July 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Have you ever wondered what it takes to pioneer enormous change in homeschooling freedoms—and what lessons current families can draw from those trailblazers? In this episode of The Colorado Homeschool Podcast, Homeschool Freedoms: Lessons from a Pioneer Mom, Barbara West, host Kashia Davis sits down with Barbara West, a true homeschooling pioneer whose decades of experience span multiple states, military life, and international moves.
Barbara West, along with her husband Bruce, began homeschooling in the early years of the modern homeschool movement—when it was barely legal and certainly misunderstood. Known for her leadership in creating vibrant homeschooling communities (including the popular Facebook group Homeschooling Colorado and the Colorado Springs Homeschool Sports League), Barbara brings wisdom earned from homeschooling five children (three adopted, some with learning differences), advocating for homeschool freedoms across state lines, and fighting for legislative change—often behind the scenes and always with faith-fueled courage.
Tune in for actionable strategies to:
- Build confidence as a homeschool parent and advocate for your family
- Find encouragement amid doubt or criticism
- Embrace flexibility and trust in your child's unique learning path
- Understand why community and political engagement matter for lasting educational freedom
Plus, you'll be inspired by Barbara's stories—like the time she single-handedly helped eliminate unconstitutional home visits for homeschoolers in South Dakota, and how she’s learned through trial, error, and faith to let go of perfection.
If you’re a homeschool parent looking for practical tips, heartfelt encouragement, and a glimpse into the history and heart that sustains our freedoms today, this episode is for you.
Be sure to subscribe to The Colorado Homeschool Podcast so you never miss moments of wisdom, support, and stories that remind you: one person (like you!) really can make a difference. Listen now and join a community committed to Christ-centered, parent-directed home education!
Links:
The Colorado Homeschool podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado. We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in this mission. If you’re looking for support, resources, and inspiration on your homeschooling journey, visit CHEC.org. Don’t forget to subscribe to this podcast and share it with anyone who might benefit from the wisdom shared in this episode!
If you want to support homeschooling in Colorado go to CHEC.org/donate.
This podcast is powered by The Podcast Upload. Want to start your own? Book a free call: https://www.thepodcastupload.com/discovery-call
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
One of the adages at our house is one person can make a difference.
And so I know my family, I'm always like, well, I could be that person.
I could be that person. So stepping out and
doing something, every time we move, I tell everybody we're
homeschooling. And I just say, we're homeschoolers. We're homeschooling.
So just learn to be bold so that when it comes to something that's super
(00:21):
important, you've already practiced. I homeschool or whatever
it is that you're afraid to tell somebody, just be bold and just state it.
You're not having a fight. You're not having an argument. You're having a
discussion. And this is who you are. You just present.
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
(00:45):
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips, and help,
go to CHEC.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello. Thank you so much for
joining us today. I am your host, Kasia Davis, and we
(01:07):
have a friend and maybe somebody that you already know
because she's so involved in the homeschool community in
Colorado, Barb and her husband, he's not going to be with us, but
Barb west and her husband Bruce have been homeschooling for quite some
time. In fact, they are pioneers, or what I would call pioneers, and that's
what we're going to talk about today. But you probably know Barb in some other
(01:29):
ways. She's got the fabulously interactive Facebook
group, Homeschooling Colorado. She also runs a really cool sports
program, Colorado Springs Homeschool League. Homeschool
Sports League. Let me get it right. I love the program and everything that
you've told me about it, but every time I talk to Barb, I leave encouraged.
I leave exhorted. I think she's got such a
(01:51):
sweetheart. And I'm so excited that you're here with us today, Barb. I didn't. Wait,
wait, let me tell about your family, too. She's got five kids and seven
grandkids, which I have four grandkids of my own. And I will tell you, I
call it Parenting 2.0. So, Barb, I am so excited for what
you're going to share with us today. Thank you for being here. Well, Keisha, thank
you for having me. I love meeting with you in person. So this is going
(02:13):
to be a little bit different today, us being miles apart. It is weird.
Yes, we do have a good time when we meet in person. We met and
we were immediately both said, we should do this again. Let's get together and
make this a regular occurrence. So I love that when you meet that
person that you just know. So, yeah, I agree it's a little weird, but.
Okay. Well, Barb, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got
(02:35):
started in homeschooling, Because I already said that you were part of the
pioneer movement. Well, at least the current, because
some people would argue that homeschooling is the oldest form of education. But in our
modern history, you were really part of that first
wave that made it legal in the United States.
So tell me what led to that for you.
(02:57):
Okay. But when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was living
in Oklahoma and was in the
military. I had one child. I was pregnant with my second.
And I didn't want the first child, who'd been by herself for three years,
to suddenly feel slighted. So I thought, well, I'll put her in preschool
and then I can spend some time with the new baby and she'll be entertained.
(03:21):
So I sent her to a Christian preschool that was attached to a church. It
was a great program, loved it. But as it came time for her to get
closer to kindergarten, I thought, I can't send her to public school. But
I couldn't afford the private Christian school. So I thought, what am I going to
do? There's only two options. And one Sunday they did a
weekend section. I had this woman who was teaching her children at home.
(03:43):
I'd never heard of that. And so I contacted her
and said, can I come to your house? She said, sure, come on out. So
I drive out. She was about 30 minutes away, and she
had a big box for each of her three children. Big
box. And she showed me in the boxes and they were textbooks from
15 years before when I'd been in school. They were terrible.
(04:05):
I thought I didn't like them the first time I used them. I don't want
to do this. And nothing encouraged me. I mean, she
was a sweet woman. Her children were wonderful. But I thought, I can't do
this. So I get back in my car and I'm literally crying and beating on
the steering wheel all the way back into town. And in the middle of this
tantrum, the Lord said, go to the Anode Christian bookstore. Now, this is
(04:26):
an old fashioned country town, had this town square, and that's where the
Christian bookstore was. So I go in and I thought,
well, nobody's. They're not going to have anything on homeschooling. And they actually
did. They had three books. One was Greg Harris, the Christian Homeschool.
One was Better Late than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore.
And the third one was the Big Book of Home Learning by Mary Pride.
(04:49):
Now, if you're familiar with that, it eventually morphed into four huge
volumes, but I could only afford one book. So I bought the Mary
Pride book and went home, marked it up, highlighted, took
notes. By the time my poor husband came home from work, he comes to the
door and I said, work at alum school. And he's like, oh, no, you.
You are in perfect, perfect brew style. He goes, we are
(05:11):
not locking our firstborn in a closet. I said, did I
say we were going to lock in a closet? He said, well,
no, but isn't that what homeschooling is? And I said, no. So over the next
week, I. I educated him on
homeschooling as I was educating myself. Well, then I thought, I can do this.
There weren't a lot of curriculum. Everybody always says, well, what curriculum do
(05:35):
you use? And I think they mean a full curriculum that teaches everything. Language
arts, math, science, history. I mean, all of it.
And at that point in time, there were not a lot of companies that sold
to parrots, sold to families. You had me a Bethel, Bob
Jones, Christian Liberty, Christian Life, but not a lot. So Mary Pride was
going through there, and I found a program that was called Calvert, and
(05:57):
they'd send it to missionaries, and they sent everything in the box. And I thought,
oh, this is great. I mean, they sent me the yarn and the little safety
scissors and the glue. And I thought, okay, I can't fail with this. So.
So I got it. And we completed the entire year of
kindergarten in six weeks. And I got so encouraged
that I can do this. I can actually do this. And
(06:19):
so from there, that launched me into what I do now.
And at that time, there wasn't any Montessori style or
Charlotte Mason or Waldorf. I mean, the only thing I knew is
what I came out of, which was textbooks. And there was so much out
there that I. I didn't know about. So I. After that first
year when I had everything, then I became more of a Charlotte
(06:42):
Mason, eclectic, Montessori type homeschooler. And I've been that
way the whole time. And I.
I'm more loosey goosey, maybe. And I need to
explain this, because even though I am that way,
my children did great. My. The ones that
chose to go to college. And not all of them choose that. We
(07:04):
encourage that, but it's their choice. The ones that do go, go on
full scholarships because they do well on their ACT and their
SAT and their, their entrance exams and their
essays that they have to do. And they go to college.
And I'm scared to death when they go because I'm thinking, oh, what I miss
so much. But they do fine. And then the one I
(07:25):
did have one, my son chose to not do college but go into the
Marines. And he took the ASVAB test and scored
so well that he could choose his career field before
he signed on the dotted line. And he
does so well that in one year he got three promotions within a 12,
15 month time span. He's excelling. He's been in four years and
(07:48):
he's a staff sergeant. So anybody that knows about the military, you may go.
