May 19, 2025 • 32 mins
What if the real key to homeschool success isn’t mastering every subject—but empowering your kids to learn how to learn? In this episode of The Colorado Homeschool Podcast, host Kashia Davis welcomes Jonathan Brush, a seasoned homeschool advocate whose passion for education goes far beyond textbooks.
Jonathan is the author of The Personal Triangle, a sought-after speaker, and the President and CEO of Unbound. As a homeschool graduate and a homeschool dad of six, Jonathan brings a wealth of experience. He spent nearly a decade as Director of Admissions at a private liberal arts college, followed by over ten years reshaping non-traditional higher education. Jonathan’s greatest joy? Connecting Unbound students, fueling their growth, and dreaming up new ways to foster true community (and yes, he’s always fielding questions about those famous Rule 4 violations—just ask an Unbound student!).
Listen in as Jonathan shares actionable tips for helping your children take full responsibility for their learning, finding purpose, and thriving as whole people—not just students. From project-based education to building authentic relationships, you’ll walk away inspired and equipped to create a meaningful homeschool experience, no matter your background.
Ready to discover what homeschoolers can uniquely offer the world? Tune in for uplifting stories, practical advice, and a renewed sense of purpose. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Colorado Homeschool Podcast!
Check out Jonathan’s resources:
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. Thank you! Brought to you by ThePodcastUpload.com Empowering Faith Driven Voices.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
As homeschool parents, what's going to happen is your kid's going to come to you
and say, I need to know this. And you're going to say, I don't know
that. And then you're going to have to say, go figure it out.
And that's the absolutely crucial, critical, essential skill that
they need. And so you know, you don't know how to teach algebra. Fantastic. Your
kid's going to figure out how to learn algebra. Fantastic. They may never use algebra
(00:20):
again for the rest of their life, but the act of learning how to figure
it out on their own is going to be transferable and is going to give
them colossal, tremendous, unbelievable advantages over all of
their peers.
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
(00:44):
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 and welcome.
I'm your host, Keisha Davis, and we are excited to have you with us
and excited to have our guest with us today, Jonathan
(01:05):
Brush from Unbound. He's the president and CEO of
Unbound, also a homeschool graduate of a homeschool
father. I'm so excited he is going to be
sharing so much. He's also an author. We'll talk a little bit about his book.
And Jonathan is going to be a spirit speaker at our upcoming Rocky
Mountain Homeschool conference. So guys, grab your notebooks,
(01:28):
get ready. Jonathan, welcome. Well, thank you so much for having
me. I'm looking forward to being on the show and I'm also looking forward to
coming back to Colorado. I've got some great memories of being in Colorado. We're there
once a year for one of our events and I've been to your convention several
times and so I'm very excited about coming back to the Rocky Mountains. So looking
forward to it. What event do you come here annually for?
(01:48):
Our final event for our year for our Ascend program, which is our post high
school program is called Capstone and we hold it generally at Estes Park Park. We
moved around a little bit in Colorado, but it's been in Colorado every year except
for the one year that shouldn't be named where we had to all do different
things. So other than that, we've been in Colorado for a long time and
we really enjoy being there and looking forward to being there. This year will be
the very beginning of May, so we'll Be there may and then for the convention.
(02:11):
So it'll be a good year. Oh, so good. Back to back with us because
we're. Our convention is in the middle of June, so. Yes. And as this park
is spectacular, so we have invited Jonathan to come on
because he is going to be a speaker at our Rocky Mountain homeschool conference and
also because of his amazing program that he's a part of called
Unbound. So Jonathan, let's start there. Why don't you tell us a little bit about
(02:32):
what Unbound is and how it's a little unique in your approach to
education. Yeah. So Unbound we say that we do project
based education. And so the first part that's unique is that I'm way more interested
in your ability to do real things than I am in your ability to get
grades. Now I'm always careful when I say this. I'm not belittling grades. They're
the right tool in certain circumstances. But for the students that we work with and
(02:55):
the kinds of things that we do, and I think more and more the world
that we live in, the ability to do stuff actually becomes the most important
thing. And so we have an educational model built on that. And
then we have a goal that I think is important, which is I'm
less. I'm not interested in training people to be successful. Which is why I think
a lot of education promises these days. We've moved from this kind of Augustinian
(03:16):
idea of education being something that should develop you as a person to. To this
idea that education is a gateway to some sort of success. And success
is almost always defined as being some version of rich, famous or powerful.
And I don't know that it's bad to be rich, famous or powerful. I just
know that if that's your end, it's an empty road that you're going to be
walking. Right. And so there's a lot of problems and pitfalls there, not to mention
(03:38):
the fact that it's hard. So there's often a little disappointment that comes in that.
And so in Unbound, we train students to thrive and we have a
definition for that. And so we have a slightly different goal and a slightly
different process. And that puts us in a great place where we have this framework.
We can do some cool stuff. And we work with students in high school,
especially homeschool students. And then we do a post high school program
(03:59):
that can move students into a college degree. We can Help them earn 90 credits
that they can transfer. But more and more students use it as an end program.
In itself. So the certificate from our Ascend program, we actually say
that if you earn that certificate, we guarantee employment at
full college tuition levels, meaning that if you. You make the same as a
college graduate in your area, or we'll refund all of your tuition. And we're in
(04:22):
a situation where we've just never even had to think about refunding anybody's tuition.
And so that just puts us in a unique spot where we can do some
cool things. And, Casey, the really cool thing is we get to work with some
awesome students, including people that come to your convention and conferences and things like that.
And so that helps a lot. Yeah. We were talking before we started filming,
and I said my daughter was a part of what was at the time called
(04:42):
College plus. And they helped her. She got her
college degree primarily through CLEP testing. There was a
summit ministry aspect of it with worldview training and study
skills. But her favorite thing was the coaching and the
relationship she built with her coach and just her diving deep into
praying for who God created her to be. So that's kind of what I love
(05:05):
about what you're saying is it makes me think a lot of
what I say to new homeschool families, which is, you've got to begin with the
end in mind, and you have to know what. What is your goal and how
would you define successful education? And I love what you said.
So tell me what your special definition is of thrive.
So we say that when we talk about people thriving, we mean that
(05:27):
they can. They're prepared to take full responsibility for their life, that they
prioritize relationships. And we actually have a little saying that we tell our students. We
say time and tasks only make sense in the context of
relationships, that those relationships are set up in
the context of serving others. And then we teach students that you serve others by
being extraordinary at ordinary things. That so often we think that success comes
(05:48):
from, I can help people when I'm rich, famous, and powerful and do these things.
And we say, actually, you can change the world immediately by being extraordinary at
ordinary things. And the cool thing is you get an opportunity to do that right
now, that if you're going to be successful
economically, that that means you have to know how to create value. So this isn't
about sort of making money. It's about how do you create value? How do you
(06:09):
do things that lead to human flourishing? And then coming on the heels of that
becomes economic success in the sense that, you know, you can provide for your family
and you can help others. And so then we Tell students that to
thrive means to be able to live resiliently. And that is the idea
that, you know, you shouldn't be surprised as a Christian that you live in a
broken, busted world full of tragedy and that you don't get exempted from
(06:31):
that like, that you will experience tragedy. And that's bad news. It's not the way
things are supposed to be. Right. But also you shouldn't be surprised as a Christian
when that happens to you. Now, the good news is now if we stop there,
we have a bunch of depressed people, right? But the good news is, is that
we live in that, that reality in a hope that eclipses that
reality. That you know that you can live in a world like that because you
(06:51):
believe in one who will redeem all things and in fact enlists you
to be a process in that redemption. So there's something you can do about it.
And then we do that all in the light of eternity and for the glory
of God. And if you pursue those things, and it's not that we think
that that's the perfect formula, we just think that, you know, if you're end
includes pieces of those things, that those are things that
(07:12):
a can be accomplished almost immediately and then mastered over the rest of your
life. And now if you wind up becoming rich, famous or
powerful, you'll be prepared to do, to handle those things wisely.
