We recently renovated the rec room in our basement. The transformation mostly consisted of several gallons of paint and some key new decor purchases. In the past, I would have been tasked with the paint job, but this time, we decided to make it a family affair. It was a great idea, mostly because I’d still be working on it — the bead board required four coats alone — but also because it gave us a shared sense of accomplishment and excitement for the finished product.

The kids weren’t token helpers, either. I managed the trim, but they were involved in everything else. 

Lucy is fourteen years old and rides and cares for horses. She can direct a 2,000-pound animal with ease. My eleven-year-old son Ben can make a loaf of banana bread from scratch without any guidance.  Nine-year-old Ginny recently designed, measured, cut, and sewed a new kitchen apron all by herself, complete with a Bluey patterned pocket. 

It’s not magic. My kids are talented and capable, but so is every child who hasn’t been limited by low expectations. One of the hallmarks of our homeschooling philosophy is the belief that kids are capable of way more than society gives them credit for.  

The default mode of Western culture has children being talked down to and underestimated. We act as if they are idiots until they get out of school. Rather than give them reasons for our decisions (if we even know them ourselves), we say “Because I said so.”

“Because I said so.”

It’s a phrase designed to end the argument, serving as the last word for the person in power. 

The thing is, kids are the only people we underestimate. We underestimate ourselves, too, with that very phrase limiting our own potential.

“I could never do that,” is the stock reply anytime the dreamer within us imagines accomplishing something cool, or a friend suggests making a change that would improve our life. 

I can’t learn that skill. I can’t get that degree now. I can’t handle a transition that bold.

Yes, actually, you can. 

But do you know the main reason you think you can’t? 

Because you said so. 

You’re the person in power. You told yourself it’s not possible, so it isn’t. End of argument. Ultimately, your opinion is the only one that matters. 

Of course, it may be daunting. Difficult. Scary. It might cause you to feel uncomfortable or risk embarrassment. But none of those things make it impossible. 

Rather than telling yourself you can’t do something that might feel overwhelming, at least be honest with yourself. The truth is you’ve simply decided you don’t want to, maybe for reasons you don’t want to admit or perhaps haven’t even thought about.

We usually get from our kids what we expect of them.

The same thing is true of ourselves.

This isn’t magical “all you have to do is think positive” nonsense. You still have to do the work. But believing something is possible is always the first step toward making it happen. When it comes to your life, you are the one in control. You hold all the cards.

If you think you’re stuck in a bad situation and there’s no hope for your future, you’re right.

If you believe you can go from where you are now to where you want to be, you’re right.

If you believe you are capable of great and amazing things, you’re right. 

How do I know?

Because you said so. 

Has the pandemic actually gotten you considering a jump to homeschooling (at least temporarily)?

We are work-at-home parents of three kids who have been homeschooling for over a decade. Kim is also a former educator, and Jason has worked in school districts nationwide to support teachers and administrators for the past 15 years.

Many people have lost confidence in how well the school system is able to serve their kids in the year ahead and are anxious over the uncertainty of what’s next. As such, we are hearing from tons of people who are suddenly considering the prospect of homeschooling.

One thing is certain: We’re not going back to normal anytime soon. 

We wanted to make a video to address 6 common fears and challenges to give you some insight and confidence as you consider this option.

Resources

Articles

Here are some posts we’ve written over the years about our rule-breaking, Adultitis-fighting, homeschooling life:

• Make Way for Greatness: What Our Kids Really Need
• Our Homeschool Disclaimer
• Why Homeschooling is for Us
• 6 Rules That Don’t Exist That Will Surprise Most Parents
• 12 Big Ideas About Homeschooling From Penelope Trunk
• Thou Shalt Be Excited When School’s Out for the Summer
• Lessons from Lucy’s Pancake Stand
• How to Bigify Your Life

Books + Podcasts

Unschooling Rules by Clark Aldridge. Our favorite book with a simple, no-nonsense approach that questions our basic assumptions about school and learning.

How Children Learn by John Holt. Over a million copies have been sold of this book by a well-respected voice in the homeschooling community who brings sharp, well-researched insights into the nature of learning that are more relevant today than ever before.

Living Joyfully by Pam Laricchia. A podcast for parents wanting to live joyfully with their children through unschooling. This is Kim’s favorite resource for “borrowing courage” from other parents who are further along in the homeschooling journey.

Free To Learn by Peter Gray. The developmental psychologist argues that in order to foster children who will thrive in today’s constantly changing world, we must entrust them to steer their own learning and development. Drawing on evidence from anthropology, psychology, and history, he demonstrates that free play is the primary means by which children learn to control their lives, solve problems, get along with peers, and become emotionally resilient.

The ganache wasn’t very ganachey. A rose kept falling off. And it was a little lopsided. But that didn’t make the cake my kids made for my anniversary any less a work of art, or a gift of love.

It started as their desire to do something nice for our twentieth wedding anniversary. Since we’ve been binge-watching Kids Baking Championship, we gave them a challenge. They had to design and bake a cake that represented both Mom and Dad (a worthy challenge considering Kim and I fall on opposite ends of the dessert spectrum). It also needed to be at least two layers and be made from scratch. We told them we’d get whatever ingredients they needed, but they had to find the recipe and provide us the ingredient list.

Despite a few minor flaws, the end result was impressive. And it tasted good, too!

This pandemic has caused a lot of us to ponder, what is school for? It seems an obvious answer on the surface: to educate our kids, of course. But it gets a little complicated when you ask the next question: educate them about what?

As parents all over the world have been forced to take a more active role in the educational process of their children, I imagine many of them have wondered about this. Perhaps they felt a little out of their league because the kids were learning stuff the parents didn’t know much about (or had forgotten it since they “learned” it), making it difficult to even know how to help.

When Kim and I began our homeschool adventure, we were forced to ask (and answer) the question, what do we want our kids to learn? Obviously, we wanted them to know how to read and be proficient in basic math skills. But what else?

We tried to think about the things that stuck from our days in school. (Not very much, sadly. I had a  pretty high ACT score, but if I had to take the math part over again, I’d be relegated back to middle school.) Then we thought about our current lives. What skills are needed to survive – and thrive – in today’s world? 

Facts and figures were on the very bottom of the list, what with a search engine now in every purse or pocket. Ninety-five percent of the skills I’ve used to build a profitable company that’s nearly twenty years old didn’t come from the degree I earned. That’s not to say my degree was worthless, it’s just that most of the skills I rely on today were learned after I graduated. (I may be demoted to middle school math, yet I know how to figure gross margins and read a balance sheet.)

I am not special, by the way. This is how adults learn all the time. When a doctor finds a rarely-seen condition in a patient, she doesn’t sign up for a class that runs for 6 weeks and starts next semester. When you want to learn how to do a home improvement project you’ve never tackled before, do you look into getting a degree in construction management? No. You Google it. You watch some YouTube videos. Maybe you ask an experienced friend or buy a book from Amazon. And when do you do this? When you want to actually do the project. Now, when it’s relevant, not thirteen years ago before you even owned a home.

Human beings – including kids! – are natural learners. You didn’t have to give your daughter set-by-step instructions about how to walk. At some point, we stop allowing them to learn in natural ways. We force information upon them that is neither relevant nor interesting. But if they are allowed to chase an interest, it’s impossible to contain the learning that takes place. 

Kim and I came up with a list of twenty things we wanted our kids to learn, which included skills like self-confidence, resourcefulness, responsibility, creativity, persistence, good communication techniques, financial acumen, and the curiosity of a life-long learner. We realized that some of these things are taught in the classroom, but they go far beyond the scope of four rooms in a traditional school. 

I am actually excited about the opportunity this pandemic has brought about. Not because I hope everyone will suddenly become homeschoolers. Frankly, I suspect it will be the opposite because what most parents have been forced in to is NOT homeschooling; it’s survival. When I get a peek of what life looks like balancing the schedules of their children who have several teachers each, while still trying to do their own work from home, it reminds me a lot more like insanity. (By the way, can I get a shout out for all the teachers who are doing their best to make a difference within a system that wasn’t designed for this!?)