How did that happen? Well, homeschooling was a big part of that.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so good. I was a
Charlotte Mason type homeschool mom and I'm.
I would do it again. Totally. And I love that you said that you were
loosey goosey because that is not my perspective. Because you're very.
(08:10):
It seems like you have a plan and you're working it and that kind of.
I mean, this is not what we're talking about today. But that is one of
the things that I always tell people is there still is a commitment. You have
a methodology on how you're teaching, but you still have a
plan and you still, you know, sort of make your own syll at least.
Right. And, and figure out the end before. Well, I have
(08:31):
a date to my school year. I circle that on the calendar so everybody knows
when that is. And I have the end date circled so we know that there
is an ending we will finish. It's not that we're going to go on and
on and on forever if we don't finish the books. That's
okay. How many times does the brick and mortar school actually finish a book?
Right. Well, a plan. My husband says a plan is something from which to
(08:52):
deviate. And that's a good. Yeah. I don't know if you
mentioned that we were in the military, but my husband was in the military for
30 years and every time we moved, it took
me three months. I lost three months of my life getting ready on one end,
packing up, and then we actually get to the new location and we
unpack. I would lose three months. We moved almost two dozen
(09:13):
times. And if you can do the math on that. That means I lost
six years of homeschooling. Six. Six full years.
Not taking summers off. So how was
I able to educate my children with losing so much
time? Well, it wasn't me that was doing the educating and it was the Lord.
So all those gaps, all those places where I wasn't getting
(09:36):
something done, he was filling it in. And I have so many
people who say, oh, I can't go on that field trip. We haven't finished this
lesson. We haven't done that. There's so much education that happens
in life in general, and I'm a perfect example of that
because all my children can read and write and do
arithmetic. And you're probably thinking, oh, she has these children
(09:58):
that have no learning disabilities. No, that's not true either.
I have two that struggle
immensely. Three of my children are adopted of the five that I
have, which anyone that has adopted knows there's
things and issues that come with that. So it was not
smooth sailing. It was not like I had these brilliant children that I never had
(10:21):
any issues with. Some of my biological children are
extremely dyslexic. There's different types of dyslexia,
and they have more than one. Executive
functioning, add, adhd. We struggled through a lot.
So I'm telling you from experience, don't let the textbook
or whatever curriculum you choose drive your home school.
(10:43):
Allow more to be in the driver's seat. And with,
like Carrie Underwood sung, jesus, take the wheel, let go,
let God be really in control. And when there's a field
trip, know that learning's gonna happen. And so you can take
off from your regularly scheduled programming
and do that field trip. Go skiing. When they had the homeschool ski
(11:05):
day. Go skiing. You'll be amazed at what taking time
off can do. And I have a story if you want me to share it.
Yeah, well, I love everything that you're saying, because I. I say the same thing
over and over and over every. I feel like it's a common fear.
Homeschool moms think they're going to have gaps. What if they forget something?
What if they teach them? And I go, you're going to. I mean, it's impossible
(11:27):
to teach everything. No education program is doing that. You just
want to teach your children how to learn. And. Yeah, so you're so true.
It's so good that you dove in and you got that courage from the beginning
because you didn't have a role model. I mean, you found three books at the
bookst. That's crazy awesome. To me. And also before I tell
the story, the the Better Late than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore is
(11:48):
the number one book that I recommend most often. Okay. I see
so many comments or posts on my homeschool
Facebook, homeschooling Colorado Facebook page and people are saying, I've got
this three year old and they're brilliant and we want to do this. There's so
much that they learn by playing. So just
let them do continue how they're learning and not
(12:10):
force this rigid academics onto them.
The Better late than early. There's also people that say, my child's not reading and
they're eight years old and it's like, it's okay. I had one that didn't read
fluently until she was 14 years old. 14.
And those of you that are in church or you're teaching Sunday school or youth
group, please, if a parent says, don't ask my child to read, please
(12:32):
don't ask that child to read. Because this child was constantly asked to read.
She's very sweet, she's wonderful. And they were always asking to read and she just
couldn't do it. At 14, she came out and she said, hey,
Mom, I just finished this book and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she read. But
now that child speaks five languages, is married, had five
children, owns and operates a school that teaches
(12:53):
English in a closed country. That's what she.
And so do not just think, oh, my child's never going to get
this. The Better late than early. Raymond and Dorothy Moore say, you know, don't teach
reading till 9. And then what you spent years trying to get
done, they're going to learn in a matter of maybe weeks or months.
So Jesus, let go of my God. My other story was
(13:17):
I was trying to teach borrowing and carrying to a second grader
and she started crying and I started crying. And it was October.
And I'm thinking, we are never going to make it. I just slammed
the book shut and put them in a dark closet. And that was October.
And then in January, I went, oh, my gosh, we haven't done math.
And while we were living, they gave the Stanford Achievement Test every year and you
(13:41):
had to score in the 23rd percentile or you were in big trouble.
So I pulled the books out, I laid them on the floor with everything, and
I said, hey, get going on this. I'm going to go work with her younger
sibling for a minute while you, you know, just look at this. Well, I came
back and she'd done the lesson, like, how could you do that lesson. You didn't
know how to do it before. Well, she had all the building blocks. She
(14:03):
just needed time to put it together, to put the puzzle together.
I came back, she could do it. And I had not taught her for four
months how to do it. She had all the pieces. So sometimes
time, that's another commodity that homeschoolers like,
oh, I'm so far behind. No, you're not. You're right where God
wants you to be. And they think, oh, I don't have enough time. I'm gonna
(14:25):
have to homeschool all summer. Gonna have to double up the lessons. Oh,
we're just gonna have to do this next year all the way through. No,
just let it go and. And allow
time to be your friend and not your enemy. Give your
child's brain time to assimilate all that information
and thinking. I gotta keep beating this in. The other one is
(14:47):
the spotlight. They say, oh, they're having trouble over here. And they take that spotlight
and they shine it where the child is having trouble. Well, you know what? That
child starts thinking, I can't do this.
I'm never going to learn this. And that's not true.
If you take the spotlight and shine it, where do they do best? Maybe it's
art. Maybe it's they play the violin or the piano.
(15:09):
Maybe it's, they're good in sports. But highlight that and say, wow, you're
so good at this. And you know what's going to happen? That confidence
is going to bleed over into where they're having some issues and
some trouble, and they're gradually going to get better. So don't
shine the spotlight where they struggle. Shine it where they do well, and you're going
to make a big difference. Barb, listen, we're going to get in trouble
(15:31):
because I could talk to you for a lot longer than we've allocated.
You have some great nuggets. I love it. I feel like every
woman needs to have somebody that will be telling them things like this,
that just encourage them and exhort them. I. I used to go to a homeschool
support group when I was a homeschool mom in Parker, and there was this
one mom. Somebody would train and talk about this grade and how
(15:55):
academically rigorous this program was. And another mom would just.
She'd just go or not. And that or not spoke
so much to me because we just put on so much pressure for
ourselves unnecessarily. So. Oh, that was so good.
And so I'm listening to you going, wow, you really Developed some deep convictions
and understanding of how children develop and what your
(16:18):
husband immediately has, which I think is hilarious. You said. He
said, well, we're not going to lock our kid in the closet. Like, there was
this stigma at the time that homeschooling was a neglectful thing,
that you were just trying to lock your child away. So how did that play
out? And so you started in Oklahoma, and obviously, was it already
legal in Oklahoma? Yes, because.
(16:40):
Okay. Then we moved to Texas. It was legal in Texas.
Okay. And then we moved to South Dakota.
In South Dakota, there were three things that were not
the same between Oklahoma and Texas. One was that they had
yearly testing with the Stanford Achievement Test, and you had to score in the
23rd percentile or above. Okay. You had to ask
(17:02):
permission to homeschool, and then they would give you permission
to homeschool at that time. And the third one, which is the one that
was really a battle, was that the state designee
from the Department of Education could enter your home anytime
they wanted to just because you're homeschooling. Wow. Okay.
The Fourth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, they are not allowed to
(17:25):
do. The state law in South Dakota said they could. So the state Department
of Education was using that. And I got
there, contacted hslda. I had
one home visit. We lived there twice. But the first time, we
lived there for seven years. And if you know the military, you do not stay
anyplace for seven years. Right. That's unusual. That in itself
(17:48):
is a red flag. But we were there seven years, and Chris
Klicka was very helpful with me. I learned a lot. I learned
that even though I didn't like that part of the law, if I
tried to change the law at all, they would open up the entire law. And
at that time, there were legislators who wanted to outlaw homeschooling
completely. So Chris explained patiently, painstakingly,
(18:11):
barb, you have to slow down. You cannot change the law. And
he explained that they needed to. The state needed to come after
a family on that one issue. And when they did,
then we could open up the law and change it. So I had the bill
ready. I had sponsors. Hopefully they were still going to be in the
legislative session if it ever happened. And I was ready to go.
