February 28, 2024 • 43 mins
Have you ever felt trapped by the rigid structure of the traditional classroom? Deb Fillman certainly did, and she's here to share her transformative journey from classroom educator to homeschooling and private tutoring champion. Her personal story is one of liberation—from the one-size-fits-all approach to education—to a world where the unique needs of each student are the guiding force. As we chat with Deb, her passionate advocacy for a tailored educational experience is both inspiring and thought-provoking, revealing a deep commitment to igniting a true love for learning, free from standardized constraints.
In today's episode, we dig into the history of compulsory education and discuss its complex relationship with family dynamics, individual freedoms, and child development. The advantages of homeschooling can't be overlooked, particularly its capacity for efficient, personalized learning and the inclusion of practical life skills. Our dialogue opens up about the psychological toll traditional schooling can take on kids and contemplates the possibilities of reshaping education to better honor individuality and nurture independence.
Finally, we underscore the importance of community support for families as they make crucial educational decisions. Whether deep in the trenches of homeschooling or finding your way through the public school system, we discuss building private support networks and accessing resources like a dedicated Discord channel for personalized advice. We also cast a critical eye on the subtle ways the 2030 Agenda may influence educational approaches and stress the need to discern the intentions behind them. Join us for a conversation that not only explores education's current landscape but also champions the empowerment of families to preserve the essence of learning.
Links:
The Reason We Learn
The Reason We Parent
The Reason We Learn YouTube Channel
What the 2030 Agenda Looks Like in the Classroom: A District Profile
Deb Fillman on X
Visit The Conservative Classroom Bookstore!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mr. Webb (00:00):
Are you curious about the transformative potential of
custom homeschool teaching forsubjects like English, writing,
history and civics?
Have you ever wondered how totailor your child's education to
their unique learning style,especially in a homeschool
environment?
Did you know there's a supportgroup for parents, a private
(00:20):
space to seek out solutionsinstead of online judgment?
Welcome to The ConservativeClassroom, where we're teaching
the truth and preserving ourvalues.
I'm your host, Mr.
Webb, and I'm glad you're here.
This podcast is a haven forconservative educators, parents
(00:42):
and patriots like you, whobelieve in the importance of
free speech, traditional valuesand education without
indoctrination.
Each week, we dive into issuesthat are plaguing our education
system and keeping you up atnight.
In each episode, we offercommon sense ideas to improve
education in our classrooms andcommunities.
(01:05):
You may feel like you're thelast conservative educator or
parent, but I want you to knowthat you are not alone.
By the way, if you like whatyou hear today, please share
this podcast with a like-mindededucator, parent or patriot.
Together, we can teach thetruth and preserve our values.
(01:26):
In today's episode, we'rethrilled to welcome an
exceptional guest a seasonededucator with over 15 years of
experience in homeschoolteaching and online tutoring.
A seasoned educator with awebsite, a podcast and a YouTube
channel.
Now let's get started.
Today I'm excited to welcome aspecial guest to the
(01:49):
Conservative Classroom, DebFillman, host of The Reason We
Learn podcast and YouTubechannel, former classroom
teacher, homeschool mom andprivate tutor.
Deb, thank you for joining us.
Deb Fillman (02:02):
Thanks for inviting me.
Mr. Webb (02:04):
I appreciate it.
I have followed you on Twittera little bit.
You're pretty active on thereand post a lot of interesting
things.
But to start with, can you tellus a bit about yourself, your
background, what led you togetting out of the traditional
classroom and getting intotutoring and homeschooling?
Deb Fillman (02:25):
Well, believe it or not, I was only in the
classroom for about three years,so that means I left in my
mid-20s.
I didn't set out to become aclassroom teacher when I first
went to college.
I went to Colby College inMaine.
I got a degree in AmericanStudies.
I was big history, nut andliterature and art history.
(02:46):
I just loved all that stuff.
I had it in mind that I mightbe a museum curator or something
like that.
Realized that wasn't really agreat career path, I thought
what else could I do to still beinvolved in learning and
immerse myself in the subjectmatter that I loved?
So I thought I'll be a teacherand, like a lot of young people
(03:06):
going into teaching, I wasfairly naive.
This is early 90s.
I thought I'd make a difference.
I thought I would go in thereand teach kids to read and love
reading and love learning andall the things.
And I very quickly learned thatthe way they were teaching
reading even then was not how Ilearned to read.
I mean, in fairness, I learnedto read when I was like three.
(03:26):
But I mean in other words thesekids were being asked to sort of
memorize words.
It was a very weird way.
And I knew phonics, I knew howto teach with phonics and they
weren't letting me do that.
And every time I tried to teachthe way I thought best for the
kids to actually learn, whichincluded taking my students in
(03:48):
first and second grade who werereading very proficiently, to
the library to pick out morechallenging books and working
closely on phonics with the kidswho weren't doing quite as well
one-on-one.
I'd be jastised Like you'remaking us look bad.
Stop doing that.
This isn't what you're supposedto do.
Use this curriculum, use that.
(04:09):
And I realized I wasn't cut outtemperamentally to have my
teaching directed by committee,you know, sort of.
It felt too reminiscent ofmiddle school mean girls Like
this is the way we do it and wewant you to do it like this and
we that.
And there was something veryhive-mindy about it even then
(04:32):
and I just I can't explain it.
Something kind of snapped in mewhere I said if I can't do what
I think is right for thestudents and I'm having to sort
of toe the line or get with theprogram, and they also made me
join a union which I didn't like, because I'm just
philosophically opposed tounions, I I'm not going to do it
(04:53):
anymore because then I'm doingwrong.
There are certain things youknow in terms of values.
If somebody is saying, you knowyou can't do this very
important thing, well then youshouldn't do it.
And that's.
That was the conclusion I cameto.
And it was really in thatdecision that I also decided
that I would someday be ahomeschooling parent if I ever
(05:14):
had children, because I thought,if I'm, I'm one person.
If there are other teachers outthere who are being told
similar things or being made tofeel like they have to, you know
, get with the program andfollow the herd, then they might
someday have to turn to mychild and, if not, explicitly
say I can't help you or I can'tdo right by you, then just not
(05:35):
do it.
And why would I voluntarilysend my child into that setting.
So it was just a pretty easydecision that that was just
going to be something I neverwas going to do.
And people have said well, youknow, did you think?
Well, I know how to teachbecause I went to graduate
school and I got a master's ineducation and then I knew I
would be able to do it.
It wasn't really that, althoughI suppose that was somewhere in
(05:56):
the back of my mind.
It was more if I'm going to bea mom, then I'm not going to
send my children some placewhere I know it's not Gonna be
right for them.
So that's how I got intohomeschooling and I spent the
rest of my working life in Otherfields.
I worked in HR for a littlewhile doing some training for
(06:17):
adults and computer stuff.
I was pretty good at computers.
I did some marketing thingsbecause once you know how people
learn, you can.
It's it's not that big a shiftto working in sort of
copywriting.
I did information design forweb design in the mid 90s mid to
late 90s when the internet ande-commerce was picking up.
(06:38):
Because again, I understood howpeople learned and moved
through a learning process whichis pretty similar to learning
how to navigate a website.
Mr. Webb (06:46):
So Transferable skills .
Deb Fillman (06:48):
Yeah, it's, it's kind of transferable and you
know.
But that's also a reflection ofmy entire approach to learning
and teaching itself.
It's a you know, why do welearn what?
Why did I call my brand thereason we learn.
It's sort of a play on words.
We have to learn to use reason.
We're born with the capacityfor it, but it's not automatic.
You have to actually learn howto do it.
(07:09):
That's why you'll see somecultures where they don't focus
as much on reason and therearen't any there.
I'm not gonna name names at themoment, but you know there's
some places where they don't doa lot of thinking, where they do
a lot of feeling, and and a lotof that feeling is anger and
rage and you know things don'tgo well.
But you have to learn to useyour capacity for reason.
And also, I wanted to helpparents and others in my
(07:32):
audience Think about why do wedo it?
Why do we educate our childrenand by we I mean individual
families, not we as a society,and you know.
But the way I, my career, hasevolved is sort of a testament
to what an individual is capableof in terms of reinvention,
(07:52):
learning new skills,adaptability, all those things
when you had a good foundationreading proficiency, math, you
know, numeracy, culturalliteracy, vocabulary all the
basics right.
When things didn't work out formy teaching career, I didn't
panic.
It wasn't like, oh my god, Ican't do anything else.
(08:14):
I just thought, well, what canI do?
Who needs these things?
Let's go figure it out.
And I knew how to figure it out,and so I thought that was the
point of education for everybody.
I thought the point ofeducation was to learn how to
live life on planet earth andhave what you needed so you
wouldn't be dependent ongovernment that's like supposed
(08:37):
to be the quote-unquote safetynet.
And I just thought that wascommon sense and came up, and
you know, out of college andthen graduate school, into a
world that had other plans, itseemed.
I started looking around in theolder I got, the more
encountered people who looked atme like I had, you know, three
heads when I would suggest thatmaybe we needed our students to
(08:58):
be independent, to be functionalon their own.