The point is, you can call it distance learning, or e-learning, or even schooling-at-home, but it doesn’t match any brand of homeschooling I’ve ever seen a homeschooling family sign up for.

Our brand looks a lot like unleashing the kids in the kitchen to bake a cake from scratch. From that project alone, my kids got to practice cooperation, compromise, teamwork, improvisation, problem-solving, persistence, creativity, presentation skills, leadership skills, cooking skills, not to mention some math, science, and reading.

And that, my friend, is the opportunity available to every child, parent, grandparent, aunt, and uncle, which has nothing to do with the choice to permanently “homeschool.” 

It’s the chance to look at education with new eyes, and the opportunity to use this time to gift our kids with some new, rich experiences that aren’t possible during “normal” times.

It’s easy to feel like you have to make sure your kids are on top of all the assignments sent over by their teachers. But here’s a little secret: no kid is going to be failed over this crisis. What if you scaled back on the “required” work, and gave your kids the freedom to explore their own passions for a change? And no, this doesn’t mean you suddenly have to be expertly qualified in all things they take an interest in so you can properly “teach” them. Your job is to serve as a coach, a guide who can help them find the information, materials, and mentors they need to level themselves up.

Back in the olden days, kids learned important life and trade skills from mom and dad and extended family members. What are your talents? What skills do you have that you can pass on to the important children in your life? Do you know how to change a tire? Bake bread from scratch? Build an end table? Design a simple website? Plant a garden? 

Are these not skills that could serve them just as well as knowing the names of wars that happened during the ancient Roman Empire? 

What is a project you could let your kids take a deep dive into for a few days or weeks in a way they never could during “normal” times? Could they build a treehouse? Renovate a spare bedroom? Start a small business from scratch?

I was blown away by what my kids were able to produce in the kitchen this week. (I invite you to see the results for yourself.) I am continually reminded of how often I underestimate them. But I am not alone. I think we as a society underestimate and undervalue our young people all the time, whether they are four, fourteen, or twenty-four. Too often we resort to the lowest common denominator of scheduling their days full, telling them what they need to know, and selling them short.

Our kids are capable of greatness. 

This may be the best opportunity we’ve ever had to step aside and let them show us.

We didn’t see them at first, because they were the same size and color as the stones. But then some of those stones started moving. First one, then seven, then hundreds.

We were vacationing in the Pacific Northwest, renting a home on Discovery Bay, and the rocky shoreline was covered with a thousand small tiny crabs.

The kids were fascinated, by the crabs, and by the fact that the shoreline itself seemed to grow and shrink throughout the day. And it was, because even though it looked like one of the lakes we are accustomed to here in Wisconsin, the bay was connected to the nearby ocean, and the tide was making itself known.

That led to questions of where the water went when the tide was out, which led to talk of the moon’s gravitational pull, which led to discussions about the phases of the moon and finally, which moon each of us were born under and what – if anything – that said about us.

My wife and I were able to answer exactly NONE of these questions on our own. Either we’d never been taught, or more likely, the lessons never stuck because they weren’t relevant to us at the time. Fortunately, Google served as an able guide as we traversed the winding path of discovery.

This is a small example of a delightful unintended consequence of homeschooling: it has bigified our lives. (All five of us, not just the uneducated common folk we call children.) This adventure of homeschooling has cured me of the belief that learning only happens in a classroom, during certain hours, and on certain days, while requiring a professional on hand who holds a certain degree. That view of learning is so small.

I am reminded of a quote by Jodi Picoult who said, “Kids think with their brains cracked wide open; becoming an adult, I’ve decided, is only a slow sewing shut.”

The problem with getting older, it seems, is how easy it is for life to become smaller. 

We grown-ups have been around long enough to see how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. We’ve had enough of our big dreams deflate that we’ve course-corrected by making them smaller. We seem to be on the lookout for more things to be afraid of. 

So we become rigid. Stale. Musty. Closed off. Sewn shut.

We eat the same things, watch the same TV channels, and get our news from the same source. We gravitate toward those who share our opinions and grow ever more skeptical of those who don’t. 

We see cardboard boxes merely as containers for more exciting things. To a child, they are the most exciting thing of all, a vessel of limitless possibility. Depending on the day, it’s can be a castle or a pirate ship or a race car or a quiet place to read library books.

The good news is that you don’t need to homeschool or even have kids to bigify your life.

How?

Ask more questions. Try for seventy-eight a day.

Look for answers. And don’t stop until you find them. If you have a smartphone, you can find any fact in five seconds. (Fact check me on this, but I believe that libraries still give you books for free, as long as you promise to bring them back.)

Say yes to one thing that scares you a week. 

Travel. Explore places outside your comfort zone. 

Try something new on the menu. 

Prove Netflix wrong and watch something it doesn’t think you would like. Perhaps a documentary about something you know nothing about. Like crabs or tides or moon phases.

Or, if you’re really brave, ask someone why they are voting for their favorite candidate and – this is the key – don’t try to change their mind. Just listen.

From our routines to the route we take to work, we stick to the tried and true. We rationalize that we do this because our preferences have served us well, but it’s closer to the truth to say that they keep us comfortable. 

If we are not careful, our brains will experience a slow sewing shut. Eventually, we get to a point where no new ideas can enter and no new dreams can come forth. 

This need not be the natural order of things. I have seen ninety-years-olds I can point to as proof. I bet you can too.

It’s true; we can choose to bigify our lives, making room for all the color, wonder, and joy we can handle. 

Bigifying our life keeps us young, no matter how old we become. 

Nature and kids. It’s a magical combination.

I treasure memories from my own childhood, ones like rolling down that huge hill at Allen Park next to the Illinois River, and climbing the tree in my front yard on Shady Lane, with grandiose plans to spend the whole afternoon there.

These memories get richer with the years, don’t they?

One of my deepest longings as a parent is to provide these magical moments for our kids. I’m finding that with all things in life, when I give, I end up receiving way more than I ever imagined possible. This little story illustrates the gift my kids gave me, when I gave them an hour on the lake.

We are blessed to live a half mile from Lake Mendota, Madison’s largest lake. It’s a magical land of ice and snow right now. The kids are enthralled by this paradise (and so am I). We had my nephew over for a sleepover recently so we were all proud to show him our lake.

I was radically moved by our unscripted adventure.

Did you know if you scream out on the ice that the sound is absorbed and no one frickin’ cares? You can never be too loud and it’s pretty darn freeing.

Shadows on the lake are magic. They have a life of their own and beg you to play with them. You must say yes!

There are patches where there is very little snow and it’s like a real ice rink. You can slide around like a figure skater, twirling beautifully until you fall on your butt.

You can see all sorts of tracks on the ice, they tell an amazing story about what happened before you were there. We observed that our own footprints leave a stories for others to read. “Looks like some people had fun here!”

The kids discovered a GINORMOUS set of footprints that were spaced very far apart. We all imagined what kind of giant was out there on the ice. Maybe the Hulk? Big Foot? Wide wonderous eyes gazed into the distance imagining.

When snow drifts over the ice and makes higher sections, it’s super fun to crash through these elevated levels of snow with your feet. At first if feels like you’re about to fall through the ice, which is super freaky (and exciting). The simple act of walking and stomping became “a thing!”‘

There were large sections of ice untouched by tracks and footprints. Without prompting, they began writing and drawing pictures with sticks and footprints. You can draw a whole picture in the snow!

There were dead trees lying sideways, frozen in the lake. The ground that was once beneath them had eroded, and now their large and crazy roots were rising to the sun. A curiosity-fueled conversation began about why and how this had happened, leading to an impromptu lesson on erosion and root systems. Bonus fun, these dead trees provided some nice climbing.

The simple act of picking up HUGE pieces of snow and ice is fun. It makes you feel strong like a giant. You can pretend you are a major league pitcher and throw them and they crash into a bazillion pieces and it makes the most distinct sound. You can do this dozens of times and it doesn’t get old.