(18:32):
Well, this one year, a little dairy farm and family with, I don't know,
six children or so that lived out on the prairie said
no to a home visit. I had been asking people, just say no. Just say
no. And this family finally did, and the
state went after him, accused him of child Abuse. I don't know
why they didn't cave, but they didn't cave because they were threatening to take their
(18:54):
kids, all kinds of stuff. Because of that, the state opened
that part of the bill or that part of the law. So I was able
to introduce the bill. Now for me to back up a little
bit. When I had my first home visit, my husband Bruce and I, we made
an appointment with the state Department of Education in Pier, which is the
capital of South Dakota. It was a two and a half hour drive from our
(19:15):
house. They happened to be in a different time zone, which means was a
three and a half hour thing I had to think about. So I would have
to leave at 4:30 in the morning to get there by 8:00
clock by an appointment. So we did this superintendent stood us up, said
I'm too busy. So we weren't deterred. We made another appointment with
him, went back, met with him. He said, oh, I'll give you a waiver now
(19:37):
that I've met you and I know you're intelligent and you know what you're doing
because I'll give you a waiver. So we never had another home visit. But the
rest of the state, the rest of the families did have a home visit.
That's why I wanted to change. Not just for me. I needed everybody to be
out of this. And so we got it put into place
and it went to committee. In committee.
(19:59):
They two legislators left the room, their aides came in,
tapped them on the shoulder and they left the room. We worked on the bill
in committee. And so I wanted it to be at the beginning a
no vote because I didn't like what they'd done. But now they changed it to
the way I liked it. I wanted a yes vote. So they're calling for a
vote. The two legislators who are against homeschooling come back in the room.
(20:20):
They didn't want the bill reread. And that's key here.
And so I had some homeschoolers at the back of the room. We had our
hands lifted. We're praying. It's like the ceiling opened up. There
were angels and clouds. It was amazing. They took the vote, voted
yes. It passed. The room erupts and these two legislators are
(20:40):
going, what's going on? Because this was against homeschooling. And then the others on
the committee, the other five people said, oh no, we changed it while you were
out of the room.
Visits. Wow, it's a miracle. And right
after that, I mean, we're talking within days of that Vote. My husband got orders
and we left. So we state for
(21:02):
seven years for that reason, I think. I mean, there's lots of things
that happened while we were there, but we got the law changed so there were
no more home visits in the state. I have goosebumps. I love that.
It makes me think of. I say this all the time. I love the story
of Esther in the Bible when Mordecai, her uncle, says to
her, I don't know if you know the story, but for anybody who maybe doesn't,
(21:24):
it's the, the Jewish, the Israelites,
the Jewish nation was going to be persecuted. They were going to be. There was
an edict and they were going to be killed. And here's Esther, a Jewish woman
who was hiding that she was Jewish, married to the prince. And
at that time, if she would have gone to him, it would be. It could
mean death without being summoned. So he came to her and
(21:45):
said, you need to go to your husband, the prince, and plea for your
people. So that was twofold. It was going to him and also pleading
for the people. Anyways, Bible study here. Sorry. But she, he says to her
in her fear, hey, listen, God's going to save his people
because he's. How do you know, though, if you're not here for such a
time as this? Like, he doesn't need us, but we have a chance to engage
(22:08):
in the work that he put before us. And I say that all the time,
especially in Colorado, where it is becoming increasingly
hostile to families who are living by biblical
values and parental rights are being trampled and questioned and
really pushed back on. I mean, literally, parents in Colorado have been
compared to the kkk. It's unbelievable.
(22:30):
But we're here for such a time as this. That is such a good story,
Barb. I love that. That was good. So
being that you lived at and then you moved, did you move
internationally from South Dakota or North Dakota?
It was South Dakota. We went to Alabama for 12 months
and then we went to Germany. Okay. When we were moving to
(22:52):
Germany, the base we were going was in Stuttgart, Germany,
and the base commander there had decided that he
was going to tell the homeschoolers what they could do. Well, I contacted Chris
Klika and I said, hey, I've got this issue here. And
Chris is just so patient again with Nagles. Barb, just sit
quite. I'll handle it. And he did. He apparently contacted
(23:14):
the base commander and explained to the base commander that he could not
write the law when we're overseas. Any homeschooler that's
Overseas in a military assignment in any way or with
the State Department, you do not have any law to follow. You
are your own person and you can do whatever you like. There's nothing
to say how much math or language arts you have to do. There's
(23:37):
nothing, no many hours, no any, no days, nothing that you have to
do. You are very self governing and I loved it. We lived
overseas four times and I got to govern
myself the whole time I was over there and I really liked that I got
to decide for myself and my children what we were going to do. I love
that. So it sounds like you are really engaged with HSLDA and we
(23:58):
always advocate for hslda. They're the national support
for homeschooling and that legal defense. How in
obviously in Germany that didn't apply. But in the states that you lived
in, was there a state support organization that you engage in? Because
obviously that's who we are. Yes. Every place we went
I tell people, hey, I'm, I'm here. When I got to Colorado, I let
(24:21):
CHEC know said, hey, I'm here because I
worked in all the other states and I go to the National Home Education Leadership
Conference. And because now I'm on the Global Home Education Exchange, I
get an invitation every year. So when I was first in Colorado and
I showed up at the conference, I think Steve Grego's like, hey, what are you
doing here? I said, well I'm here for the Global Home Education Exchange,
(24:43):
but I just want to let every state I go to. So it was Texas,
Oklahoma, Alabama, South Dakota because we were back there
again. Idaho, I might be missing something.
Virginia, Washington, D.C. i always let the
people know but we normally will. State leaders, hey,
we're here state because we're very active and we
(25:06):
don't want them to think oh we're going to do something. We just want them
to know, hey, we're here and we're still active in homeschooling,
maybe in different realms. So it's been fun to be in different
places. And it's a, it's a similar ministry like you're running in the same
fields and race. So as a military family, how this is
something that I particularly do as outreach director
(25:27):
is try to engage with the military bases here in Colorado because we have a
lot of military here and I'm often surprised
that they don't like they may have lived here for three years and don't know
anything about CHEC and have homeschooled the whole time. And I find that very interesting.
So what would you say how, how does
being connected with the state support organization besides the conference, you mentioned that
(25:49):
at every state obviously usually the state support org runs those
conferences. What is another benefit that you've seen
as a homeschool family connected with the organizations around the nation?
Number one, they can explain the state law in terms that you can understand.
Because I think everybody ought to know the law for the state where they live
(26:10):
and really understand it and know what their rights are.
But sometimes you read the law and you're like, man, I don't get this. Or
you skim right over something thinking, oh yeah, I get that when you
really don't understand the intricacies of it. So I think that's the first thing that
the state organization can do is really explain the law to you.
And like in Colorado we've got three ways to homeschool and
(26:32):
CHEC has their umbrella school. There's, there's that option
as well as if you're a certified teacher in the state of Colorado or just
file 10. So I think the law is the number one thing
and also most states, and I know Colorado is true of this
as well can connect you with local groups where you are
ones that are on the state support group,
(26:54):
they can get you connected. Sometimes it's co op support groups, sometimes
it might be classical conversations. Whatever
organization is linked to the state group, they can get you connected. I
think with the military, the issue there is that they know they're
going to be there a short time and there's lots of stuff on the base
they can do. The base gives them basic information. Normally I've
(27:15):
worked on the law and a lot with the military to get basic information
packets on the base cases. Heidi St. John, years ago,
maybe 15, 20 years ago was she and I spoke
on the phone and I was working on that and she was working on that
to have an inroad from the military to get packets. So when they get to
(27:36):
a place, if they say yes, I'm homeschooling, they'll hand them that packet. Or I
I'm interested in Christian schools or I'm interested in the public schools, what's available.
So that information gets right into their hands. So that sometimes they
get information from the base and they get plugged in locally. They
don't really feel like they need the state group. That might be, it might be
far from them. Whereas they're. They want to do locally and
(27:58):
military just to say military are great volunteers. If
you can get a military person or family in your group, they're
going to commit. I Have a guy who's leaving to go to Germany here.
