April 2, 2025 • 51 mins
Actress and conservative pundit Sam Sorbo joins us to share her transformative journey from skepticism to advocacy in the realm of homeschooling. Her story begins with a bold decision to homeschool her eldest child, driven by dissatisfaction with the conventional education system. Sam recounts the hurdles and triumphs she faced, including a stint at a private Christian school that reaffirmed her belief in personalized education. Her experiences underscore the importance of trusting parental instincts and the fulfillment that comes from crafting a child’s learning environment.
Our conversation takes a deeper look at education through the lens of virtue and family values. Rather than equating success with financial achievements, we explore how nurturing a child's character and soul stands as a pillar of true education. Sam and I discuss societal norms around early childcare and how these can sometimes erode family bonds, advocating instead for a focus on critical thinking over rote memorization. Insights from her book, "Parents Guide to Homeschool Making Education Fun and Easy," illustrate the joy and satisfaction that can be found in a homeschool setting.
We also tackle the contentious topic of school choice, examining the implications of government funding on educational autonomy. With examples from states like Arizona and Florida, we highlight the challenges and potential pitfalls of accepting government assistance in private and homeschool settings. Our discussion encourages a reevaluation of conventional success paths, advocating for a return to family-centric values and understanding each child's unique potential. Engaging teenagers in meaningful conversations and Socratic circles is celebrated as a way to enhance their communication skills, ultimately preparing them for a fulfilling future.
Our conversation takes a deeper look at education through the lens of virtue and family values. Rather than equating success with financial achievements, we explore how nurturing a child's character and soul stands as a pillar of true education. Sam and I discuss societal norms around early childcare and how these can sometimes erode family bonds, advocating instead for a focus on critical thinking over rote memorization. Insights from her book, "Parents Guide to Homeschool Making Education Fun and Easy," illustrate the joy and satisfaction that can be found in a homeschool setting.
We also tackle the contentious topic of school choice, examining the implications of government funding on educational autonomy. With examples from states like Arizona and Florida, we highlight the challenges and potential pitfalls of accepting government assistance in private and homeschool settings. Our discussion encourages a reevaluation of conventional success paths, advocating for a return to family-centric values and understanding each child's unique potential. Engaging teenagers in meaningful conversations and Socratic circles is celebrated as a way to enhance their communication skills, ultimately preparing them for a fulfilling future.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Everything's Political. I'm your host,
Taya Shoemake. You can also find us online at Everything's
Political dot substep dot com, Shout Out Too, Magicman. Joe
Strecker the president John Tyler of Podcast Producers. He was
born on this day in seventeen ninety wow, right before
(00:24):
we mucked up the republic with the seventeen ninety one
Judiciary Act. But I digress. So John Tyler was our
tenth president, and if you're unaware, he stepped up after
William Henry Harrison perished after one month of being in office.
He was the guy that didn't wear the coat, and
(00:46):
he came down with pneumonia and quite literally caught his death.
So John Tyler stepped up. He had been a Democrat
but switched to the Whig Party to run as Harrison's
vice president. And you know, John Tyler gets a lot
of criticism, Joe, he gets not a lot from me.
(01:09):
But when people talk about John Tyler, they talk about
him not doing anything noteworthy. And I have to shake
my head because part of the conundrum in which we
find ourselves is in large part due to the fact
that elected employees get into office and think they have
(01:32):
to do something.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And if a piece of legislation crosses your desk that
has no authority or nothing to do with the Constitution,
or expressly violates the Constitution, you put that baby in
the shutter. I don't want government doing stuff. It either
destroys existing programs or platforms or systems, or creates a
(02:01):
new bureaucracy. For Leviathan, that just is a headache that
never goes away. And so it's okay that John Tyler
didn't do a lot he was I will say this, Joe,
he was in favor of secession. So that's why they
really hate him. In fact, I think he was elected
to the Confederacy the Confederate States, but died in eighteen
(02:25):
sixty two before he was seated in that government. So
interesting character, John Tyler. Give him a second look, will you? You
know that we've got every president that wants to be
the education president, that wants to be the defense president,
that wants to be da da da da da. No,
(02:50):
there might be things powers, not powers, but issues that
presidents have assumed. But I like to remind people that
anyone who puts their hand on the Bible and swears
to Almighty God to uphold and defend the Constitution. They
have one job, and that is to keep us free
(03:12):
from all the things that are going on now, Free
from debt, free from scandal, free from big business, free
from invasion. Government has allowed the very things it was
instituted to keep free, or to keep us free from them.
