#162 Dr. Peter Gray: What Schools Get Wrong About Learning

What if the biggest problem with education isn’t your child… but the school system itself?

In this episode of the Homeschool How To Podcast, Cheryl sits down with Dr. Peter Gray, author of Free to Learn, to talk about what schools get fundamentally wrong about how children actually learn.

They discuss the hidden history of schooling, why shame and obedience are still built into the system, how kids learn to read and do math when they’re actually ready, and why self-directed learning may be far more effective than most parents have been led to believe.

If you’ve ever wondered whether your child is really “behind,” whether school is preparing kids for life, or whether there’s a better way to learn, this conversation will challenge the way you think about education.

In this episode, we discuss:

•  what schools were originally designed to do 
•  why forced learning often backfires 
•  reading without a rigid timeline 
•  math anxiety and real-life math 
•  why motivation changes everything 
•  how children learn when they’re trusted 

About Dr. Peter Gray:
Dr. Peter Gray is a research professor, psychologist, and author of Free to Learn. His work focuses on self-directed education, play, and the ways modern schooling conflicts with children’s natural development.

Resources mentioned:

• Free to Learn by Dr. Peter Gray 
• Dr. Gray's website: https://www.petergray.org/
• Check out Dr. Gray's Substack
• Cheryl’s eBook- The Homeschool How To: Complete Starter Guide

If this episode encouraged you, be sure to follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a parent who needs to hear this.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:02):
I didn't plan to homeschool.
I started asking hard questions,but realized how little control
parents actually have, and madethe hard decision to leave a
government job to homeschool mykids.
Now I interview otherhomeschooling parents to learn
how this all works.
I'm Cheryl, and this is theHomeschool How-To podcast.
Let's learn this together.

(00:24):
Welcome and with us today, Ihave the pleasure of having Dr.
Peter Gray with me.
Peter, thank you so much forbeing here.

SPEAKER_00 (00:31):
Thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
This is such an honor because your book, Free to
Learn, specifically, is one thatwas given to me when I first was
starting to think abouthomeschooling.
And I now have it in my freeguide to like what you need to
do in your first 30 days ofhomeschooling, which actually
involves no curriculum at all,as I'm sure you'll get into with
us.
But it's part of thisdeschooling process I talk to

(00:55):
people about is like we have tochange our thinking about what
education is supposed to looklike and give ourselves the
permission to really let ourkids be kids and understand that
they are learning in thatprocess.
So I'd like to start out byasking you first, what do you
think the school system isgetting wrong today?
And is it just today or has itbeen this way the whole time and

(01:16):
we never knew?

SPEAKER_00 (01:17):
So that's a big question.
I think that my answer to thatquestion is that the school
system is fundamentally wrongabout how children learn and
become educated.
It's been wrong from thebeginning.
And in fact, uh, in in my book,Free to Learn, I talk a little
bit about the history ofschooling.

(01:37):
When schools started, there wasno actual pretense that this was
for education, broadly speaking.
The first sort of mass schoolingcame out of the Protestant
Reformation.
The one purpose that was kind ofrelated to what we think of as
schooling today was thateverybody should be able to
read, because uh theProtestants, unlike the

(02:00):
Catholics, believed that peopleneed to get the Word of God
directly from the Bible ratherthan indirectly through a
hierarchical chain.
So the Protestants developedschools.
You know, way back in the 18th,even in the 17th century,
developed schools and in manycommunities, children were

(02:20):
required to go to those schools.
But the purpose of the schools,aside from teaching reading, was
very limited.
It was to teach the Bible, toindoctrinate children in the
Bible, and to teach obedience.
So the schools that were set upthen, if you trace the history
of schooling, it's a direct linefrom those schools to the

(02:43):
schools we have today.
It's not that anybody stoppeddoing it that way.
It just evolved.
The Protestant schools weretaken over by states, they
became public schools, but themethod was the same.
And the method was designed toteach, to indoctrinate and teach
obedience.
That's what it was designed for.

(03:04):
And it was pretty good at that.
The way you indoctrinate is yourepeat something to people and
make them repeat it back.
And that's kind of the way ourschools work.
You know, you're told what thelesson is and then you have to
recite it back, and then thatmeans you've learned it, right?
It doesn't necessarily involveany real thinking.
And the idea is indoctrinationis if you get people to do that

(03:28):
enough, then they begin tobelieve whatever it is that
you're getting them to say.
And obedience training was maybethe real large purpose of it.
The Protestants at that timebelieved that we are all born in
sin, that children are natural,sinful, naturally sinful, that
play is the work of the devil.

(03:50):
Uh you look at the writing andit's very clear.
This they say this explicitly.
The the early church leaders whowrote manuals for for
schoolmasters to follow werevery clear.
In my book, I quote one of themwho says, you know, if your
primary job, he says, is toteach obedience, to beat the

(04:10):
willfulness out of children.
And of course, in the earlydays, beating was taken
literally with a s with a, youknow, with a cane.
Their children were caned.
Not j not just for misbehavior.
They were caned if they didn'tlearn their lessons.
They were so that the point wasto teach people, teach children
to be subservient to theschoolmaster, and that was

(04:32):
largely also meant to teach themto be obedient to their own
father, to be obedient to theleaders, to be disobedient
ultimately to God in their view.
We are meant to be sheep,followers, and that's what
school was set up for.
Well, this reached its highlightin in the Prussian in the German

(04:54):
state of Prussia.
And then in Prussia, as thechurch began to decline in
influence and the and you beganto have a national government,
the government began to take itover.
In the United States, you have asimilar thing.
In the colonial days of America,you had Protestant schools, and
in many communities, childrenwere required to go to those

(05:16):
schools.
It wasn't as long a time asschool today, so in that sense
it was better.
But uh but they were the thereader that children learned
from was called the Little Bibleof New England, the schools in
in New England.
It was all, you know, littlereligious ditties like in about

(05:37):
how, you know, if you if youdisobey your father, you'll go
to hell.
You know, I mean literally thoseare the messages that are being
taught in those schools at thattime.
And there are records writtenabout those schools in in
colonial times about childrenbeing regularly beaten for now.
So ultimately, though, however,as religions declined in

(06:01):
authority and as we became lessand less uniformly Protestant,
the state took over schools.
And but it didn't change howschooling is done.
It changed the curriculum.
So now it it became not aboutthe Bible, it became more about
initially more about nationalpride, more about, you know, the

(06:22):
the doctrine now became whereverwhatever country you lived in,
the doctrine of the schools inthat country were that this is
the most wonderful country on onearth.
These are our leaders are thegreatest people on earth, our
the race of people living hereare the greatest race of people
on earth, and so on and soforth.
Sometimes rather explicitlyearly on, and became more

(06:44):
implicit as time as time wenton.
Now we don't have those narrowcurriculum, we have a broader
curriculum now.
We believe we see school as theplace for children to learn all
the things supposedly that theyneed to know.
Of course, of course, for thatwe've really still got a very
wrong curriculum, but that'skind of the goal.
And but the method is the same.