And as the years have gone by,as you've seen in recent years,
that's even more aberrant.
You'd say that to people aren'twe educating individuals?
And they look at you like what?
No, we're educating identities,we're educating groups of
people.
Mr. Webb (09:17):
Yeah, there's a lot that's changed over the years
and and students should belearning skills that they will
use, you know, in real life.
And I'll even go so far as tosay, and this is definitely Not
popular with an education, notpopular teachers, and you may
disagree on me, disagree with meon this, but some students that
(09:42):
are going to work with theirhands and they're going to to be
farmers or they don't need,they might not need, you know, a
Degree.
Well, they definitely don'tneed a degree, but they may not
even need to go through all 12,13 years of school.
Deb Fillman (10:03):
Well, I would argue that people will.
Mr. Webb (10:05):
I'm sorry, I was gonna say used to, you know, folks
would drop out and they would goraise large families and be
happy, and Now it seems we'vepushed, we've pushed, we pushed
and it's unattainable for somefolks.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Deb Fillman (10:22):
Well, I was going to say not only do I agree with
you, but I'm Sort of on apersonal crusade to Abolish
schooling as we know it.
I mean, I'm a government schoolabolitionist.
I think having the governmentinvolved at all is
unconstitutional and andviolates the fan, the sanctity
of the family and the and theRights of the parents from the
(10:45):
get-go because it's compulsory.
So I I just don't think thegovernment has any, any
Legitimate role to play in that.
The only legitimate role willbe a rights respecting one,
which means if a child's rightsare being violated by their
parents and they're beingactively denied Access to any
form of educational and so theirparents are just putting them
to hard labor at the age of fiveor something you know what I
(11:05):
mean and they aren't.
You know it would be the sameas the kid, the parents
depriving them of nutrition.
Then I might say, all right, weneed to have a chat, right, but
that's protecting the child andprotecting that, that
individual.
But no, I don't think thegovernment should be deciding
what we learn, how long we learn, where, what building we go to,
who the teachers are Going tobe.
(11:26):
That is such a conflict ofinterest that I can't believe
that people have accepted it atthe very beginning.
When it was first proposed,parents opposed it.
The majority parents opposed itover 150 years ago.
It didn't catch on in all thestates.
Well, it didn't becomemandatory in all the states
until it'd been mandatory inmany of the states.
So they were like dominoes thatthey fell and some of the last
(11:48):
holdouts had to be taken atgunpoint.
Their kids had to be taken fromthem.
So it used to be that Americansknew this is wait a minute,
we're Americans.
The state doesn't come to thedoor and take our kids and take
them off to a governmentfacility and force them To.
You know, listen to governmenthired employees.
But now we take it as this ismy entitlement, and so I agree
(12:10):
with you.
Not only has the school daygotten longer, because it used
to be just, you know, a fewhours day, but also the amount
of school years got longer overthe years to now.
It's practically cradle to tocollege and they want to bring
in universal preschool and takethe kids away from their homes
altogether and and I think thisis very bad for all of us it's
(12:35):
certainly destroying our liberty.
It destroys families.
The family unit is so damaged.
Now they're actively trying tointerfere with family structure
and family integrity by turningchildren against their parents.
So I agree, I think.
But it's not so much aboutwhether some kids are gonna work
with their hands or not.
(12:55):
It just should be up toindividual Parents, families,
students, etc.
To pursue their education fromthe beginning as they, you know,
see fit.
Now I will.
I will say I'm biased and that Ido believe every child I don't
care what your future goalsmight be every child should be
(13:16):
Literate, and I mean proficient.
Okay, so not just I can readthe newspaper or magazine, but
really be able to read, evenlike classic literature.
And the reason I say that isthat even if you're going to be
a farmer or you're going to be,you know, work with your hands,
a mechanic or something likethat, the complexity of the
ideas that you can consider andweigh and, you know, evaluate is
(13:38):
only as big as your vocabulary.
So, even if you're a farmer,someday some politician steps up
and says we have a policy andwe want to sell it to you that
we're gonna do, do, do, do, do,do, if that person can spin a
yarn or use words that you don'tnecessarily understand or speak
about Concepts that you'venever really considered because
you hadn't, you know, you didn'thave the chance to immerse
(14:00):
yourself in language and turnsof phrase and rhetoric and so
forth and think through things.
They could put one over on youand I don't want that to happen
to anyone.
What, whatever path you choosein your life, you should still
have the level of sophisticationin your thinking that somebody
who is more quote credentialed,you know, can't come along and
take advantage of you, and thatis a concern that I have.
(14:21):
So I think they all need tohave Reading proficiency,
numeracy again, tax policy,economic policy, any kind of
thing that somebody wants tocome in and say I'm gonna help
you with these farm subsidiesand I'm gonna do that.
It's when you understandeconomics and you understand
math, you know you can turn tothe person.
That's not very big help.
How about you go away?
Okay, and so I think, but I dobelieve, I know for a fact that
(14:47):
can happen in Less than 13 years.
You do not need to go to schoolfor 13 years to learn the math.
You'll need to know the basicunderstanding of the history of
Western civilization, thevocabulary you need to know.
You could probably accomplishthat by the time a child is,
let's say, 13, 14 years old.
If you did it right, you couldabsolutely do that, and it still
(15:10):
wouldn't be eight hours a day.
You could get it done in abouttwo to three Maximum a day, and
that leaves plenty of time forthe kid to run around outside,
get fresh air, exercise, learnother hands kind of skills,
learn how to fix that car, learnhow to cook, learn how to sell,
learn how to grow vegetables.
There are a million things youcan learn how to do in all the
hours that they're wasting inthe school building, and Then
(15:32):
you are fully rounded,self-sufficient human being who
can't have their so-calledbetters.
Put one over on them.
Mr. Webb (15:41):
I've talked to a lot of home schoolers.
You tell me that their kids cando in just a few hours kind of
what you mentioned, what thefolks in the public schools,
what it takes them a week to doin the structured setting when
you're in a classroom with 29other students and at different
levels, so they can.
(16:02):
They can complete in just a fewhours what it takes their peers
a week to do.
And then in the remaining timethey actually learn life skills,
they go out and volunteer orthey, they, they work on
projects, they build things.
Deb Fillman (16:18):
Absolutely that that is so true.
So much of what gets done inschool is hurry up and wait a
lot of wasted time kids Are.
We were asking our children tospend their precious childhood
Waiting on other people, oftenadults, to do things that have
no bearing on their reality, andthe impact on them
psychologically is profound.
(16:39):
The actual lesson, if read JohnTaylor Gatto's books, the
actual lesson they learn is thatI don't really have a say.
My job in life is to just kindof be compliant, put up with it,
etc.
And there will always be thosekids who won't or can't do that.
And it manifests in a coupledifferent ways.
In one one way is to act out,and they might be, they might
(17:03):
misbehave or be unruly or just,you know, class clown or
something.
So they acting out, and othertimes they act in meaning, they
turn it in on themselves, theyget anxious, they get apathetic,
they get nihilistic,self-harming behaviors.
When you feel like your lifeyou're spending the hours of
your days of your life in a kindof holding pattern or Prison,
(17:28):
if you will.
Where are you?
Just you just have to put upwith it.
That is not a way to getexcited about the world.
That is not a positive thingfor a human beings development.
And yet they'll talk to usabout social and emotional
learning and all these thingslike what are the social
emotional skills you're teaching?
Compliance, a kind of patience.
That isn't really patience, isjust sort of a complacency, and
(17:53):
I'm not at all surprised that somany people took lockdowns as
an example as well.
I guess we just got to go alongwith it because they spent all
their time they grew up in theseschools.
That's what they, that's thelesson they learned.
People in power tell me to dothings.
I do them.
Mr. Webb (18:08):
Right.
Deb Fillman (18:10):
And we don't need to be doing that.
We're going to lose our freedomif we keep, if we keep raising
our kids that way.
But I do want to say, too, thatwhat you're talking about with
homeschoolers and the thingsthat they're able to do and so
on, what is not discussed oftenenough is that there's no
schedule specific to homeschool.
(18:32):
It can be whatever you want itto be, but the most important
thing is rhythm, and what I meanby that is that each family can
educate their children fortheir supposed school years, or
school age years, the same waythey would with their babies and
their toddlers.
It follows the rhythm of theparents.
It follows the rhythm of theirworking life, the way they want
(18:53):
to live their life.
You know what time they want towake up in the morning, go to
bed at night, how the marriedcouple interacts with each other
.
There are so many benefits tothe family unit of homeschooling
that don't get discussed enough.
We tend to focus on comparingand contrasting with school and
looking at it as how much schoolwork did you get done?
Or how many you know?
(19:14):
How much exercise did you get?
Instead of thinking about, youhave a family that just
continues to function like afamily throughout the child's
life.
And that means, if it's mostconducive to the family's rhythm
, that you're sitting andreading with them at 6 pm after
you get done with your job andduring the day, Instead, the
child was doing a lot of artworkor doing crafts or running
(19:34):
around outside and you know, orplaying with their siblings or
helping around the house.