(03:39):
So again, give John Tyler a second look. I like
that he didn't do much. I want my government to
do very little, and that's why I want it to
be very little.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Okay, we're going to talk more about education today. I
can't wait.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We've got a great guest and she's gonna knock your
socks off, Joe, let's take us out there.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, same as the whole buss.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Okay, many of you will be familiar with our next guest.
She is amazing an actress, conservative pundit, radio show host, writer.
My goodness, she is also a passionate advocate for home education.
She's joining us today to talk about her new book,
Sam Sorbo, Welcome and thanks for coming today.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Thank you so much for having me on. This is
my favorite topic, so I'm happy to be here to
talk about this.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Fantastic We're ready to go. Lots of buzz about homeschooling lately,
especially with a lot of the issues that have come
out that I think started at COVID, Right, So a
lot of stuff came out of backpacks or parents were
looking at the zoom calls or teams and found out
a lot of stuff they didn't know. Before we get
(05:09):
into the book, let me ask how you all started
with homeschooling.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh gosh, okay, so that goes back to So my
oldest is now twenty three, So this is what fifteen
sixteen years ago, and he was in He did first
and second grade. We moved for the schools to go
to the good public schools, and he had this cute
little red brick public school. And after during third grade,
(05:35):
I started to wonder really what they were doing, Like
this wasn't education as I thought education should be. He
wasn't being challenged, and I just really didn't like a
lot of the things that I saw happening, including his
behavior that he was adopting from being in school. He
was a very popular kid, and he started to sort
(05:57):
of lord that over his younger siblings because they were
stupid because they were younger, and you know, agism is
taught in the classroom, and so I said to my husband,
I think I could fail at homeschooling him and he
would still be better off, which is really quite a statement,
like he could end up dumb, but at least he'll
be a good person. But I actually believed that, and
(06:19):
so I started homeschooling him and then his younger brother,
So he was third grade, Shane was first grade. And
it went pretty well for about a year, a year
and a half and a year and a half in
I just felt like I was just a failure. His
younger brother was a little math with He finished first
grade math on Halloween, so it took him what two
(06:41):
months to do first grade, and then he was in
second grade, and then he moved to third grade. And
by the time he was halfway through second grade, he
was in fourth grade math. But he couldn't read very well.
So I forced him to do the reading book over again,
and you know, we did every lesson and even on vacation,
and he still wasn't that good. And so I just
(07:01):
felt like a failure. So I put them into a
little private Christian school, very small, where they really believed
in rigorous academics, which is what I believed in, and
they stay that it was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
Oh my gosh. Driving home from school that day when
I dropped them off, And the funny thing is when
I when I brought them in, the headmistress said, we're
(07:23):
going to test him to make sure that we put
him in with the right group of students. And so
she took Shane away and she tested him. She came
back and she said, yeah, you're right, he's he's second grade.
I said yeah. She said, well he is testing at
a fourth grade math level, so you know, good for you, mom.
And I had said to her, I told her he
was remedial and reading he just really wasn't it just
(07:45):
wasn't clicking. I don't know. She said, he is reading
at a fifth grade level. And I looked at her
and I said, so I'm the one with the problem.
She was like, yeah, kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I left him there. I still left the kids
there because I'm still under this impression that there exists
an expert who can educate properly. That is a chimera.
That's a mirage. It doesn't exist. There is no such thing.