Sometimes chunks of ice remind you of things, like Superman logos and huge slices of pizza.

Seeing these kids free, experiencing their truly adventurous hearts uninhibited, hearing their squeals and the excitement in their discoveries, this sound reached into my heart and grabbed my inner-5-year-old by the hand and said, “Come on, let’s play.”

As an Adultitis-fighting mom of three, I tend to default to scripted fun. A + B = C. If Jason and I have a date night, then we have certain formulas for fun and adventure. If I have a few hours to work, then it must look a certain way.

These unleashed kids reminded me of the value of unscripted adventures and the supernatural power of nature to help set the stage.

What joy-filled experience is around the corner, waiting for you to walk out your front door?

Put on your sneakers or your winter boots.

Come on, let’s play.

Building a business from scratch isn’t easy. Neither is homeschooling one’s kids. Or traveling across the country with them in a small SUV and two suitcases.

Which brings me to fireplaces.

Our basement has had a gas fireplace, but it’s in a really weird spot in the lower level and we spend most of our family time upstairs, so we’ve only used it maybe twice in the 8 years that we’ve owned the home. After this summer’s basement renovation, Kim and I created a little sitting area in front of the fireplace in the hopes of making it more usable.

We also decided to convert it to wood burning.

Now for some people, you would have thought that we were planning to permanently remove the roof from our house. To them, we are fools to ditch the ease and convenience of gas. We’ve been advised about how much more work is involved in a wood burning fireplace, as if we are aliens just settling in to this planet called Earth, unaware of a technology that allows you to start a fire by flipping a switch on the wall.

We understand the pros of a gas fireplace, and we have nothing against them or people who go that route. We just love the full sensory experience of an old-fashioned fire. Not just the warmth and the flicker of the flames, but the woody smell, the dancing sparks, and every snap, crackle, and pop. Not to mention the subtle beauty of a smoldering log as the flame slowly finishes its fiery dance.

No doubt all this requires a lot more effort.

Then again, it’s always easier to cook a steak in the microwave.

Sometimes ease and convenience isn’t the point.

Summer ain’t what it used to be.

At the risk of sounding like a crotchety old man a few decades early, the summers of my youth were not packed wall-to-wall with extracurricular affairs. Yes, there was Little League, but the days were long enough to accommodate no small number of other “aimless” pursuits. Playing home run derby in the tennis court with my friends. Exploring the ravine near my house as a pint-sized Indiana Jones. Sorting and displaying my baseball cards, and then drawing my own.

It was the opportunity to freely explore the things that fascinated me, without the prospect of a bell ringing in my ear telling me when to stop. I could follow my own curiosity, tugging on the proverbial thread that leads from one thing to another and then another, in a way that strict 50-minute periods don’t look kindly upon.

This ability to “wonder aimlessly” is a valuable thing. It is the heart and soul of tinkering and the key to a happy, fulfilling life.

It’s also something we need to fight to protect for our children and ourselves. One of the reasons Kim and I homeschool is to keep the “old school” spirit of summer alive, all year ’round.

According to the dictionary, to “wonder” is to “desire or be curious to know something.” It’s also to “feel admiration and amazement; marvel.” Meanwhile, to be “aimless” is to be “without goal, purpose, or direction.”

Wonder is a state we tend to view favorably. To be aimless, on the other hand, is an American sin. Someone without a goal or direction is seen in a negative light. A slacker, destined for an unproductive, ungratifying life.

The current system in America is anything but aimless. From the earliest ages, the goal is to get kids reading as quickly as possible, even if that means limiting the amount of time they have for “aimless” free play, which interestingly enough, science has confirmed is crucial to the development of resiliency and conflict resolution, while helping them discover their own areas of interest and engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue.

Once they are reading, the race is to get them to excel in a handful of subjects deemed worthwhile (science and math for sure, art and music and building things, not so much) so that their test scores match up favorably with other children in different cultures around the world.

Even extracurricular activities are highly structured and systematized, and have grown so demanding that they completely crowd out any time for those “aimless” pursuits, like the ones from the summers of my quickly retreating youth.

Of course, all of this academic and extracurricular excessiveness is necessary in order to get an esteemed university to look favorably upon our children, so that they will grant them admission to their hallowed halls, only to graduate burdened with suffocating financial debt and haunted by the uncertainty of not knowing if this is really what they want to do with the rest of their life…

…because they never had the chance to wonder aimlessly.

Direction and structure and purpose are good things. But they are empty skeletons if we have not been given the slow stretches of time to spend figuring out for ourselves what we like and don’t like, what we’re good at, what fascinates us and matters to us, and what lights us up inside so much that Friday is simply Friday, not some reason to thank God for the sweet relief from another week spent in drudgery.

One can never experience too much wonder. Unfortunately, we have less of it now than ever because we have filled our lives with too many distractions. In order to get it, we need to put our phones down, opt-out of some of the structured activities that eat our calendar, and carve out time for a little aimlessness.

We are inundated with rules that don’t exist. Not speed limits and tax laws, but the seemingly invisible norms, assumptions, and superstitions that we follow (often subconsciously) and which drive our lives. The more I write and talk about them, the more I uncover. And there is no shortage in the realm of education.

My wife Kim and I homeschool. In the grand scheme of things, we’re in the shallow end of the pool; the oldest of our three children is only seven. But these past several years may have been the most important of all, because we’ve had to un-learn pretty much everything we knew about education. It was especially challenging for Kim, who is a former kindergarten teacher. After a five year career, it’s taken at least that long to slowly purge all of the things she kept from her classroom because, frankly, we don’t need them.

We have a really good foundation beneath us, because we’ve taken the time to identify, and consequently ignore, several rules that don’t exist. Here are a few we’ve had to break so far.

1) Thy children need a teacher in order to learn.
Kids are natural learners. They don’t need to be taught anything, except maybe how to find answers. But their passions and natural curiosity will drive them, if you are willing to get out of the way. Which, of course, schools are not set up to do. Although Kim was “trained” as a teacher, most days it’s more of a hindrance than a help.

We have tried to see ourselves more as “coaches,” rather than “teachers.” Perhaps it’s semantics, but we think of a good coach as someone who observes, asks questions, and helps facilitate progress by creating situations and environments specifically tailored to the individual. That includes paying attention to a child’s interests and watching closely for the things they show a proclivity for. And then strewing things about that might take them to a new level. Or taking them on a field trip. Checking out some books from the library. Connecting them with a mentor. Or suggesting a few tips to help them solve a problem. It takes a lot of faith and trust to take on this role, but if you do, it won’t be long before you’re learning amazing things from them.

2) Thy children need curriculum in order to learn.
Curriculum companies make a lot of money, which does not necessarily make them bad, but it doesn’t make them necessary either. When we were first exploring the idea of homeschooling, Kim and I expected that we’d have to buy some sort of curriculum, in order to shore up the areas where we were weak. (We had not fully discarded rule #1 yet.)

We’ve been to a number of homeschooling conferences, and I have noticed a trend in many families that has also played out in ours. At first, a curriculum is a security blanket. It gives you the peace of mind to homeschool because it feels like a set of instructions. Follow them and you don’t have to worry as much about messing your kids up. But eventually, curriculum gets in the way. It takes away freedom (which I think is the best part of homeschooling) by introducing rigidity, setting arbitrary milestones that stress you out if your kids don’t meet them in time, and inducing guilt if you don’t keep pace with the prescribed timeline.

Most families I see who have been homeschooling for a while often start with curriculum of some sort. Then, after experiencing various degrees of frustration, they use it less and less, until oftentimes, it is disregarded altogether.

Although a somewhat clumsy phrase, it would be fairly accurate to describe what Kim and I do as “unschooling,” which is a method of homeschooling that is largely self-directed. Which, as Clark Aldrich points out in his book, Unschooling Rules, is exactly what everyone does most of the time throughout their life:

“When a doctor finds a rarely seen condition in a patient, she does not sign up for a class that covers the material, but will run for 6 weeks and start the following semester.”

Indeed, adults don’t need prescribed curriculum to learn new things. Kids don’t either.