Then that's what that lookslike.
If it works better very earlyin the morning because you have
a shift at work or something.
It's with that rhythm.
But wait is now.
Parents have to.
Parents are also complying.
Oh, I got to drop the kid offat school, I got to get in the
(19:54):
car, pull the line, got to getthe bus.
The whole family is operatingon the government schedule for
at least nine months out of theyear.
And then even your summer isaround.
When the government says youcan have summer, you know like
when they say you is your summerbreak, when is your vacation in
the spring?
This is all being dictated bypeople outside your family.
(20:16):
That right there createstension between married couples,
between the parents and thechildren.
So many points of tension thatsimply go away because you as a
family, you know the parents sitdown and decide how do we want
this to go, and it's entirely upto you.
Mr. Webb (20:38):
See, I hadn't even thought about those aspects of
it.
We're just, we're so used to itbecause it's normal, because we
have been raised and brought upin the school system and that's
just the way it's done.
And I would say that if aparent didn't send their kids to
public school and just startedhomeschooling them whenever they
(21:00):
wanted to, that it would bemore in a rhythm, whereas
parents that maybe wait untiltheir kid is in middle school or
, you know, maybe even highschool, then they're used to
sending their kids to school andthey have in their mind I would
think, okay, we need to schoolfrom this hour to this hour, so
(21:23):
we will work on math for thefirst hour.
And it's not such.
It doesn't flow so well.
Deb Fillman (21:31):
Well, that's a mistake.
I mean, and I would tell peoplethat first of all, if you have
to pull a child out of school tohomeschool them or decide to,
the first thing you need to dois de-school them and de-school
yourself.
You have to detox from thatschedule mindset and let your
child feel what it feels like tohave some agency.
And that doesn't mean they getto run wild and do whatever they
(21:54):
want or that you just ignorethem.
That means you come up with alist of sort of approved kinds
of activities that they can dothat are not necessarily
academic Okay, they can be.
If the kid says I want to read10 books, okay, fine.
But or I want to do a mathworkbook.
But it's more to get out of thehabit of I'm on a school
schedule and just decompress,detox, get out of that, learn to
(22:19):
not be on tech all day, becausein school they're on tech all
day.
So a lot of times parents willsay to me well, you know, if
they come home and word will beon tech all day, I'm like, well,
they're on tech all day atschool, so you know, but you
bring them home, you're actuallygoing to have the opportunity
to detox them from the tech.
You might find, like, if youhave a child who does like to be
(22:40):
busy with their hands or buildthings or do things, that can be
part of their de-schooling hey,you've said you've always
wanted to help learn how to workon dad's car or track whatever.
You've said You've alwayswanted to get whatever.
If the kid is old enough towork, like 15 or older, they can
get a job during de-schoolingtime and the fact that they're
not actively doing an academicclass is not a problem.
(23:02):
Let them go earn some money forall and be in the real world
and look how fast theircuriosity peaks.
I'm like all right, I think ifthere's some stuff I need to
learn, okay, so I recommend topeople I don't recommend.
I tell them this is a must do.
If you're pulling your child outand they're above fifth grade,
your first task is to de-school.
Now, while they're de-schoolingand doing things like you're
(23:24):
allowed to read books, go playoutside, ride your bike, build
something, paint something or doart or help around the house.
These are like the approvedactivities and you have to check
off all these boxes of thingsthat you've done in that day
before you can ever touch tech.
But I'm not assigning youhomework, it's just these are
the activities you can engage infreely.
Then you do that and some arguethat you need a month of it for
(23:47):
every year the kid's been inschool, and I think that's
probably a bit excessive.
But I'd say at least a month ofthis.
And during that month theparents task is to build
community.
What does that look like?
Well, before, your communitywas organized around school,
probably.
So now what you have to do isget acquainted with your local
home school community.
Get on to you know whether it'sFacebook, check if there's
groups.
(24:07):
Go through HSLDA, the HomeSchool Legal Defense Association
.
See if they have some localgroups in your area.
Even look at things like yourlocal Y or you know church.
Sometimes a lot of churcheshave groups.
Synagogues have groups.
See what they've got going onfor homeschool.
If you have a museum in yourarea, see if there are
homeschool related activities orprograms.
Here in Charlotte, northCarolina, or Discovery Place has
(24:29):
a whole homeschool set ofcourses.
So until you look you don'treally realize what's out there.
So then you find what feelsright to me and my family as far
as community.
You don't need hundreds ofpeople using maybe like a couple
of families that you canconnect with and start to find
some activities you can go bepart of and get to know them.
And then, only then, can you sitdown and start to think about
(24:52):
academics.
And even then your first taskis I have to know what my kid
knows already.
So you have to get a grademindset.
Let's say you pulled your childout of what was sixth grade at
school.
That that is nothing to do withreality right now.
Now you have to assess whatdoes my child actually know in
math?
What does my child actuallyknow about reading and
(25:13):
vocabulary and so on?
And there are ways to do that.
There are many online mathprograms that have little
placement tests.
You can have your child sittingto do this, you know.
Work your way up till you startgetting things wrong.
Let's see where you really are,and the de-schooling time helps
the child break out of thisnotion that I'm behind or I'm
ahead or whatever.
(25:34):
It's not about behind or aheadcompared to whom.
The goal is that your childdoesn't launch from your home at
18, not knowing how to read.
So if you try to force theminto what's quote unquote sixth
grade reading and really theywere pretty far behind in the
school definition and you needto start at the beginning.
Then you need to start at thebeginning.
(25:54):
Here's the good news to parentswho are listening as scary as
it sounds, if you've to start toteach reading from scratch and
I'm not kidding, if you discoverthat your sixth graders reading
at like second or third gradelevel and this is not far
fetched, by the way and goingback to the beginning and going
over some easier books, goingover phonics, going over
spelling rules and stuff, thereis no shame in this.
(26:16):
I highly recommend it becausetheir ability to catch up is
amazing.
Even young adults are able tocatch themselves up on things
where that you know.
You just have to believe inthem and you have to find the
right approach and let them knowthat.
Look, I Mastery is what I careabout.
I care that you're able to dothis.
(26:36):
I couldn't care less that thebook you're reading is an easier
book than you think you'resupposed to be reading.
This is irrelevant.
I want you to be able to do itright and you just keep
repeating that and keeprepeating that and then they,
they start seeing how they'remore competent each day.
That builds their confidence,which then gets them wanting to
do it more and so on.
(26:57):
It's not uncommon for kids tocome out of school and just I'm
not reading, I don't want toread.
They don't read in school, theyskim, and they have audiobooks
read to them.
So you might have to go back tothe beginning, believe it or
not.
My child, my youngest, washomeschooled.
Then her dad and I split whenshe was just, you know, going
(27:18):
into elementary school, excepthomeschooled, like preschools.
Her older siblings were in, youknow, grade school,
homeschooled.
So she was my last child andshe had to go into the
kindergarten.
Things were not going so wellin public school when she
finally, when she came out ofpublic school to be homeschooled
again, initially her dadinsisted on her going in sort of
an online program.
It was still homeschooled, butonline program.
I wasn't the teacher.
(27:39):
She did quite well.
She was getting A's andProgressing pretty quickly.
But she came to me the end oflast year's, the end of ninth
grade.
She came to me and she saidthis is now after three years of
being back homeschooling.
Mom, I know I'm getting A's,but I don't think I know
anything.
I still I feel like I don'tknow a lot and, honestly, you
see, I have an A in math.
(27:59):
I still don't really feelcomfortable with fractions or
percentages and I'm not solidand multiplication and I'm
thinking how are you getting anA in math?
So even in the onlinehomeschool program it was just
like there was still skimmingalong and skimming along.
So this year we went back to thebeginning, and I mean addition.
Now she plowed through thatlike weak, but the point was
(28:23):
let's get things so rock solidyou can do it in your sleep so
that by the time you get to thefractions it's like
boom-boop-boop-boop-boop.
She got to those fractions andshe said you know, this is kind
of fun.
Now I really feel like I get itnow and that's the goal.
It doesn't matter that she's 15years old Now, she's solid and
(28:45):
I have seen progress this yearalone.
Where I'm doing it.
It's no longer a program orwhatever.
We're just working through atthe level where she is Not some
arbitrary grade level and I'mgetting questions.
Like you know, I want to go toan art museum.
I've learned a lot of stuff inhistory this year.
It makes me really curious tosee art from this period of that
period.
Okay, that conversation wouldnot have happened a couple years
(29:06):
ago.
Mr. Webb (29:06):
Right, that's awesome, and it sounds like she has a
great Self-awareness.
For such a young person, that'sawesome.
Deb Fillman (29:13):
Get them out of the school and they develop that on
their own.
It's amazing.
Mr. Webb (29:18):
They have time to think and while we're talking
about math, I'm a middle schoolmath teacher and I see students
that I teach, for instance, 7thgrade math, teach 7th and 8th
grade.