(07:05):
We don't beat children withsticks anymore.
There are actually still somesome school districts in the
United States where hittingchildren is legal in the school,
sadly to say.
But generally speaking, that'sbeen that you know that's very
uncommon in most schools and andnot and outlawed in most
schools.

(07:25):
But we punish them in a way thatit's arguable whether this is
any better than beating themwith a stick.
We shame them.
We're constantly comparingchildren with other children.
We're constantly letting themknow, are you better or worse?
Are you failing?
Are you we're we are makingchildren feel uh high pressure

(07:48):
because they are so afraid offeeling ashamed if they don't
score up to what is expected ofthem.
And for some children, that's anA.
Anything less than an A is afailure.
It's to be ashamed about.
For other children, it'sliterally failure, would be it
would be what you would feelashamed about.
So that's so we have our sch theschools we have today do not

(08:11):
come out of any science ofchildren's learning.
They are simply a product ofhistory.
They were developed for apurpose, for a particular
purpose, and they're good atthat purpose, which is
indoctrination and obediencetraining.
So think about it.
Think about schools today.
What do you have to do to pass?

(08:32):
Really, the only thing you haveto do to pass is to do what
you're told to do.
Yeah.
Show that is to obey.
Almost the only way you can failin our schools today is to not
do what you're told to do.

SPEAKER_02 (08:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
So basically, anybody who's kind of a rebel,
who is not willing to do thingsthat seem stupid to them just
because the teacher says youhave to do it, that person is in
trouble in school.
Whether they're rebellingconsciously or unconsciously,
whether there it's just theirnature, I just really detest

(09:05):
doing something that I have nointerest in that doesn't seem to
be very valuable to me, but todo it just because somebody is
saying, I have to do it.
So that's the kind ofeducational system we have.
And the system in one sense gotbetter in the sense that beating
with a stick, you know, it wentaway.
But in another sense, it keepsgetting worse.

(09:27):
And that is that it's taking upmore and more of children's time
all the time.
It's really usurping children'slives.
So when I was a child a longtime ago, and now you'll know
how old I am, when I was a childin the 1950s, we had school and
the basic methodology of schoolwas not that different than it

(09:48):
is today, but there was a lotless of it.
The school year was five weeksshorter in the 1950s than it is
today.
The school day was at least alittle bit shorter, but most but
the main difference is thatwell, two main differences.
One is at least the elementaryschools I went to had we had six

(10:10):
hour school days, but two ofthose schools were outdoors
playing.
We had a half hour recess in themiddle of the morning, a half
hour recess in the middle of theafternoon, a full hour at lunch.
We were never in school in ourseats more than an hour at a
time.
Now we expect children to sit intheir seats, which is the last
thing children are designed todo is to they're not designed

(10:30):
for sedentary activity.
And we diagnose them with ADHDif they if they won't or can't
do it.
So, you know, we act as if it'sa mental illness if they can't
sit in their seats and do boringwork for long periods of time
without getting distracted anddisruptive.
I think when I was in schoolteachers understood that this is

(10:53):
kind of unnatural for childrenand so they'd and then I
remember very well even in fifthand sixth grade, sixth grade
then was still part ofelementary school, the teacher
would say, even during thathour, you know, it was sort of
between recesses when we were inschool, she would say, Oh, I see
you're all restless now.
You know, get up and play.
And she had this was we weren'tlittle kids, we were fifth and

(11:15):
sixth graders.
She had hula hoops in the room,she had things we could play
with, get up, you know, dancearound, you know, and then we
could sit back down and do ourwork.
So teachers were kind of anauthority then in a way that
they're not allowed to be anauthority now because they're
controlled by a hierarchy abovethem that wouldn't allow
teachers to do this kind ofthing today.

(11:36):
But it at that time, if you hada teacher who cared about kids,
and a lot of teachers did, theythey would make adjustments to
make the school day far morehuman and bearable for children
and even fun for children thanthan teachers are even allowed
to do today.
So we also, the other thing Iwanted to say is at least in
elementary school, there was noregular homework.

(11:58):
We did not carry worksheets orbooks back and home back and
forth from home.
Once in a while we would beasked to do something that was
actually kind of fun, like writea poem and bring it in to share,
or write a story to bring inshare.
Or sometimes even in elementaryschool, we were asked to to
write a book to read a book ofour own choice.

(12:19):
The teacher had to look at it tosee it was a real book.
Uh read a book and write a bookreport on it.
These are kind of fun.
No, you get to choose what bookyou're writing and there's
something creative about it.
But these kinds of assignmentshave gone by the wayside because
now the focus is on drilling fortests.

(12:39):
Um that means like instead ofreading books, you're reading
little passages, which is veryboring, and answering multiple
choice questions about thembecause that's the way the tests
operate.
So in that sense, school hasgotten much worse.
More of it, more tedious, lessinteresting assignments, and
much more homework so that it'staking over children's lives, at

(13:02):
least the lives of those whotake it seriously.

SPEAKER_01 (13:05):
You are right.
You are right.
And I'm I was just now thinkingback to when did I start getting
homework?
Because I had an older sister,she was six years older, and I
used to be jealous that she hadhomework, and I'm in fifth
grade, and I don't have any.
And it they did give you like umdo a diorama.
That was like the fun project infifth grade, you know, where you
you get a shoe box and cut outfigures and things and make a

(13:27):
little scene.
But that was like the homeworkin fifth grade.
It was not every night worky,worky.
And I hadn't even thought aboutthat until you just mentioned
that.
And I, you know what it made methink of too is when you said
the school year is five weekslonger.
It's like, well, what washappening around that time?
The women's movement and gettinglike a lot of the moms were home

(13:47):
back in the 50s.
And so it didn't matter if thesummer was eight weeks or 12
weeks or 13 weeks because theywere home.
And it didn't matter if it wasnine to two because they were
home to get you there and getyou back, or at least, you know,
for you to be home after schoolwhen you were young.
And nowadays it's well, sorry,mom's at work at eight.
She doesn't get back until five.