3) Thy children shalt know certain things by certain ages, or there is something wrong with them.
As good, cute, new homeschooling parents, Kim and I bought the classic book, “What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know.” It felt important to have a yardstick to measure our progress. My first concern was discovering things in the book that I didn’t even know. It wasn’t long before the book took a one-way trip to the recycling bin.

Babies don’t learn to crawl, walk and talk at the exact same time. According to Parents.com, “most kids start taking their first steps between 11 and 15 months, but this milestone is hugely variable, and anywhere from 9 to 18 months is really considered normal.” Most people understand that there is a range here. What perplexes me is that as soon as we put them in school, we suddenly expect children to develop at the same rates. Heaven help the child who is not reading by the end of kindergarten. Even if he is uncommonly advanced in math, there will be much wringing of hands, and he’s likely to be labeled as learning disabled before he enters first grade.

I find it fascinating that we put so much emphasis on what our kindergartner, third grader, or sixth grader “needs” to know, and yet you will not find any books called, “What Your Thirty-Nine-Year-Old Needs to Know.” Do I really care if my dentist has read and understands “Taming of the Shrew?” If, after a certain point (usually high school), we don’t really care what a person knows, why do we ever?

Yes, I know there are certain developmental red flags that are important to pay attention to. But let’s chill out on the artificial timeline. There is a rule of thumb I have instituted for myself, that although borders on ridiculous, actually keeps me from acting as such. If my daughter is having a hard time letting go of her pacifier, or my son seems to be too old to be carefully backing off of a curb on his hands and knees, I ask myself, “Is it likely that they will still be having this issue when they go off to college?” The answer, of course, is always “no.” It helps paint a ridiculous picture in my imagination, which in turn reminds me how ridiculous it is to force our children to develop according to arbitrary schedules.

4) Politicians know what’s best for thy children.
Of course, the controversy du jour is Common Core. But this is only the latest in a long line of legislation made up by politicians about what is best for our children. There are usually many reasons these legislations come to be, but sadly, “what’s best for our children” is not often at the top of the list. As a case in point, any early childhood education professional worth his or her salt will tell you that the most important thing to the development of young children is play. In 1895, Friedrich Froebel, the father of kindergarten, said, “Children must master the language of things before they master the language of words.” He said it 120 years ago, but it’s still true today. The way to learn about things is through experiential play, and it is a time consuming process that cannot be hurried. And yet recess and free play is the very thing that is being eliminated from kindergarten classrooms across the country, in favor of more structured activities in a race for higher test scores.

If politicians really cared what’s best for our kids, they might be a little more interested in making sure they’re not saddled with such astronomical debt. Politicians are notorious for making short-sided, politically expedient decisions in all kinds of matters. It hardly makes sense to assume they’d make an exception when it comes to education.

5) Thy will kill thine offspring if forced to spend every single day with them.
I was a little nervous about this one myself. You see posts on Facebook from parents who are cheering the end of spring break or lamenting an unexpected snow day because their kids are diving them up a snowdrift. Then I read a post by Penelope that made perfect sense and which I found to be completely true. She talked about how the most difficult time to deal with kids are when they are clingy and fighting for your attention. But when you take them out of school, they see you all the time, so they don’t need to be clingy, and “don’t have to do insane tricks to get the small moments of attention they can get after school.” Now this is not to say you don’t need breaks from each other now and again, especially if you are an introvert, as Kim and I both are. But, as ludicrous as it may sound, your kids actually become more enjoyable to be around the more time you spend with them.

6) Thou shalt care what other people think.
This may be the most important rule one needs to break before embarking on the adventure of homeschooling. Although it is more popular than it’s ever been, homeschooling is not mainstream. It requires no small amount of courage to go against the grain, doing things differently than your friends, neighbors, and likely, even your own parents. There is a measure of safety in going with the flow, and following rules that don’t exist. Because if things go awry, at least you can say you did what you were “supposed” to do. If you deviate from the path, and your kid doesn’t “turn out,” the only one to blame is you. But alas, our children don’t need us to transfer our accountability to someone else. They need us to lead, to look at the facts, and be mindful of (and honest about) the decisions we make.

Being a great parent that turns out amazing kids is hard, because there is no easy-to-follow recipe. But if you ever even hope to have a shot, you’ve got to be willing to break a few rules.

I’ve recently been lamenting the fact that our TV’s remote control is on the fritz. It’s not a battery issue, it’s just the power button that seems to be on strike. I’ve pegged my youngest daughter (the two-year-old) as the prime suspect for its early demise. Although I have no hard evidence, she is often seen secretly holding the remote, and the power button just so happens to be the only red button in a sea of black ones. I’m just saying.

Regardless of the culprit, my frustration joins the chorus of a gazillion other parents who have crooned, “This is why we can’t have nice things…”

On a seemingly unrelated note, one of the stops we made as a family during our recent #Notarule Tour swing west was to De Smet, South Dakota. It’s the location of one of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homesteads, and has a lot of interactive things to do. Lucy read all the books with her Godmom Jenna, and we have been watching the television series together as a family. (They just don’t make shows like that anymore, folks. Plus, Michael Landon is a real national treasure!)

We were able to reserve one of the four covered wagons available to sleep in overnight, so that was the highlight. It was also the worst night of sleep I think I’ve ever had. It’s remarkable to think that our set-up – we actually had electricity, so it wasn’t exactly “roughing it” – would have been a dream to those early settlers.

Other discoveries were equally eye-opening. Covered wagons had wooden wheels; no shocks, struts, or satellite radio, and it took them all day to go 15 miles. At one point, Laura and her family lived in a dugout, which was basically a dirt home carved out of a hillside with one window and a single stove in the center. Of course, there were no supermarkets around, so they had to provide their own food, and make their own soap. One long winter, all they had to eat was plain old wheat bread. Which had to be baked day after day, after grinding the flour by hand, and eaten without any butter.

My kids got to try their hand at washing and drying clothes, like they did in the days before spin cycles and permanent press.

And they made corncob dolls just like the one Laura had. Honestly, I thought calling it a doll was a bit of a stretch. No face, no limbs, and certainly no karate-chop action.

It was a tremendous experience for all of us. (You can see pictures on our homeschooling scrapbook.) I came away awed by the ingenuity of these pioneers amidst such humble circumstances, and grateful for the multitude of things I take for granted in my own life.

It’s amazing how a change in perspective really can change everything.

Which is to say, I’m no longer all that concerned with the malfunctioning power button on my remote control.

One of the great freedoms of homeschooling is the opportunity to create customized, comprehensive, teachable moments that align with our kids’ interests and serve as relevant lessons for real life.

Our daughter Lucy’s recent Pancake Stand is one such example.

Last year, Lucy ran a successful lemonade stand to help raise money for music lessons. With a new semester on the horizon, she was ready to take things to the next level. After making pancakes as part of a recent meal with friends, Lucy decided she might like to run a pancake stand.

Who ever heard of a kid running a pancake stand?!

Kim reasoned that all we really needed was an extension cord to power the electric griddle at the end of the driveway. And so, with the only real obstacle obliterated, Project Pancake Stand was on.

Although Kim coached her along, Lucy definitely did the lion’s share of the work. She raided her piggy bank to cover the startup costs and made a list of supplies.

Then it was off to Hy-Vee to buy the ingredients…

She illustrated a flyer to help market the event.

Kim and Lucy used Google Earth to examine a birds-eye view of the neighborhood to determine how many flyers to print, which Lucy then folded and sealed with a sticker.

And then they canvassed the neighborhood to spread the word.

The next step was to create a poster to display on the big day.

The weather cooperated nicely, and my daughter, who is usually a late sleeper, got up early in excitement to set everything up.

Her little brother helped mix the batter (his specialty) but was not much help outside. Perhaps some sunglasses would have proved useful.

Her first customers!

Although we didn’t have a hard count, we estimate that Lucy made at least 80 pancakes that day. One of the great unexpected benefits was getting to know our neighbors better, as well as meeting some for the first time.

