The Homeschool Awakening (2022) Movie Script

1
A Washington State resident...
...fell ill after returning
from Wuhan, China.
This is certainly not a moment for panic.
They're making the call
to close public schools.
The nation's second
largest school district...
...will now close.
District officials,
shut down Wildwood Elementary
and Ferrucci Junior High.
Isolation, screen time,
lack of physical activity.
I saw depression.
I saw them lose interest in life.
When you look at your kids to do less,
is that enough just to
make you break down?
Yes.
And it's crazy 'cause they're
kindergarten and 2nd grade.
I can't even imagine a parent
who is not a teacher at all,
getting on all of these materials.
Lord God, the spirit of common...
...has attacked our household.
It's shut down schools.
It has caused havoc.
They're gonna pull
their children from this.
Every day, I feel like a failure.
I'm scared, I am really scared.
- Hello?
- Kirk, you gotta help me.
I don't know what I'm doing.
- I'm totally lost.
- Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Wow, slow down.
- Okay. Okay. Okay.
- What's going on?
Home schooling, I can't teach my kids.
- Oh, homeschooling?
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, Chelsea and I
homeschooled all six of our kids.
How, I'm totally
unqualified for this?
I totally relate to your feeling...
...but you are qualified
to teach your kids.
You might need a curriculum,
but that's not the first thing you need.
Socialization.
Yeah, you're not the first
one to bring that up.
Yes, homeschooled kids go to college.
They even get scholarships.
Isn't homeschooling like
public school at home?
Not even close.
Never thought I can homeschool.
I just didn't think I could do it.
I'm gonna get it wrong.
What if I screw it up?
That was before we had kids,
and then we had kids.
I'm responsible for what
we're putting into their head,
and into their heart.
I know it scared me.
I decided to at least try it.
Break the mold. Break the mold.
Homeschooling looks like fun.
I always viewed homeschooling
as somewhat of a cult.
Those children are abnormal in some way...
...that they are awkward.
Homeschooling was not on my radar.
There were a lot of
things I enjoy doing...
...while my kids were at school.
I thought that they were
kind of the different people.
I just didn't get it.
I kind of thought
that homeschooling meant...
...that you were Amish and you
made your bread from scratch.
It had a certain look to it,
and it just didn't
seem like it was me.
A potential for a lack of education.
Did it really exist in society?
Quiet, secluded, reclusive.
I can't homeschool because I'd have...
...to be home all the time and
I wouldn't be able to work,
and there'd be no flexibility.
Why would you wanna
homeschool your kids?
Don't you care about
your children's education?
You'll have no friends.
And how are they gonna learn science.
- Are you a history teacher?
- Exactly.
Are you a math instructor?
I didn't ever think that anybody
that homeschooled did...
...things in real life.
I didn't know how.
I didn't understand
what does it look like?
He says to me,
"You're not gonna wanna be one..."
"...of those homeschooling families"
And I went, "Oh no,"
"Those are weird."
- "I'm not doing that."
- Yeah, who does that?
No, no, no.
I won't be one of those.
And I remember telling him, I won't.
- I won't do that.
- Totally.
My journey into considering homeschooling.
I think was motivated by,
one, I was traveling so much with work.
And so when I was home I
wanted to be with my family.
I wanted to be with my kids
but my kids were in school.
And then they come home
and they have sports,
and they have homework
and all the things...
...that we want them to be doing.
So when I'm traveling I can't see them.
When I'm home I feel like
I don't get much time,
with the kids and time
is going by so fast.
And so I started to think about,
wait a minute, how do we?
Is there any way to
rearrange this schedule?
And what's taking up most of the time,
in our kids schedule is school.
As a mom,
especially with my first baby,
Like I was,
You're just with them 24/7.
All of a sudden,
time for school,
and this kind of unnatural
feeling inside of,
is this really what I should be doing?
What?
Dropping them off for a lot
of hours somewhere else?
It's just what you do.
It's what we did.
I remember going, okay,
why do I take my kids to school?
So that they can learn.
And I thought,
wait a minute,
if that's ultimately the goal,
is this the only way to get there.
- Is it the best way to get there?
- Right.
Is it the most efficient
way to get there.
And I thought,
I don't think so.
I was starting to feel like some...
...of the kids were not arriving
in the way that I would like.
They're stressed out.
I don't want them to have that
heavy spirit about learning.
I want them to love learning.
It just started to grow in
my mind and in my heart,
like I should really consider this.
I should look into at least what this is.
Mommy look at my feet,
- they're frozen.
- I feel so bad.
That they're stuck there.
Oh yeah, look at that.
When you have kids,
you start to realize these
little people are in my care.
I'm responsible for what
we're putting into their head,
and into their heart.
And being a believer
changed it even more.
It wasn't even from an
education standpoint,
it was more from a...
...how do I impart the
knowledge of God and His love,
and His care into them too,
like it's been done for me?
Why does God want us to be selfless?
So that we can think of
the other people around us.
But what if you are
tempted to feel hopeless?
"May the God of hope
fill you with all joy,
and peace as you trust in Him,
so that you may overflow
with hope by the power,
of the Holy Spirit."
Amen.
And I really felt that
homeschooling was the best option.
For our family to be able to do that.
- I'm Ron.
- I'm Reesha
And we have this many kids.
He started playing basketball
professionally overseas.
I didn't want it to be a situation...
...where I would only see
my family in the summer.
So her kindergarten...
...we began homeschooling and
then over time more kids.
Our family started to expand
and we were still doing that.
It gave us incredible
stability and flexibility.
It was never something
that we tought like this,
we're gonna do this forever.
We just knew we liked it
and that it was working.
Who taught you to peep, Hayden?
I had actually had an
experience when I was,
I think, eight years old.
I was sitting in class
and we're doing a test,
and a kid was looking off of my paper.
And I raised my hand to tell the teacher.
"Hey, so-and-so's looking at my stuff,"
And the teacher said to me,
"Chris, he would not cheat off of you."
"Because you are too stupid
for him to cheat off of you."
And I accepted it and I didn't
think about it until I was...
...in university and I wrote a paper.
"They Got Celebrated".
And the teacher held that
paper up before the class,
and read it and said,
"This is an example of a good paper."
All this time I felt
stupid and I flashed back...
...to that moment and I go,
my kid is not gonna have that experience.
We were doing block parties.
Their little kids would
be over at our house,
and say things that would
make a sailor blush.
And I'm like,
there is no way I'm putting my kids...
...with them the entire time.
I just thought,
I'll do all this training
and then I'm gonna lose them,
'cause they're gonna spend
more time with them than I do.
He finally got me to say,
"I'm willing to try it for kindergarten,"
"but what's plan B if
it doesn't work out?"
And we started our first year,
and I don't think he ever had a plan b.
Oliver is eight.
I remember being in
this classroom one day.
When recess came around,
he took some work that
had not been completed,
and went out into the hallway.
He came to me.
I just remember him
being totally teary eyed,
because he was having a hard
time with the math station.
That he was at, staying focused,
and now he was having
to stay in for recess.
He was almost crying in the classroom.
And I could tell that he was really upset.
And he was just so frustrated.
We went through the steps,
to officially get him diagnosed with ADHD.
Right around the time we got
his diagnosis sorted out,
he was doing really well and COVID.
COVID shut down everything.
Instead of looking to the school system.
To provide stability,
I decided that I needed to create,
that stability within our own home.
And the best way for me...
...to do that was through homeschooling.
It's like writing a Z, like that...
...except you're just kind of extended at.
If you were forced to
bring your children home...
...to school them,
that's not the same as homeschooling.
You are forced to use the
curriculum the school chose.
You are forced to have
your kids on a Zoom call...
...at 9:05 every day.
Homeschooling is, you are in control.
You get to choose curriculum.
You get to choose methodology.
You get to choose what they emphasize.
You get to choose how you
correct and how you compliment.
You get to choose the
pace and it's different.
Our kids were in public school and they had...
...to go straight in to distance learning.
Clay was in full-time
seminary at the time.
I was running a full-time business.
And then the kids were
all of a sudden all home.
You basically became
Zoe's personal assistant.
So I was a secretary for my daughter.
Who was seven.
At nine o'clock you have a Zoom.
You have a conference
play date at one.
And two o'clock is your snack.
Homeschooling was never on our radar.
But it all of a sudden
sounded really nice.
Okay, so read a sentence.
"Molly gave a bath to the..."
Only one of them is spelled correct.
So our oldest,
he was in private school
and I knew in my heart,
that if he stayed in school,
it was going to be an uphill
battle to preserve who he was.
I didn't feel like I had the time.
I really felt clearly that God said.
"I will create time
where there is no time."
And I had a really deep
sense of peace about that.
And suddenly I became really excited,
about the possibility of homeschooling.
I remembered school was early for me,
and it almost felt like the
Grim Reaper coming after me.
Like, one day I knew
that I was gonna...
...have to wake up at six in the
morning and have them fed,
and have their books.
I might have gotten into homeschooling,
'cause I didn't wanna
wake up early for the bus.
I'm not a morning person.