(14:08):
And I did it too.
I worked for the government for16 years and I carted my son off
the daycare, and I didn't thinkanything of it.
You know, I was like, oh, thisis sad.
But until I started talking tohomeschoolers and really stepped
out and decided we're gonna dothis and took him out.
Now that I've been home with mydaughter since she was born, I
see all the things that I missand all the things that they

(14:29):
need you for throughout the day.
And I'm like, why do we dothings?
And just because a society saysthis is normal, and that's
exactly what sending our kidsinto the school system is.
We do it because everybody elsedoes it.
We were all indoctrinated fromthe same system.

SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Yeah, I think I think you make a good point that
that perhaps one of the reasonsfor the increase in the school
year is uh to serve ababysitting function.
That um yeah, so uh parents wantparents want uh and maybe in
some senses need their kids tobe watched by somebody during
the day when they're working, ifboth parents are working or if

(15:05):
there's a single parent who'sworking.
But you know, there are a lotthere are other ways to solve
that problem that would be a lotless expensive.
Very true.
What it would make a lot ofsense to have recreation centers
where children can spend the dayand play and explore and do
interesting things and not haveto sit in their seats so long.
Have it designed to be morechild friendly and to serve

(15:27):
those purposes.
You could have some you couldyou could have books, you could
have things for kids to do thatwere quote academic, whatever
that means.
But the uh but but but it couldbe a humane place where the kids
would want to be.
You know, so as you probablyknow, I've studied schools and
learning centers where childrenare free to play and explore and

(15:48):
they they cry when summervacation comes.
It's like the end of camp.
You know, they want uh theytheir friends are there, they're
doing all these fun andinteresting things.
They don't they don't want to gohome at the end of the school
day and they don't wanna theydon't wanna have to not have
school during the summer.
They they love it there.
So we can create places that arereally good for kids and and

(16:13):
solve the babysitting problemthat way.

SPEAKER_01 (16:16):
Absolutely.
I have had a few differentpeople on my podcast who have
created things like that, andit's so nice to see parents
stepping out of the mold andcreating something new.
I hope that that continues.
Why don't you talk to us alittle bit about what got you to
this realization?
You know, I know that you wentthrough the process with your
son and were very skeptical atfirst.

(16:37):
So why don't you how did you gofrom someone that you you I
think you started out with yourkids in public school, right?
Or private school?

SPEAKER_00 (16:44):
Yeah, so I well I I tell this story near the
beginning of my book, Free toLearn, but I um I got interested
in this.
I had been doing a verydifferent kind of research,
laboratory research, studyingthe binding of certain hormones
in the brains of rats and mice.
Um interesting research, but Iwasn't terribly passionate about
it.
But I was doing well, publishingarticles, getting grants, and so

(17:06):
on and so forth.
But during my early years as aprofessor.
But meanwhile I had a son whowas rebelling in school.
He went to what is what wasregarded as a perfectly good
suburban public school, youknow, in a suburban area that
not a wealthy area, but not apoor area either.
Typical suburban public school.

(17:28):
And and he fought that schoolsystem from day one all the way
through fourth grade whenfinally he won the fight.
And, you know, he would tell meevery day, almost every day,
when he went off to school, youknow, you're sending me to
prison.
And he was quite serious, you'resending me to prison.
I now agree with him, it wasprison.
It is prison.
It's in some ways worse thanprison.

(17:49):
The only or the only redeemingfeature compared to an actual
prison is that you come home ata certain time and you're not
there all the time.
But the but while you're there,you are micromanaged, you are n
not at all free, you're toldexactly what to do, you're not
you what we think of as thebasic human rights are taken

(18:10):
away.
You are a puppet while you'rethere, largely speaking.
And he couldn't stand being apuppet.
And it just ran so stronglyagainst his nature, and I would
argue with him, and theteachers, each year the teachers
would call his mother and me,and you know, and here I was a
professor, right?
But I'm sitting in this littleseat and the teacher is up there

(18:31):
looking at me, and clearly shethinks somehow it's my fault.
And maybe it was, maybe it was.
I mean, we always treated ourson with a lot of respect.
We always treated him, we alwaystook him pretty seriously, and
we recognized we recognized hehad a lot of abilities and he
had a lot of good ideas, and welet him go with those.

(18:52):
And and so maybe he thought thesame thing could happen at
school, but it wasn't happeningat school, and he just wasn't
settling for it.
I remember I would tell him, I Iwould I would sit him down and
I'd say, now look, you're justreally causing a lot of trouble
for yourself, for your wholeclass, for your mom, and for me.
I would try to I would say,look, it's not that hard.

(19:16):
Just do it.
Do what they tell you to do.
You can do what you want to dowhen you're home, but while
you're school, do what they tellyou to do, please.
And he would just say, I'm notgoing to.
And so he and he had these, I uhI'll leave it to people to read
it in my book, there's variousways of rebelling, but he had
various really ways of rebellingthat were different from just

(19:36):
being naughty.
He would deliberately felt therules in somewhat subtle ways.
And so ultimately, though, itwould became clear that um this
was not working out.
And I describe again this scenein the book, but there was this
scene in the principal's officewhere the we big adults were all
there to tell him on nouncertain terms that he had to

(19:59):
do what the teachers weretelling him to do.
And he looked at us all his mom,me, the school principal, the
assistant principal, theteacher, the a psychologist,
school psychologist who hadbrought brought, and he looked
at us all big adults, and hesaid, Go to hell.
And you know, I laughed now.

SPEAKER_02 (20:19):
Right at the time, probably.

SPEAKER_00 (20:22):
But but that's when he won the argument.
My wife and I looked at eachother, and we could see we both
had tears in our eyes, and weboth knew that he had just won
that argument.
We were going to take him out ofthat school, and we were going
to find something different.
This was long beforehomeschooling was very popular,

(20:43):
and we were not a good familyfor homeschooling for a variety
of reasons.
So we sought an alternative kindof school, and the only school
that we could find that hethought was not a prison was a
school located about two milesfrom where we live, as it turned
out.
It wasn't that far.
And you know, back in at thattime, two miles was was a fairly

(21:06):
easy walk for a nine-year-old.
Nowadays you would probably bearrested if you allowed a
nine-year-old to walk two miles.
Right.
But back then it was common.
He could ri bike or he couldride his or he could walk to
school, so it wasn't hard to getto.
It was a private school, whichmeans there was tuition, but it
was far lower tuition than mostprivate schools, and it was a

(21:27):
tuition we could afford.
So he went there and uh andimmediately, you know, he became
my son again.
He became he he changed frombeing angry and rebellious to
being bright eyed and happy andenjoying life and learning and
at a very rapid pace and thethings that he wanted to learn.