And if you don't, which is frankly the majority of us, then you're
not confused and think that you've wasted your life. In fact, you've probably lived
a tremendously impactful life that has changed the world in myriads
(07:34):
of ways that you won't fully understand this side of eternity. And so your life
is full of purpose, regardless of your bank account, your status, or
your power that you have. So we talk about that constantly.
And to me, that's, that's one of the most exciting aspects of watching young people
go and go from this kind of like, oh man, I've got all this huge
mountain to climb and go, no, I can start right now. And then look at
(07:57):
all this unexplored territory in front of me. And that's when things get exciting. Oh,
I love it. I so love it. I mean, you're addressing kind of it in
just that comment. A lot of the things that I hear that are a fear
for homeschool families, they're afraid that they are not going to be able to equip
their children, that they're not going to be able to provide for themselves.
And, and also I think a Fear of dis. Inhumanity. Right. It's. It's
(08:18):
really foundation to our world is what is the meaning of
life? What is our purpose in life? Right. So it seems like
a really lofty goal. I'd love to kind of dig a little bit
into how you guys do that. Is this a very
heavy Bible program? Is this. Yeah. Do you want to break that down
a bit? Yeah. So that's. That's a great question. So. So when you say, is
(08:40):
it a heavy Bible program? I would answer that it's a heavy worldview program, which
is sort of a. Yes. And. And I don't mean to belittle, you know, that,
you know, it's. It's more than. Or something like that. I just mean that I
often tell people, look, you know, you can break down the Bible into different
various parts. And so there's an aspect of the Bible that's theological and what does
God mean? And who is he? And all those kinds of things. And there's a
(09:01):
part of the Bible that's practical. You know, the wisdom type stuff, the Ecclesiastes and
the Proverbs. And we are specifically latter category, which
is. This is applied practical Christian living. So that
means that, yes, we think that in order to do applied practical Christian
living, you have to have some level of apologetic understanding. And so you mentioned
earlier working with Summit Mysteries. We use some mysteries materials in our high school
(09:23):
program. We work with Dr. Jeff Myers and our. The program. I say
that we come to Colorado for. Part of the reason we do that is because
Dr. Myers is one of our speakers for that event. And so we work
with those folks and do that. But. But we also are pretty careful to say
this. Keisha, this is gonna sound a little odd, but it's worth exploring. We're really
careful to say we're not a church. You know, I'm not. In fact,
(09:43):
our mission is to. We want our students to remain embedded in
their local communities. And my mission, ultimately is to train special forces for the local
church. And so to do that, I wanna say here's the practical skills
that you need to live a rich life where you thrive.
And that's my lane, and it's not. And
I think so many times people get confused and they try to do everything, look,
(10:05):
you know, figure out who God is and what that all means. That's a
local pastor's and local church's job. And we want to build on that, and we'll
help fill some gaps if necessary. But that's not our primary
responsibility. Our primary responsibility is to say, okay, knowing some of that
and taking that as an accepted base. What does it mean to practically
live that out? Because we think that your faith has immediate
(10:27):
application to how you create value and how you make decisions
and how you live your life and how you serve others by being extraordinary to
ordinary things. And it's that intersection where we want to
spend all of our time saying, let me show you how to practically be good
at these skills that you need to live life richly every day. And let me
show you the excitement and the ability in there to. To be part
(10:48):
of redeeming all things. Wow, that's good. So I have a friend
who used to work with us here at CHEC who actually works with you. I
think she still does, maybe. And I told her, hey, I'm doing an interview with
Jonathan Brush. What would you say about him? And she said, oh, he loves community.
And he loves specifically to make community that goes home and does what you just
said, that engages with their community at home. So what?
(11:09):
Why do you think community is so important? It's like, because I've heard you mention
it a few times, like, even. Yeah, well, first of all, another person you're
talking about, we love her dearly. In fact, we're looking forward to
seeing her when we come to Colorado both times. Oh, good. Speaking of that community,
that's one of the cool things about being in Unbound. You heard us say that
we think part of knowing how to thrive is prioritized relationships. And when
(11:30):
we say prioritize relationships, you know, I said that little mantra that we talk about
to our students. Time and tasks only make sense in the context of relationships.
And that is, you can be the best time management wizard the world. You can
be the most, you know, the productivity king or queen. You can get all this
success, and if you don't understand how they connect to relationships, those things are
going to be empty. That doesn't mean you can't go somewhere. It doesn't mean that
(11:51):
you can't gain status and power and all those things. It just means you're just
going to like what you get, right? And so, so there. There's a. A
fundamental relational aspect built into the fabric of
reality. And for Christians, that's building the fabric of our faith. And, you
know, when we talk about things like the Trinity and our relationship to Christ and
all those things, so, you know, we tell students your first relationship and, you know,
interested in is your relationship the one who made you and to the one who
(12:13):
redeemed you, and then that's reflected in the way you treat other
people. And so I think then that all things sort of start with
that base. And so if we can train students to be better
relationally, then we can train students to be part of, or to
start or to be integral pieces, important pieces of communities. And that's the
bedrock of society. Right. If I'm going to. If I'm going to make an impact
(12:35):
in the world, it's going to make an impact in those local areas. And so
our program is deliberately structured, and I want to do two things. The first is
I want to allow students to remain embedded in their local communities. And I'm always
careful when I say this. I'm not arguing in some weird way that one ought
not to move away. Right. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I think
that there's an underappreciated reality that staying in a place
(12:57):
for a period of time can be really helpful. And so, Kesha, I think your
background, if I remember correctly, and I'm risking here, so I might be wrong,
but is that you have a military background. Is that okay, So I
was streaming. I think I remember. I got right, so. So
obviously there's great advantages to that kind of lifestyle. You
get to meet people and go so many places, experience so many different cultures. I'm
(13:18):
not in any way discounting that, but the. The advantage of that
is fairly well known. What is less known is advantages of being in one place
for a time and being able to connect to those local communities. And so I
want to, you know, a little overemphasize that, just so there's a little balance
there. But then I want to say, like, it doesn't matter about your time. There's
is that your engagement with those local communities ends up being really important. So I
(13:39):
want you to be in a program that allows you to remain embedded in your
local communities, but I want to give you a national
network so that you have this system of relationships that makes living in your
local community even easier. So we have students that do our Ascend program, for
example. You know, they're accessing some courses online.
They're meeting with their teams online, doing those things. And so now they're still
(14:00):
part of the church that they grew up in, probably, and perhaps they're still living
at home and they're in those neighborhoods, and they're leveraging their professional contacts and they're
working for people that met and all those kinds of things. Right. I think that's
really exciting. I'm giving them skills. Not me, but Our program is giving them
skills that allows them to do that better, right? To be better equipped to do
that. But at the same time, four times a year, I'm giving them a plane
ticket, and I'm having them fly to Colorado and to Michigan and to Pennsylvania, into
(14:24):
Florida. And when they're there, they're having these really intense
experiences with their people from their teams and for the rest of the
program. And so what happens is that all of a sudden, you have this national
network of friends. And my favorite story is my son and his friend a couple
of years ago backpacked around the country, right? So they went up from Virginia to
the Dakotas, across Washington, down through
(14:45):
California and back through Colorado. And they spent a lot of time backpacking, but they
never stayed in a hotel because they stay with unbound families the whole way around
the country. That's awesome. And when they broke down in the middle of
Montana, they called me, and I called an alumni and said, hey, I got two
unbound students broken down four hours from you. He's like, oh, four hours in Montana.
That's our backyard. And he dropped everything, fixed their vehicle,
(15:06):
offered them a place to stay, took care of them, and sent them back on
the road. Now, that makes your ability to live locally even
better when you have. That kind of makes local bigger, right?
Exactly. And so. So it's that combination, like, hey, and I think that
reflects our faith. You can only affect deeply the people that you're close
to. At the same time, we're all members of this global church,
(15:28):
right? Like, we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so in some ways, this
is a little micro reflection of that that we get to carry out in unbound.