So when all of our friends
were chasing the bus,
we would all pile into
bed and read a book,
and giggle at the fact that
everybody else was awake,
and onto the grind and
here we are all cuddled up,
doing a read aloud,
and having a cup of
coffee in our jammies.
My father was a Senator.
There was a bill that
was introduced that said,
if a teacher is going,
to assign your child explicit material.
That they should notify the parent.
And I thought that sounded
a lot like common sense.
We were flooded with emails from teacher...
...who were basically telling us,
But out, it's not your business.
We have a degree.
You don't know what you're doing.
We have the expertise.
And in elementary school
there's a very kumbaya feeling.
We're all in it together.
We all come side-by-side
to teach your children.
And then to have this stark
contrast for high school,
it's sort of like, butt out.
Basically, the Pilgrims,
they actually passed a law
called the Old Deluder Satan Act.
They decided that one of
the chief tools of Satan,
to deceive people was
to keep man ignorant,
of the scriptures.
And so they passed this law saying that,
that everybody should learn
how to read in this colony.
Because they saw the alternative,
well hey, if they're illiterate,
they can't read "The Bible",
and if they can't read "The Bible".
They might be seduced
by Satan and his lies.
A lot of people today confuse that,
with kind of the government
education system...
...that we have today.
But they're as different
as night and day.
If you go on to Google and you typing.
What does the constitution
say about education,
it pulls up a document
from the ACLU that claims,
that every child has a
right to an education.
Of course, that's not in the constitution.
In fact, the word,
education, is not in the constitution.
And they actually said explicitly,
just in case it wasn't
clear to begin with...
...in the 10th Amendment,
that anything that it's not mention...
...in the constitution is
specifically prohibited.
To the federal government.
And so the Founding
Fathers actually prohibited,
any federal involvement in education.
In early America we had, really,
a free market education system.
There was a big role for the church.
Almost all the major church denomination...
...were operating schools.
Many of them would pay
the tuition for children,
who came from poor families.
There was private academies
that had popped up everywhere.
So it was just an incredible diversity...
...of educational options.
And then by 1830s,
1840s in Massachusetts,
they found a guy, Horace Mann.
And he had come to believe
that if the government,
could shape children from the
time they were very young,
they could be kind of reformed
into being good citizens.
He became the first ever
secretary of education...
...for any state.
No state in America had ever...
...had a secretary of education.
One of the things they
did was start setting up.
What we know today as public schools,
across the state of Massachusett.
More and more states started
jumping on this bandwagon.
So in 1962,
the Supreme Court ruled that prayer,
in school was unconstitutional.
And that paved the way then
for another ruling in 1963,
where the Supreme Court
ruled that you couldn't...
...have "Bible" in school either.
That was a fundamental
turning point in the history,
of the United States when
we officially said to God,
you're not welcome in the
education of our children anymore.
- Take 10.
- Abby, can you wave hi?
Hi.
- There's Caleb.
- Hi.
And here's Luke.
It's your turn to wave hello.
When Abby was born,
I didn't know anything
about down syndrome.
I didn't know anything
about speech therapy,
physical therapy, occupational therapy.
Any of those things.
We'd all get together.
Parents got one vote.
The teacher got a vote.
The administration got a vote.
And somebody else got another vote.
And so they came up with...
- ...their evaluation.
- Assessment.
Their assessment.
And we looked at the assessmen.
We know she could do more than that.
This is not our daughter.
I went to observe one day
and all the kids were going out,
onto the playground,
and the kids all started
climbing over the jungle gym.
And Abby starts to climb
up on the jungle gym,
- Just like the other kids.
- She has an older brother.
She's used to chasing after him.
And one of the aides
that had been working,
with her started to pull
her back down and say,
"No Abby, you can't do that."
Mama bear here's like,
"You don't tell my daughter
she can't do something."
And I wanted Abby to
be in an environment...
...where she would
be allowed to try things,
and not told that she
couldn't do something.
Because she was different.
We're either gonna have
to fight this the rest...
...of the time that we have
her in public school,
or we're gonna have to
take this on ourselves.
If we put half as much time
into homeschooling our child...
...as we're putting
into trying to get ready,
for these art meetings,
find what's legal and all the energy...
...that we were kind of
wasting in that direction,
I thought she'd be better off.
We didn't have to be a
special needs teacher.
We only had to be a
teacher of our daughter.
We finally said,
"Okay let's do this, let's homeschool"
A triangle story.
I remember when I told
my brother and I said,
"I'm going on this adventure."
"I'm gonna homeschool the kids."
And it was dead silent on
this other end of the line.
And he says,
"Well wait, you are going
to be their teacher,"
"all of them?"
"Yeah."
He was like,
"Is that legal?"
I said, "You know what,
"it is legal."
And he's like,
"So are you gonna have
a little school room?"
"No, I have a whole new vision."
A lot of people have so many
fears about homeschooling,
like, oh my gosh,
do I have to turn my living room,
or my den into a school room?
Where do I put the chalkboard?
Where do the cubbies go?
Homeschooling brought
up a lot of insecurities,
a lot of like,
I can't do this.
I can't meet the mark of what
these trained teachers can do.
I was always afraid that
we were gonna do it wrong.
They'd go to college and be like,
my parents never taught me division.
Where do I get math from?
Where do I get English from?
What words do they need
to know how to spell?
How do I know?
I specifically got
held back in 1st grade,
because I couldn't read.
I felt so incapable of
teaching our daughter to read,
because I didn't understand
it when I was her age.
If there's really anything
they need to know in life,
it's reading, the rest they
can figure out through reading.
There's nobody really
looking over my shoulder,
to make sure that my son knows
what he's supposed to know.
I was a mess on their
last day of school.
I picked them up and I thought,
oh my gosh,
what are we gonna do?
I have three kids that I'm
respond before it, I like...
...and I don't even know
what we're gonna have...
...for breakfast tomorrow.
I was a public school
teacher and I've had to,
un public school myself.
And I've had to learn
how to teach my kids,
to learn for themselves.
One of the misconceptions
that parents talk...
...to me about if they're
wondering about homeschooling,
is that they can't do it.
I'm fearful that I won't
be able to do it well.
It's a misconception.
I can't do it.
I'm not educated to be a teacher.
But you know what?
Homeschoolers, we don't teach content.
We teach children.
I'm Dr. Kathy Koch,
the founder of Celebrate Kids.
We have a podcast.
I've authored six books.
And I work in churches and convention.
And we get to help parents and children,
of all ages do things well,
do things right,
learn the things that are
important for them to learn.
I was a 2nd grade school teacher,
a middle school coach,
a school board member,
and a university professor.
After I earned a PhD in reading
and educational psychology.
You don't teach science and
math and history and English.
We teach children.
And you know your children
better than anybody else,
and you love your children
more than anybody else,
and you will be an excellent teacher.
One of the greatest advantages
of homeschooling is learning...
...with the kids and you
can model teachability,
and you can model perseverance
and you can model practice,
when you learn alongside of your kids.
High five, way to go bud.
So I went to a friend
of mine's classroom,
she's a kindergarten teacher.
And I was like,
Okay, show me what your day looks like.
And I was already intimidated walking in,
'cause, you know,
bright boards and the
room was all pristine,
and everything looked a certain way.
And so she pulls out her
sensory bin, essentially.
And I was like, okay,
I mean, this is something
I'll never be able to do.
And it was a tub full
of toys and I was like,
"Wait a second,
that's your sensory bin?"
I can pull that off.
I've got sensory bins in my house,
and so it started to
feel way more accessible.
We were open to trying new things.
And I think this was one of
those things where we're like,
what's the worst that can happen?
Right, why not?
As we began to homeschool,
there was less pressure on Nathaniel.
There was no more of those
sad days on the playground,
where he was just at a loss
at why he wasn't connecting...
...with the group.
I really enjoy the time
to be able to just chill out...
...on the couch and spend
time at home with the dogs,
and with my mom.
We no longer were chained
to the school schedule.
We now could go places
in the middle of the week.
And enjoy empty parks, empty libraries.
I was worried about losing freedom,
but what I discovered was the freedom we...
...had was so worth the
small sacrifice it was,
to teach the kids.
And now, 12 years later,
I realize it wasn't a sacrifice,
it was a total gift.
Sorry.
I loved building
family relationships.
It's really hard to put family first,
when you're so separated.
Yeah.
That was the vision that excited me...
...about homeschooling first.
So then when I started to get curriculum.
You could do it in a relaxed setting,
and they all seemed to be loving...
...'cause it wasn't like this tedious,
sit for long periods of time.
I quickly began to see
that I could do this,
and how efficient it was,
and how much more you could get done,
in a short period of time.
Which left a lot more
time for other kind...
...of living and learning.
I felt like we got our family.
- I felt like, yes.
- Yeah, there's no pause.
- Of life going on.
- We just got our kids back.
And our family back.
And if we're gonna travel,
we could travel together if we want it.
- Right.
- Or if we wanted...
...to take the weekdays and the
weekends and switch them,
- We could have the weekdays,
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that was a cool feeling.