He's been in the sports league, the Color Springs homeschool sports league. He coaches for
us. He does track and field, he does soccer, fly football. He's a great
coach. And he's been the whole time he's been here a whole three years he
(28:20):
has coached for us. And he's getting ready to leave and we're going to miss
him. So the military families normally get plugged in to
their local groups. They do. They don't. I'm a military child. It actually
is the reason why I homeschooled because we move so much. And I just
remember, and I have an unusual name, so maybe the first day of school was
more traumatic for me. But I remember the first day of school
(28:42):
and, you know, moving in the middle of the school year and all of that
so many times. Kashia, Kasha, Keisha. I mean, they could never get
my name. But more than that, I just didn't ever feel like it
was stable and. And I remember reading the same book more than once, you
know, that kind of thing. So. Because I. It overlapped or
missing key things in math. Silly,
(29:04):
silly things. But anyways, it. It was the reason why I homeschooled because my husband
and I, in our first five years of marriage, though he was not military, we
lived in six states. So I was like,
good night. I know where this is going. So we decided to
homeschool. And ironically, we only moved one more time. Isn't that funny?
So the reason you start is not necessarily the reason you continue, but
(29:26):
I fell in love with homeschooling as soon as I started. It started for one
reason and totally morphed and changed. So I love that. But
since we're talking or really trying to talk about the, the
freedom fight and the things that are going on in Colorado,
what. Where are some of the things that you. That drive you. What do you
think is important? Because that is one thing and you didn't set. I was. I'm
(29:48):
trying to tee you up for that. That the state orgs do is we really
fight that political battle. Like we're
watching the laws and we're watching, we're lobbying and we're down at the
Capitol organizing those events. So how have you been
watching what's happening in Colorado and what do you think the significance is
for homeschoolers today? Well, I met Carolyn
(30:09):
Martin and I really supported what she did and tried to pray
when she asked for prayer, and then I'd send her emails. Colleen
Enos, I haven't met her yet, but it looks like she's doing following in
Carolyn's footsteps and did it while this legislative session. I
think trying to get people motivated to know who their legislators are
so that if they see them, they can walk up and have an
(30:32):
exchange. So I really think getting eyes on your
legislator, writing to them, even if they write back and tell you I
know what's best for you, which is what I get a lot. But to
actually put eyes on because you're going to have more influence. Just like I talked
about in South Dakota, was meeting the state department of
Education, meeting him, and he was the superintendent,
(30:54):
he ran the whole state. He actually came to our house and stayed with us.
We actually gave him podium time at the state conference
to address the homeschoolers. So that Izod. But
building those bridges, because if you get those bridges built, you have
more influence than if you just show up at the Capitol for a rally or
something. Your one on one time that you develop
(31:17):
with those legislators is huge. Way more
than just, okay, sign your name to this long list of other people
signing their name. You building that bridge, taking that time,
one day out of 365 days, you make an appointment and go
see your legislator. He gets eyes on you, you get eyes on him. And take
your, all your kids, if your husband can take off work, take him. I mean,
(31:39):
go up and really learn how the legislative system works. But
I think doing that is sometimes more beneficial
than, oh, let's all get together and put your name on this or sign up
for that or I'll be here for this. To actually develop relationships. Bruce and
I call it building bridges. Building bridges with those people.
Like I said in South Dakota, they said, okay, fine, you don't have to ever
(32:00):
do another home visit because we've met you. What difference
does that make? But it makes a huge difference.
Because while they have relationship with you and when they think about
homeschooling, what pops into their mind? Your picture, your
face. Yeah, exactly. The face of homeschooling. Yeah, we
do. In February. We do. Or you. I don't know if it's every February, but
(32:22):
generally January, February, after the session has started, we do a meet your
legislation later day. And it's not really a rally. We don't have, you
know, it's not like the day at the Capitol. The whole purpose of that is
for you to come as a homeschool family. We provide a little gift that you
can take snacks or cookies or something to
schedule to meet them. And it's exactly that because we say it's really kind of
(32:43):
a homeschool model. Relationships matter. Relationships
with your neighbors, with your family, with your leaders. And that was.
That's a good word. I think that's one thing that I would love to
see more people do is just engage in a simple thing. Because a lot of
times I think it's intimidating. Like, it doesn't sound like you were
intimidated at all. You're like, come on, let me take on. Let me take
(33:05):
on South Dakota. I was scared that I was shaking.
Oh, Every time. Every time. And I'll still get
like that. My heart beats. I'm like, oh. But I know it's something I need
to do. And if I don't do it, I. I'm like, who is going to
do it? I'm just going to launch and do this and mess it up or
maybe go in the right direction. And. Yeah, glad
(33:26):
you said that, actually, because hearing your story, you just sound fearless and
it seems like, I don't know, it's a little intimidating. My
children tell me that I'm scary sometimes. You go, mom, you're going to score them.
Don't do that. But sometimes I think just the boldness
to go ahead and do it, even when you're scared, you just step out and
do it anyway. Yeah. Oh, I love it. So
(33:48):
do you have any closing encouragements
that you would give in that front? Like, homeschooling is free right
now, and I think it's really easy for homeschool families to feel like, well,
it's good. We're happy. We can do whatever we want. There's no fears. But
then you look at Illinois. I don't know if you've been following what happened in
the state of Illinois, which was like, wow. To go
(34:10):
from one of the most
free homeschool states to suddenly one of the most regulated home
school states overnight was pretty traumatic.
So do you have any closing thoughts on that?
I. One of the adages at our house is, one person can make a difference.
And so I know my family. I'm always like, well, I could be that person.
(34:33):
I could be that person. So stepping out and
doing something, whether it's meeting your legislators or
what. Many times when we moved, people would tell us, don't say that you're
homeschooling. And my husband would walk in with the commander, and right
off the bat he'd say, we're homeschooling. We teach our kids at home. And at
that time, the military did not let dads or the active duty
(34:56):
military member was a mom. They couldn't take time off to go on a field
trip or go to a school program. But that's changed in the military
now. So even homeschoolers fall under that. So if you have a field
trip or something and you want to accompany your family, the active duty parent
is now allowed to take that time without taking active duty
leave and going to. So that's huge. But that took
(35:18):
people like me stepping out saying, hey, you know, this isn't really
fair across the board and you know, we need to have the parents,
all the parents involved, moms and dads. So sometimes if you feel really
convicted about something, just to step out and do it.
Every time we move, I tell everybody we're homeschooling. And I
just say we're homeschoolers, we're homeschooling. Because so many people are like,
(35:40):
oh, I can't tell my mother in law. Oh, my father is just not happy
about this. They're all teachers, but just tell everybody you're homeschooling. And
after you say it and do it for a while and you follow it, you're
like, oh, it's a lot easier to say this. And in this culture and climate
today, homeschooling is more widely accepted. I don't
think it's as scary. Still, every week there's a question on the Homeschooling
(36:01):
Colorado page. I just don't want to tell anybody. How do I tell them homeschooling?
Well, you just tell them and you walk boldly. You say, this
is the decision we've made and we're very happy,
we're content and you just go on and you don't defend yourself.
You don't have to start a fight. That's something that is interesting.
Living overseas, other
(36:23):
other cultures can talk about religion and politics without
fighting. And it's something that my children all do. Well. I have
two of my five actually live and work overseas.
And they have learned how to do this growing up in these
different cultures. So it's something. We were on a, on a field
trip in Egypt and the people were coming up,
(36:46):
do you know the president? And they actually had met the president at the time
and they'd sat with him in a picture. And so they're like, yes, we know
the president. And they're like, woo. So then they're talking about their president, which was
Mubarak and Egypt at that time. And so they were
amazed that my children knew these things and could discuss that with them
because Americans aren't normally like that. We shy away from politics and
(37:06):
religion and talking about those things. So just learn to be bold so that
when it comes to something that's super important, you've already practiced.
I homeschool or whatever it is that you're afraid to tell
somebody. Just be bold and just state it. You're not in a whole fight. You're
not having an argument. You're having a discussion. And this is. This is who you
are. You just present. I love it. Well, Barb, you've
(37:28):
been a delight. Thank you so much for being here. We are
doing this with all of our homeschool guests. We're asking them if you could share
one gold nugget that you feel like was the best
advice that you received as a homeschool family. Can you think?
You've already shared some really good nuggets, I think. But
don't sweat the small stuff. And it
(37:50):
is all small stuff. There's a book by
that name, I think. I think there is.
Yeah. It is so true. Oh, that's good.
And the time that we have with our kids is. Is fleeting.