We were particularly proud of how poised she was during an especially busy run where she had a lot of customers waiting.

Here she is counting her haul. Lucy’s goal was to raise $100. Her profit after expenses was $153!

Thanks to everybody who came out, as well as the folks who shared their words of encouragement online!

This one project, which spanned about a week and a half, gave Lucy an opportunity to practice math, writing, planning skills, entrepreneurship, sales, marketing, customer service, and more.

It’s one of the many reasons Kim and I are in love with homeschooling, along with the freedom it provides our family. We often feel like we’ve stumbled upon an amazing secret that hardly anyone knows about and can’t believe our good fortune to have accidentally discovered it.

Not that we want to hoard it. On the contrary, we have an insane desire to shout about it from the rooftops but are wary of coming across as that girl who recently discovered running, lost 75 pounds, and now only posts sweaty pictures of herself on Facebook running her daily marathon.

Speaking of Facebook, which is currently flooded with posts of parents celebrating the return of school, it would seem counterintuitive to describe “freedom” as one of the great benefits of homeschooling. Normally the thought of being with your kids 24/7 strikes most people as something between a burden and a punishment worse than waterboarding.

I would have thought the same thing, until I experienced the taste of homeschooling firsthand. Now, the idea of scheduling our entire life around the 9:00 am drop off and 3:00 pm pickup every day for the next 20 years suddenly seems incredibly unappealing. We much prefer our relaxed mornings over the busy rush of getting up early to pack lunches and get everyone fed, dressed, and out the door. We cherish the freedom of enjoying parks, museums, zoos, and libraries when they aren’t overcrowded. We love the unrushed lifestyle that allows us the freedom to travel whenever we want, spend our days as we wish (and change it at a moment’s notice), and gives our kids the time to explore and learn about what interests them.

Somehow, this homeschooling lifestyle makes us feel incredibly rich — like millionaires even — even though we live on much less than most of our peers.

Indeed, it’s not without sacrifice and it’s not always easy, but it sure is a neat way to navigate life as a family. Although nowhere near mainstream, I am happy that homeschooling is on the rise. Thank you to all the pioneers who came before us, to pave the way and show us just how much can come from making pancakes.

The #Notarule Tour is well underway. We have already visited a bookstore, a zoo, an old bank, and the home of some Escape Adulthood Summit alumni. But now the certifiably insane part is upon us.

We are embarking on a 10-day road trip in a Ford Edge with three kids under seven. And then we’re doing it again a month later.

Most parents might think we’re batsh#t crazy. Sometimes I do, too.

Because it is a little bit crazy. And it might not work.

But that’s exactly why it’s worth doing.

I loved the message I once saw printed on a sign at a store that said, “Ever notice that what the hell is always the right decision?”

When Kim and I first considered the idea, one of the biggest causes for pause was cash. We’re not getting any money from the publisher, and this won’t be cheap. So we’re trying to be smart. We’re using rewards points for some of our hotel stays. We’ll only be staying in places with a complimentary breakfast. We bought a cooler to transport food for lunches. And we plan on leaving the kids in Florida so Kim and I can take the return trip alone. (Kidding.)

We’ve also spent a lot of time thinking of ways to save our sanity. One way is to schedule lots of breaks and limit our time spent driving. The first day is the longest, but most days have less than four hours of total drive time. We are not trying to see and do every little thing along the way. We are not putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to get “work” done. Yes, we want to promote the book, but we mostly want some quality time together as a family. We see this as a rich extension of our homeschooling life and a chance to make some fun memories we’ll never forget.

So here’s the deal. Maybe you don’t have a new book out. Maybe you aren’t planning a national book tour. Maybe you don’t even have kids.

But maybe there is a crazy idea you’ve been toying around with that summons up equal parts excitement and terror. Maybe it doesn’t make a lot of sense. And maybe there are a thousand reasons why it wouldn’t work.

What if you spent some time thinking about ways it could maybe sorta possibly work?

And then what if you said, “What the hell!”

After a speaking program a few months ago, a woman who was in the audience stopped me in the parking lot. She told me that she’d just been through the worst year ever. After fighting and beating cancer herself, she was now supporting her husband in his own fight, and the prognosis was not good. Meanwhile, her son just had both of his feet amputated due to complications with diabetes. She kindly affirmed that my message was on target, and lamented about how good we humans are at taking things for granted. Then, with a piercing stare from her steel blue eyes, she reminded me, “You don’t ever get to go back.”

That was the exact second I made up my mind: We are doing this road trip.

What the hell.

We are a homeschooling family. We never thought we would be. We just never thought much about it, frankly. But somehow, homeschooling found us, and it fits us. We love it.

Since we love it, and since it’s such a big part of our life, it should come as no surprise that we enjoy writing about our adventures. Alas, the education of one’s children is a personal decision, and we’ve hesitated to write much about our experiences for fear of offending people. Eventually we decided that was just dumb.

And so we write, but under the following disclaimers:

1) We are not homeschooling experts. Our curriculum is life and the world around us. Learning is led by the interests of our kids. The way we do things works for us. For everyone else, results may vary.

2) We love teachers. Kim was one. So is Jason’s aunt. They are some of the most dedicated, selfless, and amazing people on the face of the earth. Teachers we love; it’s the system we question. It is our experience that many teachers have the same questions and frustrations we have.

3) We believe that most parents want the best education for their children, and the decision as to what’s best for them is a personal one. It is not our desire to convince anyone to homeschool. It is simply our desire to share our adventures on this blog. The thoughts are our own. They may not be yours. That’s cool. If you don’t agree with them, that’s cool, too. If you find yourself offended by something you read or have a problem with way we do things, it might just be better for you to find a different blog to read.

4) That being said, if you are new to or curious about homeschooling, and have sincere questions (not the lame, passive-aggressive “did you know you’re ruining your kids?” variety), we are very happy to help where we can. Email us! Just keep in mind disclaimer #1.

The way we do school in this country is one big #notarule.

The school buses are ready to roll. Students have their new shoes laced good and tight. New backpacks are filled with shiny new supplies. Butterflies are busy in the tummies of newbie teachers and students. The start of school in Wisconsin is here!

This fall Lucy is five-years-old. Since she will not be attending a “school” in the next few days, I guess that means one thing…we are “officially” homeschoolers. Of course, our fellow homeschoolers (which in 2013 made up 3.4% of the U.S. student population) would agree that we’ve been homeschooling since she was a baby. Tru dat!

What will Lucy be doing on the first day of school in Wisconsin?

She’ll be in East St. Louis with her family, at an in-service where her Daddy is speaking, to help a bunch of Head Start teachers fight Adultitis this school year. The day before we’ll be at the St. Louis Zoo, where she’ll get to see her favorite animal (cheetah!) up close and personal.

It’s pretty neat. I’m feeling blessed that she can join us on this journey to rid the world of Adultitis. At the innocent age of five, she “gets” this mission. When asked recently what Adultitis is, Lucy said confidently, “It is where you lose your happiness!” Yessiree!

For all of you fellow homeschoolers, or just curious folks out there, a common question we receive is, “What’s your homeschooling philosophy?” After years of reading, researching and LOTS of discussion, we’re thrilled to have our philosophy in our heart and head as we start/continue this journey of home educating Lucy, Ben and Virginia.

Our-schooling: Self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning in the context of their own unique interests.

BOOM.

We adopted this exact wording from a very neat article we read recently about homeschooling by Ben Hewitt. Granted, it’s a mouthful, but every word is intentional and makes me excited and proud to be on this adventure.

Photo credit: Larry Darling

What’s a sadder reflection on our modern educational system: the fact that “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper is the de facto theme for students everywhere this time of year, or the fact that almost no one stops to consider that maybe it’s a problem that so many people feel this way about school?

I wonder… is “Thou shalt be excited when school’s out for the summer” a rule that doesn’t need to exist?

I’ll admit, the first day of summer vacation for me was always gloriously delicious. It meant freedom. But freedom from what, exactly?

