I've identified is that one of the hardest things is for parents to have that confidence that they can be their child's teacher. It really requires a paradigm shift. So I'm putting a lot of my focus there.

Super fascinating. And I remember our conversations when you were doing what I called the Airbnb of homeschooling, something that I, I think I had written the line in a couple articles as a throwaway, and then you were like, I'm actually doing this. And it seems that it's still a current, though, in the you're doing, which is to essentially make this DIY education much more accessible to many more people. And from the outside, it looks like, and this is my characterization, so I'd love you to push back if I have it wrong, but teach your kids. In some ways, it feels like it's, it's like a facilitated exchange, like you're. It's a way to organize the hundreds and hundreds of options out there in terms of curriculum, classes, friends and caregiving teachers, assessments, support, to make it far easier to sort of snap these different Lego blocks, if you will, together to create that personalized education. How does that, how does that feel?

Absolutely. I mean, the way I see it is as a modular approach to education. So there are all these resources that are out there and that are emerging, but for a parent, it can feel totally overwhelming. So you might not know. For example, one, my focus has been largely on the secular homeschooling community. And a lot of curricula are religious, but they don't say that they're religious. Or they might say that they embrace neutral science because they don't want to offend anybody. But that's actually not an evidence based approach to science. And a lot of religious people would like an evidence based approach to science because it's compatible with a lot of religious beliefs. And so what I've done in the past, people have just scanned through tens of thousands of comments in homeschooling groups and tried to find what's the best fit for their child. And What I've done is I've talked to hundreds of parents and scanned through these tens of thousands of groups and tried the curriculum myself to help identify which curriculum will actually help students and also how to find tutors. But really important, and I don't want to ignore this, is just helping parents have the confidence that they can do it, because I find that once people get going, they're really off to their races. But this idea that a parent could help their child learn is so radical still. And so that's the real shift that I'm trying to help happen.

It's so interesting because it was the first lady, Barbara Bush, right. That long ago said the parent is the child's first teacher. And yet we sort of keep running from that in some ways. But you mentioned secular homeschooling, obviously, and it's no longer new to note that that's the biggest and fastest growing portion of schooling in the United States, that homeschooling obviously is the fastest segment. And it's largely driven by secular homeschooling in particular, that the complexion. Right. Of homeschooling has changed over the last two decades, let's say. And I'm just sort of curious because we also see in surveys that for many families, they're like, I would love a homeschooling experience or a hybrid homeschooling experience. Right. Just a few days at home, maybe a couple days outside. And yet it seems that it remains aspirational for many families and out of reach. So I guess you also have this notion of modularizing, to use your word, that I love. It's from our theory, so I love it. Socialization from childcare and the learning itself to also make this more accessible. I love you. Independent of the confidence questions, sort of the practical questions of child care and learning and things of that nature, just to sort of talk about what does it mean to decouple these things and how would that work?

Absolutely. So my opinion, as you know, is that school is trying to do socialization, childcare and education. And as a result, they're doing all pretty poorly. And that's been my experience as a teacher. So when we start with socialization, what we see is single age classrooms, children having to wake up extremely early, as early as 5am to go to school, which is completely out of line with the research on sleep. They cannot learn, and if they're lucky, 35 minutes of research, recess. So, and kindergarteners who deeply need that playtime and the wandering mind time to develop cognitively are just not getting enough recess to Learn. And so you know what I say to parents in terms of socialization is what's great about homeschooling is you can curate the social experience that you want for your child rather than that being enforced on you. And what does your child need? They need to spend a lot of time with you because parents really underestimate that attachment. That's how children form healthy attachments, is through a healthy attachment to their parent. And that is created by quality time together, which is harder than ever in this day and age of cell phones and distractions. So socialization one and people are starting to realize that there are so many extraordinary homeschooling groups around the world. And as the homeschooling movement grows, more and more groups form. So it's kind of the network effects of that. So that's socialization and then child care. I think the first important thing to realize is that school provides 8am to 3pm childcare nine months of the year. That doesn't make sense for a working family. And with the rise of remote, flexible work, that's not the kind of childcare parents need. So with homeschooling, you can curate the childcare that works for your family. Maybe your child is really independent and you can work remotely while they kind of work on their projects. There's lots of great techniques like strewing, where you thoughtfully lay out objects and tasks for children to choose. It can be a little bit easier with siblings or not, can be harder with younger children. You can also hire a nanny or do a childcare swap. And what's really critical to know is that the average homeschooling parent is just as likely to be poor or near poor than the average parent in traditional school. So the census data has that fact. So. And the fastest growing group of homeschoolers is black families. That population has grown 5x and it's a lot of single moms who are driving the show. So they've found alternative solutions for their child care that work better for them. They're doing swaps with other families. They're going to homeschool co ops or micro schools. And sometimes it is a sacrifice, but other times maybe they're switching their curses and becoming entrepreneurs and the childcare is even better. So. And then there's the whole question of summer. So I really think that a lot of people feel like childcare is a blocker, but if you get a little bit creative, you can build an even better childcare situation for your family when you're homeschooling.