- Be our weekend.
And we were a family again.
It didn't take long
before I knew that...
- And the kids loved it.
- ...It was a good decision.
We start our school day
the same exact way every day,
no matter how it ends.
Every single school day starts
with prayer, devotional.
God, we thank You so much for this day.
We ask that today You open
up our hearts and our minds.
Allow me to teach each
of our children exactly,
what You have in mind today.
"Parker is sad because
his plant is dying."
"Do you ever feel sad?"
Today I felt sad that Chloe left.
Yeah, anytime she's not home.
When I do feel sad,
I have to talk to God
about it and ask Him.
No matter what you do,
I suggest that you always
pray anytime you feel sad.
Peyton, some things are more hands on,
others less, she's
moving in that direction.
The two littles,
I try to do a lot with them together.
"Sally plays in the sand."
I call this my crate system.
So each kid has their own crate.
This is Justin's crate,
Which is mostly full of things,
that make him think he's doing work.
Lots of coloring books,
and stuff like that.
But each child has a crate
with whatever we're working on,
that week, nothing more.
Only the workbooks that we're doing,
whatever manipulatives we're doing.
For instance, Nola,
she's got these particular flash cards,
that she can place the
numbers and letters on.
These are little popcorn sight
words that she can learn.
We do a mixture of things,
from me working with them one-on-one,
to different videos they have to watch,
and documentaries and the
list goes on and on.
Our school days look
different every single day.
Chloe being in 8th grade is obviusly,
of an independent worker at this point.
Let me see real quick.
But there was one correction
you needed to make.
You don't have to rewrite the whole thing,
but there was one correction.
But it would've just
been one little sentence,
that I had to put in the beginning.
But if you do a first draft
anywhere in the workplace,
when you turn in some type
of proposal or something,
and they tell you something's missing,
you can't say to them,
well, it's just one sentence.
They're gonna say,
well come back with that one sentences.
You can make anything educational.
You really, really can.
What you teach your children about how,
to treat the world around them,
that is really what's
gonna be prominent.
But the key here is that
we get so much more time,
to spend on that.
We don't have to worry about,
man, I'm trying to teach my kids,
but then when they go to school,
they're exposed to so much of that.
That it's this constant battle.
We don't have that.
Chloe, when you're not
feeling like yourself,
what do you usually do?
Listen to worship music.
I feel like there's
never been a time that,
- That didn't help.
- Yeah.
So we have been homeschooling
for a little over a month.
What we opted to do was,
to set up a private
school out of our home.
I basically have to go online once a year.
And fill out an affidavit with the state.
And the name of our school
is Hillside Home Education,
because we actually kind of
live on the side of a hill.
And we have one full-time teacher, me,
one student, Oliver.
I figured, well,
if I screw this up for
two years and we decide...
...to go back to public school,
it's kind of a wash 'cause
he was working at a couple,
of grade levels higher than
he actually was anyway.
So tomorrow we'll
shoot for two math, and,
one more language arts.
- Mm-mm.
- Okay?
I definitely get to push back on him.
He really does not like language arts.
The nice thing about
homeschooling is I can kind...
of work it around what our schedule is.
Grab your watch, bud.
Where's your watch at?
Here.
Okay, let's put it on.
If we don't get started
one day until 10 o'clock.
In the morning, okay.
If Oliver's just really
struggling emotionally.
With something, we can just say,
okay, and go outside and
play with the animals,
go build something out of Legos.
Oliver has definitely learned a lot,
about animal husbandry with ducks.
Watch this.
I'm able to engage with him in a level,
that I haven't ever really
engaged with him before.
I am really able to find out.
What is it that he really, truly enjoy.
The only way I'm gonna do...
...that is by deepening my
relationship with him,
to really get to know him.
He has told my husband
that his favorite part,
about homeschooling is the
fact that I'm his teacher,
which kind of blew me away.
And so if I can use this time
to deepen that relationship,
and to make a deeper connection with him.
I really think that that will
benefit us for the long run.
I think our kids learn
best through the freedom...
...that we have.
Yes, absolutely.
Now our kids have the
freedom to ask questions.
They have the freedom to have
any open conversation with us,
which is highly important
to us as parents.
They've got the freedom to fail.
- They've got a freedom to...
- Yeah, they've got the freedom to fail.
They've got the freedom to problem solves,
and try to figure things out on their own,
And so we really want them
to have an attitude of,
I can do this if I just keep try,
if I just keep searching,
if I just keep learning.
Zoe right now is a little entrepreneur.
I really feel like Zoe is encourage.
Because she's watched her mom
build a successful business,
and she takes on the same attitude.
And that's kind of where Clay
and I had the conversation.
We're like, if we homeschool,
maybe Zoe could have a little online shop.
I think it's exciting to see her learn,
oh, this is how I use my math
that mom's been teaching me.
Yeah.
We're gonna get your.
- Charms out today.
- Make necklaces.
Oh yeah, we're
gonna make necklaces.
I think I want to make
necklaces and bracelets,
and make money so I
want to just sell them.
One of the things
we'll do is we'll rotate.
So we'll have Zoe read while
Cohen's doing something,
that needs a lot of help.
- Yeah, reading is cool.
- Or we'll have Cohen.
Do something while we have to help Zoe...
- ...with a different subject.
- Yeah.
The mistake was only an S at t
Well done.
Yes.
And then you go front to back,
and I do it right at the top.
We want their mindset towards learning,
to be something they can't get enough off.
They love it.
They want more of it.
Oh yeah, good job.
I think the best part
of homeschooling is...
...that they love each other.
We used to come home from school,
and be cranky at each other.
But now that we're homeschooling,
they hug and they hold
hands and they just,
they're each other's buddy.
They've been playing...
...with each other this whole time
They're playing kindly and sweat.
They've been really sweet to each other.
- That's been my favorite part.
- It's great.
The freedom and the
lifestyle we get to live.
They get to be all in.
They get to be involved.
They see us work.
They see us play.
They see the whole
picture and I love that.
When I taught my kids,
I wanted them to be alive.
I wanted them to be part of the story.
I wanted them to feel it.
At 14, when he can't even drive a car.
He can fly a plane and he's pretty close...
...to soloing in a glider.
He'll walk away with a
private pilot's license,
in non-powered flight.
And then as he completes this program,
the goal is to get him a
private pilot's license,
in powered flight.
So once a week he gets to go fly
So here's my checklist.
You'll start at the nose and begin...
...to go around the left side
and checking the wings,
to make sure there's no
breakages or weak point.
Then you'll inspect the rudder,
and the horizontal and
vertical stabilizers.
And then we'll run
through the emergencies.
Cool, we got altimeter,
we got air brakes, ballast,
belts, canopy, cable.
It's so much fun.
Recently, we did spins,
a lot more fun than a roller coaster.
We were actually able to pull
two and a half Gs going down.
It's never boring to
fly around in a glider.
It doesn't get old.
I feel like when you
go to regular school,
you kind of have to fit
some kind of mold,
And when you're homeschooled,
you can kind of create
your own foundation.
Knowing that Chloe truly
enjoys the restaurant business,
I have a friend who owns a restaurant.
I want my child to understand what this is.
Because she may hate
it or she may love it,
but I want her to know now.
Okay, right now I'm getting ready...
...to make a shrimp fried rice.
Do you add any pasta water or is it just.
Just a little bit.
We think it's cool,
all the different ways
that you can find success,
in our world now.
And we want our children
to have the opportunity,
to experience those things
and not be kind of closed off,
like no, you have to do this,
this, this and that.
You're okay, hon.
- This one?
- Yep.
- Is that enough?
- Yeah.
A day in our life looks
different every single day,
but we do have what we
call kind of like a flow,
or a rhythm to our days.
Yeah.
I think we're short a few people.
I think we're still short a few people.
We both work and
we both work part time.
So we switch off
and on with our kids.
So if I'm working,
Chris will have the kids and
he'll take them to a park,
or to a playground or snugly
here at the apartment.
And then if I have them,
Chris is working,
coaching at the gym.
Yes.
We'll do school in that time.
We'll do a more focused,
intentional time of learning.
We each kind of have our own locker,
and they each have their own workbooks,
- Wow.
- Oh, wow. Interesting.
They just love to learn and
so we are not about tests.
I'm not trying to test where they're at,
especially at this point.
Nope, circle the letter
that it starts with.
Do you wanna get the
paints out for this one,
and use your finger to color it.
- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- Okay.
But each of our kids
learn very differently,
and their interests are very different,
In homeschooling,
I get to cater to that,
and I get to really be specific, to each,
of their learning styles
and their interests.
As children, we learn through play.
And at some point that
gets worked out of us.
When I was a child, learning,
there was an aspect about
the rigor of learning.
Learning just wasn't fun.
And so seeing our kids,
I'm looking at this building
that my son is building.
In his mind six months
ago he couldn't conceive.
I'm watching his mind through play.
I'm watching his mind
expand and he's having fun.
Wow.
And we both try to
keep our work schedule,
to about 20 hours a week,
not any anymore than that.