• Freedom from being told what to do all day long.
• Freedom from having to jump through hoops for other people.
• Freedom from having to spend most of the day memorizing facts and being lectured to about things I had no interest in whatsoever.
• Freedom from the pressure of having to measure up to the artificial standards of coolness as decided on by a consensus of my immature peers.
• Freedom from tests and book reports and homework!

What if you reimagined school so that every day felt like the first day of summer vacation?

• Freedom to finally spend most of my day on projects you are interested in.
• Freedom to spend a whole day (or week!) on a project if you wanted to.
• Freedom to spend more time outside in nature.
• Freedom to spend more time around (and be friends with) people of different ages and backgrounds.
• Freedom to be yourself and not worry about what’s “cool” or not.
• Freedom to do nothing once in a while.

That, my friends, is called homeschooling.

For me, it’s weird to think of taking a break from learning. The truth is that kids are learning every day, whether they are in school or not. So am I. So are you. But I get it. For kids, school is associated with learning. That’s why we’re sent, to learn stuff. So naturally, if school stinks, so must learning.

Maybe I’m alone, but I think it’s sad that the surge of freedom associated with the first day of summer vacation is such a common feeling in our society.

One of the things that excites me most about our homeschooling adventure — especially with the interest-based approach we are taking — is the chance to make Mr. Cooper’s rock standard sound like a song from another planet to my kids.

Now that would really rock.

Photo by Geoff Llerena

I had a cool homeschooling moment yesterday, a shining example of interest-based learning! Lucy and Ben, coming a little late to the party, (because their dear ‘ol mom is always about 6-12 months behind) love to watch the music video, “What does the fox say?” Lucy asked me to pull it up on our Apple TV. Since I had my hands full holding Virginia, I asked her to type it in by herself, using sound spelling with some reassurance from me that she was hearing/choosing the right sounds for the key words that we agreed might work: “fox say.” (By the way, teaching a kiddo how to use search engines has to be one of the most relevant lessons ever, right?!)

The video popped up as the number one choice (victory!) I noticed as it started that it had the lyrics on the bottom of the screen.

“Hey,” I said, “There’s the word ‘fox’ that you just spelled, Lucy. And there’s the word ‘say.'”

All of a sudden a lightbulb went off for her (and me!). She could recognize LOTS of these words. Dog. Woof. Cat. Meow. Bird. Tweet. Mouse. Frog…etc. Wow! This is a super cool tool to learn words! She sang each word and watched the words pop up, as if like magic. You could see her brain working overtime — in the BEST way — putting it all together. She was BEAMING. So was I. Ben was dancing around like only a crazy two-year-old can.

The song ended and I had the idea…I bet there are TONS of other videos online that she knows the words to that have pop-up lyrics.

Um YES. So, so many. In fact, there’s a whole series on YouTube of Disney sing-alongs. Lucy, along with a bazillion other five-year-olds right now, loves the song “Let it Go” from Frozen. She sang each word at the top of her lungs as her hazel eyes followed along. Next we did “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. The possibilities are endless for this song-loving early reader! (Quick tip for finding these: search for the song title plus either “sing-along” or “lyrics.”)

One of my all-time favorite parts of homeschooling is when this intersection happens: pure passion for something (music/singing) and learning a new skill (reading).

And maybe, someday, all of this interest-based learning will finally reveal the answer to the question that continues to baffle us and so many others: What does the fox say?

By some standards, Kim and I are at the beginning stages of homeschooling. On the other hand, if you subscribe to the belief that homeschooling begins at birth, then we’ve been at it for over five years. Either way, we are still in the stage of learning as much about it as we can. There are so many different styles of homeschooling, so many misconceptions about it, so much philosophy of how human beings actually learn, and so much history that led us to the educational system we have today.

It’s endlessly fascinating to us both. We regularly find ourselves deep down rabbit holes, voraciously exploring books and blogs on the subject and excitedly emailing each other links to gems we’ve uncovered. At times it feels a bit obsessive, but when I pause to remember that this is all about our kids’ education and future, I wonder why this kind of “obsessiveness” is not actually the norm.

Amidst all of the digging, some personal beliefs have grown more ironclad, while other times I’ve been surprised to find myself doing a complete about-face on some opinions I held pretty strongly just six months ago.

One of my latest rabbit holes has been Penelope Trunk’s blog on education. Kim and I interviewed her several years ago on how to avoid being overworked. We knew she was an expert at giving out career advice, but had missed the fact that she pulled her kids out of school to homeschool them.

What I love about Penelope is her deep vulnerability and ruthless honesty. She is not afraid to say things other people won’t. That’s how I’d like to be. I don’t agree with her on everything (if I did that would be kind of creepy), but I love how her writing affirms some of our decisions but also challenges me to question what I believe. Plus, she links to a lot of great research, creating even more rabbit holes to explore!

Below I’ve included links to some of my favorite posts of hers, with pull quotes from each that either challenged me, surprised me, or had me standing up and shouting, “Amen, sister!”

To be honest, I debated a bit about posting some of these, for fear that people will think I’m trying to “covert” them. Believe me, I don’t have the energy for such a crusade, and I have learned in my adventures as a professional speaker that it’s pretty impossible to change anybody else but myself anyway. But I do believe that sharing interesting stuff is a gift. Like Penelope’s writing does for me, it can either affirm what you already believe or challenge you to see things from a new perspective. Either way, it’s a gift.

So without further ado, here’s Penelope…

• 4 Reasons you don’t need to be a teacher to homeschool
“Education reformers widely agree that self-directed learning is best for kids. Teachers cannot do self-directed learning in a classroom. We can’t afford that in this country. We’d have to have a single teacher for every four students. Which means that teachers can’t facilitate self-directed learning.”

• Mainstream media is delusional about homeschooling
“Only 38% of all homeschoolers choose it for religious reasons. (And this includes the Lutherans, Hindus, Jews, etc.) But the majority are middle class parents just trying to get their kids out of a broken system.

So the way homeschooling works is that kids are home, learning, and parents are there for support. Kids need tools, or suggestions for how to get what they need, and parents are there to do that. Self-directed learning requires an adult to be very present, but not very intrusive. It’s why self-directed learning works great at home, and is nearly impossible at school.”

• 3 Stereotypes about homeschooling parents – and why they’re wrong
“I am not a good teacher, because it bores me. But luckily, it bores my kids too. They don’t want to be told what to do. They have their own ideas about what they want to learn. I am a good listener. I listen very carefully to what my kids say they want, and I try to translate that into what is possible for their life right now. The only thing a parent needs in order to be a good homeschooing parent is a deep sense of love for the child. Because then you’ll help your child find their way in an intimate, fun, family setting. But I’d never have known until I tried it.”

• You’re the type of parent who chooses to homeschool
“Doctors, lawyers, accountants, professors, and entrepreneurs make up less than five percent of the population, but 25 percent of the homeschooling population.”

• Schools undermine parent confidence
“It’s important that the schools remind parents how difficult it is to teach kids because then parents will keep putting up with the crappy education their kids are getting in school—and parents will be grateful for it. Homework makes parents feel like they are unable to create a family-focused life because it will never feel as important as school work. Family schedules take second-seat behind the school schedule. If the school decides kids need more school days and less summer vacation, families comply. If a snow day means school goes longer in the summer, families comply.”

• In Hollywood, homeschooling is the norm
“People who control their lives do not let schools control them.”

• Best solution for balancing work and kids is homeschooling
“School ruins your calendar. If you send your kids to school you give up control over your family life. The demands of school are a moving target, and you never know when it will change. If you homeschool your kids, you have total control over your schedule.

The most difficult time to deal with kids are when they’re clingy, when they’re fighting for your attention, and when they don’t want to do what school tells them to do. But here’s what happens when you take your kids out of school. They see you all the time, so they don’t need to be clingy. They have your attention whenever they want it, so they don’t have to do insane tricks to get the small moments of attention they can get after school…So the worst parts of being a parent disappear when you take your kids out of school. Which means that being around them is actually much easier than you can anticipate. School makes kids artificially difficult and high maintenance to be around, which is why you think you could never get any work done while they’re there.”