(21:48):
And but still as a parent, I hadsome concerns.
So I was delighted that he washappy.
And I wasn't even worried abouthis learning.
He was always learns.
But what I was Concerned aboutis what if he stayed at this
school all the way through highschool?
The school takes kids from agefour on through high school age.

(22:09):
It doesn't grant anything like adiploma.
There's no academic training atthe school.
There's no courses even offered,although kids, if they want to
get together and create one,they can.
The staff members don't regardthemselves as teachers.
They don't even call themselvesfacilitators because that would
imply that part of their job isto get kids to learn stuff.

(22:32):
And they don't see that as theirjob.
They believe that everybodylearns from one another through
common everyday interactions,that the kids learn at least as
much from one another as they dofrom the staff.
And so if the staff are calledfacilitators, everybody should
be called a facilitator.
So but that was would seem alittle silly, so they just avoid

(22:52):
terms like that.
So they the staff are just theadults in this democratic
community.
So that's the way school works.
There's lots of rules in theschool.
This is not anarchy, but therules are all made
democratically by vote of uh ofall the students and staff
together.
And of course, there are waymore students than staff, so if
it were ever students versusstaff, the students would and

(23:14):
but it doesn't turn out that wayin a school like this.
There's not that kind ofantagonistic relationship.
So the um so that's the schoolhe went to.
Now the main concern I hadregarding my own son there is
what if he decided at some pointin his life he wanted to go to
college?
That maybe he wanted a careerthat required going to college.

(23:36):
We've got things set up in inthis country and actually in
many parts of the world, mostparts of the world, that for
certain kinds of careers youcan't just go into them unless
you've got a college collegedegree.
So I began asking about thegraduates, and there was one
other thing I was I was a littlebit concerned about.
And so if you walk around aschool like this, the prominent

(23:57):
thing you see, partly becauseit's very visible by its own
nature, is that you see a lot ofmusic and art.
You see kids playing guitars andyou know, you see kids painting
and making clay.
And of course you see kidsoutdoors doing all kinds of
outdoor things, but in terms ofaside from outdoor things, the

(24:17):
things you see is music and art.
And that doesn't mean otherthings aren't going on, I
realized later.
Music and art are more visible.
You can see people doing thisstuff.
You don't know what's going onin people's heads, you don't
know so much what they'retalking about in private
conversations and so on and soforth.
But you can see very clearly andthey're good at music and art,
you know.
Not surprisingly, kids whenthey're free like to engage in

(24:41):
music and art, and not justlittle kids.
In our society, little kidsregularly engage in art at
least, but then it's like youget too cool to do it when you
are a certain age.
Uh but in that school thatdoesn't happen.
Kids continue to do it and theybecome good artists in various
kinds of ways.
So I was a little concernedabout do the graduates all

(25:01):
become starving artists andmusicians living in their
parents' basements.
And I love my son, but I did notwant him living as an adult in
my basement.
I was a little concerned aboutthat.
So I wanted to know what happensto the graduates.
So along with a person who was apart-time staff member at that
time who could help me identifythe graduates of the school, I

(25:23):
did a study, a systematic surveyof the graduates of the school.
That was when I really began tochange my career.
This was a very different kindof research than I'd done
before.
And that study of the graduatesreally ultimately changed my
career.
First of all, it satisfied myconcern as a parent.
The graduates were in all walksof life.

(25:44):
Some of them were musicians andartists, but they were good
enough actually to be making aliving at it.
Some of them were um some ofthem were in um the way I look,
the way I I talked about it atthat time, and it was really
true, is there were graduates ofthat school in basically every
realm of life that we value.

(26:06):
There were graduates who were inthe helping professions, there
was a lawyer.
There was not at that time anydoctors, but there are now.
There were nurses.
There was even a professor.
Will per this was early on.
He was on his way to becoming aprofessor.
He was a graduate student at MITand in uh in um physics.

(26:26):
So it didn't seem to limitpeople's interests, and it
certainly didn't seem to stoppeople from going to college.
Everybody who wanted to go tocollege, as far as I could tell,
went on to college.
And they got in even to goodcolleges.
You know, that we all are led tobelieve that you can't go to
college unless you take allthese, not only do you have to

(26:46):
get a high school diploma, butyou've got to take certain
courses.
You need, you know, I don't knowwhat the rules are now.
You need two years of alanguage, you need to take math
through at least throughadvanced algebra or you know,
all this stuff.
There's kids who had done noneof it.
None of it, absolutely none ofit.
And yet they got into college,including, including, in some

(27:07):
cases, rather prestigiousfour-year colleges.
It's just not true.
They they say you've got to doall that stuff, but when it
comes right down to it, if yougive them a good resume and you
and they're interviewing, andyou're an interesting person who
seems to really want to go tothat college and you've got good
reasons for doing it, you don'tyou stand out as kind of

(27:27):
different from the typicalperson who's just going it
because like this is 13th gradeand I've got to go.
You know, these are people who,if they're going to college,
they've got a good reason forgoing and they can articulate
it.
And that's a big step up ingetting admitted to that
college.

SPEAKER_03 (27:44):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
Because people who are going to college who really
want to go, and they've chosenyour college because that
they've decided that's thecollege for me, and they can
tell you why, in words that aredifferent from the from from the
publicity brochures that thecollege sends out.
Those are those are valuedstudents.

(28:06):
So that's one way that they gotinto college.
There are other ways they gotinto college.
Not everybody did it that way.
Some kids went on to communitycollege.
Everybody can go to communitycollege, and it's relatively
cheap.
There are a lot of kids, as pras I'm sure you and your
listeners know, who arehomeschooled, who start
community college at maybe 15 or16, because they take a course
or two that's interesting tothem, and then that's college

(28:29):
credits, and they can use thatto transfer to a four-year
college.
They've now got a transcript,they've got grades, but they're
taking the course becausethey're interested in it.
But in some cases, in this case,they're taking a year or two at
community college as a as a steptowards then going to a more
prestigious four-year college.
So at any rate, that's a longstory, but that's uh that's the

(28:51):
story of how I got interestedand involved in this.
And once I once I realized thatthese graduates of this school,
where they're just sort ofplaying and exploring and do
what they want to do, arebecoming educated by any
reasonable definition ofeducation.
Then I got interested in, well,what's actually happening there?
Well what what are they actuallydoing?