So we're both working
about 20 hours of a week,
and then we spend the rest
of the time as a family.
What I love about
homeschooling is every family...
...has a personality.
You can't have some picture perfect,
of what you think your
day's gonna look like.
For me, it was loose structure.
There is no right or wrong.
Our family's gonna do it
the way that's comfortable,
for us to do it.
For some of the kids,
they like to sit, structure them,
they line things up,
and the others have their
feet up on the couch,
and they like to listen and
doodle at the same time.
Some like to go out in the yard.
Everyone has a different personality.
I wouldn't even tell a
person how you should,
because it's more the parent's personality,
and the kids' personality.
Free to be you.
I tend to like things very structure,
'cause if it's not structured,
I'll get distracted.
You may be much more like free-spirit.
I may be.
And maybe a little more,
let's just go with what feels right.
Yeah.
And the kids are the same way too.
And so that's part of
the fun of discovering.
How your family is gonna homeschool,
And it's great to look
at what other people do, but,
but there is no one way
that you need to do it.
I like all my kids up.
Because I'm a morning person
so I'm up fairly early.
Someone makes breakfast for everyone.
And it's not usually me.
Someone's brewing coffee.
We do devotionals.
That's hands down the
first thing that we do,
and if that's all we do
then we were successful.
We're gonna read on to day three,
There was a rich man
who was clothed in purple.
And fine linen?
Mhmm.
We work on stuff that we all do together.
Geography, history,
reading, read alouds.
Stuff that everybody can pitch.
I am somebody who comes alongs,
and learns along with them.
Teach it at the highest level,
they will all listen.
The biggest thing I can teach
them is to think critically.
Why, why not,
that's what I wanna teach them.
I don't want them to just
learn all this stuff.
I want them to experience it
and live it and ask questions.
So with Molly,
every part of her just speaks,
I wanna make that.
I get to just create whatever I want.
This is the head of my horse.
I built it out of some
scraps of wood in our garage.
It makes me happy when I do something.
Not everybody's working.
A lot of times it's just playing.
We make lunch.
We sit down for lunch.
We play, we're outside.
And even in our learning,
Sometimes we are outside.
Zoe?
I find that if I walk with
them in the mornings,
or in the evenings.
That that's also another time
where someone can come up next,
to me and hold my
hand and start asking me,
and talking with me.
So we're just relating to each other.
See, that's so great.
I am not on anyone's clock.
I can do it on my own,
how I wanna do it,
when I wanna do it.
Kate's now in high school
so she's doing a lot
of stuff more on her own.
She wants to work on farms.
Through prayer, if the
Lord puts a family,
in front of me that says,
"Oh, I just bought 11 acres
and I'm starting from scratch,
I would love someone
that would help me.
Come on pig.
That's good. That was good.
I mean, you're doing
school for eight hours.
And then you have homework,
so there's no time except
Saturday and Sunday.
And then you just want
a break from school.
So I personally wouldn't be able...
...to do everything I'm doing
right now if I was in school.
We were in a new neighbourhood.
And she wanted to meet people.
So she thought,
hey, I should have a bake sale.
And it would be a way
for her to earn money.
I just had people who
were investing in my kids.
It's art to just watch her with the,
cake and the frosting and all
this stuff that she does.
What do you think of this one?
Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this.
She went from just
some bake sales...
...to consistently has repeat customer.
So this is my business card.
I made it with my friend.
We like the teal in it.
Yeah, very nice. I like that.
There was a woman in my neighbourhood.
She said, "Is that what Kate
wants to do for a living?"
"Yes, that's what she wants to do,"
she said,
"her academics comes first,"
"and then all of the
baking that she want,"
"to do would come after, right?"
And I looked her and I went,
"No, actually all of the
baking that she wants
"to do will come all before
any of the other academics."
And she looked at me with this,
oh my gosh,
what are you doing?
Why are we waiting
until they have a degree?
With zero experience and then going.
I need experience now.
Why are we waiting when our
kids are showing us right now,
I have these passions.
I have these desires.
Put me in front of them.
They need parents to go,
yes, let's go do that.
People wonder about socialization.
There's so much socialization
outside of just the school.
There was sports and
extracurricular activities.
Kids got so much
more time to get involved,
in extracurricular activities,
because they're not spending,
- some eight hours a day.
- Yeah.
You spend much less time,
you get more done and then you have time.
We're taking karate
classes or we're going,
taking cooking classes or
we're taking art classes,
or we're just going
to explore on our own,
and we're gonna travel
and we're gonna do things.
So I got a lot of negative
feedback about my kids,
that they were gonna be socially awkward.
How are they gonna socialize,
is the number one question...
...that people are gonna start asking.
They did when I was five years old,
and they do still now today,
35 years later.
I hear that one all the time.
And homeschool moms will
tend to just roll their eyes,
'cause they've heard it too.
We've all heard that.
How do I make sure that
he's learning the skills,
that he needs to function in
the world outside of our house?
A lot of people worry
that as a homeschooler,
you're gonna be isolated.
And that kind of makes
me laugh a little bit.
Well, it's not like I'm
keeping them in a drawer.
They go everywhere where I go.
One of the fears that
parents talk to me about is...
...that my kids won't be socialized,
and that is such a lie
because they actually end up,
with greater socialization
skills across the generations.
Why would I wanna take my
kids to the grocery store?
That would make it 10 times harder.
I go to the store when they're at school.
- Right, so I get
- So I can get
- Everything done.
- The shopping done.
And I go, no.
I take all five.
Each of them will get a cart.
And I'll go through self-checkout.
And I just stand right by and watch.
So they're learning responsibility.
They're learning home act.
They're learning how to
make a list of ingredients,
and go find those things.
They're learning how to pay.
People think, oh no,
they're just stuck in your
house somewhere, they're not.
Right, no.
For the average kid,
so many hours in school and
then so many hours of homework,
it's very hard.
And so they're in all these
organized settings and we think,
oh, they're spending so
much time with other kids,
but it isn't in the way that they thrive.
And learn and develop relationship skills.
And I actually love that question.
Because I love to flip it.
What do you think the
benefits are, socially,
of combining academics with peers.
How is that beneficial?
What about when...
...the social actually,
creates a barrier to learning,
bullying maybe from a
teacher or from peers,
or if there's an economic
difference in terms...
...of how I dress so I'm
perceived differently,
and so maybe not given
the same opportunities?
So socially, that's
actually an inhibator...
...to them learning well.
Whereas in homeschooling
you get to do both.
And that doesn't mean,
that the social can't also
include the academics.
There are a lot of people
that they grew up in school,
and so you're friends with
a girl who goes to school,
who sits in the class with you,
who you see.
Then you grow up and you become an adult.
And you're a mom and you're at
home and you have small kids,
and you look up one day and say,
where are the friends?
I love this environment, again,
of them kind of getting to know
other people of other ages,
them learning how to pursue relationship.
I know so many people as
adults who do not know...
...how to pursue a friendship
that doesn't just happen,
to them where they're in the
same place with someone else.
When in my life have
I been in a room full...
...of people my exact
age ever since school.
It didn't happen.
I seek out multi-generational experiences.
That is something
that's important to me,
'cause that's where you glean wisdom.
We wanted our kids to be able, to relate,
to people of all different ages,
not just their peers.
And at school it's like, okay,
so you're at school and I
would meet other moms there,
for the 10 minutes I
was waiting for my kids,
to be released and have
a little conversation.
That's a lot different
than packing up a lunch,
and going to the river for
the afternoon to explore.
We have a group
of families that get together,
and we meet out,
at the same nature
preserve every single week.
Hello.
- Yeah, let's go to that log.
- To the log?
- Yeah,
- With the river?
- Yeah.
- The ages are from 12 to one.
And we just explore in the woods.
They play in the river.
They climb trees.
They run up and down the hills.
And our daughter,
'cause she loves to create,
so she makes a lot of gifts.
- What are those?
- Who are those for?
And she's extraordinarily generous.
Everywhere we go,
she goes with gifts in tow.
Here's your
package for your family.
- Thank you.
- You're welcome.
It's just something
that's really unique,
and special to her.
We have become like a
family in a lot of ways,
and they are some of
our kids' best friends.
We do life together outside
of the co-op as well.
Connecting with other
homeschool families,
it's really important.
There's more of those co-ops
starting because this is,
it's like a wildfire, it's catching.
- Yeah
- People are realizing when they had...
...to be forced to stay home,
they realized they could do this.
And their kids were thriving.
- Yeah.
- They see that there's another way.
Hi, my name is Emma and I'm going...
to teach you about seals,
the kind that people use
to make things official.
You get the envelope and
then you pour the wax,
press it in and then
you slowly peel it off.
Hello, my name is Robert.
I have designed this flamethrowe.
I decided that I would
gather a few of my friends,
to join me in my basement.
Together, we teach geography,
public speaking, and civics.
Together, we can teach a lot more subjects.
And teach them well and be creative...
...cause we all bring different
things to the table.
We've been talking about
the Bill of Rights,
freedom of religion,
freedom of speech,
freedom of assembly.