• Back-to-school ads are a parade of arguments in favor of homeschooling
“School assumes you need to buy stuff in order to learn.”

• 5 reasons why you don’t need to teach math
“For the most part, the New York Times reports, you won’t need the math kids learn in school. You will never need to know when two trains going at different speeds will meet. We have train schedules.”

• The real reason parents don’t homeschool
“People don’t homeschool because they’re scared they’ll be bored.
Anyone can homeschool. Kids naturally learn stuff. It’s so well documented that it’s insulting to our intelligence to even argue this point. Kids are natural learners, which means the challenge of homeschooling is how to keep the parents who are home engaged and interested and fulfilled. The real choice for most parents is do they choose to have their kids bored at school or do they choose to be bored themselves at home? And the real question is, which problem is more easily remedied?”

• How to convince a parent to try homeschooling
“If you give a parent the choice between having eight hours a day of freedom from their kids, or spending eight hours a day forcing their kids to learn to read and do math at home, no parent will chose the latter. It doesn’t matter that homeschooling isn’t really like that. Non-homeschoolers think it is. So the key is to reframe the choice.

Here’s the logic that I think sells homeschooling most effectively: School is terrible. Educated parents are taking their kids out. You need to take your kids out so they don’t get left behind.”

• The big lie homeschoolers tell
“The most arrogant, out-of-control part of the homeschool movement is the idea that ‘homeschooling is not right for everyone.'”

Ben was a bit too quiet.

I found him dropping stuff out of the front window.

That’s what I get for sneaking fresh air on this beautiful day (no screens on yet).

Kim and I attended our first homeschooling conference this past weekend. With a December birthday, Lucy wouldn’t be entering kindergarten for another year and a half, but we wanted to get more information about this life-changing decision we’d been considering. To be honest, we each felt a little uncertain and overwhelmed at the prospect of going all-in.

Although homeschooling is quickly growing in popularity (about 2 million kids aged 5-17 are homeschooled in the U.S., twice as many as in 1999), it’s still not the norm. There’s a lot of misinformation out here, and many people still think that homeschooled kids are socially awkward recluses, and unable to compete academically with their public school counterparts. The truth is that most homeschooled kids are extremely self-confident, well-adjusted, and academically bright, often scoring better on standardized tests than their public-schooled peers. In fact, many colleges are creating special scholarships just for homeschooled kids because they are such an asset to the school.

And yet, homeschooling still raises eyebrows.

Meanwhile, I do a lot of speaking in the education market, and it feels sort of strange to speak to public school teachers and then reveal that I actually homeschool my kids. But the truth is, it’s never been the teachers Kim and I have had a problem with (she was one herself for half a decade). They are some of the biggest-hearted, hardest working people on the planet, in my opinion. Rather, it’s the system, the bureaucracy, and the one-size-fits-all approach that has caused us to consider homeschooling.

Now, we’re used to doing things differently than others. We call it opting-out. It’s part of the whole escape adulthood thing, and we champion breaking rules that don’t exist. But still, everything we do is with mindful intention, not for shock value or for being different for different’s sake. Homeschooling is a viable option for the education for our children, an option that wasn’t as commonplace a generation ago. And so even though it’s nowhere near mainstream, we felt it was well-worth considering.

Interestingly, I arrived early for a session about incorporating the kitchen into your curriculum and I ended up chatting with the woman giving the workshop. I told her that since my daughter was not even five, we hadn’t yet started homeschooling, and she gently reminded me, “You’ve actually been homeschooling this whole time.”

So true.

One of the highlights was attending the graduation ceremony on Saturday. Six high school seniors were honored as they officially ended their homeschool education. Each gave a short speech, followed by an opportunity for the parents to say a few words. It was a moving occasion. As I sat there, I marveled at the poise and confidence these six young men and women displayed as they shared their experience and appreciation for having been homeschooled. I was awed at the respect and love they had for their parents. I was impressed by the things they’d been able to accomplish and the dreams they outlined for their future. Then I thought back to my own high school graduating class of 300 kids. I figured there would be less than 10 that could have been put in a similar situation and responded with as much grace and wit and wisdom. A vast majority them would have been in Metallica t-shirts shouting something barely intelligible, like, “School sucks, I’m outta here!”

Time and again, I was blown away by the accomplishments proud parents shared about their homeschooled adult children. Masters degrees from prestigious universities. Great jobs in the field of engineering, physics, and business. Volunteer and ministry experiences that made me feel like Ebeneezer Scrooge. Not only have they become successful, but they are among the best our society has to offer.

Kim and I gained a lot of perspective and ideas, but no one there ever pushed the “right way” to homeschool. We discovered that there really are as many ways to homeschool as there are homeschooling families. Everyone has a different personality, which is cool. I think the lack of judgement comes from having to constantly answer critics and fight for their rights as parents. The prevailing sentiment seems to be, “I don’t want anyone telling me what’s best for my family, so I won’t tell you what’s best for yours.” As someone who lives in a pretty politically charged state, it was cool to see a mix of families — conservative and liberal, Christian and non-religious, big families and one-child families — unified as one voice, eager to give support and share tips with one another. Just amazing.

Going into the weekend, my prayer was that if homeschooling wasn’t for us, we’d be willing to walk away. But if it was, I prayed for confidence and enthusiasm.

I come away with both, in spades.

We now see that although homeschooling is not right for everyone, it is for us. We are excited about the freedom and possibilities before us. Yes, there is more responsibility that comes with this choice, but we have come to see that it is a choice that offers more fun, and, believe it or not, less stress.

In no particular order, here are some of our favorite things about homeschooling:

The Hope for a Brighter Future for Our Kids
We believe that for our children’s futures, success will require the ability to think creatively, easily adapt to change, and find answers on one’s own. Homeschooling excels at this. Regular school is broken, based on an outdated model born out of the Industrial Revolution. It’s also bogged down in bureaucracy and slow to change. Kim and I see homeschooling as our chance to BE the much-needed change for our kids, rather than hope and wait for things to get better.

Creativity and Control
We’ll have more control over what our kids learn than some politician, administrator, or school board. We can customize our kids’ education based on their specific needs and interests. Contrary to the way a normal school day flows, learning does not happen in clearly delineated blocks of time and topic areas (i.e. science THEN math THEN history). In reality, everything is connected! An interest in horses may involve science AND math AND history AND literature AND art AND music — all at once! Kim and I get to guide our children’s learning in a way that is relevant and meaningful to their lives.

Freedom to Grow
I love the idea of being able to give my kids freedom to follow their passions and pursue their interests fearlessly and confidently. Learning will happen at their own pace, not at the one-size-fits-all standard. They’ll be neither bored waiting for everyone else to catch up, nor left behind and at risk of being labeled slow or stupid. And there is no sound of a bell telling them that they have to be done with an activity they’re really into.

Freedom of Schedule
We are stoked at the prospect of being free from the standard school schedule, which will give us a more flexible daily and weekly schedule. It also means no painfully early mornings, no parent teacher conferences, no homework at night, and no restrictions on when we take a vacation! In traditional schooling, there is a lot of wasted time on busywork and adminstrivia, so I appreciate the more efficient use of time in general.

Freedom of Place
Homeschooling can happen anywhere. You can do school inside at the kitchen table, outside in the grass, or in a fort made of couch cushions and blankets. And we can continue to be heavy travelers, learning on the road wherever we go.

More Family Time
This is huge: I get to see more of my kids as they grow up. The years go fast enough; I can’t imagine how much faster they’d go if they were somewhere else being taught by someone else. Plus they get to spend more time with their siblings, creating closer relationships. Although it seems unthinkable for more time together to be a GOOD thing, the homeschooled siblings I’ve encountered all get along really well and actually enjoy being together. Who knew?