But let's say, having 7th graderin one class, I might have 7th
graders that are on a thirdgrade math level, 4th grade, 5th
(29:39):
grade on up through 7th.
Some of them are on a 8th gradelevel and I've said, for those
folks that are behind,especially in math, they would
be much better off to to be ableto go into a classroom or
whatever setting and Pick upwhere they got off track Exactly
.
But in public schools, as apublic school teacher, you know,
(30:01):
teaching 7th grade, I amsupposed to teach a through z in
the 7th grade content and Ifsomeone is still struggling with
their multiplication facts,it's.
The other concepts are sodifficult and it's hard to get
that student caught back up.
Absolutely so.
But before I forget, we've beentalking a lot about
(30:24):
homeschooling.
Now you haven't reallymentioned this.
But the reason we learn,website Podcasts and YouTube
channel you offer some resourcesfor homeschoolers, am I correct
?
Deb Fillman (30:36):
I do.
What I have is I've created aprivate discord community that
people can join.
It is a membership community.
We it's through a platformcalled woke screen says woke
screen, comm forward, slash thereason we learn, and people can
go in there and they can join.
And in that private discord Ihave a section called resources
(31:01):
and in the resources I have allkinds of Links to curriculum
materials, articles, websites,even you know, preferred
Technical tools, etc.
I also produce twice a week.
I produce videos that areprivate for this community.
One is geared towardshomeschooling and topics that
might concern a homeschoolingfamily and one is just sort of
(31:24):
culture in general so people canunderstand kind of what's going
on in education and in theworld related to families and
children and all the stuff.
And those are privatelyaccessible through that group
for those people as well.
They'll also have access tocommunicate with me and
communicate with each other.
So you know you can get ideasfrom other people that's On on
(31:44):
that side.
And then I created a separateSupport group for parents and
this is this is for parents whoare also in the schools, because
I hear from a lot of parents Isay, well, I'm not ready to
homeschool, I'm not sure, or youknow my kids in eighth grade,
ninth grade, tenth grade, orthey're on the baseball team, or
you know it's.
It's just not in the cards forme.
So I still, I still want tohelp them and I still want to
(32:07):
help their, their kids, get thebest possible Education they can
get.
So I have something called thereason we parent, which is a
community I've created.
It's also through a privatediscord channel, so people don't
have to show their faces andthey can even use a pseudonym.
So it's private.
I don't sell any data oranything more private than
Facebook groups, and there's nojudgment either.
(32:29):
People have access to me onWednesdays at noon for a couple
hours and Sundays at seven thisEastern time, for a couple hours
, where they can again.
You come in, vent, ask foradvice, moral support.
This is going on in the schooland I don't know what to do.
Is it worth going to school orwhat do you think?
I research public schooling tosuch a level I'm not just a
(32:50):
homeschool person I researchpublic school to such a level
that I understand how thesausage is made.
I can make recommendations topeople about what they might
want to do or not want to do,given their unique Situation and
rather than have people try tohire me for an hour at a time
you know, with consulting fees,is anyone?
I'm just to set up a supportgroup.
I can either join for a year,join for month at a time, come
(33:12):
in and get their needs met asthey need it, and it's gonna be
a lot cheaper.
I can help a lot more familiesand we can go about it that way.
The beauty of the discordservers I can share screen, they
can share screen, we can lookat documents.
So if parent came in and said,alright, I got this thing sent
home, it's an assignment, Idon't really understand it, but
I don't think I like it.
They're asking me to sign offon it.
(33:32):
What do you think we can bringthat right up on the screen,
whether it's an image or a link,and I can go through it and do
my Analysis and say, alright,here's what I'm seeing, and give
you some information to make aneducated decision.
So that's that's what I offerto people both in school and
looking to homeschool, so theycan Make these, these tough
(33:53):
decisions.
And I'm not trying to make itsound like Pulling a child out
of school is the easiest thingyou'll ever do, but I will say
it's probably gonna be one ofthe best things you ever do.
Mr. Webb (34:03):
If you can pull it off , I want to switch gears just a
little bit because I wanted tomake sure and ask you about this
.
You posted a video, um, just afew days ago.
So by the time the listeners Iguess here this it'll be a
couple of weeks, couple of weeksold, but what the 2030 agenda
looks like in the classroom, andI'm about 30 or 40 minutes into
(34:26):
that video and, if it's okaywith you, I'm going to put a
link in the show notes thisvideo can you tell the parents
and the teachers that arelistening why they should check
this video out and why it's soimportant?
Deb Fillman (34:41):
Well, I think they should check it out, because
when we go on the internet andwe discuss things like UNESCO
and the world economic forum,Klaus Schwab, and you know, 2030
agenda, First of all, if youdon't know what those things are
, you should.
So you should watch the videobecause you'll get a very quick
primer on what it is and why we,as Americans, who actually
(35:01):
value the constitution and thebill of rights and individual
liberty, Um, why you should knowwhat those things mean, Um.
But then I think we think of it.
As you know, teachers aredawning devil horns and and
capes and you know they'rewalking into the classroom and
doing some sinisterindoctrination ceremony or
whatever, and I don't think theyrealize how benign it looks.
(35:23):
So what I try to do is bysharing the social media uh
feeds of some of the teachers ina school in a specific district
that's very deep into trying toteach the kids the social uh,
uh, the SDG goals, Um, thesustainable development goals,
which are part of the whole UN's2030 agenda.
Is it looks nice, I mean thepicture.
(35:45):
Look at the little kids andthey're coloring and they're
making graphs and they're oh,they're, they're drawing
pictures of their lunch and oh,look, they're doing an invention
project and another projectover here.
So the pictures that you seeand the stories that come home,
you know, in the officialdocumentation from school, look
and sound so benign.
They look and sound so nice.
(36:07):
Where teaching these kids to bethoughtful and caring and and
this and that.
And what I point out in thevideo is look how much time
they're on those Chrome books,they're staring at screens.
They're not really interactingwith each other.
So the video take.
I'm going through andcommenting and pointing out from
an educator's perspective,which you'll understand and
appreciate, the, the, the storybehind the story.
(36:28):
What is the unseen here andwhat does this really represent
in terms of learning?
You know, what is the actuallesson they're learning from
this activity and are theteachers actually teaching or
are they presenting ormonitoring?
And I think parents shouldwatch, because my goal is to
disabuse you of the notion that,first of all, the, the sinister
(36:52):
goals you hear about, will berecognizable instantly because
they'll look bad.
They don't.
They look kind of nice and fun.
Mr. Webb (37:00):
They look harmless yeah.
Deb Fillman (37:01):
They look harmless, right.
And the second thing is for youto awaken that sense of wonder
as far as how do I know they'velearning anything?
How do you know they'relearning anything, you know?
It's kind of like I wonderwhat's actually getting
communicated to my child, and Iwant people to wonder that just
(37:22):
trusting a grade, just trustinga report home, or you know like
your kid is awesome or whatever,is not telling you even a
fraction of the story of whatyour child is actually learning
about themself, about the world,about you.
And so I tried in the video toshow how it is dark a lot darker
, I think, than people imagine,but it looks a lot shinier and
(37:45):
more colorful.
Mr. Webb (37:48):
And to be effective, you know it needs to look good
to make people want to do it, sothat makes sense.
Deb Fillman (37:53):
That's right.
So they're engaged.
Look how much fun they'rehaving.
Mr. Webb (37:57):
Exactly what's the one thing you want the listener to
remember, if they don't rememberanything else about this
episode?
Deb Fillman (38:06):
I want them to remember how how powerful they
are in their child's life truly,and that it's not never too
late to take back your family.
It is up to you.
The Superman is not coming, soif you're worried about your
kids and your education, look inthe mirror.
Mr. Webb (38:28):
That is a great message.
I appreciate that and Iappreciate, appreciate the work
that you do.
Thank you.
As we wrap things up, I alreadymentioned I'm going to put a
link to that video and I'll puta link to your website, but this
is your time to share anyprojects, social media, website,
(38:49):
anything you want to share,plug or promote.
Deb Fillman (38:54):
Well, as I said, I really want to plug and promote
the two communities on thediscord that people can find If
they go to wokescreencom forwardslash the reason we learn.
If, even if you go there, ifyou look in the navigation,
there's a section forcommunities, you'll also see the
reason we parent, even if youdon't think you have a need for
(39:15):
it, if you could share it withother parents.
I'm always adding resources.
It is a private space.
I will never sell your data.
I will never spam you.
It is solely the reason it's amembers only community is partly
to help fund the work I do, butalso to keep things private.
I want the parents who confidedme or come in to get resources
(39:40):
to maintain their family'sprivacy to not feel judged, no
matter what their decision is.
People need help and there'stoo much judgment going around
right now on the part of theschools and the unions, judging
parents and the government too,and I think it can feel
overwhelming.
So if you, if you join eitherof those communities or share
them with other people, thatwould be a great help to me and,
(40:02):
I believe, to other parents,and then subscribe to my YouTube
channel, because I do have alive show each week on Monday
evenings and I'm always puttingout new content, keeping your
breastboats going on, and yoursubscription does also help, so
thank you.