We know that the Minutemen
and the rebels are hiding,
and for the first
time they're thinking,
we can do this.
We can stand up to the Crown.
We control our own destiny.
As you all know,
we have a special guest today.
So guys, give him a warm welcome.
Wow.
Some people decided
to build a monument so...
...that we would never forget
how to have a strong,
and healthy country.
The National Monument to the Forefathers.
Can somebody read what it says right here?
Faith.
So they believed that you need,
to have faith in God.
If you look at Morality,
there's a few things that
she has in her hands.
The 10 commandments.
The 10 commandments, that's right.
Once you know right from
wrong and good from bad,
- now you can make good Laws.
- Law.
So then it's really
important they said to.
- Education.
- Education.
If we stay with these principles,
our country can remain strong an healthy.
But if we get away
from these principles.
Our country will get very
sick and begin to fall apart.
It's up to all of us to
remember these things,
and to make sure that you
guys teach these things,
to your kids one day too...
...and God will continue
to bless our country.
The full conventions, you know...
...where you can talk to
people and find something...
...that works right for your family.
A Homeschool Convention is a place.
Where families come to relax,
to refresh, to be inspired.
We've got something for the whole family.
We have kids who are
playing together all weekend,
while the parents go and see workshop.
Worship time where the family
can come together and worship.
We have teen programs.
They do service jobs.
They do activities. They do workshop.
They make lifelong friends.
The exhibit hall is filled with vendors,
that have all different
types of curriculum.
You'll have music vendors
who have music curriculum.
There are some with art where
they're drawing and painting.
Book vendors who just
have supplementary books.
Fun booths where you can
buy toys or activities,
or things like that.
You hear sessions and
you listen to speakers,
and they remind you that
you are doing kingdom work,
that your kids are valuable,
they're important, they're eternal.
You just come and you get filled up.
Daily life as a homeschool
family varies a lot over years.
We rarely put in a
five-day weeks schedule.
I'm John Critz.
I'm Courtney Critz.
We have eight children.
Courtney and I both are self-employee.
We work from home.
We have kind of a time
block of 10 to three.
And everyone knows what needs
to be done during that time.
Kids have a bin for their overal world,
and then we have our shared subject.
So the kids each others
have their own english.
They have their own math.
But we do history all together, science.
Bible, geography.
But when you have a bunch of kids,
having everybody in their own book.
For every subject would be impossible.
I'm planting myself in our school room,
and then everyone's just
sort of coming and rotating...
...in with me and then
rotating back out as they...
...have independent
work that they can do...
...or they can be helping
someone else with their work.
I really like that you're able...
...to go to somebody if you need help,
like a sibling or something
and they can help you.
If you understand
something really quickly,
you can just scroll
through it and then go...
...to the next subject,
instead of having to wait.
They can be doing household chores.
They can do reading.
They can do music.
They have their things that
have to happen in those hours,
and then they know that
when that time is up,
they're free to go do the
things that they wanna do.
This is my favorite.
It's the Millennium Falcon.
It's a cool set but
it's a very fragile set.
So just a heads up if you ever want it.
The little kids play all around us,
and it's amazing what
they pick up and learn,
that you have no idea
that they're listening to.
But to me,
one of the things that's
really important as a mother is...
...for my children very young to
learn to play independently.
We rarely wake up and have the day.
That we thought we were gonna have.
It's so true.
Maybe we're just having a rough day.
And we're not pulling it together well.
And I may load them up in the car,
and we may go get something to eat,
and turn on an audio book.
Some of them thrive with all the bookwork,
and things like that.
You've got your kids that don't as much.
We have the ability
to do some fun things.
Man, it's beautiful outside.
Let's go ride four wheelers.
We can go do these things while
everyone else is in school,
and we'll load up and go out
to the trails and right around.
There are definitely days.
Where they didn't feel
like doing their work.
The thing was
reprogramming my brain.
You slip back into a
conventional way of thinking.
You have to get it done.
You have to get to page 99.
It's what's on the curriculum.
I needed to take back the reigns.
I needed to be able to say,
there is no rule about
where you need to be.
You don't need to read
perfectly by 1st grade.
I just want you to love to read.
And there's nothing wrong with you...
...because you can't read in 1st grade.
If a child is not made
to feel analytic quick,
in those early elementary years,
they could be two,
three levels behind,
whatever that means,
and between the ages of 12
and 15 they just take off.
It's really freeing to
let their brains learn...
...and mature at their own pace.
And now with our oldest,
he is very interested in
his parkour and in movement.
He's very active.
He loves how the body works and
the muscles and all of that.
So he started becoming interested in that.
Well, we go to the chiropractor.
She says, "Hey,"
"you wanna come be in our office?"
"You can learn about
the body through that."
"We can show you things,
see if you're interested in
what I went to school for,
which is kinesiology."
So now he works there 20 hours a week.
Getting so much
experience that's gonna go,
with him into life.
We talk to them about our work.
We'll be discussing
things all the time.
Sometimes the older ones
will kind of pipe in with,
"Hey, what about this?"
And they'll give ideas.
They're always learning,
and we'll give them
a little job to do till,
they'll understand what
they are supposed to do...
...because they've been listening to us.
Knowledge turns to understanding
through experience.
That experience is gonna
help him figure out,
and translate that into, like,
okay, what do I want to do in life.
We want our kids to love learning,
because that's such a lifelong pursue.
You have to constantly be
going back to your values.
What is it that I want for my family?
Where does my family thrive?
18 Years ago,
we started a ministry
called Familyman Ministries.
To remind dads of what matters most.
And my kids will be assembling
games that we sell online.
And so we have books.
We've written lots of books
for homeschooling moms.
Now we travel all over the country,
and we have an RV that we
call the Familyman Mobile.
But it's been a great family adventure.
At any point,
we can just drop everything and
go on a trip to the Midwest.
Yep.
We can talk
about Utah and deserts.
Yeah, to us,
we've already lived our
life as an adventure.
Homeschooling fit right into it.
Yeah.
We're more of the travel family.
Get up, take your tablet,
walk out the door.
You pack this. You pack this.
- On the spur of the moment.
- You pack that.
And then we're just gonna walk out,
and if you're not in the
car we're gonna leave you.
I've been blessed to
take her to Amman, Jordan,
and world school her and
let her see the world,
and different cultures and
embrace in different cultures...
...that being in regular
school would not...
...have afforded her that opportunity.
They say, once you got kids,
it's not gonna be so easy.
You get on the backside of
a backpacking across Europe,
with your two-year-old and
your four-year-old and you go,
that was pretty exhilarating.
It was the most magic.
It's it's perfect.
We have one in particular
and I have this picture...
...of him that I love so much.
And he's off by himself,
sitting on this rock,
overlooking everything.
He thrives when we travel.
He learns so much in that space.
I love the flexibility of this
life that lets us just live.
We had gone to Scottsdale,
Arizona, to stay at my
grandparents condo.
And on the way home,
I was really bummed about going back home.
I thought to myself,
wouldn't it be cool if we
just sold all our stuff,
and bought an RV and just
did this all the time?
I think I was quiet
for about 10 minutes.
And my mind was just reeling,
like wow, our classroom
could become the country.
We found one down in Long Beach,
but Brent couldn't go look at it,
So I packed up Nathanael
and he and I went down,
to Long Beach to look at the RV.
I remember heading down,
an hour and a half drive with my mom,
to go check out this Fifth
Wheel that we had found.
While I'm looking at the RV,
thinking about how I
wanna design the interior,
Nathanael's asking all
the technical questions.
It's like, can I see the underbelly.
What kind of electricity does it run on?
Looking at the seams in the ceiling,
for any potential leaks.
And at the time, mind you,
he's 11 years old.
Considering the price
and the other things,
that I had seen and the
other listings on the market,
it did seem like it
was probably a good fit,
for what we were
trying to do, good size.
I'm like, we'll take it,
and spent our entire savings based...
...on my 11-year-old's inspection.
My mom and
I spent six hours a day,
eight hours a day
painting all the cabinets,
getting all the walls ready.
I think my mom
was recovering upholstery...
...and doing curtains and everything,
just making it homey.
And the first few weeks,
it kind of feels like
you're playing house.
It's just so fun.
You can't believe,
like, I just spent two
years preparing for this,
and here I am.
- It was liberating.
- It was.
It was really liberating.
The first national park
we went to was Yosemite.
The kids went to a
junior ranger program,
and I saw our future in their education.
I see what this is going to be.
She let me be curious
and let me choose...
...what I wanted to learn.
Go walk the
Freedom Trail in Boston,
walk the streets of St. Augustin,
walk to Santa Fe,
go to a museum.
When I'm learning about the Civil war.
I could see all the
battlefields like Gettysburg.
And history just
really comes to life.
So it was because of
this liberating experience,
of being able to learn at my own pace,
and these things that I really
learned to love to learn.
I wasn't being spoonfed,
I wasn't following the tradition
mold of what was supposed,
to be happening at a certain
pace at a certain time.
I was able to do what worked for me.
It wasn't all about let's
see as much as we can.