Wow. I'm listening to you, and I'm going, man, this is so
countercultural because we live in a world of social media, and we're.
And we're so not connected. We don't have community. We don't have
connection. In fact, man, I. I'm so bad about
(15:48):
remembering statistics, but I know recently I just read about how many
parents, how many kids do move away. And. And I love that you started with
the caveat of, I'm not saying that you need to do that, but I do
think it's important. And this is. Satan is definitely attacking it. I think what
you're saying about community holds us accountable to one another.
It holds us accountable to what God has asked us to do. And my
(16:10):
mantra that I always say is that we're here for such a time as this,
like, helping people engage in what is the purpose that God
has created you for. This is beautiful. I am. I
cannot even wait, so, because you're,
you're so inspirational, thank you for being here. I love your
energy. What are you going to share when you come to the Rocky Mountain Homeschool
(16:31):
conference? What do you know what some of the topics you're teaching on?
So you said you probably have a lot. Well, you said this right before
we recorded and I was like, I do. I have a list somewhere, but I
don't remember them right at the top of my head. And so I'm sure they're
going to be great. No, I don't remember the exact titles. And of course you
can go to the conference website because I actually, I've signed a contract and I
know what we're going to talk on it. I just can't remember off top of
(16:53):
my head what's it going to be. But I can say this through those
themes, you know, that we try to hit on a lot is we try to
talk about this idea of the things we just already mentioned, community and thriving and
all those kinds of things. But I want to add a couple other layers to
that, which is I find that at a lovedr for such a
time as this, I tell students and young people all the time, look, you weren't
(17:15):
accidentally placed here and you weren't placed here as a tend the
garden generation, right? This is a, you know, man the walls,
beat off the attack, then open the gates, launch forward, take ground
and hold it. Beachhead type of generation, right? Like there's, there's, there's
a, a purpose to be here, there's a reason to be here. You're not here
accidentally. And so we don't get to relax. And that's a good thing. And I
(17:37):
also tell folks, and this is part of the themes that we'll hit in whatever
topics we're doing and say that, look, this is, you're
not unique in that there's big problems, that there's never been a generation that didn't
have big problems. These just happen to be our big problems. And in some ways
I'm really grateful that our big problems aren't the Black Death, right? I'm really
grateful that our big problems don't involve Nazi Germany. You know, there
(17:58):
are there. Compared to some parts of history, we do have a fairly easy
ride. But it's also to say that, yeah, there's big problems. Welcome to
planet Earth. I mean, what I said earlier about live resiliently, expect big
problems. And so first it's Kind of like that awareness. And then the second is
I want to instill an excitement. Like that means you have a mission and a
purpose. And I want to also pull some stress. I see young people
(18:20):
who have more opportunity than any generation that's ever walked the earth. Right.
And who are just crippled with
fear and confusion and paralysis of what to
do. And look, if you're a young person listening this, I'm not saying that in
a blaming, accusatory fashion. I'm saying that that's
a tactic that has been used effectively against you, and I want to
(18:42):
neuter that tactic. And I want to say, look, there are,
there are certain things that you can do. There are questions you can ask that
are not particularly complicated, that can help you navigate an admittedly
difficult world. Right. But there are some real things you can hold
on to that if you know to ask this question and know a couple of
these principles, you're going to do fine. And not only going to do fine, it's
(19:02):
an exciting, wonderful time to be alive. Like, I mean, yes, there's challenges.
There's also beauty and awesomeness and excitement and things to do
and your place here, do stuff. And so you have a mission and a purpose.
So whenever we talk about, we wrap it around those kinds of themes. Let me
talk about what it means to thrive, what does it mean to do real things,
and how do we equip you to be excited but also not stressed, to look
(19:23):
for with excitement, no matter what the circumstances, it's better than
some. And thank goodness it's not perfect because then you'd be useless. And you're
not. I mean, like, there's a purpose. Right.
There are things that you need to do and you are uniquely equipped to do
them. Oh, I love that. So good. So if you have a
mom coming up to talk to you or a father, you know, that is in
(19:45):
the midst of. They have a junior higher, maybe just about to start homeschool. What
is. Do you have a piece of advice that you generally give them when they're
just looking at, like, I don't know, high school is. A lot of parents
are deer in the headlights when they start thinking about high school. Yes.
Okay. I'm trying to be cautious and not, like, spend 40 minutes on this.
So I'm going to try to shove it all down. This is a teaser. They
(20:06):
got to come see you. Yep. So. So first of all,
congratulations. This is the best time. And. And look,
I speak of very little things and claim a lot of authority, but My
oldest is 25 and my youngest is 1. And yes, there's a lot of stories
involved in that. Okay, so. And there's, there's eight of them total. And
I can. And first I want to tell you that every stage keeps getting better
(20:28):
and I won't speak beyond 25. And so, but, but you talk about
a lot of fun and a lot of excitement, a lot of cool things. And
that is preteen through teen and through young adults. And I don't, I hate
the word teenager. Either you have children or you have young adults. And so young
adults, which I think starts like 13 and goes up is an exciting
time and can be a wonderful time. So does it come with challenges? Yes. Also
(20:49):
the one year old has challenges called, called not sleeping. And so, you know,
I don't know which ones you like better. So, so, okay, so that's.
First of all, just be, be positive and excited about this. This can be a
really good time. The second thing is this. So many people are worried
about homeschooling high school. Like all the complicated stuff happens here. And that
is true. But here's something that is playing to your advantage that you don't have
(21:11):
anything to do with, but you're just going to be able to inherit and which
is so cool to be a homeschooler. We live in this time where everything's
changed. And we used to live in an answers based paradigm where how much
stuff was in your head was really important. And it was important because it was
hard to get new information. So that was a business advantage, it was a cultural
advantage, it was a social advantage. Right. And you can measure that by how many
letters you have behind your name. And then you got that stuff by going to
(21:33):
someplace where only they could deliver that information. You do not live in that world
anymore. Right. And so you live now, live in a questions based paradigm.
You have instant access to the entirety of the world's information and asking questions
and knowing how to sort that information and having enough knowledge to have context to
know what's right and what's wrong is the important part. Right.
Okay, well that's really good because the entire educational system
(21:55):
is set up as an answers based system, which is totally useless for every job
in every field that you're going to do as soon as you get out of
college, get out of high school. Excuse me. Right. Get out of school is what
I'm trying to say. And so, but as homeschool parents,
what's going to happen is your kid's going to come to you and say, I
need to know this. And you're going to say, I don't know that. And then
you're going to have to say, go figure it out. And that's the
(22:18):
absolutely crucial, critical, essential skill that they need. And so,
you know, you don't know how to teach algebra. Fantastic. Your kid's going to figure
out how to learn algebra. Fantastic. They may never use algebra again for the rest
of their life, but the act of learning how to figure it out on their
own is going to be transferable and is going to give them
colossal, tremendous, unbelievable advantages over all of their peers.
(22:38):
Because that's actually. So by default, you
literally can't teach high school the traditional way because you're not a teacher on the
subjects. And that very reality is what's going to
set you up to be more successful than everybody else. Because you're gonna have to
make your student learn the things on their own. And that process
is the best, best thing that you can do to prepare your kid for
(23:01):
success. If you wanted to define success that way, to thrive however you want to
set that up. And so, yeah, it's Bonifor, like, first of all, it
can be great. And secondly, the system is designed
to put you in a better position than everybody else just by default.
How cool is that? Like, I mean, like, just. You don't have to do anything
special. You have to know some super knowledge. You have to use some super specific
(23:22):
curriculum. The fact that you don't know is going to be your secret
weapon. I love that. I heard somebody once say when
they were asked about what's your favorite age or what's your favorite
season? And. And her answer was this one, because that's exactly
it. Every single season. And if you have eight, you could do them all at
the same time. So. Yeah.
(23:42):
So I love it. Okay, well, I.