I mean, even 30 years of homeschooling was probably not enough,
right? No, no. But you need to make
(38:13):
your home a place where they all want to come back to after they. After
you've launched them, after they've gotten their wings and flown away, you still
want them to come back. And you need to make your home a place where
they want to do that. Yeah, they do. We do. Well, thank you,
Barb. This was awesome. This is airing in July, which
is our Homeschool Freedom Month, where we're really just highlighting how important it
(38:34):
is to have people who like you, bravely fought and
are willing to stand with courage and conviction. So
thank you. I appreciate what you did for the homeschool movement. And we
most definitely have to have you again on a different topic. Maybe we'll
talk all about your homeschool method and the way you did it
so well. Thank you. Yes.
(38:57):
Thank you so much for joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool
Podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation
by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent
directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in
this mission. You want to support homeschooling in Colorado? Go to
(39:19):
CHEC.org donate in the meantime, share this with
your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank you.
Brought to you by the podcast upload.com empowering
faith driven voices.
One of the adages at our house is one person can make a difference.
And so I know my family, I'm always like, well, I could be that person.
I could be that person. So stepping out and
doing something, every time we move, I tell everybody we're
homeschooling. And I just say, we're homeschoolers. We're homeschooling.
So just learn to be bold so that when it comes to something that's super
(00:21):
important, you've already practiced. I homeschool or whatever
it is that you're afraid to tell somebody, just be bold and just state it.
You're not having a fight. You're not having an argument. You're having a
discussion. And this is who you are. You just present.
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
(00:45):
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
all here to help you navigate this incredible journey called
homeschooling. And if you're looking for resources, tips, and help,
go to CHEC.org you'll find what you need. In the meantime,
subscribe, follow along. Well, hello. Thank you so much for
joining us today. I am your host, Kasia Davis, and we
(01:07):
have a friend and maybe somebody that you already know
because she's so involved in the homeschool community in
Colorado, Barb and her husband, he's not going to be with us, but
Barb west and her husband Bruce have been homeschooling for quite some
time. In fact, they are pioneers, or what I would call pioneers, and that's
what we're going to talk about today. But you probably know Barb in some other
(01:29):
ways. She's got the fabulously interactive Facebook
group, Homeschooling Colorado. She also runs a really cool sports
program, Colorado Springs Homeschool League. Homeschool
Sports League. Let me get it right. I love the program and everything that
you've told me about it, but every time I talk to Barb, I leave encouraged.
I leave exhorted. I think she's got such a
(01:51):
sweetheart. And I'm so excited that you're here with us today, Barb. I didn't. Wait,
wait, let me tell about your family, too. She's got five kids and seven
grandkids, which I have four grandkids of my own. And I will tell you, I
call it Parenting 2.0. So, Barb, I am so excited for what
you're going to share with us today. Thank you for being here. Well, Keisha, thank
you for having me. I love meeting with you in person. So this is going
(02:13):
to be a little bit different today, us being miles apart. It is weird.
Yes, we do have a good time when we meet in person. We met and
we were immediately both said, we should do this again. Let's get together and
make this a regular occurrence. So I love that when you meet that
person that you just know. So, yeah, I agree it's a little weird, but.
Okay. Well, Barb, why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got
(02:35):
started in homeschooling, Because I already said that you were part of the
pioneer movement. Well, at least the current, because
some people would argue that homeschooling is the oldest form of education. But in our
modern history, you were really part of that first
wave that made it legal in the United States.
So tell me what led to that for you.
(02:57):
Okay. But when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was living
in Oklahoma and was in the
military. I had one child. I was pregnant with my second.
And I didn't want the first child, who'd been by herself for three years,
to suddenly feel slighted. So I thought, well, I'll put her in preschool
and then I can spend some time with the new baby and she'll be entertained.
(03:21):
So I sent her to a Christian preschool that was attached to a church. It
was a great program, loved it. But as it came time for her to get
closer to kindergarten, I thought, I can't send her to public school. But
I couldn't afford the private Christian school. So I thought, what am I going to
do? There's only two options. And one Sunday they did a
weekend section. I had this woman who was teaching her children at home.
(03:43):
I'd never heard of that. And so I contacted her
and said, can I come to your house? She said, sure, come on out. So
I drive out. She was about 30 minutes away, and she
had a big box for each of her three children. Big
box. And she showed me in the boxes and they were textbooks from
15 years before when I'd been in school. They were terrible.
(04:05):
I thought I didn't like them the first time I used them. I don't want
to do this. And nothing encouraged me. I mean, she
was a sweet woman. Her children were wonderful. But I thought, I can't do
this. So I get back in my car and I'm literally crying and beating on
the steering wheel all the way back into town. And in the middle of this
tantrum, the Lord said, go to the Anode Christian bookstore. Now, this is
(04:26):
an old fashioned country town, had this town square, and that's where the
Christian bookstore was. So I go in and I thought,
well, nobody's. They're not going to have anything on homeschooling. And they actually
did. They had three books. One was Greg Harris, the Christian Homeschool.
One was Better Late than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore.
And the third one was the Big Book of Home Learning by Mary Pride.
(04:49):
Now, if you're familiar with that, it eventually morphed into four huge
volumes, but I could only afford one book. So I bought the Mary
Pride book and went home, marked it up, highlighted, took
notes. By the time my poor husband came home from work, he comes to the
door and I said, work at alum school. And he's like, oh, no, you.
You are in perfect, perfect brew style. He goes, we are
(05:11):
not locking our firstborn in a closet. I said, did I
say we were going to lock in a closet? He said, well,
no, but isn't that what homeschooling is? And I said, no. So over the next
week, I. I educated him on
homeschooling as I was educating myself. Well, then I thought, I can do this.
There weren't a lot of curriculum. Everybody always says, well, what curriculum do
(05:35):
you use? And I think they mean a full curriculum that teaches everything. Language
arts, math, science, history. I mean, all of it.
And at that point in time, there were not a lot of companies that sold
to parrots, sold to families. You had me a Bethel, Bob
Jones, Christian Liberty, Christian Life, but not a lot. So Mary Pride was
going through there, and I found a program that was called Calvert, and
(05:57):
they'd send it to missionaries, and they sent everything in the box. And I thought,
oh, this is great. I mean, they sent me the yarn and the little safety
scissors and the glue. And I thought, okay, I can't fail with this. So.
So I got it. And we completed the entire year of
kindergarten in six weeks. And I got so encouraged
that I can do this. I can actually do this. And
(06:19):
so from there, that launched me into what I do now.
And at that time, there wasn't any Montessori style or
Charlotte Mason or Waldorf. I mean, the only thing I knew is
what I came out of, which was textbooks. And there was so much out
there that I. I didn't know about. So I. After that first
year when I had everything, then I became more of a Charlotte
(06:42):
Mason, eclectic, Montessori type homeschooler. And I've been that
way the whole time. And I.
I'm more loosey goosey, maybe. And I need to
explain this, because even though I am that way,
my children did great. My. The ones that
chose to go to college. And not all of them choose that. We
(07:04):
encourage that, but it's their choice. The ones that do go, go on
full scholarships because they do well on their ACT and their
SAT and their, their entrance exams and their
essays that they have to do. And they go to college.
And I'm scared to death when they go because I'm thinking, oh, what I miss
so much. But they do fine. And then the one I
(07:25):
did have one, my son chose to not do college but go into the
Marines. And he took the ASVAB test and scored
so well that he could choose his career field before
he signed on the dotted line. And he
does so well that in one year he got three promotions within a 12,
15 month time span. He's excelling. He's been in four years and
(07:48):
he's a staff sergeant. So anybody that knows about the military, you may go.
How did that happen? Well, homeschooling was a big part of that.
Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so good. I was a
Charlotte Mason type homeschool mom and I'm.
I would do it again. Totally. And I love that you said that you were
loosey goosey because that is not my perspective. Because you're very.
(08:10):
It seems like you have a plan and you're working it and that kind of.
I mean, this is not what we're talking about today. But that is one of
the things that I always tell people is there still is a commitment. You have
a methodology on how you're teaching, but you still have a
plan and you still, you know, sort of make your own syll at least.
Right. And, and figure out the end before. Well, I have
(08:31):
a date to my school year. I circle that on the calendar so everybody knows
when that is. And I have the end date circled so we know that there
is an ending we will finish. It's not that we're going to go on and
on and on forever if we don't finish the books. That's
okay. How many times does the brick and mortar school actually finish a book?