It was almost like,
let let's live as much as we can.
We met some other
families that were planning...
...to go to Breckenridge for the winter.
I thought, wow,
that would be awesome.
The Breckenridge Media team,
was following him down the mountain.
Right, they were in a little
promo video for Breckenridge.
Over the course of those two months.
I became pretty dang good.
One night, it
got down to negative 30,
and we're living in this RV
that's not made for that.
Our heater had broken,
and we had guys in our
camper late at night,
helping Brent pull out
the heater to fix it,
and letting our kids see
that things will work out.
It'll be okay.
There's going to be a solution.
One morning, I hadn't
been feeling very well,
but I didn't think much about it.
So the night we found out
we were having another baby,
it happened to be the same night,
we had just dropped
the trailer into a ditch.
Oh, that's right.
We definitely felt
God's presence comforting us.
It was just part of the journey.
It's not about the destination.
It's about all the
discoveries along the journey.
For us to have another child,
it became one more discovery
along this journey.
It's really hard to
teach love and compassion,
for the vulnerable until
you experience that,
and that's such a gift to
watch them fall in love...
...with this little vulnerable human,
That is a huge part of their education.
We called him, Baby Nomad,
our little guy.
So after four years living in an RV,
having a baby and then
a fourth on the way,
we decided to settle down.
But we we've missed the
traveling pretty much every day.
We've tried to show them how
to live an adventurous life.
The first week in November,
my parents called me and told
me that another family member...
...of mine had become,
very ill, very quickly.
And I ended up hopping on
a plane Thursday afternoon.
The day before it
then dawned on me that,
oh, there's a
homeschooling situation here,
that I'm going to now be involved in.
The challenge was,
is there a way for me to try
to work from home as much...
...as possible while at the
same time being effective,
in working with Oliver
and his homeschooling?
And also taking care of
our three-year-old too.
- Yeah, I guess...
- She was in the mix as well.
I guess Eve was there too.
My thought was,
well, if it doesn't work,
then Oliver just got a week off school.
No big deal, like...
We'll catch up later,
it's not a problem.
Nice low expectations for me.
I didn't even realize that was an option.
Let's see if I can do this.
So I woke up extra early and
I put in hours before either...
...of the kids woke up.
Once Oliver would wake up,
he would get dressed, have breakfast.
Once he was finished with his breakfast.
I would set him on something
that he had the ability...
...to do independently
while his sister woke up.
He told me to look at what
we're doing for LA today.
LA stands for language arts.
And so I had to look for lesson 33,
and it says it right here.
So I know that that's where it is.
While his sister was up,
I would get her dressed,
get her fed for the day.
At that point we would
actually kind of take a break,
whether it's some chores
to clean something up,
or something like that.
What I would do is
actually have a set time,
where I sent them out to go
play outside for an hour.
So I would do some more work
on my end for about an hour.
At that point we would do lunchtime.
After lunchtime, Eve
would go down for her nap.
Oliver and I would sit
down and do maybe one,
or two more units of school.
Typically we were doing four units.
Super duper, dude.
Okay, so let's check that one of.
I looked at this as an
opportunity for me to interact,
with my children in a
totally different way than I...
...have ever done in my entire life.
To see how he excels in
those particular areas.
That he previously was struggling in.
Good job.
A father stepping in to help,
with education is unfortunate
that that is abnormal.
This is supposed to be a partnership.
Do I always do that correctly?
Absolutely not.
But it's these times for me
that I very much appreciate...
...what my wife deals
with on a daily bases.
I did a fraction of that
and at the end of the day,
I was exhausted.
What a awesome opportunity
to be able to walk...
...in those shoes for just those few days,
maybe catch a glimpse of
how amazing my wife is.
Thanks, babe.
We really found the kitchen tables,
where we started doing homeschooling,
just a common space.
There's not a lot of room.
There's no office here.
We've kind of struggled with
where else would we homeschool?
So we wanted to invite
our friend Aubrey over.
She's an interior designer,
just have some fresh
eyes on our space,
and see what we
could come up with.
- Aubrey, hey.
- Hi.
- How are you?
- And how are you guys?
- Good.
- It's so good to see you.
So tell me what you're
thinking homeschool wise?
We've been doing
school at the table.
We've got a lot of
books on the table.
Have to put it away for dinner.
Have to put it away for lunch.
We were kind of
thinking about the garage.
The problem is it looks like a garage.
I actually think that
we can make the garage work.
I know you guys are looking
at this like this is sad,
to put our kids in a garage,
but I really don't think this.
Okay.
Painting this is gonna
make it feel so much lighter,
and brighter and cleaner.
Love the fact that you
already have a pegboard.
So you get a low desk
and some cute chairs.
Let's do it.
It feels like an extension of our home,
like our living space.
I had so much fun.
- Yeah, you guys ready,
- I think you guys...
- to see what she did?
- ...are gonna love it.
- Go check it out.
- Go check it out, go.
Yay.
What do you guys think?
We love it.
Parents are very in tune
with their children's spirit.
Schools are not.
When something's off
in your child's spirit,
no learning is worthwhile.
So I like the idea of just
being creative and being free,
and custom-making a learning
curriculum for each child,
and kind of who they're.
In school, what does smart mean?
Usually it means book smart,
academic smart, IQ smart.
If it's only one lane,
it's so hard.
What if I'm not smart in that way.
And that's why so many people
who I think they're afraid,
to teach their kids.
So the question is not,
am I smart?
The question is not,
well, how smart am I?
The question is,
how am I smart?
One of the books I've been privilege,
to write is about multiple inteligences.
It's called "8 Great Smarts".
You know, I love to tell kids,
that if something is
a challenge for you,
you're not stupid,
you're smart in a different way.
So what are the "8 Great Smarts".
Word smart, we think with words.
When we're excited we probably talk.
Do you have a kid who plays
and talks while she's playing,
and no one is in the room but her.
She's probably word smart.
The second smart is logic smart.
And logic smart kids think with question,
and when they're excited,
they ask more questions.
So they explore and they might
debate and they might argue,
because the logic smart part,
of them wants to understand things.
They're what I call the school smart.
What do we do in traditional
school all day long?
We read, write,
speak, listen,
ask and answer questions.
So children who are given
a lot of brain cells,
in the word smart and logic smart,
part of their brain will find those type,
of school systems easier to handle.
They're the ones who felt smart.
They were called smart.
Well, guess what?
Everybody's smart and the other
six matter greatly for life.
In preschool, I just paid
attention to her learning style.
She was very meticulous in how
she would set her Legos up.
I just noticed something special.
Moving into kindergarten,
she would get teased by kids,
because she'd finish her
work early and read books,
and we were challenged by teachers,
who just didn't understand
her learning style.
4th grade, she said,
"Mom, I'm over this."
So in public school they
often will have A reading group,
and a B reading group
in a C reading group,
or they called it red,
blue, yellow.
And kids know when they're in the low,
the ones who are struggling, they know.
And that makes them feel dumb.
They really only teach
one style of teaching.
The system isn't gonna
change for your kid.
And if you have a child
who isn't very logic smart,
you're gonna find ways to help them.
You can slow down,
you can use different curriculum
and you can make it work.
The first two,
word and logic,
are not the most important ones.
They're only the most important
in some school systems.
I don't believe they're the
most important for life.
The third intelligence is picture smart.
We think with our eyes in picture.
We pay attention to
the picture on the page,
before we pay attention
to the words on the page.
The fourth intelligence is music smart.
Do you have a kid who
hums or toe taps or bebops,
and is always making noise?
One of the things to
understand about picture smart,
and music smart,
they are the creative smarts.
These are the children in
school programs who tell me,
I never knew I was smart
because I love color.
They're not just creative
and they're not just talented
and they're not just musical,
they are those things
because they are smart.
So make sure you know that
your children are smart,
and help them identify
how they' smart.
And believe in it so that
they'll embrace life.
Body smart children think
with movement and touch.
We can actually study
our vocabulary words,
while we're shooting
hoops in the driveway.
Nature smart kids,
they love to get dirty.
They would rather be
outdoors than indoors,
and they're gonna enjoy
biology, oceanography,
meteorology, those kinds of science.
People smart children have an ability,
to read body language and
respond appropriately.
We're the ones who love to brain,
and network and collaborate.
She might not want to work
alone on her paper at the table.
She might actually concentrate
better in the kitchen.
Now, the opposite of that
is number eight, self smart.
Self smart children when excited,
go out by themselves to think.
They like quiet, peace,
privacy, and space.
You have the capability
to develop all eight.
The kids can discover how they're smart.
And when your kids discover they're smart,
and how they're smart,
everything changes because
the system would want them,
to believe that they're not capable.
You have a ministry to
your children to make sure,
that they know that they're capable,
and that's where the smarts fit in.
As our kids are getting older,
I had to be careful not...
...to fall back into the
old mindset of thinking,
is homeschooling gonna get
my kids to where they need...
...to be by the time they
have to go to college?
When they have to go to college.
If you ever come up with,
well, that's just what everyone does,
you have to keep your mind free.