Gosh, I don't even. Well, no, I do want to talk about your book because
you wrote a book that. What is it called? Your personal triangle or the
personal triangle. The personal triangle, yeah. Okay, tell us about that. Because I feel like
some of what you said is at least my understanding of what the book is,
is kind of in that. So. Yeah, so. So first of all,
(24:05):
this came out of, you know, sometimes books come out of annoyance. Right. And so
my annoyance was that I had a lot of students who were really into like
Myers Briggs and then the Enneagram and some other stuff. And it's not that
those things don't have some role. I think they have less role than most people
think they do, is that I would see Kids like take that and think, oh,
I'm a seven or I'm a this or I'm an introvert or an extrovert. And
it became some self fulfilling prophecy. At the same time, I saw a lot of
(24:27):
people go, I don't know what I'm good at, but they always define good at
being like, well, I'm really good at riding bikes, so I should race mountain bikes
for a living. Well, those things are not connect. I mean, like being good at
riding bikes is a specific skill. It's a hard one to earn a living at.
But the process of what you went through to be able to learn how to
ride bikes, that's probably transferable. People couldn't understand it, right?
(24:48):
So, so I didn't want something super like, you know, answer
all these questions. I want something that people can instantly go, that makes sense. And
so in the book we say, hey, most people either create people, they come up
with new ideas all the time, connect people, they connect really well to other people,
or coordinate people, they're really good at the details. And the point is, is that
most people are really good at one of those, sort of good at the
(25:09):
second one and less good at the third. And sometimes they're way out in the
end of that triangle, you know, they're just a complete people person and everything else
is behind. And sometimes they're sort of in the middle of that triangle and stuff
like that. And so that could be helpful, right? If you're, and I tell people,
you know, if you work at Chick Fil A, if you are a coordinate person,
you probably ought not to be upfront taking orders. If you're a connect person, you
probably ought not to be in the back, you know, moving fries, right? In other
(25:31):
words, those things are helpful to know, right? And if you're a create person, you're
pretty soon gonna be in management going, why don't we do this differently? And so
knowing that can be helpful. And then the final thing we say in that book
is like, but you don't, it's not permanent, right? All of us have to have
all three of those skills. I mean, I need to know, I need to be
able to meet people, I need to be able to come up with new ideas
for what I'm gonna do in my life. And I have to balance my checkbook,
all three skills, right? And so often just looking at something and
(25:54):
going, well, I need to pull this skill up a little bit or I need
to learn a little bit more there. And so what I wanted was just a
Quick, fast assessment tool. So the kid that was saying, I don't know, I really
like to sing and I really like to swim, but I don't, you know, I'm
not going to the Olympics and I don't think I'm gonna be on stage. Right.
And I'd say, well, well, tell me what you like about singing. Well, I love
being on stage also. You're in a connect person. Well, I love writing new music.
(26:16):
Oh, you're a create person. Well, I love the discipline of figuring out how to.
Oh, you're a coordinate person. Okay, well what you learned
doing singing, that transfers to every job on the planet,
right. If you are really disciplined to teach yourself a new instrument, that's really
good for learning a new job. If you love being on stage, that ability to
communicate is going to be helpful to you in any kind of company. If you
(26:37):
love coming up with new things and writing new songs, you're going to be a
problem solver in some organization. And so it's that
understanding and then the transferability that I think is really important. And so the
book talks about that and we talk about book. Just to be clear, this is
like a 20 minute read, heavily illustrated book because I wanted to be accessible to
students who could digest it quickly and parents and go, oh, that makes sense,
I can use that. So yeah, I love that and I love what we were
(27:00):
talking about even before we started recording. What you just mentioned is to not be
stuck into one category and to allow for growth.
Right? Absolutely. Good to evaluate. But then also
trust that the holy spirit is growing and you have the ability
to improve in things. Right. Well, and the world changes. I
talk to students all the time that they think that by 18 they have to
(27:22):
know what they're going to do for the rest of their life so they can
get the right major and go to the right college. And look, that was never
really true and it's really not true now. And so I tell students all the
time, like, you don't have to find some one secret special
thing that only you can do. You need to find a set of skills that
you're more comfortable doing. And if you don't like those skills, you can shift to
something else, right? And then understand that you'll probably get to use those skills in
(27:44):
a variety of different places and settings overall. And it'll change frequently
as technology disrupts industries and you move and you do different things and all this
kind of stuff. And that's normal. And it's not something to be scared of. It's
something to be excited about. And you generally don't know that by going, oh,
I think real hard, oh, I'm. That kind of thing you figured out by
experiencing it. So do things. And some things you'll fail at, some things
(28:06):
you'll succeed at and you'll stop and go, I liked that and I didn't like
that. And it's that process that moves you forward and anybody can do that. You
don't have to be some super special self known genius. You
know, this is the way people move forward and it's the way people always have
moved forward. It's not new. It's so good. You're talking to the young adult
who's trying to get their bearings and their feet about it. But I'm hearing the
(28:27):
answer to so many of the fears that homeschool families and parents have
all the time. It's the same idea. Just be adaptable and change and
you know, be a student of your student. Be a student of the world. Be
a student and know how to point them to things, not be the expert.
Which is kind of what I heard you say. Yeah. And it's such
an exciting time to do this. I mean, like, look, 50 years ago, if you
(28:48):
didn't put somebody in a position to go to university at the right time, it
was hard to go back later and do that. You couldn't really drop your family
and go back and take classes easily and all that kind of stuff. So there
was some timing issues important. That's just not the case anymore. Right. And so,
you know, I have, I have a son who I love dearly. Right. And so
he didn't pay a lot of attention to science early on in high school because
he was really into music. Okay. And so it's not like he didn't do them.
(29:11):
He didn't do them great. And so you go, oh, we filled that well, yes.
But my son now is an emt and he's a really good emt and he's
getting in nursing school. And all of a sudden it was necessary to know that
science and you know what, we have tools and ability
and information and access to information. Then like eight weeks, he basically
replicated all the stuff he should have learned in his times and then got like
the highest score he could get on both his EMT exam and his nursing exam
(29:33):
began in nursing school. And so there's this, there's this thing where, you know,
people are so scared they'll forget something. I'm just going to, I'm going to hit
that fear Right in the head. You will, 100%. And some of it's going to
be major stuff. And you know what? It doesn't matter because you're in a
situation where somebody can go back like my son and go, oh, I need that
now. And now they're motivated and they've got. And they, you know, we had some
of the pieces, right. And he filled the rest of them in. And. And I'm
(29:56):
looking at that and going, you know why he was able to do that? Because
he took more time a couple years ago on his music, which gave him
the skills that made it possible for him to learn this stuff really fast
when he needed that. Yeah. I love you. You're definitely an
optimist, Jonathan. That's what I think about our conversation. And. And I
love it because I think that's the heart of the Lord. There's always hope. He's
(30:18):
sovereign. He's in control. So. Good. Wow.
Well, our conversation has flown, but I would like to wrap it up
with. I. We. We try to ask everybody this question. If you have
to give just one tip that you would say is the best or primo,
what is your homeschooling tip that you would leave somebody with?
So this is not original. I hope you've heard this all kinds of other places.
(30:41):
The major advantage of homeschooling, the thing that. That
gives you the secret sauce for everything else, is not whether
you can teach math and whether your kid can learn Greek and all that kind
of stuff. It's the extra time that you can use to build relationship.
And if you build a relationship with your child, look, everything. All the rest of
the stuff will fix. Figure out time and tasks only make sense in the context
(31:02):
of relationship. Honestly, algebra and science and English and spelling only
makes sense in the context of relationship. And so if you're ever stuck, if you're
ever tired, if you're ever burnout, if you're ever weary, start with saying,
what's my relationship with my kid look like? And if you can get that to
work, I just promise you for the past
25 years, it's been my. I've been paid to watch people succeed or
(31:24):
fail in educational ventures. And I have eight children of my own,
four of whom have either graduated or about to graduate. And I can
say this personally and professionally, that if you concentrate on the
relationships, whatever gets missed will get fixed. And if you miss the
relationship part, whatever gets put in there won't matter. And so, you
know, there's an easy fix. Anytime you're stuck and every time you're worried. How's your
(31:47):
relationship with your kid? Yeah. Figure that out first. So good.