Right. Well, a plan. My husband says a plan is something from which to
(08:52):
deviate. And that's a good. Yeah. I don't know if you
mentioned that we were in the military, but my husband was in the military for
30 years and every time we moved, it took
me three months. I lost three months of my life getting ready on one end,
packing up, and then we actually get to the new location and we
unpack. I would lose three months. We moved almost two dozen
(09:13):
times. And if you can do the math on that. That means I lost
six years of homeschooling. Six. Six full years.
Not taking summers off. So how was
I able to educate my children with losing so much
time? Well, it wasn't me that was doing the educating and it was the Lord.
So all those gaps, all those places where I wasn't getting
(09:36):
something done, he was filling it in. And I have so many
people who say, oh, I can't go on that field trip. We haven't finished this
lesson. We haven't done that. There's so much education that happens
in life in general, and I'm a perfect example of that
because all my children can read and write and do
arithmetic. And you're probably thinking, oh, she has these children
(09:58):
that have no learning disabilities. No, that's not true either.
I have two that struggle
immensely. Three of my children are adopted of the five that I
have, which anyone that has adopted knows there's
things and issues that come with that. So it was not
smooth sailing. It was not like I had these brilliant children that I never had
(10:21):
any issues with. Some of my biological children are
extremely dyslexic. There's different types of dyslexia,
and they have more than one. Executive
functioning, add, adhd. We struggled through a lot.
So I'm telling you from experience, don't let the textbook
or whatever curriculum you choose drive your home school.
(10:43):
Allow more to be in the driver's seat. And with,
like Carrie Underwood sung, jesus, take the wheel, let go,
let God be really in control. And when there's a field
trip, know that learning's gonna happen. And so you can take
off from your regularly scheduled programming
and do that field trip. Go skiing. When they had the homeschool ski
(11:05):
day. Go skiing. You'll be amazed at what taking time
off can do. And I have a story if you want me to share it.
Yeah, well, I love everything that you're saying, because I. I say the same thing
over and over and over every. I feel like it's a common fear.
Homeschool moms think they're going to have gaps. What if they forget something?
What if they teach them? And I go, you're going to. I mean, it's impossible
(11:27):
to teach everything. No education program is doing that. You just
want to teach your children how to learn. And. Yeah, so you're so true.
It's so good that you dove in and you got that courage from the beginning
because you didn't have a role model. I mean, you found three books at the
bookst. That's crazy awesome. To me. And also before I tell
the story, the the Better Late than Early by Raymond and Dorothy Moore is
(11:48):
the number one book that I recommend most often. Okay. I see
so many comments or posts on my homeschool
Facebook, homeschooling Colorado Facebook page and people are saying, I've got
this three year old and they're brilliant and we want to do this. There's so
much that they learn by playing. So just
let them do continue how they're learning and not
(12:10):
force this rigid academics onto them.
The Better late than early. There's also people that say, my child's not reading and
they're eight years old and it's like, it's okay. I had one that didn't read
fluently until she was 14 years old. 14.
And those of you that are in church or you're teaching Sunday school or youth
group, please, if a parent says, don't ask my child to read, please
(12:32):
don't ask that child to read. Because this child was constantly asked to read.
She's very sweet, she's wonderful. And they were always asking to read and she just
couldn't do it. At 14, she came out and she said, hey,
Mom, I just finished this book and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she read. But
now that child speaks five languages, is married, had five
children, owns and operates a school that teaches
(12:53):
English in a closed country. That's what she.
And so do not just think, oh, my child's never going to get
this. The Better late than early. Raymond and Dorothy Moore say, you know, don't teach
reading till 9. And then what you spent years trying to get
done, they're going to learn in a matter of maybe weeks or months.
So Jesus, let go of my God. My other story was
(13:17):
I was trying to teach borrowing and carrying to a second grader
and she started crying and I started crying. And it was October.
And I'm thinking, we are never going to make it. I just slammed
the book shut and put them in a dark closet. And that was October.
And then in January, I went, oh, my gosh, we haven't done math.
And while we were living, they gave the Stanford Achievement Test every year and you
(13:41):
had to score in the 23rd percentile or you were in big trouble.
So I pulled the books out, I laid them on the floor with everything, and
I said, hey, get going on this. I'm going to go work with her younger
sibling for a minute while you, you know, just look at this. Well, I came
back and she'd done the lesson, like, how could you do that lesson. You didn't
know how to do it before. Well, she had all the building blocks. She
(14:03):
just needed time to put it together, to put the puzzle together.
I came back, she could do it. And I had not taught her for four
months how to do it. She had all the pieces. So sometimes
time, that's another commodity that homeschoolers like,
oh, I'm so far behind. No, you're not. You're right where God
wants you to be. And they think, oh, I don't have enough time. I'm gonna
(14:25):
have to homeschool all summer. Gonna have to double up the lessons. Oh,
we're just gonna have to do this next year all the way through. No,
just let it go and. And allow
time to be your friend and not your enemy. Give your
child's brain time to assimilate all that information
and thinking. I gotta keep beating this in. The other one is
(14:47):
the spotlight. They say, oh, they're having trouble over here. And they take that spotlight
and they shine it where the child is having trouble. Well, you know what? That
child starts thinking, I can't do this.
I'm never going to learn this. And that's not true.
If you take the spotlight and shine it, where do they do best? Maybe it's
art. Maybe it's they play the violin or the piano.
(15:09):
Maybe it's, they're good in sports. But highlight that and say, wow, you're
so good at this. And you know what's going to happen? That confidence
is going to bleed over into where they're having some issues and
some trouble, and they're gradually going to get better. So don't
shine the spotlight where they struggle. Shine it where they do well, and you're going
to make a big difference. Barb, listen, we're going to get in trouble
(15:31):
because I could talk to you for a lot longer than we've allocated.
You have some great nuggets. I love it. I feel like every
woman needs to have somebody that will be telling them things like this,
that just encourage them and exhort them. I. I used to go to a homeschool
support group when I was a homeschool mom in Parker, and there was this
one mom. Somebody would train and talk about this grade and how
(15:55):
academically rigorous this program was. And another mom would just.
She'd just go or not. And that or not spoke
so much to me because we just put on so much pressure for
ourselves unnecessarily. So. Oh, that was so good.
And so I'm listening to you going, wow, you really Developed some deep convictions
and understanding of how children develop and what your
(16:18):
husband immediately has, which I think is hilarious. You said. He
said, well, we're not going to lock our kid in the closet. Like, there was
this stigma at the time that homeschooling was a neglectful thing,
that you were just trying to lock your child away. So how did that play
out? And so you started in Oklahoma, and obviously, was it already
legal in Oklahoma? Yes, because.
(16:40):
Okay. Then we moved to Texas. It was legal in Texas.
Okay. And then we moved to South Dakota.
In South Dakota, there were three things that were not
the same between Oklahoma and Texas. One was that they had
yearly testing with the Stanford Achievement Test, and you had to score in the
23rd percentile or above. Okay. You had to ask
(17:02):
permission to homeschool, and then they would give you permission
to homeschool at that time. And the third one, which is the one that
was really a battle, was that the state designee
from the Department of Education could enter your home anytime
they wanted to just because you're homeschooling. Wow. Okay.
The Fourth amendment of the Constitution of the United States, they are not allowed to
(17:25):
do. The state law in South Dakota said they could. So the state Department
of Education was using that. And I got
there, contacted hslda. I had
one home visit. We lived there twice. But the first time, we
lived there for seven years. And if you know the military, you do not stay
anyplace for seven years. Right. That's unusual. That in itself
(17:48):
is a red flag. But we were there seven years, and Chris
Klicka was very helpful with me. I learned a lot. I learned
that even though I didn't like that part of the law, if I
tried to change the law at all, they would open up the entire law. And
at that time, there were legislators who wanted to outlaw homeschooling
completely. So Chris explained patiently, painstakingly,
(18:11):
barb, you have to slow down. You cannot change the law. And
he explained that they needed to. The state needed to come after
a family on that one issue. And when they did,
then we could open up the law and change it. So I had the bill
ready. I had sponsors. Hopefully they were still going to be in the
legislative session if it ever happened. And I was ready to go.
(18:32):
Well, this one year, a little dairy farm and family with, I don't know,
six children or so that lived out on the prairie said
no to a home visit. I had been asking people, just say no. Just say
no. And this family finally did, and the
state went after him, accused him of child Abuse. I don't know
why they didn't cave, but they didn't cave because they were threatening to take their
(18:54):
kids, all kinds of stuff. Because of that, the state opened
that part of the bill or that part of the law. So I was able
to introduce the bill. Now for me to back up a little
bit. When I had my first home visit, my husband Bruce and I, we made
an appointment with the state Department of Education in Pier, which is the
capital of South Dakota. It was a two and a half hour drive from our
(19:15):
house. They happened to be in a different time zone, which means was a
three and a half hour thing I had to think about. So I would have
to leave at 4:30 in the morning to get there by 8:00
clock by an appointment. So we did this superintendent stood us up, said
I'm too busy. So we weren't deterred. We made another appointment with
him, went back, met with him. He said, oh, I'll give you a waiver now
(19:37):
that I've met you and I know you're intelligent and you know what you're doing
because I'll give you a waiver. So we never had another home visit. But the
rest of the state, the rest of the families did have a home visit.