Listen to the voice of the
Holy Spirit within you,
not the voice of the
conventional world.
If you've already begun
to think outside the box,
when your kids are little
and you're loving it,
and seeing the value of that,
that mindset should
continue all the way,
through the college years.
And if college is important, great.
If you can find an excellent college.
Go for it.
Once we settled down,
and they started attending
classes part-time,
even though they hadn't taken test,
even though I hadn't given them grades,
they ended up being at
the top of their classes.
Both of them graduated with over 4.0.
My oldest, he did wanna go to college.
That was what he wanted to do.
I wasn't so sure about
the kind of options,
that would be available,
but it turned out that there were many.
And I think there are a lot
of parents who are fearful.
Like, if I go down this track,
are my kids ever
gonna get into college.
Of course they will.
If your kid wants to go to college,
they will get in.
My name is Matt Pace.
I am a senior admissions counsel
here at Westmont College.
It's very common for us to see applicants,
who had a homeschool background.
They really do look for those people,
who are different than everyone else.
Homeschoolers are actually prioritize,
in some applications.
The things about learning how to learn,
and to love learning make a good student.
I applied to nine colleges
when I was looking for places,
that I wanted to go forward
and I got into eight of them.
The schools that I applied to,
I got into.
I did start to get
nervous because I realized,
that his hope was to go to California,
and go to private Christian
college and I was like,
oh boy, those are really expensive.
So oftentimes I get that
concern from students or parents,
and I tell them,
don't worry at all.
You will be eligible for the
full array of scholarships,
that we have available.
We're like, that would...
...be really, really helpful.
Was invited to compete for
the Augustinian Scholarship.
It's our most coveted award,
and it's for our top applicants.
A lot of those students come
from a homeschool background.
A couple weeks later,
he got word that he received
the Augustinian Scholarship,
which has been a great blessing.
And now I'm at Westmont
and this is exactly,
what I was looking for.
Someone has to look two
or three years down the way,
'cause we didn't know what we
were gonna do for high school,
with our oldest son.
So I'd started taking
college-level classes,
when I was about 15.
I basically did online
college for my high school.
So you study for
however long it takes you,
at whatever pace you can.
Walk into a testing center,
take a test.
If you pass then you get college credit.
So I had a BA when I was 19 year old.
My oldest son got his
bachelor's degree basically,
by homeschooling himself.
So I ended up doing
like a hundred credits,
by the time I graduated
and those transferred,
into Thomas Edison University,
and it was a full
bachelor's in everything.
And it was super inexpensive.
You know, I did it
there free, obviously,
which was super big for us.
For him, it was just important.
He wanted the college degree,
but we have never pushed
that with our kids.
We wanted all of them
to feel like they could go
whatever route they want.
It's not a one-size-fits-all.
I will start college at
12 and on my third year,
I will graduate with my degree at 15.
On my fourth year,
I will graduate with my masters, at 16.
And then I want to be a NASA engineer,
and I want to build
Rovers that go into space,
hopefully land on Mars.
But if they hit the moon,
then I'll still be happy.
She is actually in the middle,
of finalizing her internship with NASA.
I'm very encouraged
by what she does for me,
because I know she doesn't
have to do this for me.
She flourished and watered the garden,
and made sure I had everything I need.
So...
...I'm blessed to have her and,
I love her so much.
She doesn't know.
You don't know.
It's a blessing.
I'm done.
It's just a rewiring of our mind,
and for us to get a new vision.
What am I trying to teach this child.
Parents are the perfect people to do that.
That could mean...
...some of our kids are being
schooled at home.
Some of our kids are
taking classes at a college,
while they're traveling
to another country.
We hire tutors that will,
- Come here and help us.
- Either a tutor...
...or a video or a small
group gets together,
and you do experiments.
It's wild adventure.
It's freedom and creativity
and it's parent-led education.
Train up your children in
the way they should go.
It's yours to shape.
It's such a great adventure.
We've been homeschooling
now for six months.
So I've made some adjustments.
So what this does,
it breaks down our entire day.
So Oliver has a column.
I have a column.
Oliver's little sister,
Eve, has a column,
and then my husband has a column.
So the activities that are not moveable.
The ones like appointments,
when my husband's at work,
that kind of thing,
those are our rock activities,
and we move everything else around that.
We'll get home from
karate right around five.
So this is blocked off.
This is blocked off.
And this is when we're having dinner.
The pebble activities
for Oliver are things,
that he can have a little
bit more control of,
like when he practices the piano,
when he takes a shower.
We need to work on time
shoots for 10 minutes.
Okay.
He can look at the calender.
We can work together to figure out,
how his day works.
That way, he knows what to expect.
It keeps us on a schedule.
Maybe like right here.
I think that's a good plan.
Every day, Oliver and I would sit down.
With the lesson plan book.
He'll actually figure out
what he wants to do that day.
I mean, it was definitely
a learning process for him.
He definitely front loaded
all of the fun things,
that he wanted to do on
the first and second day.
And then he got to the
third day and was like,
oh my goodness...
...school is terrible.
What have I done?
And giving him that
control and then holding him,
to it just helps him take off,
and it's just made the
whole school process,
every day a lot smoother.
He and I are having
moments in his education,
that I wouldn't have had.
Right now we've
committed to one more year,
of homeschooling at this point.
I also kind of question
whether or not he truly realizes,
what he would get back into.
He doesn't have the opportunity,
to choose what item he works on,
that he doesn't get a teacher
that is sitting down with him,
giving him one-on-one attention.
That would be a substantial shock.
At this point we're not
choosing to send him back.
"Netherland is not
an easy place to live."
- I like that right there.
- Yeah.
It's been several months.
Some of the benefits of
homeschooling have been,
we've been at home more.
We've been outside in the yard,
riding bikes, skateboarding,
spending quality time together.
We've had highs and lows
like everybody does.
You have this idea of how it's gonna be.
And then you start homeschooling,
and it is totally different.
Yeah, it feels like chaos or this isn't...
...how I thought it was gonna go.
The balance has been tricky,
because we don't have family here.
So there's a lot of pressure
there between sitters,
homeschooling and running
a full-time business,
and cooking and cleaning and
all the things on top of that.
We definitely have made
some big modifications.
We hired Miss Sarah who
started working Mondays,
and tutoring them and setting
up lesson planning for me.
Like I said, as a new
homeschool mom.
I really needed some
guidance as far as what to do,
with the curriculum we're choosing.
So I'm homeschooling on Tuesday,
Wednesdays, and then Fridays
I have more of like a fun day.
There's a lot of people
out there who would love,
to make extra money tutoring.
I just wanna encourage
people not to be afraid,
to look at other options
within homeschooling.
As long as our kids are learning,
it doesn't necessarily need
to be me that's teaching them.
I've just always been sort
of out of the box as a thinker,
and so I like the idea of freedom.
I loved the freedom when
the kids were little.
I loved just their kind of
these wild little free creatures,
that run around and explore and,
I kind just do fun things and be outdoors.
And I love that idea of
they could travel with you.
The idea of freedom that
people in homeschooling we talking to,
that I was talking to,
the idea of relaxed learning.
It wasn't fear,
it was more a desire for all of them,
to blossom individually.
For parents who are
thinking about homeschooling,
you can do this.
You're not alone.
I've seen parents provide
an excellent education,
with unlimited funds as
well as a shoestring budget,
where they could afford a math book,
internet access, and a
library card and that was it.
If you love your kid,
you are already leaps and
bounds ahead of anybody else,
who can teach your child,
because you have a different
level of investment,
in that child.
Nobody else can compete with that.
But before we get much
farther down the road,
parents like to then ask, great,
well then where do I
find the best curriculum?
And that's kind of where
I hit the pause button,
'cause that's the fourth question.
So instead, we start
with the first question,
which is what does my family
need in terms of time?
How can we build a flexible structure,
that works with our work hours?
How much time I realistically
have to devote each day,
to teaching and start there.
Secondly, what are my
child's learning strengths,
so that I can work to them,
because that's gonna
come into play in terms...
...of purchasing a curriculum
that can be modified,
for all the different kids,
and the different learning strength.
And then the third question is,
how do I develop a homeschool community.
I need my people that I can sit with,
defuse and decompress
and bounce ideas off of.
So before we ever get to curricuculum,
we start with those three, structure,
learning modes, community.
Curriculum becomes
so much an easier solve,
because you have your
community you can ask,
'cause you know what
your kids are needing,
for this time window.
I personally know it's doable.
It's been the highlight of my childhood,
and my mothering years.
There's videos, there's books,
there's all the things.
You just equip your child to learn,
and watch how fast
they can outpaced you.
Start small.
You don't have to jam
pack your day and say,
I wanna teach my kids
10 subjects every day,
and overwhelm yourself
with a lesson plan.
Take the basics that are
really, really necessary,
and something that your kid
loves and start at that point.
I couldn't have named
154 countries at site,
when I started this.
And to all my friends
that knew me in college,
I've learned so much more
through homeschooling,
that it's almost laughable.
Get your husband involved.