Mr. Webb (40:21):
And I appreciate that.
I will post links for all that.
And, gosh, I appreciate youjoining us today.
It's been a pleasure having you.
You're so welcome and I'velearned so much and I really
encourage folks to check out thevideo and check out the
resources that you offer andthanks for coming on.
I have you back again, I'm sure.
Deb Fillman (40:42):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Mr. Webb (40:46):
That's it for today's episode of The Conservative
Classroom.
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(41:10):
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(41:32):
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Teaching the truth.
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Did you know there's a supportgroup for parents, a private
(00:20):
space to seek out solutionsinstead of online judgment?
Welcome to The ConservativeClassroom, where we're teaching
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(00:42):
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(01:05):
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Together, we can teach thetruth and preserve our values.
(01:26):
In today's episode, we'rethrilled to welcome an
exceptional guest a seasonededucator with over 15 years of
experience in homeschoolteaching and online tutoring.
A seasoned educator with awebsite, a podcast and a YouTube
channel.
Now let's get started.
Today I'm excited to welcome aspecial guest to the
(01:49):
Conservative Classroom, DebFillman, host of The Reason We
Learn podcast and YouTubechannel, former classroom
teacher, homeschool mom andprivate tutor.
Deb, thank you for joining us.
Deb Fillman (02:02):
Thanks for inviting me.
Mr. Webb (02:04):
I appreciate it.
I have followed you on Twittera little bit.
You're pretty active on thereand post a lot of interesting
things.
But to start with, can you tellus a bit about yourself, your
background, what led you togetting out of the traditional
classroom and getting intotutoring and homeschooling?
Deb Fillman (02:25):
Well, believe it or not, I was only in the
classroom for about three years,so that means I left in my
mid-20s.
I didn't set out to become aclassroom teacher when I first
went to college.
I went to Colby College inMaine.
I got a degree in AmericanStudies.
I was big history, nut andliterature and art history.
(02:46):
I just loved all that stuff.
I had it in mind that I mightbe a museum curator or something
like that.
Realized that wasn't really agreat career path, I thought
what else could I do to still beinvolved in learning and
immerse myself in the subjectmatter that I loved?
So I thought I'll be a teacherand, like a lot of young people
(03:06):
going into teaching, I wasfairly naive.
This is early 90s.
I thought I'd make a difference.
I thought I would go in thereand teach kids to read and love
reading and love learning andall the things.
And I very quickly learned thatthe way they were teaching
reading even then was not how Ilearned to read.
I mean, in fairness, I learnedto read when I was like three.
(03:26):
But I mean in other words thesekids were being asked to sort of
memorize words.
It was a very weird way.
And I knew phonics, I knew howto teach with phonics and they
weren't letting me do that.
And every time I tried to teachthe way I thought best for the
kids to actually learn, whichincluded taking my students in
(03:48):
first and second grade who werereading very proficiently, to
the library to pick out morechallenging books and working
closely on phonics with the kidswho weren't doing quite as well
one-on-one.
I'd be jastised Like you'remaking us look bad.
Stop doing that.
This isn't what you're supposedto do.
Use this curriculum, use that.
(04:09):
And I realized I wasn't cut outtemperamentally to have my
teaching directed by committee,you know, sort of.
It felt too reminiscent ofmiddle school mean girls Like
this is the way we do it and wewant you to do it like this and
we that.
And there was something veryhive-mindy about it even then
(04:32):
and I just I can't explain it.
Something kind of snapped in mewhere I said if I can't do what
I think is right for thestudents and I'm having to sort
of toe the line or get with theprogram, and they also made me
join a union which I didn't like, because I'm just
philosophically opposed tounions, I I'm not going to do it
(04:53):
anymore because then I'm doingwrong.
There are certain things youknow in terms of values.
If somebody is saying, you knowyou can't do this very
important thing, well then youshouldn't do it.
And that's.
That was the conclusion I cameto.
And it was really in thatdecision that I also decided
that I would someday be ahomeschooling parent if I ever
(05:14):
had children, because I thought,if I'm, I'm one person.
If there are other teachers outthere who are being told
similar things or being made tofeel like they have to, you know
, get with the program andfollow the herd, then they might
someday have to turn to mychild and, if not, explicitly
say I can't help you or I can'tdo right by you, then just not
(05:35):
do it.
And why would I voluntarilysend my child into that setting.
So it was just a pretty easydecision that that was just
going to be something I neverwas going to do.
And people have said well, youknow, did you think?
Well, I know how to teachbecause I went to graduate
school and I got a master's ineducation and then I knew I
would be able to do it.
It wasn't really that, althoughI suppose that was somewhere in
(05:56):
the back of my mind.
It was more if I'm going to bea mom, then I'm not going to
send my children some placewhere I know it's not Gonna be
right for them.
So that's how I got intohomeschooling and I spent the
rest of my working life in Otherfields.
I worked in HR for a littlewhile doing some training for
(06:17):
adults and computer stuff.
I was pretty good at computers.
I did some marketing thingsbecause once you know how people
learn, you can.
It's it's not that big a shiftto working in sort of
copywriting.
I did information design forweb design in the mid 90s mid to
late 90s when the internet ande-commerce was picking up.
(06:38):
Because again, I understood howpeople learned and moved
through a learning process whichis pretty similar to learning
how to navigate a website.
Mr. Webb (06:46):
So Transferable skills .
Deb Fillman (06:48):
Yeah, it's, it's kind of transferable and you
know.
But that's also a reflection ofmy entire approach to learning
and teaching itself.
It's a you know, why do welearn what?
Why did I call my brand thereason we learn.
It's sort of a play on words.
We have to learn to use reason.
We're born with the capacityfor it, but it's not automatic.
You have to actually learn howto do it.
(07:09):
That's why you'll see somecultures where they don't focus
as much on reason and therearen't any there.
I'm not gonna name names at themoment, but you know there's
some places where they don't doa lot of thinking, where they do
a lot of feeling, and and a lotof that feeling is anger and
rage and you know things don'tgo well.
But you have to learn to useyour capacity for reason.
And also, I wanted to helpparents and others in my
(07:32):
audience Think about why do wedo it?
Why do we educate our childrenand by we I mean individual
families, not we as a society,and you know.
But the way I, my career, hasevolved is sort of a testament
to what an individual is capableof in terms of reinvention,
(07:52):
learning new skills,adaptability, all those things
when you had a good foundationreading proficiency, math, you
know, numeracy, culturalliteracy, vocabulary all the
basics right.
When things didn't work out formy teaching career, I didn't
panic.
It wasn't like, oh my god, Ican't do anything else.
(08:14):
I just thought, well, what canI do?
Who needs these things?
Let's go figure it out.
And I knew how to figure it out,and so I thought that was the
point of education for everybody.
I thought the point ofeducation was to learn how to
live life on planet earth andhave what you needed so you
wouldn't be dependent ongovernment that's like supposed
(08:37):
to be the quote-unquote safetynet.
And I just thought that wascommon sense and came up, and
you know, out of college andthen graduate school, into a
world that had other plans, itseemed.
I started looking around in theolder I got, the more
encountered people who looked atme like I had, you know, three
heads when I would suggest thatmaybe we needed our students to
(08:58):
be independent, to be functionalon their own.
And as the years have gone by,as you've seen in recent years,
that's even more aberrant.
You'd say that to people aren'twe educating individuals?
And they look at you like what?
No, we're educating identities,we're educating groups of
people.
Mr. Webb (09:17):
Yeah, there's a lot that's changed over the years
and and students should belearning skills that they will
use, you know, in real life.
And I'll even go so far as tosay, and this is definitely Not
popular with an education, notpopular teachers, and you may
disagree on me, disagree with meon this, but some students that
(09:42):
are going to work with theirhands and they're going to to be
farmers or they don't need,they might not need, you know, a
Degree.
Well, they definitely don'tneed a degree, but they may not
even need to go through all 12,13 years of school.
Deb Fillman (10:03):
Well, I would argue that people will.
Mr. Webb (10:05):
I'm sorry, I was gonna say used to, you know, folks
would drop out and they would goraise large families and be
happy, and Now it seems we'vepushed, we've pushed, we pushed
and it's unattainable for somefolks.
I'm sorry, go ahead.
Deb Fillman (10:22):
Well, I was going to say not only do I agree with
you, but I'm Sort of on apersonal crusade to Abolish
schooling as we know it.
I mean, I'm a government schoolabolitionist.
I think having the governmentinvolved at all is
unconstitutional and andviolates the fan, the sanctity
of the family and the and theRights of the parents from the
(10:45):
get-go because it's compulsory.
So I I just don't think thegovernment has any, any
Legitimate role to play in that.
The only legitimate role willbe a rights respecting one,
which means if a child's rightsare being violated by their
parents and they're beingactively denied Access to any
form of educational and so theirparents are just putting them
to hard labor at the age of fiveor something you know what I
(11:05):
mean and they aren't.
You know it would be the sameas the kid, the parents
depriving them of nutrition.