That's why I wanted to change. Not just for me. I needed everybody to be
out of this. And so we got it put into place
and it went to committee. In committee.
(19:59):
They two legislators left the room, their aides came in,
tapped them on the shoulder and they left the room. We worked on the bill
in committee. And so I wanted it to be at the beginning a
no vote because I didn't like what they'd done. But now they changed it to
the way I liked it. I wanted a yes vote. So they're calling for a
vote. The two legislators who are against homeschooling come back in the room.
(20:20):
They didn't want the bill reread. And that's key here.
And so I had some homeschoolers at the back of the room. We had our
hands lifted. We're praying. It's like the ceiling opened up. There
were angels and clouds. It was amazing. They took the vote, voted
yes. It passed. The room erupts and these two legislators are
(20:40):
going, what's going on? Because this was against homeschooling. And then the others on
the committee, the other five people said, oh no, we changed it while you were
out of the room.
Visits. Wow, it's a miracle. And right
after that, I mean, we're talking within days of that Vote. My husband got orders
and we left. So we state for
(21:02):
seven years for that reason, I think. I mean, there's lots of things
that happened while we were there, but we got the law changed so there were
no more home visits in the state. I have goosebumps. I love that.
It makes me think of. I say this all the time. I love the story
of Esther in the Bible when Mordecai, her uncle, says to
her, I don't know if you know the story, but for anybody who maybe doesn't,
(21:24):
it's the, the Jewish, the Israelites,
the Jewish nation was going to be persecuted. They were going to be. There was
an edict and they were going to be killed. And here's Esther, a Jewish woman
who was hiding that she was Jewish, married to the prince. And
at that time, if she would have gone to him, it would be. It could
mean death without being summoned. So he came to her and
(21:45):
said, you need to go to your husband, the prince, and plea for your
people. So that was twofold. It was going to him and also pleading
for the people. Anyways, Bible study here. Sorry. But she, he says to her
in her fear, hey, listen, God's going to save his people
because he's. How do you know, though, if you're not here for such a
time as this? Like, he doesn't need us, but we have a chance to engage
(22:08):
in the work that he put before us. And I say that all the time,
especially in Colorado, where it is becoming increasingly
hostile to families who are living by biblical
values and parental rights are being trampled and questioned and
really pushed back on. I mean, literally, parents in Colorado have been
compared to the kkk. It's unbelievable.
(22:30):
But we're here for such a time as this. That is such a good story,
Barb. I love that. That was good. So
being that you lived at and then you moved, did you move
internationally from South Dakota or North Dakota?
It was South Dakota. We went to Alabama for 12 months
and then we went to Germany. Okay. When we were moving to
(22:52):
Germany, the base we were going was in Stuttgart, Germany,
and the base commander there had decided that he
was going to tell the homeschoolers what they could do. Well, I contacted Chris
Klika and I said, hey, I've got this issue here. And
Chris is just so patient again with Nagles. Barb, just sit
quite. I'll handle it. And he did. He apparently contacted
(23:14):
the base commander and explained to the base commander that he could not
write the law when we're overseas. Any homeschooler that's
Overseas in a military assignment in any way or with
the State Department, you do not have any law to follow. You
are your own person and you can do whatever you like. There's nothing
to say how much math or language arts you have to do. There's
(23:37):
nothing, no many hours, no any, no days, nothing that you have to
do. You are very self governing and I loved it. We lived
overseas four times and I got to govern
myself the whole time I was over there and I really liked that I got
to decide for myself and my children what we were going to do. I love
that. So it sounds like you are really engaged with HSLDA and we
(23:58):
always advocate for hslda. They're the national support
for homeschooling and that legal defense. How in
obviously in Germany that didn't apply. But in the states that you lived
in, was there a state support organization that you engage in? Because
obviously that's who we are. Yes. Every place we went
I tell people, hey, I'm, I'm here. When I got to Colorado, I let
(24:21):
CHEC know said, hey, I'm here because I
worked in all the other states and I go to the National Home Education Leadership
Conference. And because now I'm on the Global Home Education Exchange, I
get an invitation every year. So when I was first in Colorado and
I showed up at the conference, I think Steve Grego's like, hey, what are you
doing here? I said, well I'm here for the Global Home Education Exchange,
(24:43):
but I just want to let every state I go to. So it was Texas,
Oklahoma, Alabama, South Dakota because we were back there
again. Idaho, I might be missing something.
Virginia, Washington, D.C. i always let the
people know but we normally will. State leaders, hey,
we're here state because we're very active and we
(25:06):
don't want them to think oh we're going to do something. We just want them
to know, hey, we're here and we're still active in homeschooling,
maybe in different realms. So it's been fun to be in different
places. And it's a, it's a similar ministry like you're running in the same
fields and race. So as a military family, how this is
something that I particularly do as outreach director
(25:27):
is try to engage with the military bases here in Colorado because we have a
lot of military here and I'm often surprised
that they don't like they may have lived here for three years and don't know
anything about CHEC and have homeschooled the whole time. And I find that very interesting.
So what would you say how, how does
being connected with the state support organization besides the conference, you mentioned that
(25:49):
at every state obviously usually the state support org runs those
conferences. What is another benefit that you've seen
as a homeschool family connected with the organizations around the nation?
Number one, they can explain the state law in terms that you can understand.
Because I think everybody ought to know the law for the state where they live
(26:10):
and really understand it and know what their rights are.
But sometimes you read the law and you're like, man, I don't get this. Or
you skim right over something thinking, oh yeah, I get that when you
really don't understand the intricacies of it. So I think that's the first thing that
the state organization can do is really explain the law to you.
And like in Colorado we've got three ways to homeschool and
(26:32):
CHEC has their umbrella school. There's, there's that option
as well as if you're a certified teacher in the state of Colorado or just
file 10. So I think the law is the number one thing
and also most states, and I know Colorado is true of this
as well can connect you with local groups where you are
ones that are on the state support group,
(26:54):
they can get you connected. Sometimes it's co op support groups, sometimes
it might be classical conversations. Whatever
organization is linked to the state group, they can get you connected. I
think with the military, the issue there is that they know they're
going to be there a short time and there's lots of stuff on the base
they can do. The base gives them basic information. Normally I've
(27:15):
worked on the law and a lot with the military to get basic information
packets on the base cases. Heidi St. John, years ago,
maybe 15, 20 years ago was she and I spoke
on the phone and I was working on that and she was working on that
to have an inroad from the military to get packets. So when they get to
(27:36):
a place, if they say yes, I'm homeschooling, they'll hand them that packet. Or I
I'm interested in Christian schools or I'm interested in the public schools, what's available.
So that information gets right into their hands. So that sometimes they
get information from the base and they get plugged in locally. They
don't really feel like they need the state group. That might be, it might be
far from them. Whereas they're. They want to do locally and
(27:58):
military just to say military are great volunteers. If
you can get a military person or family in your group, they're
going to commit. I Have a guy who's leaving to go to Germany here.
He's been in the sports league, the Color Springs homeschool sports league. He coaches for
us. He does track and field, he does soccer, fly football. He's a great
coach. And he's been the whole time he's been here a whole three years he
(28:20):
has coached for us. And he's getting ready to leave and we're going to miss
him. So the military families normally get plugged in to
their local groups. They do. They don't. I'm a military child. It actually
is the reason why I homeschooled because we move so much. And I just
remember, and I have an unusual name, so maybe the first day of school was
more traumatic for me. But I remember the first day of school
(28:42):
and, you know, moving in the middle of the school year and all of that
so many times. Kashia, Kasha, Keisha. I mean, they could never get
my name. But more than that, I just didn't ever feel like it
was stable and. And I remember reading the same book more than once, you
know, that kind of thing. So. Because I. It overlapped or
missing key things in math. Silly,
(29:04):
silly things. But anyways, it. It was the reason why I homeschooled because my husband
and I, in our first five years of marriage, though he was not military, we
lived in six states. So I was like,
good night. I know where this is going. So we decided to
homeschool. And ironically, we only moved one more time. Isn't that funny?