He needs to be on board.
He needs to encourage you.
If you don't know why
you're homeschooling,
talk over it with your wife
and then make it yours.
Any dads that are
nervous about it,
try and open your hands and
release preconceived ideas,
of what education might be for your kids.
It's really beautiful outside the box.
And then have fun.
Don't be afraid.
Don't let fear rule you.
Go in with an adventurous spirit.
And I did the calculations,
we redeemed over 16,000 hours
to be with our kids just...
...because we chose to home
educate our children.
I think there's a
misconception out there,
that you need some sort
of fancy four-year degree,
or maybe even a doctorate degree,
to be able to educate
children, that's baloney.
Our ancestors have been
educating their own children,
for thousands of years.
God put those children in your care.
God gave you those
children for a reason.
In fact, there's nobody
better qualified than you.
I'm in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
And I am at the base,
of what I think is the most
important monument in America,
the National Monument to the Forefathers.
It's made up of five figures.
This is the secret sauce recipe
that our Pilgrim forefathers,
and mothers left for us so
that if ever we lost our way,
we could find our way back in the minds,
of our forefathers and foremothers.
Education was on the same plane
of importance as morality,
as law and government.
Education wasn't an afterthought.
It wasn't, let's do something,
that can occupy the kids for a while,
while we go to work.
That was their most important work.
And if you look carefully,
education is not illustrated
by a schoolhouse,
public school teacher or even a pastor.
It's illustrated by a parent.
This is a woman.
She's a mom.
And like the scriptures say,
"Fathers, don't exasperate your children,"
"or provoke your children to wrath,"
"but educate them up in the nurture,"
"and the admonition of the Lord."
They believe that "The Bible"
contain the most important...
...things for children to learn.
And if you come over here,
you'll see that this mom is now,
educating and training up her child
in the way he should go,
so that when he is old
he won't depart from it.
On the other side,
we're gonna see the
result of a mom or a dad,
a parent, who's trained
up their child in the way...
...that they should go,
and there you have the grandfather.
His name is Wisdom.
He's pointing to an open "Bible".
And the 10 Commandments
with the world at his feet.
And so here you...
...have the whole family
represented, three generations.
And if we look back over here at this mom.
She's wearing the Wreath of Victory,
because she has successfully
trained up her children,
in the way they should go,
and she gets that when her children,
are well instructed in the ways of god.
It's about who you are,
not what you do.
And we want to help
develop strong, confident,
compassionate, knowledgeable children.
So much more about growing
and wisdom and character,
and understanding how to relate...
...to the whole world and all ages.
When they didn't feel
like they were competing,
with every other person in the school.
Their spirit relaxed and they
became more confident people.
Proverbs 1:07, Proverbs
09:10 actually tells you,
what is the most fundamental
element of education.
"The fear of the Lord," it says,
"is the beginning of wisdom."
"The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of knowledge."
It needs to be God-centered,
and it needs to teach the children,
at least the essentials of the faith.
And I think that's one
of the big components,
that's missing from what
passes for education today.
Education really is discipleship.
So who's gonna disciple your children.
You, mom and dad or Caesar?
And I like to picture
each student as a tree.
Every tree is different.
So if you've ever planted
a fruit tree before,
or seen a fruit tree,
they have to be staked off,
each one individually.
You have to look at how
the bent of the trunk is,
and rope it down this
way and that way so that...
...when the fruit grows and
the branches become heavy,
it's properly supported
to actually get through...
...that whole cycle of producing fruit.
My job as a parent is to identify
what kind of tree are you?
It's first a discovery process
of looking at the person,
and the individual, saying,
what is the calling for this person.
The goal for education
for us has always been,
that they love to learn.
I didn't love to learn.
I learned to sit in a
classroom and read stories,
that I wasn't really
interested in from history,
and I had to know the
name of some guy's horse,
and then regurgitate that on a the test.
That did nothing for me.
Our goal with our children is that,
each of them is gonna do
whatever they are called to do.
I think that's success.
The holistic speaking
into their character,
just showing them who they are,
and who God's created them to be,
no one else can do that.
No one's gonna love our
children more than we do.
The goal of parenting is that
your kids eventually leave.
So our job is to help them to
transition well into the world,
to where they can thrive and
succeed in whatever they try.
Yeah, step and and go get them tiger.
I want to feed my kids information.
I want them to be able
to learn for themselves.
So we have to push them
and it's uncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable to be pushed,
and it's uncomfortable as a mom to push.
Parenting is preparing them.
My wife like to say,
we're putting our kids
together to give them away.
And remember, one day we're
gonna point them to God,
and point them to the front door.
One of my favorite C. S. Lewis quotes.
"What are our kids gonna
do if they're faced,"
"with the dragons and the
dungeons of the world,"
"but we've gotta teach them
to be the brave knights,"
"that they are."
It's an endless journey
and it happens everywhere,
and anywhere if we're willing
to open our eyes and see it.
I work with people,
asking them a lot of those
questions about their why's,
what do you want out of life?
They can't answer that question.
And we talk about how
it goes all the way back,
to their education.
From day one they were told,
here you go, do this,
do this, do this, do this.
Then you get to graduation,
and it's okay four more years.
Do this, do this,
do this, do this.
So now you should
know exactly what to do,
and they're thinking,
well, I don't but I
guess I'm supposed to,
so I'm gonna pretend that
I know what I'm doing,
because it seems like
everyone else does.
My educational goal is to
have children who thrive.
If you know the person,
and you understand
what skills they had,
what they love,
what they want out of life, right,
and then you tailor an education to that.
Then their trajectory, I think,
will kind of take care of
itself in a lot of ways.
Our curriculum is life.
Books are part of that.
Videos are part of that.
Talking through
things is part of that.
How we treat everyone
in life is part of that.
What is a family?
How do you treat each other?
That's part of the
legacy that they're going,
to take with them to
go out into the world,
and so much of that is missing,
cause you just don't have the hours
of the day if they're in school all day.
Praise Him, all of the heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
I really want my kids to know him,
I'm a poet.
I love the lyrical power of this music,
that's been around for hundreds
of years for some of them.
I want my kids to love literature,
and remember the sound of my
voice reading them stories.
To see God's hand in
everything that they do,
in all of the subjects that they learn.
Have faith be a active
part of all of their day,
and all of the things that they' doing.
I want you
to help your children,
find their gifts.
I want you to always be true to yourself.
I want you to keep your integrity.
Never sell out for anybody,
never compromise for anybody.
Setting them up to
have a business mind.
Having businesses already
while they're high school age,
college aged, thanking God for
any and everything you have.
There are things that we will do,
aspirations that we have of things,
that we want to accomplish,
but we wanna do it with our children.
They're gonna remember building
cabins with dad and mom,
for them to get to live
in our midst as we live...
...and love with Jesus and do life.
An identity in Jesus
is the greatest,
greatest legacy that we
could really pass on to them.
I want the legacy to be that
they love their grandparents,
that they honor World War II veteran,
that I love them enough that
I didn't need a second car,
that I love them enough
that I didn't need...
...that expensive vacation.
I think as a kid,
you just wanna feel like you're worth it,
and homeschooling says you're worth it.
And who doesn't wanna be
told that you're worth it?
Knowing that our kids
are developing perseverance,
and character and that
they have an eternal hope,
that that hope is not
going to disappoint them,
and for them then to be able
to pass that along to others,
I think that's the legacy
that is most important.
Honestly, I would want
them to know Christ,
and to make him known.
Hands down, I think that's
what I'm doing all for,
to know Him,
to love Him and to trust
Him and to share it...
...with others and to make
Him known, all over.
I hope they all go into
fields that do that,
that allows them to do that.
When I'm gone,
I want my kids to know
that she loved the Lord,
and she wanted us to know Him
and love Him too, trust Him.
Yeah.
I remember one time
specifically where I'm in the back...
...of this RV and it was
early in the morning.
One by one they would get up,
and they'd come back
to the back of the RV.
All 10 of us were on this back bed.
I mean, I could almost hear
God's voice in my heart say,
"Todd, all the matters
in your whole life fits,"
"on a queen size mattress."
And I wanna get
to the end of my life,
and that my kids will say,
"He wasn't a perfect dad,"
"but he was a good dad
and he loved us so much,"
and I will have succeeded.
And my son comes and he sits
down next to me and he said,
"Dad, can I press the next button?"
And I said,
"Son, I'm just reading back
through what I just wrote."
"There's no more buttons to press."
And he said to me,
"Dad, I'm watching you
so that when I grow up,"
"I can do this."
So it's so easy to just buy
into the narrative that says,
you need to be this and
you need to be that,
that you lose your own sense of identity.
And I don't really
know why you're here,
if you're just trying
to be somebody else.
The greatest gift that I was
given was my own identity,
and the ability to do things my way,
I like my way and I can do it,
because my parents gave me that.
So I think there's so
many expectations for us,
in our culture,
getting the right job,
buying the right house,
driving the right car.
And it's false.
It's not real.
The real wealth is your family.
And...
...so homeschooling's a great way,
to really invest in your family.