Then I might say, all right, weneed to have a chat, right, but
that's protecting the child andprotecting that, that
individual.
But no, I don't think thegovernment should be deciding
what we learn, how long we learn, where, what building we go to,
who the teachers are Going tobe.
(11:26):
That is such a conflict ofinterest that I can't believe
that people have accepted it atthe very beginning.
When it was first proposed,parents opposed it.
The majority parents opposed itover 150 years ago.
It didn't catch on in all thestates.
Well, it didn't becomemandatory in all the states
until it'd been mandatory inmany of the states.
So they were like dominoes thatthey fell and some of the last
(11:48):
holdouts had to be taken atgunpoint.
Their kids had to be taken fromthem.
So it used to be that Americansknew this is wait a minute,
we're Americans.
The state doesn't come to thedoor and take our kids and take
them off to a governmentfacility and force them To.
You know, listen to governmenthired employees.
But now we take it as this ismy entitlement, and so I agree
(12:10):
with you.
Not only has the school daygotten longer, because it used
to be just, you know, a fewhours day, but also the amount
of school years got longer overthe years to now.
It's practically cradle to tocollege and they want to bring
in universal preschool and takethe kids away from their homes
altogether and and I think thisis very bad for all of us it's
(12:35):
certainly destroying our liberty.
It destroys families.
The family unit is so damaged.
Now they're actively trying tointerfere with family structure
and family integrity by turningchildren against their parents.
So I agree, I think.
But it's not so much aboutwhether some kids are gonna work
with their hands or not.
(12:55):
It just should be up toindividual Parents, families,
students, etc.
To pursue their education fromthe beginning as they, you know,
see fit.
Now I will.
I will say I'm biased and that Ido believe every child I don't
care what your future goalsmight be every child should be
(13:16):
Literate, and I mean proficient.
Okay, so not just I can readthe newspaper or magazine, but
really be able to read, evenlike classic literature.
And the reason I say that isthat even if you're going to be
a farmer or you're going to be,you know, work with your hands,
a mechanic or something likethat, the complexity of the
ideas that you can consider andweigh and, you know, evaluate is
(13:38):
only as big as your vocabulary.
So, even if you're a farmer,someday some politician steps up
and says we have a policy andwe want to sell it to you that
we're gonna do, do, do, do, do,do, if that person can spin a
yarn or use words that you don'tnecessarily understand or speak
about Concepts that you'venever really considered because
you hadn't, you know, you didn'thave the chance to immerse
(14:00):
yourself in language and turnsof phrase and rhetoric and so
forth and think through things.
They could put one over on youand I don't want that to happen
to anyone.
What, whatever path you choosein your life, you should still
have the level of sophisticationin your thinking that somebody
who is more quote credentialed,you know, can't come along and
take advantage of you, and thatis a concern that I have.
(14:21):
So I think they all need tohave Reading proficiency,
numeracy again, tax policy,economic policy, any kind of
thing that somebody wants tocome in and say I'm gonna help
you with these farm subsidiesand I'm gonna do that.
It's when you understandeconomics and you understand
math, you know you can turn tothe person.
That's not very big help.
How about you go away?
Okay, and so I think, but I dobelieve, I know for a fact that
(14:47):
can happen in Less than 13 years.
You do not need to go to schoolfor 13 years to learn the math.
You'll need to know the basicunderstanding of the history of
Western civilization, thevocabulary you need to know.
You could probably accomplishthat by the time a child is,
let's say, 13, 14 years old.
If you did it right, you couldabsolutely do that, and it still
(15:10):
wouldn't be eight hours a day.
You could get it done in abouttwo to three Maximum a day, and
that leaves plenty of time forthe kid to run around outside,
get fresh air, exercise, learnother hands kind of skills,
learn how to fix that car, learnhow to cook, learn how to sell,
learn how to grow vegetables.
There are a million things youcan learn how to do in all the
hours that they're wasting inthe school building, and Then
(15:32):
you are fully rounded,self-sufficient human being who
can't have their so-calledbetters.
Put one over on them.
Mr. Webb (15:41):
I've talked to a lot of home schoolers.
You tell me that their kids cando in just a few hours kind of
what you mentioned, what thefolks in the public schools,
what it takes them a week to doin the structured setting when
you're in a classroom with 29other students and at different
levels, so they can.
(16:02):
They can complete in just a fewhours what it takes their peers
a week to do.
And then in the remaining timethey actually learn life skills,
they go out and volunteer orthey, they, they work on
projects, they build things.
Deb Fillman (16:18):
Absolutely that that is so true.
So much of what gets done inschool is hurry up and wait a
lot of wasted time kids Are.
We were asking our children tospend their precious childhood
Waiting on other people, oftenadults, to do things that have
no bearing on their reality, andthe impact on them
psychologically is profound.
(16:39):
The actual lesson, if read JohnTaylor Gatto's books, the
actual lesson they learn is thatI don't really have a say.
My job in life is to just kindof be compliant, put up with it,
etc.
And there will always be thosekids who won't or can't do that.
And it manifests in a coupledifferent ways.
In one one way is to act out,and they might be, they might
(17:03):
misbehave or be unruly or just,you know, class clown or
something.
So they acting out, and othertimes they act in meaning, they
turn it in on themselves, theyget anxious, they get apathetic,
they get nihilistic,self-harming behaviors.
When you feel like your lifeyou're spending the hours of
your days of your life in a kindof holding pattern or Prison,
(17:28):
if you will.
Where are you?
Just you just have to put upwith it.
That is not a way to getexcited about the world.
That is not a positive thingfor a human beings development.
And yet they'll talk to usabout social and emotional
learning and all these thingslike what are the social
emotional skills you're teaching?
Compliance, a kind of patience.
That isn't really patience, isjust sort of a complacency, and
(17:53):
I'm not at all surprised that somany people took lockdowns as
an example as well.
I guess we just got to go alongwith it because they spent all
their time they grew up in theseschools.
That's what they, that's thelesson they learned.
People in power tell me to dothings.
I do them.
Mr. Webb (18:08):
Right.
Deb Fillman (18:10):
And we don't need to be doing that.
We're going to lose our freedomif we keep, if we keep raising
our kids that way.
But I do want to say, too, thatwhat you're talking about with
homeschoolers and the thingsthat they're able to do and so
on, what is not discussed oftenenough is that there's no
schedule specific to homeschool.
(18:32):
It can be whatever you want itto be, but the most important
thing is rhythm, and what I meanby that is that each family can
educate their children fortheir supposed school years, or
school age years, the same waythey would with their babies and
their toddlers.
It follows the rhythm of theparents.
It follows the rhythm of theirworking life, the way they want
(18:53):
to live their life.
You know what time they want towake up in the morning, go to
bed at night, how the marriedcouple interacts with each other
.
There are so many benefits tothe family unit of homeschooling
that don't get discussed enough.
We tend to focus on comparingand contrasting with school and
looking at it as how much schoolwork did you get done?
Or how many you know?
(19:14):
How much exercise did you get?
Instead of thinking about, youhave a family that just
continues to function like afamily throughout the child's
life.
And that means, if it's mostconducive to the family's rhythm
, that you're sitting andreading with them at 6 pm after
you get done with your job andduring the day, Instead, the
child was doing a lot of artworkor doing crafts or running
(19:34):
around outside and you know, orplaying with their siblings or
helping around the house.
Then that's what that lookslike.
If it works better very earlyin the morning because you have
a shift at work or something.
It's with that rhythm.
But wait is now.
Parents have to.
Parents are also complying.
Oh, I got to drop the kid offat school, I got to get in the
(19:54):
car, pull the line, got to getthe bus.
The whole family is operatingon the government schedule for
at least nine months out of theyear.
And then even your summer isaround.
When the government says youcan have summer, you know like
when they say you is your summerbreak, when is your vacation in
the spring?
This is all being dictated bypeople outside your family.
(20:16):
That right there createstension between married couples,
between the parents and thechildren.
So many points of tension thatsimply go away because you as a
family, you know the parents sitdown and decide how do we want
this to go, and it's entirely upto you.
Mr. Webb (20:38):
See, I hadn't even thought about those aspects of
it.
We're just, we're so used to itbecause it's normal, because we
have been raised and brought upin the school system and that's
just the way it's done.
And I would say that if aparent didn't send their kids to
public school and just startedhomeschooling them whenever they
(21:00):
wanted to, that it would bemore in a rhythm, whereas
parents that maybe wait untiltheir kid is in middle school or
, you know, maybe even highschool, then they're used to
sending their kids to school andthey have in their mind I would
think, okay, we need to schoolfrom this hour to this hour, so
(21:23):
we will work on math for thefirst hour.
And it's not such.
It doesn't flow so well.
Deb Fillman (21:31):
Well, that's a mistake.
I mean, and I would tell peoplethat first of all, if you have
to pull a child out of school tohomeschool them or decide to,
the first thing you need to dois de-school them and de-school
yourself.
You have to detox from thatschedule mindset and let your
child feel what it feels like tohave some agency.