(29:11):
I mean, they're quote, justplaying, they're just doing what
they want to do, and yet somehowthis is leading them to become
educated people.

SPEAKER_01 (29:19):
And that it's so interesting.
It I just said to my son abouttwo hours ago, we were outside,
he's seven years old, and Isaid, You know what?
If you want to stop all thecurriculum for the spring, and
instead, I'm gonna give you aproject, we'll research together
and you will build a um mountainbike track on our property
because he used to take mountainbiking, but then it kind of

(29:40):
changed hands and he didn't hekind of you know fell in and he
didn't enjoy it anymore.
And I said, You know, we canbuild that.
You know, we but I said I'llteach you how to research, which
is gonna help him learn how toread better if he's gotta type
in things and you know, uh Isaid you don't have to do math,
you don't have to do readinganymore, but we'll just directly
like take a few months andresearch this and and plan it

(30:01):
out on paper and you know, seewhat you what you have to buy,
what you have to build, we'llgive you a certain amount of
money, and it all goes towardsthat, and that'll be your
project.
And you know, I just worrybecause I'm like, oh geez, he
was already like technically ayear behind because he's should
be in second grade because he'sseven, but I have him in the
first grade reading program.
And I'm like, oh, this is gonnapush him back more.

(30:22):
But I'm like, is it really?
Is it really because if he'sresearching some stuff, he's
going to be learning reading inthat it's just not in the way
that the curriculum has it laidout in it.
Even me researching, you know,education for three years.
I had to stop myself and say, ofcourse I'll be fine.
Who cares if he is a year, twoyears, five years behind in the
reading aspect that is soarbitrary?

(30:44):
And like you said before, it isnot scientifically backed
because like in Finland, theydon't even start any formal
reading anything until they'reseven years old and they have
like one test their entire timefrom from the start of school
till graduation, whereas we haveover, you know, a hundred here
and they're happiest.
Finland is like one of thehappiest countries.

SPEAKER_00 (31:05):
The thing that people need to understand is
there's no critical period forlearning anything except
learning your native languagewithout a la without without an
accent.
Anything else, it doesn't matterwhen you learn it.
You can learn it just as fast.
Generally, you can learn itfaster if you're older.
My belief is the time to learnsomething is either when you

(31:27):
need to know it, because whatyou're doing requires knowing
it, and then you learn itbecause you want to learn it so
you can do what you want to do,or when you're just so curious
about it, so motivated about it,that nobody has to prompt you to
do it.
They can't stop you from doingit.
You just want to do it.

SPEAKER_01 (31:46):
After three years of interviewing homeschooling
families, I realized howoverwhelming it can be to piece
everything together.
So I took the best advice, tips,questions, and resources that
I've learned along the way andput them into one practical
ebook.
If you're looking for a clearstarting point, you'll find the
link in this show's description.

SPEAKER_00 (32:07):
The time to learn to read, everybody in our culture,
you can't live in our culturewithout realizing at some point
I want to know how to read.
Now that realization comes todifferent kids at very different
ages.
There are always some kids, andI've been I've studied this a
little bit by by looking at theother research, but also by

(32:29):
observing my own son.
My son could read well by thetime he was three.
Now that leads me to believe,and I had a younger brother who
also was a precocious reader, soI looked into precocious
reading.
There are a lot of kids wholearn how to read before they
ever start school, and they arenot taught to read.
They pick it up, they make useof adults to help them learn to

(32:49):
read by asking them.
Like my son would we would carryhim around in a backpack.
We were living in Manhattan, andthe stroller is useless there.
So we'd carry him everywhere wewent on on our backs and he
could see where we were looking.
So he before he was two yearsold, he would point to a sign
and say, What's that say?
I swear his first words were,What's that say?

(33:11):
And and so I would say, exit.
So among the first reading wordswere exit.
He would then point to signs andsay, Exit, stop, so on and so
forth.
And then we'd be we'd be eatingbreakfast and he'd point to
words on the cereal box.
What's that say?
So he basically taught himselfto read.
And at some point, I don't knowhow he did it, but he had
developed this huge sitevocabulary, and at some point he

(33:36):
inferred the phonics of it so hecould read new words that he'd
never seen before.
I think kids pick up reading,some kids pick up reading the
same way you pick up language.
We all learn how to speak ourlanguage, and in and we learn
the grammatical rules of it, thephonetical rules of language.
We learn it without consciouslybeing able to tell you what

(33:57):
those rules are, but yet wespeak properly.
I think kids in the same generalway, when they're motivated to
learn to read, pick it up thatway.
And I've made a little bit ofstudy of reading among
unschoolers.
So homeschoolers, as you know,are people who homeschool but
they don't provide a curriculumfor their children.

(34:20):
Rather, what they do is theysupport whatever the child is
interested in doing.
They provide the opportunitiesfor the child to do what they're
interested in doing, but theydon't provide a curriculum, they
don't test the child, they don'tuh they don't act like they're
doing school at home.
It's called homeschooling, butit's not actually like school.

(34:40):
It is really, some people callit life learning.
It's learning through life andit's following your own
interests.
So I've been interested in thatand I've done several research
studies of unschooling families.
Not surprisingly, what you findamong unschooling families is a
huge range of age at whichchildren learn to read.
Sometimes within the samefamily, one child can read at

(35:04):
four, and another child reads,can't read at age 10, but begins
to read at age 11.
I think the oldest I've seen is14.
But even that 14-year-oldlearned to read very quickly
when he decided that he reallywas time for him to learn to
read.
I think that, you know, in somein some cases, I think this is

(35:28):
less common today than when Idid that study.
And I think the reason it's lesscommon today is kids are
actually, because of thecomputer, and because kids are
on the computer a lot, they'repicking up reading earlier than
uh they used to.
My son, who is actually now astaff member at the school he
used to be at, tells me thatkids are learning to read on
average much earlier than theyused to because they're dealing

(35:52):
so much with the written word inthe natural course of their play
than they than they would havein the past.
In that study, there's this hugediscrepancy.
There's also a study ofhomeschoolers, forget your name
or last name is Pat Patton,finding similarly huge range of
age, but by the time a fewthey're a few years older than

(36:12):
that, and they both can read,and they've both both been
reading for a time.
If if you got kids in the samefamily, as one mother said, you
couldn't tell that you wouldn'tbe able to tell which one was
the late reader and which onewas the early reader.
They're they're equallyinterested in reading.
So so by one of my observationsis that kids who learn to read,
when they are ready to learn toread, whatever age that that is,

(36:34):
tend to be big readers becausethey only associate reading with
things they want to do.
They don't associate it withshame or pain or being forced to
do something that they don'twant to do.

SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
Yeah.
And like a like a test score.

SPEAKER_00 (36:50):
The other thing besides reading that gets
homeschoolers sort of hangspeople up is concern about math.
Like like we think of readingand math, those are the two big
things.
We can be loose on everythingelse, but somehow we've got to
make sure that our kids and wefeel embarrassed, necessarily
embarrassed, if our kids can'tread by a certain age or if they

(37:11):
don't know the multiplicationtables by a certain age or
something like that.
But um again, I've sort of donea study of the learning of math.
I think first of all, my myobservation is when you look at
the great majority of people inthe real world, regardless of
age, the math that they know andthe math that they need to know

(37:33):
is math they've learned in lifeand use regularly.
They did not learn that math inschool.
They learned it in life.
They've learned how to makechange back when we used change.
They've learned how to measureboards if they need to measure
boards.
They've learned how to cutrecipes in half if they're
involved in cooking.
So they learn what fractions arebecause they're involved in

(37:54):
that.
They learn what division is ifthey have to divide up desserts
equally among six kids.
They learn what, you know, so kso people learn math in life,
and that's the math they need toknow.
The math that's being taught inschool is largely forgotten if
it isn't the same math that theywould be learning and using in

(38:16):
life anyway.
And one reason I know that isbecause I used to teach
statistics to social sciencemajors at Boston College.
And even though these youngpeople were only a year or two
out of high school, they hadforgotten all the math they
learned in high school.
I couldn't assume they knew anyof that.

(38:36):
I had to start at the beginning.
I didn't, you know, like soevery high school student learns
what it means to divide onefraction by another fraction.
I kind of make a sport of askingadults, what does it mean to
divide one fraction by another?
What does it even mean to dothat?
A lot of them can rememberlearning how to do it when they

(38:56):
were in high school, and some ofthem even remember the way to do
it.
You invert one of the fractions,you multiply the numerator and
the denominator, and the butthey don't know why that's the
answer.

unknown (39:07):
Right.

SPEAKER_02 (39:07):
And they don't ever use it.

SPEAKER_00 (39:10):
They don't know when they would ever use it.
So, you know, there's maybethere's maybe one out of a
thousand people whose careerrequires being able to do that.
And yet we make everybody learn,quote, learn that.
They're not really learning it,they're memorizing a procedure
for doing it.
And nine times out of the ten,the teacher who taught them how

(39:30):
to do that doesn't understandwhy you would do it that way or
when you would do it.
They just know this is on thecurriculum and I've got to teach
it to you, and you've got tolearn it to pass the test.
So I'll so we are wastingchildren's time when we teach
all this stuff.
You know, it's not some peoplesay, well, it's improving their
it's improving logicalreasoning, it's improving their

(39:52):
thinking abilities to have to dothis stuff.
But if they're just doing it bymemorizing it, which is
basically what they are doing,it's not improving critical
thinking.
You improve critical thinking bygetting truly immersed in
critical issues that you areinterested in.
That's when you think and whenyou get into discussions and

(40:13):
arguments with somebody elseabout it and they're challenging
your thinking.
That's what kids do naturallywhen they're in groups of other
kids.
They're arguing about the rulesof the game, they're discussing
what's fair or not fair, they'replanning some project and they
have to figure out things aboutthe project, and they're
discussing it.

(40:33):
That's critical thinking, andthat's how children develop
critical thinking, not bymemorizing procedures for
solving mathematical problems.

SPEAKER_01 (40:41):
Yeah, and it's funny too, because all those years
that they teach us the tediousmath that we never use, they
never stop and teach us aboutlike compound interest on a
credit card.
Because they don't want us toknow that stuff.
They want to easily give youthat card because and and they
make you think that you knowthat$1,000 item that you
purchased, you're just paying athousand dollars and then maybe

(41:04):
there's an eight percentinterest charge.
But how that compounds monthafter month and what that
actually amounts out to and thelife of the the card, stuff that
would actually impact your life.
But I mean, my mind now thinksof it as, well, they don't want
us to know that because theywant us to keep charging and
putting people in right.

SPEAKER_00 (41:21):
No, no, it's a good point.
I mean, if there was anyrationale for any kind of
required math course, it shouldbe the practical math of living.
What are the things, what arethe mistakes people make?
You know, people people are themost stupid thing people do is
they rent up their credit cardand then they're paying
interest.
And and they're not calculatinghow much money they're wasting

(41:43):
by doing that.
If you just just economize alittle bit, don't allow yourself
to be starting to pay interest.
And as you say, people don'trealize the value of investment.
I mean, here's something thatthat I think a lot of people
ought to think more about.
Think about the cost.
Suppose you're a middle classperson and you're not poor

(42:04):
enough to get financially needyso that your child will get a
scholarship to college and allexpenses paid.
So you've got to pay thattuition.
And you think it's a goodinvestment to pay that tuition
because your child will makemore money as a college
graduate.
But what if you took that moneyand you invested it, as you say,

(42:26):
maybe even better than compoundinterest, something some kind of
a balanced portfolio that'sgonna give you 7 or 8% uh
returns over the course of time,historically.
By the time that child, soeverybody looks at, so the
college graduates on average, byage 40, are making a certain
amount of more money than at age40 the non-college graduates.

(42:49):
But if instead of spending thatmoney on college, you invested
it by age 40.
That's a heck of a lot of money.

unknown (42:57):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (42:57):
That might be a million dollars.
And so, you know, I haven't caldone the calculations, but
there's a good reason to knowhow to calculate compound
interest.
Now, of course, there areformulas to do it on the
internet.
You don't have to know how to doit.
You could just put it, plug itin.
If I'm getting this muchinterest, how much will it be in
20 years?
People people but people don'tthink that way.

(43:20):
And so there are there are lifelessons that are would be very
valuable for people to thinkabout.
I think it should be parents'responsibilities partly to help
children understand these thingsbefore they set off in life and
make all these same mistakesthat so many people make.

SPEAKER_02 (43:36):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:36):
Well, and I and I think that they, you know, we
don't sit down at the beginningof the year with teachers and
say, What are you teaching?
and what what should I beteaching?
And and part of that is probablyby design.
You know, they busy us so much.
It's like get your kid off toschool in the morning and then
see him for a little bit atnight, but we have also given
them homework and then they'redoing their sports and and then
TV and social media and allthat.