(08:19):
And so, at least certainly not one size fits all,
and so I left them there and after six weeks,
and by the way, it was a hybrid, So a
cautionary tale about hybrids for parents. This was, you know,
two days of homeschooling, you do the work that the
school sends home with you. You're the teacher those two
(08:41):
days and then they're the teachers the other three days
of the week or whatever. And I would try to
download their homework and it wouldn't download. You know, there
were always technical glitches. So it was the whole online
learning thing was still new, and so it's not like
I blame them that there were tech glitches, but why
would call the teacher in the evening and I'd say, listen,
(09:03):
I tried to download the homework and it just won't download,
like I can't make it, you know, work, And her
answer was always, well, then don't worry about it. Now
wait a minute, hold on, because you assigned it. It
has to be important. If it's not important, don't give
me the assignment, do you know what I'm saying? Like,
it was just so frustrating, and so after six weeks,
(09:26):
I was like, do you guys like school? And they
were both like, no, Mommy, I was like, okay, we're
gonna quit. And I brought him back home and that Monday,
I put math down in front of Shane and he
started crying and he said, I can't, Mommy, it's too hard.
I can't do it, which was words that he had
(09:48):
never spoken about math ever, and it broke my heart.
I was devastated. I was like, wow, they damaged him.
And of course I didn't know how. I just had
this boy who was melting down, afraid to do math.
And so I pulled the math book away and I
just very quietly, you know, closed it back up, put
(10:10):
it to the side. I said, okay, let's do some grammar.
Let's do some you know. A week later, I pulled
the math book out again. I went back a couple
chapters and I started from there and I said, hey,
let's try this. No problem. He went right into it,
no problem. And so I realized. It took me a
couple of years to realize in actually somebody coming up
to me at a speaking event and saying to me,
(10:32):
isn't it beautiful that God allowed you to make the
mistake putting your children in that little school for six
weeks to prove to you that you are enough. And
that's my message for parents is God gave you your children.
You are enough, and if you're not enough, he will
equip you. If you don't have patience, he will equip you.
If you lack the skills, he will equip you. If
(10:55):
you lack the knowledge, he will equip you somehow. But
we have lost faith. We've lost faith in God. We've
lost faith in ourselves because we went to school and
we were trained to not have faith in ourselves. And
we've lost faith in children that they are intrinsic learners.
And so we not only have we lost faith in children,
(11:15):
my goodness, our culture hates children. We hate children. We
institutionalize them all day, we send homework home to make
them continue working even in the evenings. We deprive them
of their childhoods. We abort them and celebrate it. We
put them into gender studies and call it health care.
And I'm just here to try to wake people up
(11:36):
and say, you know, your children are precious gifts and
you should do everything you can to protect them. And
when you do that, the rewards are astonishing.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Amen. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. It's you know,
we talk here often about reclaiming the blessings of liberty
that we've outsourced. And first and foremost our family, the
care of our children, the education of our children, are healthcare.
You know. I was brought up the same way, trusting
the experts. And I say that one of the great
(12:07):
blessings that came out of COVID is that more and
more people distrust the experts. They have all these degrees
after their name and the Department of Education. People have
all these degrees. And I like to say, after the
last five years, Sam, I'm reminded that thermometers have a
lot of degrees. And now I know why nurses stick
them where they do for their most accurate readings. It's
(12:31):
amazing to me the and I agree with you, the
lack of faith in ourselves in of other things, and
if we just put more money or more expensive schools.
I had a friend that told me once we were
going too hard in our home school. You know, enjoy.
It was great advice, it was timely advice. And she said, Taya,
(12:51):
your kids learn just by being with you. Yes, you know,
you're a history buff, you love math, you know, and
our situation and is ironically very similar to yours and
she said, things that you do with your children will matter.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I like this phrase because I think it encapsulates a lot,
and people can sort of sit with it and revisit it. Often.