So it's Interesting, because I think you already just shattered one of the myths of homeschooling, which is that it exclusively happens at home, which is not right. Homeschooling families, in fact live homeschooling is, it's, you know, it's in co ops, it's in micro schools, it's with other families, it's in hybrid homeschooling arrangements, it's in these child care swaps, all sorts of arrangements. The big thing, it seems to me, and I'd love your take on this, is that the point is that the parent has a much stronger role in intentionally designing these different elements and making the determinations of when are they with me, when are they with someone else, what is that environment like, what is that curriculum like, are they being met, where they are and things of that nature?

Absolutely. And I would like to clarify that when I talk about homeschooling, I'm specifically talking about a group of primarily secular homeschooling parents who are using a highly curated approach to their children's education. There are still a lot of families who are doing traditional homeschooling around the kitchen table from nine to three, recreating school at home, who are doing online school six hours a day. But what interests me is this growing movement of people who are curating their children's education from what I call modular learning. And typically what I like to say to parents is make sure you have at least one to two hours of one on one mastery learning and three to four hours of self directed learning. Because if you don't have those core modules, you're really not getting the benefits out of homeschooling. And I think I get concerned sometimes when parents are trying to outsource too much and they're not taking advantage of the incredible benefit of family engagement and learning and free time. There's just so much research that supports this mind wandering and this creative time to play and explore. It's so healthy for kids. And I think it's a big mistake when parents decide to fill up that time with activities and tutors. So generally I say start with one or two hours of mastery learning, family engagement, big blocks of self directed learning, and then you can layer in classes, co ops, skill shares. I mean, there's just so much great skill sharing in the homeschooling community, volunteer opportunities, practical life at home. But yeah, absolutely, it's not school at home, it's school out in the universe.

Makes a ton of sense. Stay with the mastery learning for a moment and just double click on. Because I think the Other blocks will make sense to people. They can sort of imagine what those might be. The mastery learning, what does that look like for the families with whom you work?

That's such an important question. And I think that this mastery learning is one of the biggest reasons some of these tech moguls you hear about are so excited about homeschooling. So for people who don't know what mastery learning is, there was an educational philosopher named Benjamin Bloom at mit and he did some studies which showed that children who learned in a mastery based approach, which means learning at their own pace and with the support of a tutor, did 90% better than children who are learning in a traditional group setting. And that was regardless of whether the tutor was trained as a teacher or not. So we know this as tutors. I mean, it's obvious kids learn so much faster. And so the mastery learning is just this time when your child can either work independently or with your support, learning as quickly or as slowly as they want. And so what it might look like, I always tell parents, choose an hour or two when your child is really fresh. If they're in elementary school or second grade, might not need to be two hours, just an hour is fine. And do half math and half either English language arts or some kind of all in one curriculum. And make sure they get that really focused time in. It doesn't have to look like you teaching them. It can be them learning with the material and your support. And it only takes one or two hours a day. And when they're able to do this mastery learning, when they're most fresh, well nourished, engaged with that loving support of the parent, I mean, our kids just go through the Entire K through 8th grade math curriculum in six months. It's so fast. And if you choose the right curriculum for your child, they will really soar.