So good. Well, Jonathan, I can't wait. I hope help people flock to come
see you at our conference. So we'll see you there.
We'll see you very soon. Thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for
having me. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody in Colorado. Thank you so much for
joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool Podcast is a
(32:08):
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 CHEC.org
donate in the meantime, share this with your friends and make sure
(32:31):
you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank you.
Brought to you by the podcast upload.com empowering
faith driven voices.
As homeschool parents, what's going to happen is your kid's going to come to you
and say, I need to know this. And you're going to say, I don't know
that. And then you're going to have to say, go figure it out.
And that's the absolutely crucial, critical, essential skill that
they need. And so you know, you don't know how to teach algebra. Fantastic. Your
kid's going to figure out how to learn algebra. Fantastic. They may never use algebra
(00:20):
again for the rest of their life, but the act of learning how to figure
it out on their own is going to be transferable and is going to give
them colossal, tremendous, unbelievable advantages over all of
their peers.
Welcome. It's the Colorado Homeschool Podcast,
interviewing experts, parents, graduates,
(00:44):
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 and welcome.
I'm your host, Keisha Davis, and we are excited to have you with us
and excited to have our guest with us today, Jonathan
(01:05):
Brush from Unbound. He's the president and CEO of
Unbound, also a homeschool graduate of a homeschool
father. I'm so excited he is going to be
sharing so much. He's also an author. We'll talk a little bit about his book.
And Jonathan is going to be a spirit speaker at our upcoming Rocky
Mountain Homeschool conference. So guys, grab your notebooks,
(01:28):
get ready. Jonathan, welcome. Well, thank you so much for having
me. I'm looking forward to being on the show and I'm also looking forward to
coming back to Colorado. I've got some great memories of being in Colorado. We're there
once a year for one of our events and I've been to your convention several
times and so I'm very excited about coming back to the Rocky Mountains. So looking
forward to it. What event do you come here annually for?
(01:48):
Our final event for our year for our Ascend program, which is our post high
school program is called Capstone and we hold it generally at Estes Park Park. We
moved around a little bit in Colorado, but it's been in Colorado every year except
for the one year that shouldn't be named where we had to all do different
things. So other than that, we've been in Colorado for a long time and
we really enjoy being there and looking forward to being there. This year will be
the very beginning of May, so we'll Be there may and then for the convention.
(02:11):
So it'll be a good year. Oh, so good. Back to back with us because
we're. Our convention is in the middle of June, so. Yes. And as this park
is spectacular, so we have invited Jonathan to come on
because he is going to be a speaker at our Rocky Mountain homeschool conference and
also because of his amazing program that he's a part of called
Unbound. So Jonathan, let's start there. Why don't you tell us a little bit about
(02:32):
what Unbound is and how it's a little unique in your approach to
education. Yeah. So Unbound we say that we do project
based education. And so the first part that's unique is that I'm way more interested
in your ability to do real things than I am in your ability to get
grades. Now I'm always careful when I say this. I'm not belittling grades. They're
the right tool in certain circumstances. But for the students that we work with and
(02:55):
the kinds of things that we do, and I think more and more the world
that we live in, the ability to do stuff actually becomes the most important
thing. And so we have an educational model built on that. And
then we have a goal that I think is important, which is I'm
less. I'm not interested in training people to be successful. Which is why I think
a lot of education promises these days. We've moved from this kind of Augustinian
(03:16):
idea of education being something that should develop you as a person to. To this
idea that education is a gateway to some sort of success. And success
is almost always defined as being some version of rich, famous or powerful.
And I don't know that it's bad to be rich, famous or powerful. I just
know that if that's your end, it's an empty road that you're going to be
walking. Right. And so there's a lot of problems and pitfalls there, not to mention
(03:38):
the fact that it's hard. So there's often a little disappointment that comes in that.
And so in Unbound, we train students to thrive and we have a
definition for that. And so we have a slightly different goal and a slightly
different process. And that puts us in a great place where we have this framework.
We can do some cool stuff. And we work with students in high school,
especially homeschool students. And then we do a post high school program
(03:59):
that can move students into a college degree. We can Help them earn 90 credits
that they can transfer. But more and more students use it as an end program.
In itself. So the certificate from our Ascend program, we actually say
that if you earn that certificate, we guarantee employment at
full college tuition levels, meaning that if you. You make the same as a
college graduate in your area, or we'll refund all of your tuition. And we're in
(04:22):
a situation where we've just never even had to think about refunding anybody's tuition.
And so that just puts us in a unique spot where we can do some
cool things. And, Casey, the really cool thing is we get to work with some
awesome students, including people that come to your convention and conferences and things like that.
And so that helps a lot. Yeah. We were talking before we started filming,
and I said my daughter was a part of what was at the time called
(04:42):
College plus. And they helped her. She got her
college degree primarily through CLEP testing. There was a
summit ministry aspect of it with worldview training and study
skills. But her favorite thing was the coaching and the
relationship she built with her coach and just her diving deep into
praying for who God created her to be. So that's kind of what I love
(05:05):
about what you're saying is it makes me think a lot of
what I say to new homeschool families, which is, you've got to begin with the
end in mind, and you have to know what. What is your goal and how
would you define successful education? And I love what you said.
So tell me what your special definition is of thrive.
So we say that when we talk about people thriving, we mean that
(05:27):
they can. They're prepared to take full responsibility for their life, that they
prioritize relationships. And we actually have a little saying that we tell our students. We
say time and tasks only make sense in the context of
relationships, that those relationships are set up in
the context of serving others. And then we teach students that you serve others by
being extraordinary at ordinary things. That so often we think that success comes
(05:48):
from, I can help people when I'm rich, famous, and powerful and do these things.
And we say, actually, you can change the world immediately by being extraordinary at
ordinary things. And the cool thing is you get an opportunity to do that right
now, that if you're going to be successful
economically, that that means you have to know how to create value. So this isn't
about sort of making money. It's about how do you create value? How do you
(06:09):
do things that lead to human flourishing? And then coming on the heels of that
becomes economic success in the sense that, you know, you can provide for your family
and you can help others. And so then we Tell students that to
thrive means to be able to live resiliently. And that is the idea
that, you know, you shouldn't be surprised as a Christian that you live in a
broken, busted world full of tragedy and that you don't get exempted from
(06:31):
that like, that you will experience tragedy. And that's bad news. It's not the way
things are supposed to be. Right. But also you shouldn't be surprised as a Christian
when that happens to you. Now, the good news is now if we stop there,
we have a bunch of depressed people, right? But the good news is, is that
we live in that, that reality in a hope that eclipses that
reality. That you know that you can live in a world like that because you
(06:51):
believe in one who will redeem all things and in fact enlists you
to be a process in that redemption. So there's something you can do about it.
And then we do that all in the light of eternity and for the glory
of God. And if you pursue those things, and it's not that we think
that that's the perfect formula, we just think that, you know, if you're end
includes pieces of those things, that those are things that
(07:12):
a can be accomplished almost immediately and then mastered over the rest of your
life. And now if you wind up becoming rich, famous or
powerful, you'll be prepared to do, to handle those things wisely.
And if you don't, which is frankly the majority of us, then you're
not confused and think that you've wasted your life. In fact, you've probably lived
a tremendously impactful life that has changed the world in myriads
(07:34):
of ways that you won't fully understand this side of eternity. And so your life
is full of purpose, regardless of your bank account, your status, or
your power that you have. So we talk about that constantly.
And to me, that's, that's one of the most exciting aspects of watching young people
go and go from this kind of like, oh man, I've got all this huge
mountain to climb and go, no, I can start right now. And then look at
(07:57):
all this unexplored territory in front of me. And that's when things get exciting. Oh,
I love it. I so love it. I mean, you're addressing kind of it in
just that comment. A lot of the things that I hear that are a fear
for homeschool families, they're afraid that they are not going to be able to equip
their children, that they're not going to be able to provide for themselves.