And that doesn't mean they getto run wild and do whatever they
(21:54):
want or that you just ignorethem.
That means you come up with alist of sort of approved kinds
of activities that they can dothat are not necessarily
academic Okay, they can be.
If the kid says I want to read10 books, okay, fine.
But or I want to do a mathworkbook.
But it's more to get out of thehabit of I'm on a school
schedule and just decompress,detox, get out of that, learn to
(22:19):
not be on tech all day, becausein school they're on tech all
day.
So a lot of times parents willsay to me well, you know, if
they come home and word will beon tech all day, I'm like, well,
they're on tech all day atschool, so you know, but you
bring them home, you're actuallygoing to have the opportunity
to detox them from the tech.
You might find, like, if youhave a child who does like to be
(22:40):
busy with their hands or buildthings or do things, that can be
part of their de-schooling hey,you've said you've always
wanted to help learn how to workon dad's car or track whatever.
You've said You've alwayswanted to get whatever.
If the kid is old enough towork, like 15 or older, they can
get a job during de-schoolingtime and the fact that they're
not actively doing an academicclass is not a problem.
(23:02):
Let them go earn some money forall and be in the real world
and look how fast theircuriosity peaks.
I'm like all right, I think ifthere's some stuff I need to
learn, okay, so I recommend topeople I don't recommend.
I tell them this is a must do.
If you're pulling your child outand they're above fifth grade,
your first task is to de-school.
Now, while they're de-schoolingand doing things like you're
(23:24):
allowed to read books, go playoutside, ride your bike, build
something, paint something or doart or help around the house.
These are like the approvedactivities and you have to check
off all these boxes of thingsthat you've done in that day
before you can ever touch tech.
But I'm not assigning youhomework, it's just these are
the activities you can engage infreely.
Then you do that and some arguethat you need a month of it for
(23:47):
every year the kid's been inschool, and I think that's
probably a bit excessive.
But I'd say at least a month ofthis.
And during that month theparents task is to build
community.
What does that look like?
Well, before, your communitywas organized around school,
probably.
So now what you have to do isget acquainted with your local
home school community.
Get on to you know whether it'sFacebook, check if there's
groups.
(24:07):
Go through HSLDA, the HomeSchool Legal Defense Association
.
See if they have some localgroups in your area.
Even look at things like yourlocal Y or you know church.
Sometimes a lot of churcheshave groups.
Synagogues have groups.
See what they've got going onfor homeschool.
If you have a museum in yourarea, see if there are
homeschool related activities orprograms.
Here in Charlotte, northCarolina, or Discovery Place has
(24:29):
a whole homeschool set ofcourses.
So until you look you don'treally realize what's out there.
So then you find what feelsright to me and my family as far
as community.
You don't need hundreds ofpeople using maybe like a couple
of families that you canconnect with and start to find
some activities you can go bepart of and get to know them.
And then, only then, can you sitdown and start to think about
(24:52):
academics.
And even then your first taskis I have to know what my kid
knows already.
So you have to get a grademindset.
Let's say you pulled your childout of what was sixth grade at
school.
That that is nothing to do withreality right now.
Now you have to assess whatdoes my child actually know in
math?
What does my child actuallyknow about reading and
(25:13):
vocabulary and so on?
And there are ways to do that.
There are many online mathprograms that have little
placement tests.
You can have your child sittingto do this, you know.
Work your way up till you startgetting things wrong.
Let's see where you really are,and the de-schooling time helps
the child break out of thisnotion that I'm behind or I'm
ahead or whatever.
(25:34):
It's not about behind or aheadcompared to whom.
The goal is that your childdoesn't launch from your home at
18, not knowing how to read.
So if you try to force theminto what's quote unquote sixth
grade reading and really theywere pretty far behind in the
school definition and you needto start at the beginning.
Then you need to start at thebeginning.
(25:54):
Here's the good news to parentswho are listening as scary as
it sounds, if you've to start toteach reading from scratch and
I'm not kidding, if you discoverthat your sixth graders reading
at like second or third gradelevel and this is not far
fetched, by the way and goingback to the beginning and going
over some easier books, goingover phonics, going over
spelling rules and stuff, thereis no shame in this.
(26:16):
I highly recommend it becausetheir ability to catch up is
amazing.
Even young adults are able tocatch themselves up on things
where that you know.
You just have to believe inthem and you have to find the
right approach and let them knowthat.
Look, I Mastery is what I careabout.
I care that you're able to dothis.
(26:36):
I couldn't care less that thebook you're reading is an easier
book than you think you'resupposed to be reading.
This is irrelevant.
I want you to be able to do itright and you just keep
repeating that and keeprepeating that and then they,
they start seeing how they'remore competent each day.
That builds their confidence,which then gets them wanting to
do it more and so on.
(26:57):
It's not uncommon for kids tocome out of school and just I'm
not reading, I don't want toread.
They don't read in school, theyskim, and they have audiobooks
read to them.
So you might have to go back tothe beginning, believe it or
not.
My child, my youngest, washomeschooled.
Then her dad and I split whenshe was just, you know, going
(27:18):
into elementary school, excepthomeschooled, like preschools.
Her older siblings were in, youknow, grade school,
homeschooled.
So she was my last child andshe had to go into the
kindergarten.
Things were not going so wellin public school when she
finally, when she came out ofpublic school to be homeschooled
again, initially her dadinsisted on her going in sort of
an online program.
It was still homeschooled, butonline program.
I wasn't the teacher.
(27:39):
She did quite well.
She was getting A's andProgressing pretty quickly.
But she came to me the end oflast year's, the end of ninth
grade.
She came to me and she saidthis is now after three years of
being back homeschooling.
Mom, I know I'm getting A's,but I don't think I know
anything.
I still I feel like I don'tknow a lot and, honestly, you
see, I have an A in math.
(27:59):
I still don't really feelcomfortable with fractions or
percentages and I'm not solidand multiplication and I'm
thinking how are you getting anA in math?
So even in the onlinehomeschool program it was just
like there was still skimmingalong and skimming along.
So this year we went back to thebeginning, and I mean addition.
Now she plowed through thatlike weak, but the point was
(28:23):
let's get things so rock solidyou can do it in your sleep so
that by the time you get to thefractions it's like
boom-boop-boop-boop-boop.
She got to those fractions andshe said you know, this is kind
of fun.
Now I really feel like I get itnow and that's the goal.
It doesn't matter that she's 15years old Now, she's solid and
(28:45):
I have seen progress this yearalone.
Where I'm doing it.
It's no longer a program orwhatever.
We're just working through atthe level where she is Not some
arbitrary grade level and I'mgetting questions.
Like you know, I want to go toan art museum.
I've learned a lot of stuff inhistory this year.
It makes me really curious tosee art from this period of that
period.
Okay, that conversation wouldnot have happened a couple years
(29:06):
ago.
Mr. Webb (29:06):
Right, that's awesome, and it sounds like she has a
great Self-awareness.
For such a young person, that'sawesome.
Deb Fillman (29:13):
Get them out of the school and they develop that on
their own.
It's amazing.
Mr. Webb (29:18):
They have time to think and while we're talking
about math, I'm a middle schoolmath teacher and I see students
that I teach, for instance, 7thgrade math, teach 7th and 8th
grade.
But let's say, having 7th graderin one class, I might have 7th
graders that are on a thirdgrade math level, 4th grade, 5th
(29:39):
grade on up through 7th.
Some of them are on a 8th gradelevel and I've said, for those
folks that are behind,especially in math, they would
be much better off to to be ableto go into a classroom or
whatever setting and Pick upwhere they got off track Exactly
.
But in public schools, as apublic school teacher, you know,
(30:01):
teaching 7th grade, I amsupposed to teach a through z in
the 7th grade content and Ifsomeone is still struggling with
their multiplication facts,it's.
The other concepts are sodifficult and it's hard to get
that student caught back up.
Absolutely so.
But before I forget, we've beentalking a lot about
(30:24):
homeschooling.
Now you haven't reallymentioned this.
But the reason we learn,website Podcasts and YouTube
channel you offer some resourcesfor homeschoolers, am I correct
?
Deb Fillman (30:36):
I do.
What I have is I've created aprivate discord community that
people can join.
It is a membership community.
We it's through a platformcalled woke screen says woke
screen, comm forward, slash thereason we learn, and people can
go in there and they can join.
And in that private discord Ihave a section called resources
(31:01):
and in the resources I have allkinds of Links to curriculum
materials, articles, websites,even you know, preferred
Technical tools, etc.
I also produce twice a week.
I produce videos that areprivate for this community.
One is geared towardshomeschooling and topics that
might concern a homeschoolingfamily and one is just sort of
(31:24):
culture in general so people canunderstand kind of what's going
on in education and in theworld related to families and
children and all the stuff.
And those are privatelyaccessible through that group
for those people as well.
They'll also have access tocommunicate with me and
communicate with each other.
So you know you can get ideasfrom other people that's On on
(31:44):
that side.