(43:57):
So it's I can I can see how.
it snowballed and the parentsdid just drop the ball because
they thought schools were doingit.

SPEAKER_00 (44:05):
Well I I think I think what has happened also
over time is the school hasbecome more and more divorced in
its lessons from from outside ofschool life.
It's become more and more a sself-contained system.
So it has become more and moreoriented not for training you

(44:26):
for life but for training youfor what the school people
believe and I've just arguedit's a misbelief but believe you
need to know to get intocollege.
Everybody's supposedly on an theschools act now as if
everybody's on an academictrack.
Everybody's going to go tocollege.
So you ask if you ask and I'vedone this if you ask uh it's not

(44:50):
totally true but it's largelytrue.
If you ask somebody inkindergarten so why are you
teaching this curriculum inkindergarten?
You know they'll say well it'sto prepare them for first grade.
And so if you ask first gradeit's to prepare them for second
grade.
You ask elementary schoolteachers generally it's to
prepare them for middle school.
You ask them for middle it's toprepare them for high school and

(45:11):
you ask high school teachersit's to prepare them for
college.
There's almost no pretense thisis preparing them for actual
life.
This is just preparing them forwhat they see as the next step
in this sort of self-containedchain that we call school.
You're going from one step toanother and I don't think
there's even much thought aboutis this actually helpful to the

(45:34):
person outside of school?
It's only thought is this isthis what the child what we all
believe the child needs to knowto go into the next grade.
But even that is mistaken as wesee I I've just described how
kids can start college.
They've skipped the wholeprevious chain and they can go
to college and they can do fine.
I've seen kids who've beenunschooled who decide at some

(45:55):
point they want to go to schoolfor very uh they've got good
reasons they want to go toschool.
Their friends are going toschool they want to be on a real
sports team at school they wantto and sometimes in high school
they they want to go to schoolbecause there's people there you
could date you know they want togo to prompts they want to do
the they want to be part of thecultural ritual of school.

(46:16):
So they'll say to their parentswho sometimes are disappointed
to hear this that I want to goto school and so the of course
you would be a kind of meanparent to say you can't go to
school.
That would not be freeing to thechild.
So you say but you say somethinglike here's an actual case I
know of somebody who wanted togo to school and this was a boy
who if he went to school by agehe would be going into the

(46:38):
fourth grade.
He was old enough for fourthgrade but he couldn't read and
so the mom said how could you goto if you go to school they'll
put you in kindergarten orthey'll put you in first grade.
You'll be with the little kidsand he said well why is that
because you have to be able toread to be in fourth grade.
And so according to the mom hesaid okay I'll learn how to
read.
He learned how to read and thenhe went to fourth grade and did
fine.

SPEAKER_01 (46:57):
Wow all on his own pretty much on it.

SPEAKER_00 (47:00):
He might have I don't know if he asked for help
or not in this case but thatwhat I have found is when
somebody decides that they wantto learn something they can
learn it very quickly.
And I'll give you anotherexample so we have this belief
regarding mathematics thatmathematics kind of builds over

(47:20):
the years.
You have to do first grademathematics why we even call it
it used to be called arithmeticnow people call it math.
You have to do first gradearithmetic before you could do
second grade before you could dothird grade before you as as if
it sort of builds in that kindof way.
I've seen at this this schoolthat my son went to and where
he's a staff member so kids arethere who've never in any formal

(47:42):
sense studied math.
They've never cracked a mathbook they've never done a math
worksheet.
They have reached the stage inlife they're maybe 16, 17 years
old, where they're ready toleave the school and they want
to go to a college that requiresthe math SAT and they've never
studied math and they want toapply that year to the college

(48:04):
so they want to take the mathSAT test that year.
They can prepare the math thatthey need to know to do well on
the SAT test in six weeks of notvery hard work.
And the way they do it at thisparticular school there happens
to be one staff member who'svery good at math.
He's an MIT graduate who studiedmath he's very good at it knows

(48:27):
how to explain it.
I ask him so how do you helpthem prepare for the SAT?
He says first of all there are alot of kids who don't need my
help.
They could just go right to theSAT prep books and understand it
themselves.
But some people go to the SATprep books and they say you know
this is Greek to me I don'tunderstand it and so I need some
I need some help to get up tothe level of being able to even

(48:50):
understand the book.
So he offers a little course hemeets with them one hour a week
for six weeks six classroomhours compare that to how many
how many hours kids are beingtaught math in school right so
six hours and he gives them anhour or two of homework.
So at most we're talking aboutyou know six plus twelve

(49:13):
eighteen total hours of efforton the part of the kids.
And in that process he says theycan learn everything they need
everything that they would havelearned in typical in their
typical schooling everythingthat they need to know in order
to now be able to read the SATprep book and go from there on

(49:34):
their own.
And it's happened over and overand over again.
Kids will get they don'tnecessarily get the highest
possible score but some of themdo actually they get really into
it but they get a good enoughscore to get into the college
that they want to go to.
How part of the reason they'reable to do that is because
they're motivated to do it.
Even if they're not you knowthey're going on to college to

(49:57):
study art history or whatever.
They don't need math.
This is all irrelevant to theirlife.
But we've got things set up thatto get to that college where
they believe that has the bestart history department in the
world they've got to take thisstupid SAT test with math.
So they're going to learn thestupid math they need to learn
that's kind of the attitude theyhave and work at it and they do

(50:20):
it and they go on.
So it's just another story abouthow the time to learn something
is when you've decided that forwhatever reason even if your m
mind it's not a good reason it'simposed upon you by the society
but it's a reason that's therethat you don't want to block the
life that you want then youlearn it.

SPEAKER_01 (50:40):
Yeah.
And it just goes back to whatyou said by how much time are we
wasting of a kid's childhood.

SPEAKER_00 (50:46):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (50:46):
And why don't as as we roll up on the hour here, why
don't um I I'd love to know didyou think that free to learn
would be as popular as it becameI mean you wrote this in 2013.
It was published in 2013.
This is now 13 years ago andit's is it even more popular now
than it was then?
And did you expect that?