Wow. So let me ask you this, which is we've talked a lot about the growth of homeschooling, the growth of secular homeschooling, the growth of homeschooling among segments that historically people hadn't thought homeschooled black mothers, often single parent households and the like. I'm just sort of curious where you see this going, because if you look at the trends, it obviously greatly accelerated during COVID and if you still hold that constant, it's the fastest growing. But it's slipped back a little bit in the last 12 months. Where do you, where do you think this homeschooling trend is going to go over the next few years? Like, we come back in five years Talking how many families are doing it? What are the different arrangements? Is it similar to now? Is it much bigger? Is it much smaller? Where do you think this is all going?

So first of all, I'm convinced that this modular approach to education is going to be the form of education all around the world because it just makes more practical sense for children to have that one on one tutoring time. It's much more cost effective than a micro school when parents are teaching their own kids. And as this movement continues to grow, the question of socialization becomes less and less and less. So it has those network effects in terms of, you know, what it looks like in five years, I think we're going to start to see more and more clusters in big cities. You know, I would. The problem is I really don't think public education is going to improve very much. I just don't think that this is a system that's built to get stronger. And what we saw in Covid is that the system just completely fell apart. And so because of that, I think it will also influence the homeschooling movement and it will continue to grow and grow. And as these new tools and technologies emerge, it will also help support the learning. I mean, the big question still is childcare, which is a question from 0 to 5, which is a question for after school. And I mean, it's my hope, hope and prayer that our government will start to wake up and give more support to parents with the child care piece. But that remains unknown.

Well, let's stay on that for just as we start to wrap up here, the conversation on the child care piece, because it sounds like what you'd be recommending though is not a, you know, more money to the traditional public system that might provide nine months of childcare. That's frankly probably only 9am to 1pm or something like that when you're talking about kids that little. But instead it sounds like you're talking maybe a subsidy directly to the parents themselves that they would choose where and when and things of that nature. But I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm just sort of curious, or I'm very curious how you would combine this support for families to make all these other modular forms of education more accessible to them.

Well, I really love what's happening in Arizona where families are getting a voucher to homeschool their children as they see fit. I think we are going to have to think about accountability in homeschooling, but I don't think that that necessarily should be too difficult. There's a MAP growth test that kids can take, and frankly, rather than providing more accountability, I would always suggest providing more support. A lot of the families that are homeschooling have children who have diagnosed as special needs, so they've reached a breaking point. Children with autism, adhd, dyslexia, and those students are benefiting from special services at school. So if those students can continue to benefit from special services while learning at home, if they can attend childcare centers, it will really help a lot of families be doing this.

Terrific. Okay, as we wrap up, last question for those who want to learn more about teacher. Kids want to get part of the community. What should they do? Where can they find you? How can they be part of the podcast and sort of the broader network community that you're creating?

Thank you so much for asking that question, Michael. So they can visit teacherkidspod.com and sign up to join our community. We have a substack and you can join as a free member and just get notifications about new podcast episodes, or you can pay every month, I think $15. And then you get access to our online WhatsApp groups, and you can ask other parents for advice and also get 25% off our online clubs. So it's pretty easy to sign up. And I'm always happy to answer questions, especially the most challenging and controversial ones. I'm sure we have ideas and support for you for whatever it might be, from childcare to making friends to finding a perfect curriculum for your child.

No, that makes a ton of sense. And that's neat that you're also providing the WhatsApp group and so forth, because we had outschool.org Chris Comforo come on the show a few months back, and his big finding from the education savings accounts that you referenced earlier was that it wasn't just the money that was important. It was also trusted information from fellow parents that would really activate parents from all walks of life to use the dollars for their kids, which is probably what you're finding in these groups 100%.

And I know we're wrapping up, but I want to say that we are more isolated than ever. And it's not just kids that need friends. Parents really need friends to help raise their children. And I think our parents have been able to make very meaningful and deep friendships through our groups, and that's been a lifesaver for them.

Well, Manisha Snoyer, thank you so much for building this community for all of us and for teach your kids. And thank you so much for joining us in the show.

Thank you so much for your great work and your research. And it's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Pleasure. And for those tuning in, thank you again for joining us on the Future of Education. We'll be back next time.