Socialization
Socialization is usually looked at the the main disadvantage of of homeschooling. But we see it as one of the biggest advantages. First, in terms of time spent together, Kim and I are the primary role models, not their peers. It is OUR faith and values that will be the dominant force in their life. Secondly, my kids will be less peer dependent, making them less susceptible to negative peer pressure. But, contrary to popular belief, homeschoolers are not locked inside all day long, away from the outside world. Instead, they have freedom to go on more field trips, do more volunteering, and gain more experience working with people of all ages, which is better training for the real world. And with a large homeschooling network in our community, our kids will be able to connect with good friends their own age, who aren’t concerned with what’s currently popular at school.

Lifelong Learning
The most exciting thing of all is the chance to cultivate curiosity and foster a lifelong love for learning in our children. Too many schools churn out unengaged, rule-following robots who think learning is boring. Consider these sad facts:

• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

One workshop leader, when asked about whether or not his family takes summers off, replied, “Why would we take summers off from learning? We just keep on reading books and learning about stuff that excites us. When you make learning enjoyable, schooling IS the vacation.”

Wow.

I was also struck by another woman who said, “Our kids are all grown now, so now we get to homeschool ourselves.”

Double wow.

No doubt, homeschooling will be a challenge. But then again, all worthwhile things are. Kim and I are looking forward to sharing in the learning and doing new things WITH our kids, while taking advantage of the opportunity to turn everyday events into adventures!

You can be sure that we will share many of our adventures here. :)

* [ Update: The Downsides of Homeschooling? ] *

I was asked to share some of the downsides of homeschooling, in order to help those who might be considering it themselves. While we’re still in the rookie stage of this whole thing, I am happy to share some of those which we are aware of and have even considered ourselves. I also apparently felt that this post wasn’t long enough as it was, so here goes:

Time. It would appear that one of the downsides of homeschooling is the extra time involved. Interestingly, it is not necessarily the amount of instruction time required, however. In fact, I heard one veteran assure a working mother that nights and weekends are sufficient for covering what’s necessary, because the education is so customized and you don’t have all the administrivia that comes when you’re managing 25 bodies. But make no mistake, there is a lot of thinking (and effort) involved, which takes a lot of time. There are many different curricula and approaches to consider, and every stage of your child’s life will bring new challenges to sort out. It’s interesting to keep in mind that no one else is going to put anywhere near this amount of time and consideration into my child’s educational journey. Kim and I think our kids are worth it, and we figure that if our kids went to a traditional school, we’d be spending a lot of time helping them with homework and getting them to and from school every day.

Money. Public school is free. Private school is not. Homeschooling seems to be somewhere in the middle. It’s true that some of the curricula can be expensive, but the best resource is the free public library and there are many books and websites devoted to homeschooling on a shoestring budget.

Keeping Records and Jumping Through Hoops. Every state has different legislation and requirements regarding homeschooling, and some have some pretty stringent reporting policies, which can be a real pain. I can’t speak to all of them, but we discovered this weekend that Wisconsin is one of the most homeschool-friendly states around. For that, we are extremely grateful.

Missing Out on High School Sports and Things Like Prom. Many states require school attendance in to participate in high school sports. That kind of stinks, especially since Kim played volleyball in high school and I played varsity baseball. However, some homeschool networks have their own leagues, and of course there are public summer leagues available as well. We also heard that a lot of homeschoolers participate in sports that can be enjoyed throughout their entire lives, including activities like golf, karate, skiing, and rowing. On the topic of prom and other similar large social activities, yes, these are things that are hard to replicate in a homeschool setting. I think the loss of these experiences takes on more significance because most people don’t have a reference for the types of things homeschoolers get to experience that traditionally-schooled things don’t. Yes, our kids may miss out on some things that their peers enjoy, but we feel like the benefits they’ll receive will be far more valuable.

Having To Teach Things You’re Not That Good At. I scored well on my ACT, but these days, I barely remember algebra, let alone trigonometry! And how can I possibly teach chemistry as well as Mr. Navin, who spent his whole life in the field? That was probably my biggest fear going into this weekend. Sure, I can get my kids up to speed through middle school, but after that, there could be some rough seas ahead. The thing I was relieved to discover is that Kim and I don’t have to be experts on all things in order to give them an outstanding education. Our job is to be more like a guidance counselor rather than a teacher. There are scores of resources out there, from textbooks to tutors to video series that will help them learn what they need to. Our job is to help our kids uncover their interests and point them in the direction of knowledge. I was assured that in high school (and even in middle school), homeschoolers know how to find their own information. You don’t teach them, you just guide them. And I was encouraged by stories like the one of a boy who went on to excel in physics, even though his parents both hated math. It would seem that we too often underestimate the insatiable desire of human beings to learn, particularly the things that interest them.

Less Interaction with People Their Own Age. As I mentioned above, I think this is actually a GOOD thing. But it is a false view of homeschooling to think that my kids won’t have any friends that aren’t siblings. The cry for socialization is the one thing that gets a homeschooling parent’s eyes to roll more than anything else. If public school is the supposed foolproof method for developing well-adjusted, properly “socialized” citizens, why does it churn out so many misaligned, anti-social individuals who contribute little to society and become a drain on the system? At the very least, it does not appear to be the cure-all it’s claimed to be.

Accountability. The results of your child’s education is all on you, for better or for worse. It’s obviously easier to put the blame on someone else if things go wrong, but with homeschooling, the buck stops here. I’d argue that most problems in our society point back to parenting, but these days, the bad parents have too many excuses at their disposal and things only get worse. I for one, relish the opportunity to call a spade a spade and value the freedom to do my job.

Fear. Of course, all this accountability often comes with a side dish of fear. Kim went to a workshop on handling doubts, and was surprised to see experienced veterans in the session as well. Apparently it’s pretty normal to frequently second-guess yourself, questioning wether you’re really doing the right thing or screwing your kids up beyond repair, especially in the face of outside opposition. I take it as a sign that you care, and I see it as a pretty normal feeling for parenthood in general, whether you homeschool or not. I was able to take a lot of solace in the stories from people who’ve turned out some pretty great kids amidst periodic doubt and uncertainty.

Dealing with Critics. Speaking of outside opposition, there are many people who don’t understand homeschooling and some who work to undermine it. Sometimes friends and family and complete strangers can be very rude and hurtful in their lack of support or outright hostility towards the very idea of it. By all accounts, much progress has been made in the last 20 years, but it can be tiring to always be defending your decision (and right) to do what you feel is best for your family.

Standing Out. Sort of a corollary to the last one. Homeschooling is not mainstream, although it’s becoming more popular every year. Some people will find that it’s more comfortable just blending in. But that’s not how we roll, especially when the stakes are this high.

In closing (I think), here is a fun little video by a homeschooler humorously debunking Seven Lies About Homeschoolers. Enjoy!

School is broken.

But the main question isn’t, “How do we fix it?”

No, the first — and most important — question is, “What is school for?”

Although it seems like public education has been around forever, it wasn’t until 1918 that nationwide compulsory education was in place. That’s less than 100 years ago. And it worked for a long time, because the people who set it up were very clear on what school was for. (The reason may surprise you.)

In this thought-provoking TEDx video, Seth Godin raises this important question, delivers a brief history lesson, and tosses out some powerful thought grenades that beg for discussion.

Many people have expressed interest in how Kim and I came to our decision to homeschool. First of all, homeschooling isn’t for everyone, but we are happy to share our thoughts, for what they’re worth. Secondly, there are lots of reasons, and this post covers just one, which may or may not be the most important. The issues Seth talks about in this video (and even more so in this manifesto that you really should read) underline our belief that the current education system in this country is broken.

The world is changing at an alarming rate. No one knows for sure what the future holds, but most schools seem stuck turning out students better prepared to succeed in a world that existed thirty years ago.

And so, over the last few years, Kim and I have been asking ourselves the question, “What is school for?”

I hope Seth’s manifesto inspires the much-needed change in our educational system. But, as with any giant institution, meaningful change is slow and hard. Unfortunately, Lucy is almost four and we don’t have luxury of waiting for it to come.

There is an adage often attributed to Gandhi: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

I suppose that the decision to homeschool is our small way of being that change for our kids. It is exciting and freeing and scary and overwhelming all at once, but we’ve come to believe that it is the right choice for us.