And, and also I think a Fear of dis. Inhumanity. Right. It's. It's
(08:18):
really foundation to our world is what is the meaning of
life? What is our purpose in life? Right. So it seems like
a really lofty goal. I'd love to kind of dig a little bit
into how you guys do that. Is this a very
heavy Bible program? Is this. Yeah. Do you want to break that down
a bit? Yeah. So that's. That's a great question. So. So when you say, is
(08:40):
it a heavy Bible program? I would answer that it's a heavy worldview program, which
is sort of a. Yes. And. And I don't mean to belittle, you know, that,
you know, it's. It's more than. Or something like that. I just mean that I
often tell people, look, you know, you can break down the Bible into different
various parts. And so there's an aspect of the Bible that's theological and what does
God mean? And who is he? And all those kinds of things. And there's a
(09:01):
part of the Bible that's practical. You know, the wisdom type stuff, the Ecclesiastes and
the Proverbs. And we are specifically latter category, which
is. This is applied practical Christian living. So that
means that, yes, we think that in order to do applied practical Christian
living, you have to have some level of apologetic understanding. And so you mentioned
earlier working with Summit Mysteries. We use some mysteries materials in our high school
(09:23):
program. We work with Dr. Jeff Myers and our. The program. I say
that we come to Colorado for. Part of the reason we do that is because
Dr. Myers is one of our speakers for that event. And so we work
with those folks and do that. But. But we also are pretty careful to say
this. Keisha, this is gonna sound a little odd, but it's worth exploring. We're really
careful to say we're not a church. You know, I'm not. In fact,
(09:43):
our mission is to. We want our students to remain embedded in
their local communities. And my mission, ultimately is to train special forces for the local
church. And so to do that, I wanna say here's the practical skills
that you need to live a rich life where you thrive.
And that's my lane, and it's not. And
I think so many times people get confused and they try to do everything, look,
(10:05):
you know, figure out who God is and what that all means. That's a
local pastor's and local church's job. And we want to build on that, and we'll
help fill some gaps if necessary. But that's not our primary
responsibility. Our primary responsibility is to say, okay, knowing some of that
and taking that as an accepted base. What does it mean to practically
live that out? Because we think that your faith has immediate
(10:27):
application to how you create value and how you make decisions
and how you live your life and how you serve others by being extraordinary to
ordinary things. And it's that intersection where we want to
spend all of our time saying, let me show you how to practically be good
at these skills that you need to live life richly every day. And let me
show you the excitement and the ability in there to. To be part
(10:48):
of redeeming all things. Wow, that's good. So I have a friend
who used to work with us here at CHEC who actually works with you. I
think she still does, maybe. And I told her, hey, I'm doing an interview with
Jonathan Brush. What would you say about him? And she said, oh, he loves community.
And he loves specifically to make community that goes home and does what you just
said, that engages with their community at home. So what?
(11:09):
Why do you think community is so important? It's like, because I've heard you mention
it a few times, like, even. Yeah, well, first of all, another person you're
talking about, we love her dearly. In fact, we're looking forward to
seeing her when we come to Colorado both times. Oh, good. Speaking of that community,
that's one of the cool things about being in Unbound. You heard us say that
we think part of knowing how to thrive is prioritized relationships. And when
(11:30):
we say prioritize relationships, you know, I said that little mantra that we talk about
to our students. Time and tasks only make sense in the context of relationships.
And that is, you can be the best time management wizard the world. You can
be the most, you know, the productivity king or queen. You can get all this
success, and if you don't understand how they connect to relationships, those things are
going to be empty. That doesn't mean you can't go somewhere. It doesn't mean that
(11:51):
you can't gain status and power and all those things. It just means you're just
going to like what you get, right? And so, so there. There's a. A
fundamental relational aspect built into the fabric of
reality. And for Christians, that's building the fabric of our faith. And, you
know, when we talk about things like the Trinity and our relationship to Christ and
all those things, so, you know, we tell students your first relationship and, you know,
interested in is your relationship the one who made you and to the one who
(12:13):
redeemed you, and then that's reflected in the way you treat other
people. And so I think then that all things sort of start with
that base. And so if we can train students to be better
relationally, then we can train students to be part of, or to
start or to be integral pieces, important pieces of communities. And that's the
bedrock of society. Right. If I'm going to. If I'm going to make an impact
(12:35):
in the world, it's going to make an impact in those local areas. And so
our program is deliberately structured, and I want to do two things. The first is
I want to allow students to remain embedded in their local communities. And I'm always
careful when I say this. I'm not arguing in some weird way that one ought
not to move away. Right. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I think
that there's an underappreciated reality that staying in a place
(12:57):
for a period of time can be really helpful. And so, Kesha, I think your
background, if I remember correctly, and I'm risking here, so I might be wrong,
but is that you have a military background. Is that okay, So I
was streaming. I think I remember. I got right, so. So
obviously there's great advantages to that kind of lifestyle. You
get to meet people and go so many places, experience so many different cultures. I'm
(13:18):
not in any way discounting that, but the. The advantage of that
is fairly well known. What is less known is advantages of being in one place
for a time and being able to connect to those local communities. And so I
want to, you know, a little overemphasize that, just so there's a little balance
there. But then I want to say, like, it doesn't matter about your time. There's
is that your engagement with those local communities ends up being really important. So I
(13:39):
want you to be in a program that allows you to remain embedded in your
local communities, but I want to give you a national
network so that you have this system of relationships that makes living in your
local community even easier. So we have students that do our Ascend program, for
example. You know, they're accessing some courses online.
They're meeting with their teams online, doing those things. And so now they're still
(14:00):
part of the church that they grew up in, probably, and perhaps they're still living
at home and they're in those neighborhoods, and they're leveraging their professional contacts and they're
working for people that met and all those kinds of things. Right. I think that's
really exciting. I'm giving them skills. Not me, but Our program is giving them
skills that allows them to do that better, right? To be better equipped to do
that. But at the same time, four times a year, I'm giving them a plane
ticket, and I'm having them fly to Colorado and to Michigan and to Pennsylvania, into
(14:24):
Florida. And when they're there, they're having these really intense
experiences with their people from their teams and for the rest of the
program. And so what happens is that all of a sudden, you have this national
network of friends. And my favorite story is my son and his friend a couple
of years ago backpacked around the country, right? So they went up from Virginia to
the Dakotas, across Washington, down through
(14:45):
California and back through Colorado. And they spent a lot of time backpacking, but they
never stayed in a hotel because they stay with unbound families the whole way around
the country. That's awesome. And when they broke down in the middle of
Montana, they called me, and I called an alumni and said, hey, I got two
unbound students broken down four hours from you. He's like, oh, four hours in Montana.
That's our backyard. And he dropped everything, fixed their vehicle,
(15:06):
offered them a place to stay, took care of them, and sent them back on
the road. Now, that makes your ability to live locally even
better when you have. That kind of makes local bigger, right?
Exactly. And so. So it's that combination, like, hey, and I think that
reflects our faith. You can only affect deeply the people that you're close
to. At the same time, we're all members of this global church,
(15:28):
right? Like, we're all brothers and sisters in Christ. And so in some ways, this
is a little micro reflection of that that we get to carry out in unbound.
Wow. I'm listening to you, and I'm going, man, this is so
countercultural because we live in a world of social media, and we're.
And we're so not connected. We don't have community. We don't have
connection. In fact, man, I. I'm so bad about
(15:48):
remembering statistics, but I know recently I just read about how many
parents, how many kids do move away. And. And I love that you started with
the caveat of, I'm not saying that you need to do that, but I do
think it's important. And this is. Satan is definitely attacking it. I think what
you're saying about community holds us accountable to one another.