SPEAKER_00 (51:07):
Well it's very interesting.
I'm not sure what I expected.
I think I probably didn't haveany expectations.
You know I was I've been writinga blog for Psychology Today uh a
literary agent um contacted meand said I've been reading your
blog I think you've got a bookthere or more than one book.
And I said oh that's interestingand so she suggested that I

(51:30):
write a book and so I wrote abook got a contract I didn't
know much about and and and theliterary agent didn't kind of
lobby for the best possiblecontract but I got a decent
contract from the bookpublisher.
The book publishing company youknow sometimes if a book
publishing company thinks thisis going to be sell a million
copies and make them millions ofdollars they'll really advertise

(51:52):
the book and push it.
I think they I think they didnot push the book.
They did not particularlyadvertise the book.
The head of the company told meand I was pleased to hear this
he said this probably isn'tgoing to be a bestseller right
from the beginning but it'sgoing to have a long shelf life
he believed and and that turnedout to be true.
That turned out to be true.

(52:13):
So for the first I looked at forthe first something like 10
years of the book's life almostup until the last one or two
years it sold more every yearthan it did the year before.
It also was I don't thinkanybody anticipated how many
other countries wanted atranslation.
So it's been translated now intonineteen other languages.

(52:35):
I don't even know how manycopies it sold in those other
languages.
I don't get those reports but ithas it has been a worldwide book
and it's had a lot of influencebecause a lot of people I hear
all the time from people say youknow I s I uh my son thanks you
or Mike because it gave me thecourage to take him out of

(52:55):
school or I've started thisalternative school cur
encouraged by your book and soon and so forth.
And I keep I keep you know Ihear from somebody who says you
know your book changed my lifeand I always freeze up a little
bit okay I I hope it changed itfor the better.
I hope you but of course theyprobably wouldn't be telling me
if it didn't change it for thebetter.

SPEAKER_01 (53:16):
You would have gotten a lawsuit.

SPEAKER_00 (53:17):
That would have been your books let me tell your
listeners I got a new bookcoming out finally that's going
to be published in September.
It's not a sequel to Free tolearn it's a it's a very
different book but on some ofthe same theme.
It's called Restoring Childhoodand it's really about how over
many decades we as a societyhave taken childhood away from

(53:42):
children.
That there we have taken awayfrom children the opportunities
to do what children arebiologically primed to do and
what they really need to do tobe psychologically healthy and
what it is that we need to bringback how we need to alter what
we're doing in our society tomake to bring childhood back

(54:04):
again to to to our world.

SPEAKER_01 (54:07):
Yes.
I just interviewed someone acouple weeks ago um Spencer
Taylor and he created a filmcalled The Death of Recess and
it really gets into how we'reeducating in America, how other
countries are doing it.
This is you know he does talkabout taking away the recess,
but it's even much more thanthat.
It gets into the funding the NEAthe the teachers unions and the

(54:28):
funding behind that and what Imean even some pharmaceutical
companies are investing in theteachers unions and the it's
like they shouldn't have anyplace there.
And I had to kind of laughbecause as you're saying oh the
the publishing company didn'treally push my book I'm thinking
well you have sort of acontroversial topic which is
probably why they were probablytold you're not pushing this

(54:50):
because we have so much moneyriding on the public school
system because we know theteachers aren't getting the
money.
I mean they don't make enoughthey don't make as as much as
they should the schools areunderstaffed they are
underfunded but yet they I meanI know we pay six thousand
dollars a year in New York orwhere I am to our school.
I'm yeah you mentioned being inManhattan I'm I'm up near

(55:11):
Albany.
You know so it's like where isthe money going?
So there's gotta be somethingelse going on.

SPEAKER_00 (55:16):
If you figure it out there's a lot of waste in the
school system.
The schools are always cryingfor more money.
They're always talking aboutbeing under underfunded.
But you know in the in theBoston area if you add up all
the tax money count counting themoney coming federal government
from the state and from localincome taxes it's about$20,000
per student.

(55:36):
Think of what you could do with$20,000 to educate help educate
your own child.
So instead of studying French inclass you could go to France.
You know you could hire the besttutors that you want you know
you're not paying that$20,000for education.
You're paying that to supportyou know the teachers may not be
paid well but there are wellpaid administrators in that

(55:58):
system and there's a lot ofwaste.
I've heard from teachers whowill admit and you know they
complain about it.
They try to change things youknow that the school at the end
of the year says oh we've stillgot all this money in our
budget.
We have to spend this somehowlet's buy this or buy that so
that we can otherwise they'renot going to give us as much
money next year.

(56:19):
I have to confess it's like thedepartments in universities do
the same thing.
You know this is this is the waypeople operate.
So you always are looking formore money and then you've got
to find some way to spend it.

SPEAKER_01 (56:32):
I worked in government for 16 years.
Yes I can vouch for that oh mygoodness and my husband does
commercial HVAC so he's alwayscontracting with schools and
jails and hospitals and it's thesame thing.
Hey we got to spend this moneyso can you come in here and fix
this up meanwhile I had ateacher on my podcast say and
she had left teaching tohomeschool her child but say

(56:52):
that you know they they needed arug because they said that they
didn't have enough classroomsfor a teacher so they stuck them
in a basement but all the kids'voices everything was echoing.
She just wanted a rug and theywere putting in a new rug in the
principal's office or someadministrator's office and they
said just give us your old rugthat's all we need is the old no
we can't do that.
It's not in the contract but wejust wanted the old rug to help

(57:13):
the voices we can't hear thekids and the teachers no they
wouldn't do it.
And it's so angersome but um Dr.
Gray I invite you back when yourbook comes out to tell us about
that and promote the bookbecause I love that topic and
it's I'm passionate about it.
So I hope you'll come back inSeptember, October and promote
that.
And I'm going to put the linksto everything in the show's

(57:34):
description.
So I'll have you give me thelinks for any way to contact
you, any way to find the bookfree to learn anything else that
you're working on your blog andwe'll include that in the show's
notes.
So head there to click on that.
Anything else that you wouldlike to say before we round out
the hour?

SPEAKER_00 (57:50):
No, I've probably said enough so I just thank you
for for inviting me.
Nice to meet you and I do lookforward to after my book comes
out please do invite me again.

SPEAKER_01 (58:00):
Absolutely thank you Peter Greg this has been so
awesome to talk to you.
Definitely a highlight of mine.
Thank you for listening to theHomeschool How to podcast if
today's episode helped youplease be sure to follow the
show and leave a review.
It's the best way to support thepodcast.
And if you're just gettingstarted or need a reset head to
thehomeschoolhow2.com and grabmy free 30 day homeschool quick

(58:23):
start guide.
Until next time keep learningkeep questioning and thank you
for your love of the nextgeneration