So the reason you start is not necessarily the reason you continue, but
(29:26):
I fell in love with homeschooling as soon as I started. It started for one
reason and totally morphed and changed. So I love that. But
since we're talking or really trying to talk about the, the
freedom fight and the things that are going on in Colorado,
what. Where are some of the things that you. That drive you. What do you
think is important? Because that is one thing and you didn't set. I was. I'm
(29:48):
trying to tee you up for that. That the state orgs do is we really
fight that political battle. Like we're
watching the laws and we're watching, we're lobbying and we're down at the
Capitol organizing those events. So how have you been
watching what's happening in Colorado and what do you think the significance is
for homeschoolers today? Well, I met Carolyn
(30:09):
Martin and I really supported what she did and tried to pray
when she asked for prayer, and then I'd send her emails. Colleen
Enos, I haven't met her yet, but it looks like she's doing following in
Carolyn's footsteps and did it while this legislative session. I
think trying to get people motivated to know who their legislators are
so that if they see them, they can walk up and have an
(30:32):
exchange. So I really think getting eyes on your
legislator, writing to them, even if they write back and tell you I
know what's best for you, which is what I get a lot. But to
actually put eyes on because you're going to have more influence. Just like I talked
about in South Dakota, was meeting the state department of
Education, meeting him, and he was the superintendent,
(30:54):
he ran the whole state. He actually came to our house and stayed with us.
We actually gave him podium time at the state conference
to address the homeschoolers. So that Izod. But
building those bridges, because if you get those bridges built, you have
more influence than if you just show up at the Capitol for a rally or
something. Your one on one time that you develop
(31:17):
with those legislators is huge. Way more
than just, okay, sign your name to this long list of other people
signing their name. You building that bridge, taking that time,
one day out of 365 days, you make an appointment and go
see your legislator. He gets eyes on you, you get eyes on him. And take
your, all your kids, if your husband can take off work, take him. I mean,
(31:39):
go up and really learn how the legislative system works. But
I think doing that is sometimes more beneficial
than, oh, let's all get together and put your name on this or sign up
for that or I'll be here for this. To actually develop relationships. Bruce and
I call it building bridges. Building bridges with those people.
Like I said in South Dakota, they said, okay, fine, you don't have to ever
(32:00):
do another home visit because we've met you. What difference
does that make? But it makes a huge difference.
Because while they have relationship with you and when they think about
homeschooling, what pops into their mind? Your picture, your
face. Yeah, exactly. The face of homeschooling. Yeah, we
do. In February. We do. Or you. I don't know if it's every February, but
(32:22):
generally January, February, after the session has started, we do a meet your
legislation later day. And it's not really a rally. We don't have, you
know, it's not like the day at the Capitol. The whole purpose of that is
for you to come as a homeschool family. We provide a little gift that you
can take snacks or cookies or something to
schedule to meet them. And it's exactly that because we say it's really kind of
(32:43):
a homeschool model. Relationships matter. Relationships
with your neighbors, with your family, with your leaders. And that was.
That's a good word. I think that's one thing that I would love to
see more people do is just engage in a simple thing. Because a lot of
times I think it's intimidating. Like, it doesn't sound like you were
intimidated at all. You're like, come on, let me take on. Let me take
(33:05):
on South Dakota. I was scared that I was shaking.
Oh, Every time. Every time. And I'll still get
like that. My heart beats. I'm like, oh. But I know it's something I need
to do. And if I don't do it, I. I'm like, who is going to
do it? I'm just going to launch and do this and mess it up or
maybe go in the right direction. And. Yeah, glad
(33:26):
you said that, actually, because hearing your story, you just sound fearless and
it seems like, I don't know, it's a little intimidating. My
children tell me that I'm scary sometimes. You go, mom, you're going to score them.
Don't do that. But sometimes I think just the boldness
to go ahead and do it, even when you're scared, you just step out and
do it anyway. Yeah. Oh, I love it. So
(33:48):
do you have any closing encouragements
that you would give in that front? Like, homeschooling is free right
now, and I think it's really easy for homeschool families to feel like, well,
it's good. We're happy. We can do whatever we want. There's no fears. But
then you look at Illinois. I don't know if you've been following what happened in
the state of Illinois, which was like, wow. To go
(34:10):
from one of the most
free homeschool states to suddenly one of the most regulated home
school states overnight was pretty traumatic.
So do you have any closing thoughts on that?
I. One of the adages at our house is, one person can make a difference.
And so I know my family. I'm always like, well, I could be that person.
(34:33):
I could be that person. So stepping out and
doing something, whether it's meeting your legislators or
what. Many times when we moved, people would tell us, don't say that you're
homeschooling. And my husband would walk in with the commander, and right
off the bat he'd say, we're homeschooling. We teach our kids at home. And at
that time, the military did not let dads or the active duty
(34:56):
military member was a mom. They couldn't take time off to go on a field
trip or go to a school program. But that's changed in the military
now. So even homeschoolers fall under that. So if you have a field
trip or something and you want to accompany your family, the active duty parent
is now allowed to take that time without taking active duty
leave and going to. So that's huge. But that took
(35:18):
people like me stepping out saying, hey, you know, this isn't really
fair across the board and you know, we need to have the parents,
all the parents involved, moms and dads. So sometimes if you feel really
convicted about something, just to step out and do it.
Every time we move, I tell everybody we're homeschooling. And I
just say we're homeschoolers, we're homeschooling. Because so many people are like,
(35:40):
oh, I can't tell my mother in law. Oh, my father is just not happy
about this. They're all teachers, but just tell everybody you're homeschooling. And
after you say it and do it for a while and you follow it, you're
like, oh, it's a lot easier to say this. And in this culture and climate
today, homeschooling is more widely accepted. I don't
think it's as scary. Still, every week there's a question on the Homeschooling
(36:01):
Colorado page. I just don't want to tell anybody. How do I tell them homeschooling?
Well, you just tell them and you walk boldly. You say, this
is the decision we've made and we're very happy,
we're content and you just go on and you don't defend yourself.
You don't have to start a fight. That's something that is interesting.
Living overseas, other
(36:23):
other cultures can talk about religion and politics without
fighting. And it's something that my children all do. Well. I have
two of my five actually live and work overseas.
And they have learned how to do this growing up in these
different cultures. So it's something. We were on a, on a field
trip in Egypt and the people were coming up,
(36:46):
do you know the president? And they actually had met the president at the time
and they'd sat with him in a picture. And so they're like, yes, we know
the president. And they're like, woo. So then they're talking about their president, which was
Mubarak and Egypt at that time. And so they were
amazed that my children knew these things and could discuss that with them
because Americans aren't normally like that. We shy away from politics and
(37:06):
religion and talking about those things. So just learn to be bold so that
when it comes to something that's super important, you've already practiced.
I homeschool or whatever it is that you're afraid to tell
somebody. Just be bold and just state it. You're not in a whole fight. You're
not having an argument. You're having a discussion. And this is. This is who you
are. You just present. I love it. Well, Barb, you've
(37:28):
been a delight. Thank you so much for being here. We are
doing this with all of our homeschool guests. We're asking them if you could share
one gold nugget that you feel like was the best
advice that you received as a homeschool family. Can you think?
You've already shared some really good nuggets, I think. But
don't sweat the small stuff. And it
(37:50):
is all small stuff. There's a book by
that name, I think. I think there is.
Yeah. It is so true. Oh, that's good.
And the time that we have with our kids is. Is fleeting.
I mean, even 30 years of homeschooling was probably not enough,
right? No, no. But you need to make
(38:13):
your home a place where they all want to come back to after they. After
you've launched them, after they've gotten their wings and flown away, you still
want them to come back. And you need to make your home a place where
they want to do that. Yeah, they do. We do. Well, thank you,
Barb. This was awesome. This is airing in July, which
is our Homeschool Freedom Month, where we're really just highlighting how important it
(38:34):
is to have people who like you, bravely fought and
are willing to stand with courage and conviction. So
thank you. I appreciate what you did for the homeschool movement. And we
most definitely have to have you again on a different topic. Maybe we'll
talk all about your homeschool method and the way you did it
so well. Thank you. Yes.
(38:57):
Thank you so much for joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool
Podcast is a ministry of Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
We have been motivating parents to disciple the next generation
by embracing home discipleship that is Christ centered, parent
directed, and free from government control. We invite you to join us in
this mission. You want to support homeschooling in Colorado? Go to
(39:19):
CHEC.org donate in the meantime, share this with
your friends and make sure you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank you.
Brought to you by the podcast upload.com empowering
faith driven voices.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com