It holds us accountable to what God has asked us to do. And my
(16:10):
mantra that I always say is that we're here for such a time as this,
like, helping people engage in what is the purpose that God
has created you for. This is beautiful. I am. I
cannot even wait, so, because you're,
you're so inspirational, thank you for being here. I love your
energy. What are you going to share when you come to the Rocky Mountain Homeschool
(16:31):
conference? What do you know what some of the topics you're teaching on?
So you said you probably have a lot. Well, you said this right before
we recorded and I was like, I do. I have a list somewhere, but I
don't remember them right at the top of my head. And so I'm sure they're
going to be great. No, I don't remember the exact titles. And of course you
can go to the conference website because I actually, I've signed a contract and I
know what we're going to talk on it. I just can't remember off top of
(16:53):
my head what's it going to be. But I can say this through those
themes, you know, that we try to hit on a lot is we try to
talk about this idea of the things we just already mentioned, community and thriving and
all those kinds of things. But I want to add a couple other layers to
that, which is I find that at a lovedr for such a
time as this, I tell students and young people all the time, look, you weren't
(17:15):
accidentally placed here and you weren't placed here as a tend the
garden generation, right? This is a, you know, man the walls,
beat off the attack, then open the gates, launch forward, take ground
and hold it. Beachhead type of generation, right? Like there's, there's, there's
a, a purpose to be here, there's a reason to be here. You're not here
accidentally. And so we don't get to relax. And that's a good thing. And I
(17:37):
also tell folks, and this is part of the themes that we'll hit in whatever
topics we're doing and say that, look, this is, you're
not unique in that there's big problems, that there's never been a generation that didn't
have big problems. These just happen to be our big problems. And in some ways
I'm really grateful that our big problems aren't the Black Death, right? I'm really
grateful that our big problems don't involve Nazi Germany. You know, there
(17:58):
are there. Compared to some parts of history, we do have a fairly easy
ride. But it's also to say that, yeah, there's big problems. Welcome to
planet Earth. I mean, what I said earlier about live resiliently, expect big
problems. And so first it's Kind of like that awareness. And then the second is
I want to instill an excitement. Like that means you have a mission and a
purpose. And I want to also pull some stress. I see young people
(18:20):
who have more opportunity than any generation that's ever walked the earth. Right.
And who are just crippled with
fear and confusion and paralysis of what to
do. And look, if you're a young person listening this, I'm not saying that in
a blaming, accusatory fashion. I'm saying that that's
a tactic that has been used effectively against you, and I want to
(18:42):
neuter that tactic. And I want to say, look, there are,
there are certain things that you can do. There are questions you can ask that
are not particularly complicated, that can help you navigate an admittedly
difficult world. Right. But there are some real things you can hold
on to that if you know to ask this question and know a couple of
these principles, you're going to do fine. And not only going to do fine, it's
(19:02):
an exciting, wonderful time to be alive. Like, I mean, yes, there's challenges.
There's also beauty and awesomeness and excitement and things to do
and your place here, do stuff. And so you have a mission and a purpose.
So whenever we talk about, we wrap it around those kinds of themes. Let me
talk about what it means to thrive, what does it mean to do real things,
and how do we equip you to be excited but also not stressed, to look
(19:23):
for with excitement, no matter what the circumstances, it's better than
some. And thank goodness it's not perfect because then you'd be useless. And you're
not. I mean, like, there's a purpose. Right.
There are things that you need to do and you are uniquely equipped to do
them. Oh, I love that. So good. So if you have a
mom coming up to talk to you or a father, you know, that is in
(19:45):
the midst of. They have a junior higher, maybe just about to start homeschool. What
is. Do you have a piece of advice that you generally give them when they're
just looking at, like, I don't know, high school is. A lot of parents
are deer in the headlights when they start thinking about high school. Yes.
Okay. I'm trying to be cautious and not, like, spend 40 minutes on this.
So I'm going to try to shove it all down. This is a teaser. They
(20:06):
got to come see you. Yep. So. So first of all,
congratulations. This is the best time. And. And look,
I speak of very little things and claim a lot of authority, but My
oldest is 25 and my youngest is 1. And yes, there's a lot of stories
involved in that. Okay, so. And there's, there's eight of them total. And
I can. And first I want to tell you that every stage keeps getting better
(20:28):
and I won't speak beyond 25. And so, but, but you talk about
a lot of fun and a lot of excitement, a lot of cool things. And
that is preteen through teen and through young adults. And I don't, I hate
the word teenager. Either you have children or you have young adults. And so young
adults, which I think starts like 13 and goes up is an exciting
time and can be a wonderful time. So does it come with challenges? Yes. Also
(20:49):
the one year old has challenges called, called not sleeping. And so, you know,
I don't know which ones you like better. So, so, okay, so that's.
First of all, just be, be positive and excited about this. This can be a
really good time. The second thing is this. So many people are worried
about homeschooling high school. Like all the complicated stuff happens here. And that
is true. But here's something that is playing to your advantage that you don't have
(21:11):
anything to do with, but you're just going to be able to inherit and which
is so cool to be a homeschooler. We live in this time where everything's
changed. And we used to live in an answers based paradigm where how much
stuff was in your head was really important. And it was important because it was
hard to get new information. So that was a business advantage, it was a cultural
advantage, it was a social advantage. Right. And you can measure that by how many
letters you have behind your name. And then you got that stuff by going to
(21:33):
someplace where only they could deliver that information. You do not live in that world
anymore. Right. And so you live now, live in a questions based paradigm.
You have instant access to the entirety of the world's information and asking questions
and knowing how to sort that information and having enough knowledge to have context to
know what's right and what's wrong is the important part. Right.
Okay, well that's really good because the entire educational system
(21:55):
is set up as an answers based system, which is totally useless for every job
in every field that you're going to do as soon as you get out of
college, get out of high school. Excuse me. Right. Get out of school is what
I'm trying to say. And so, but as homeschool parents,
what's going to happen is your kid's going to come to you and say, I
need to know this. And you're going to say, I don't know that. And then
you're going to have to say, go figure it out. And that's the
(22:18):
absolutely crucial, critical, essential skill that they need. And so,
you know, you don't know how to teach algebra. Fantastic. Your kid's going to figure
out how to learn algebra. Fantastic. They may never use algebra again for the rest
of their life, but the act of learning how to figure it out on their
own is going to be transferable and is going to give them
colossal, tremendous, unbelievable advantages over all of their peers.
(22:38):
Because that's actually. So by default, you
literally can't teach high school the traditional way because you're not a teacher on the
subjects. And that very reality is what's going to
set you up to be more successful than everybody else. Because you're gonna have to
make your student learn the things on their own. And that process
is the best, best thing that you can do to prepare your kid for
(23:01):
success. If you wanted to define success that way, to thrive however you want to
set that up. And so, yeah, it's Bonifor, like, first of all, it
can be great. And secondly, the system is designed
to put you in a better position than everybody else just by default.
How cool is that? Like, I mean, like, just. You don't have to do anything
special. You have to know some super knowledge. You have to use some super specific
(23:22):
curriculum. The fact that you don't know is going to be your secret
weapon. I love that. I heard somebody once say when
they were asked about what's your favorite age or what's your favorite
season? And. And her answer was this one, because that's exactly
it. Every single season. And if you have eight, you could do them all at
the same time. So. Yeah.
(23:42):
So I love it. Okay, well, I.
Gosh, I don't even. Well, no, I do want to talk about your book because
you wrote a book that. What is it called? Your personal triangle or the
personal triangle. The personal triangle, yeah. Okay, tell us about that. Because I feel like
some of what you said is at least my understanding of what the book is,
is kind of in that. So. Yeah, so. So first of all,
(24:05):
this came out of, you know, sometimes books come out of annoyance. Right. And so
my annoyance was that I had a lot of students who were really into like
Myers Briggs and then the Enneagram and some other stuff. And it's not that
those things don't have some role. I think they have less role than most people
think they do, is that I would see Kids like take that and think, oh,
I'm a seven or I'm a this or I'm an introvert or an extrovert. And
it became some self fulfilling prophecy. At the same time, I saw a lot of
(24:27):
people go, I don't know what I'm good at, but they always define good at
being like, well, I'm really good at riding bikes, so I should race mountain bikes
for a living. Well, those things are not connect. I mean, like being good at
riding bikes is a specific skill. It's a hard one to earn a living at.