And then I created a separateSupport group for parents and
this is this is for parents whoare also in the schools, because
I hear from a lot of parents Isay, well, I'm not ready to
homeschool, I'm not sure, or youknow my kids in eighth grade,
ninth grade, tenth grade, orthey're on the baseball team, or
you know it's.
It's just not in the cards forme.
So I still, I still want tohelp them and I still want to
(32:07):
help their, their kids, get thebest possible Education they can
get.
So I have something called thereason we parent, which is a
community I've created.
It's also through a privatediscord channel, so people don't
have to show their faces andthey can even use a pseudonym.
So it's private.
I don't sell any data oranything more private than
Facebook groups, and there's nojudgment either.
(32:29):
People have access to me onWednesdays at noon for a couple
hours and Sundays at seven thisEastern time, for a couple hours
, where they can again.
You come in, vent, ask foradvice, moral support.
This is going on in the schooland I don't know what to do.
Is it worth going to school orwhat do you think?
I research public schooling tosuch a level I'm not just a
(32:50):
homeschool person I researchpublic school to such a level
that I understand how thesausage is made.
I can make recommendations topeople about what they might
want to do or not want to do,given their unique Situation and
rather than have people try tohire me for an hour at a time
you know, with consulting fees,is anyone?
I'm just to set up a supportgroup.
I can either join for a year,join for month at a time, come
(33:12):
in and get their needs met asthey need it, and it's gonna be
a lot cheaper.
I can help a lot more familiesand we can go about it that way.
The beauty of the discordservers I can share screen, they
can share screen, we can lookat documents.
So if parent came in and said,alright, I got this thing sent
home, it's an assignment, Idon't really understand it, but
I don't think I like it.
They're asking me to sign offon it.
(33:32):
What do you think we can bringthat right up on the screen,
whether it's an image or a link,and I can go through it and do
my Analysis and say, alright,here's what I'm seeing, and give
you some information to make aneducated decision.
So that's that's what I offerto people both in school and
looking to homeschool, so theycan Make these, these tough
(33:53):
decisions.
And I'm not trying to make itsound like Pulling a child out
of school is the easiest thingyou'll ever do, but I will say
it's probably gonna be one ofthe best things you ever do.
Mr. Webb (34:03):
If you can pull it off , I want to switch gears just a
little bit because I wanted tomake sure and ask you about this
.
You posted a video, um, just afew days ago.
So by the time the listeners Iguess here this it'll be a
couple of weeks, couple of weeksold, but what the 2030 agenda
looks like in the classroom, andI'm about 30 or 40 minutes into
(34:26):
that video and, if it's okaywith you, I'm going to put a
link in the show notes thisvideo can you tell the parents
and the teachers that arelistening why they should check
this video out and why it's soimportant?
Deb Fillman (34:41):
Well, I think they should check it out, because
when we go on the internet andwe discuss things like UNESCO
and the world economic forum,Klaus Schwab, and you know, 2030
agenda, First of all, if youdon't know what those things are
, you should.
So you should watch the videobecause you'll get a very quick
primer on what it is and why we,as Americans, who actually
(35:01):
value the constitution and thebill of rights and individual
liberty, Um, why you should knowwhat those things mean, Um.
But then I think we think of it.
As you know, teachers aredawning devil horns and and
capes and you know they'rewalking into the classroom and
doing some sinisterindoctrination ceremony or
whatever, and I don't think theyrealize how benign it looks.
(35:23):
So what I try to do is bysharing the social media uh
feeds of some of the teachers ina school in a specific district
that's very deep into trying toteach the kids the social uh,
uh, the SDG goals, Um, thesustainable development goals,
which are part of the whole UN's2030 agenda.
Is it looks nice, I mean thepicture.
(35:45):
Look at the little kids andthey're coloring and they're
making graphs and they're oh,they're, they're drawing
pictures of their lunch and oh,look, they're doing an invention
project and another projectover here.
So the pictures that you seeand the stories that come home,
you know, in the officialdocumentation from school, look
and sound so benign.
They look and sound so nice.
(36:07):
Where teaching these kids to bethoughtful and caring and and
this and that.
And what I point out in thevideo is look how much time
they're on those Chrome books,they're staring at screens.
They're not really interactingwith each other.
So the video take.
I'm going through andcommenting and pointing out from
an educator's perspective,which you'll understand and
appreciate, the, the, the storybehind the story.
(36:28):
What is the unseen here andwhat does this really represent
in terms of learning?
You know, what is the actuallesson they're learning from
this activity and are theteachers actually teaching or
are they presenting ormonitoring?
And I think parents shouldwatch, because my goal is to
disabuse you of the notion that,first of all, the, the sinister
(36:52):
goals you hear about, will berecognizable instantly because
they'll look bad.
They don't.
They look kind of nice and fun.
Mr. Webb (37:00):
They look harmless yeah.
Deb Fillman (37:01):
They look harmless, right.
And the second thing is for youto awaken that sense of wonder
as far as how do I know they'velearning anything?
How do you know they'relearning anything, you know?
It's kind of like I wonderwhat's actually getting
communicated to my child, and Iwant people to wonder that just
(37:22):
trusting a grade, just trustinga report home, or you know like
your kid is awesome or whatever,is not telling you even a
fraction of the story of whatyour child is actually learning
about themself, about the world,about you.
And so I tried in the video toshow how it is dark a lot darker
, I think, than people imagine,but it looks a lot shinier and
(37:45):
more colorful.
Mr. Webb (37:48):
And to be effective, you know it needs to look good
to make people want to do it, sothat makes sense.
Deb Fillman (37:53):
That's right.
So they're engaged.
Look how much fun they'rehaving.
Mr. Webb (37:57):
Exactly what's the one thing you want the listener to
remember, if they don't rememberanything else about this
episode?
Deb Fillman (38:06):
I want them to remember how how powerful they
are in their child's life truly,and that it's not never too
late to take back your family.
It is up to you.
The Superman is not coming, soif you're worried about your
kids and your education, look inthe mirror.
Mr. Webb (38:28):
That is a great message.
I appreciate that and Iappreciate, appreciate the work
that you do.
Thank you.
As we wrap things up, I alreadymentioned I'm going to put a
link to that video and I'll puta link to your website, but this
is your time to share anyprojects, social media, website,
(38:49):
anything you want to share,plug or promote.
Deb Fillman (38:54):
Well, as I said, I really want to plug and promote
the two communities on thediscord that people can find If
they go to wokescreencom forwardslash the reason we learn.
If, even if you go there, ifyou look in the navigation,
there's a section forcommunities, you'll also see the
reason we parent, even if youdon't think you have a need for
(39:15):
it, if you could share it withother parents.
I'm always adding resources.
It is a private space.
I will never sell your data.
I will never spam you.
It is solely the reason it's amembers only community is partly
to help fund the work I do, butalso to keep things private.
I want the parents who confidedme or come in to get resources
(39:40):
to maintain their family'sprivacy to not feel judged, no
matter what their decision is.
People need help and there'stoo much judgment going around
right now on the part of theschools and the unions, judging
parents and the government too,and I think it can feel
overwhelming.
So if you, if you join eitherof those communities or share
them with other people, thatwould be a great help to me and,
(40:02):
I believe, to other parents,and then subscribe to my YouTube
channel, because I do have alive show each week on Monday
evenings and I'm always puttingout new content, keeping your
breastboats going on, and yoursubscription does also help, so
thank you.
Mr. Webb (40:21):
And I appreciate that.
I will post links for all that.
And, gosh, I appreciate youjoining us today.
It's been a pleasure having you.
You're so welcome and I'velearned so much and I really
encourage folks to check out thevideo and check out the
resources that you offer andthanks for coming on.
I have you back again, I'm sure.
Deb Fillman (40:42):
Thank you, Thank you so much.
Mr. Webb (40:46):
That's it for today's episode of The Conservative
Classroom.
Thank you for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed it andlearned something.
If you liked what you heard,please don't forget to subscribe
and leave us a review on yourfavorite podcast platform.
Most importantly, share thispodcast with a like-minded
educator, parent or patriot.
You can also connect with us onsocial media and share your
(41:10):
thoughts on today's topic.
Give feedback on the podcast orsuggest a topic by sending me
an email atTheConservativeClassroom@gmail.
com.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you feel that educationwithout indoctrination and
teaching the truth is importantto preserve traditional values,
(41:32):
then support my efforts to keepthe conservative classroom
running.
I'm a full-time teacher and dadand part-time podcaster.
I invest a lot of hours and myown hard-earned money each week
to bring you quality content,but I need your help.
Check out the links in the shownotes and on the website to
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(41:55):
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You can also visit our merchstore to get your own clothing,
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(42:15):
banning books.
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If you want to support commonsense and education without
pushing your politics, check outour products with the Red
Schoolhouse logo on it.
We know it's hard to be openlyconservative in some school
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(42:36):
other conservatives in yourcommunity and it lets you know
that you're doing the rightthing.
Until next time.
This is, Mr.
Webb, reminding you that youare not alone.
See you next time on TheConservative Classroom.
Teaching the truth.
Preserving our values.
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