But the process of what you went through to be able to learn how to
ride bikes, that's probably transferable. People couldn't understand it, right?
(24:48):
So, so I didn't want something super like, you know, answer
all these questions. I want something that people can instantly go, that makes sense. And
so in the book we say, hey, most people either create people, they come up
with new ideas all the time, connect people, they connect really well to other people,
or coordinate people, they're really good at the details. And the point is, is that
most people are really good at one of those, sort of good at the
(25:09):
second one and less good at the third. And sometimes they're way out in the
end of that triangle, you know, they're just a complete people person and everything else
is behind. And sometimes they're sort of in the middle of that triangle and stuff
like that. And so that could be helpful, right? If you're, and I tell people,
you know, if you work at Chick Fil A, if you are a coordinate person,
you probably ought not to be upfront taking orders. If you're a connect person, you
probably ought not to be in the back, you know, moving fries, right? In other
(25:31):
words, those things are helpful to know, right? And if you're a create person, you're
pretty soon gonna be in management going, why don't we do this differently? And so
knowing that can be helpful. And then the final thing we say in that book
is like, but you don't, it's not permanent, right? All of us have to have
all three of those skills. I mean, I need to know, I need to be
able to meet people, I need to be able to come up with new ideas
for what I'm gonna do in my life. And I have to balance my checkbook,
all three skills, right? And so often just looking at something and
(25:54):
going, well, I need to pull this skill up a little bit or I need
to learn a little bit more there. And so what I wanted was just a
Quick, fast assessment tool. So the kid that was saying, I don't know, I really
like to sing and I really like to swim, but I don't, you know, I'm
not going to the Olympics and I don't think I'm gonna be on stage. Right.
And I'd say, well, well, tell me what you like about singing. Well, I love
being on stage also. You're in a connect person. Well, I love writing new music.
(26:16):
Oh, you're a create person. Well, I love the discipline of figuring out how to.
Oh, you're a coordinate person. Okay, well what you learned
doing singing, that transfers to every job on the planet,
right. If you are really disciplined to teach yourself a new instrument, that's really
good for learning a new job. If you love being on stage, that ability to
communicate is going to be helpful to you in any kind of company. If you
(26:37):
love coming up with new things and writing new songs, you're going to be a
problem solver in some organization. And so it's that
understanding and then the transferability that I think is really important. And so the
book talks about that and we talk about book. Just to be clear, this is
like a 20 minute read, heavily illustrated book because I wanted to be accessible to
students who could digest it quickly and parents and go, oh, that makes sense,
I can use that. So yeah, I love that and I love what we were
(27:00):
talking about even before we started recording. What you just mentioned is to not be
stuck into one category and to allow for growth.
Right? Absolutely. Good to evaluate. But then also
trust that the holy spirit is growing and you have the ability
to improve in things. Right. Well, and the world changes. I
talk to students all the time that they think that by 18 they have to
(27:22):
know what they're going to do for the rest of their life so they can
get the right major and go to the right college. And look, that was never
really true and it's really not true now. And so I tell students all the
time, like, you don't have to find some one secret special
thing that only you can do. You need to find a set of skills that
you're more comfortable doing. And if you don't like those skills, you can shift to
something else, right? And then understand that you'll probably get to use those skills in
(27:44):
a variety of different places and settings overall. And it'll change frequently
as technology disrupts industries and you move and you do different things and all this
kind of stuff. And that's normal. And it's not something to be scared of. It's
something to be excited about. And you generally don't know that by going, oh,
I think real hard, oh, I'm. That kind of thing you figured out by
experiencing it. So do things. And some things you'll fail at, some things
(28:06):
you'll succeed at and you'll stop and go, I liked that and I didn't like
that. And it's that process that moves you forward and anybody can do that. You
don't have to be some super special self known genius. You
know, this is the way people move forward and it's the way people always have
moved forward. It's not new. It's so good. You're talking to the young adult
who's trying to get their bearings and their feet about it. But I'm hearing the
(28:27):
answer to so many of the fears that homeschool families and parents have
all the time. It's the same idea. Just be adaptable and change and
you know, be a student of your student. Be a student of the world. Be
a student and know how to point them to things, not be the expert.
Which is kind of what I heard you say. Yeah. And it's such
an exciting time to do this. I mean, like, look, 50 years ago, if you
(28:48):
didn't put somebody in a position to go to university at the right time, it
was hard to go back later and do that. You couldn't really drop your family
and go back and take classes easily and all that kind of stuff. So there
was some timing issues important. That's just not the case anymore. Right. And so,
you know, I have, I have a son who I love dearly. Right. And so
he didn't pay a lot of attention to science early on in high school because
he was really into music. Okay. And so it's not like he didn't do them.
(29:11):
He didn't do them great. And so you go, oh, we filled that well, yes.
But my son now is an emt and he's a really good emt and he's
getting in nursing school. And all of a sudden it was necessary to know that
science and you know what, we have tools and ability
and information and access to information. Then like eight weeks, he basically
replicated all the stuff he should have learned in his times and then got like
the highest score he could get on both his EMT exam and his nursing exam
(29:33):
began in nursing school. And so there's this, there's this thing where, you know,
people are so scared they'll forget something. I'm just going to, I'm going to hit
that fear Right in the head. You will, 100%. And some of it's going to
be major stuff. And you know what? It doesn't matter because you're in a
situation where somebody can go back like my son and go, oh, I need that
now. And now they're motivated and they've got. And they, you know, we had some
of the pieces, right. And he filled the rest of them in. And. And I'm
(29:56):
looking at that and going, you know why he was able to do that? Because
he took more time a couple years ago on his music, which gave him
the skills that made it possible for him to learn this stuff really fast
when he needed that. Yeah. I love you. You're definitely an
optimist, Jonathan. That's what I think about our conversation. And. And I
love it because I think that's the heart of the Lord. There's always hope. He's
(30:18):
sovereign. He's in control. So. Good. Wow.
Well, our conversation has flown, but I would like to wrap it up
with. I. We. We try to ask everybody this question. If you have
to give just one tip that you would say is the best or primo,
what is your homeschooling tip that you would leave somebody with?
So this is not original. I hope you've heard this all kinds of other places.
(30:41):
The major advantage of homeschooling, the thing that. That
gives you the secret sauce for everything else, is not whether
you can teach math and whether your kid can learn Greek and all that kind
of stuff. It's the extra time that you can use to build relationship.
And if you build a relationship with your child, look, everything. All the rest of
the stuff will fix. Figure out time and tasks only make sense in the context
(31:02):
of relationship. Honestly, algebra and science and English and spelling only
makes sense in the context of relationship. And so if you're ever stuck, if you're
ever tired, if you're ever burnout, if you're ever weary, start with saying,
what's my relationship with my kid look like? And if you can get that to
work, I just promise you for the past
25 years, it's been my. I've been paid to watch people succeed or
(31:24):
fail in educational ventures. And I have eight children of my own,
four of whom have either graduated or about to graduate. And I can
say this personally and professionally, that if you concentrate on the
relationships, whatever gets missed will get fixed. And if you miss the
relationship part, whatever gets put in there won't matter. And so, you
know, there's an easy fix. Anytime you're stuck and every time you're worried. How's your
(31:47):
relationship with your kid? Yeah. Figure that out first. So good.
So good. Well, Jonathan, I can't wait. I hope help people flock to come
see you at our conference. So we'll see you there.
We'll see you very soon. Thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for
having me. I'm looking forward to seeing everybody in Colorado. Thank you so much for
joining us today. The Colorado Homeschool Podcast is a
(32:08):
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 CHEC.org
donate in the meantime, share this with your friends and make sure
(32:31):
you subscribe. That really helps us. Thank you.
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