You are the curriculum. And so children want to be
like their parents. And you know, we've adopted in our
culture this idea that children are well, they don't want
to be like their parents. They kind of disdain their parents. Oh,
(13:29):
the parents are older. And that's a cultural norm that
we have adopted. That is highly suspicious. It's incorrect, and
actually it's infectious and dangerous. Children want to be like
their adults. So I wrote a piece the other day
that I can't remember where it was published, but it
(13:51):
pointed out that children should have their parents' values and
if they don't grow up with the parents' values, if
they don't grow up and retain the values of the parents,
that's wrong. Like that is decidedly wrong. And of course
we've seen that over the past several decades where the
(14:13):
parents are like, yeah, my child's a liberal go figure.
It's so weird. You know, it's not weird. It's that
you didn't raise your child. It's that you sent your
child to other authorities to have them pour out what
they wanted in the child. You gave the child a
different adult as the curricula, because the idea is education
(14:34):
of a child is simply bringing a child from childhood
into adulthood so that the child can be a productive, loving,
giving adult, right, And so there are many different paths
to get there, just like there are many different paths
to find a job. So you know, you have to
understand that just because school is the norm and people
(14:56):
send their kids to school, a lot of people said,
a lot of people are deep, and that doesn't mean
you're going to jump off the cliff if everyone else
jumps off the cliff, I would hope. So, you know,
start thinking for yourself and stop thinking that you're incapable.
That's what my book is about. It's about empowering the parents.
It's it's you know, people say, well, what curriculum do
you recommend. I recommend the parent as the curriculum. Yes,
(15:19):
there are curricula, by the way, and I have recommendations
in the book also because there are curricula that I
pursued that I just found to be an extreme blessing
for the family and the kids, and I just think
they're great they don't pay me. But I've reached a point.
You know, I've got three grown kids now, and I
was highly academic with the first two, and my third
(15:42):
one is an artist. And I finally figured out that
it's not about academics. It's about the whole picture, and
so academics are one part of the picture. But I
heard Marissa Strait, the CEO of Prager, you say, and
I've been quoting her at nausea. You can't teach academics
(16:02):
without character. You must pour into the character of the child.
And actually you must do it first, because a child
doesn't understand what integrity and honor and all of those virtue,
all those good things are will not be interested in academics.
But if you imbue the child with character, then you
(16:26):
can say these are good things, and the child will go, well,
I want to pursue good. Therefore I will pursue these
things that you're telling me are good because it's in
my interest.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I'm glad you mentioned that the about the soul.
You know, there's a quote it says education is simply
the soul of one generation passed to another. And when
our youngest matriculated, I think it was a senior year
for a particular program into a local school, and they
(16:59):
knew we were homeschol but they were going to allow
him to do this particular program. And it was a
small private school, and so they were trying to sell
me on academics. Well, he was pretty solid in the academics,
and he was he's our math guy too. And finally
I said, you know that, I'm sure your academics are fine.
(17:21):
That is not my number one concern with our son.
My number one concern is his soul.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
You're absolutely right, or concern should be for the soul
of our child. If you give your children truth, beauty
and goodness, if you give them character, if you give
them virtue, if you if you set the bar for
good living, they will And and you show them how
(17:50):
to learn. You teach them to read, You show them
how to read a textbook so that they can understand
and interpret. Okay, this is what it's teaching me. They
can learn anything. And then when you give them the
free time that they should have, right, they should have
maybe three hours of academics, but the rest of the
day should be basically free time to pursue things that
(18:11):
are good and virtuous. Not video games for eight hours
a day or whatever. Then you'll have a child that
is deeply motivated to pursue the things that interest them.
And that's what you want for your child. You know,
raise up a child in the way he should go.
That proverb in Hebrew. The translation is much more like
(18:33):
raise up a child to discover who he's meant to be.
Inside basically, raise a child to be who God meant
them to be, and then they will not depart from
it because they will have found their calling in life.
And so, you know, I want people to understand that
we've been sold a bill of goods in our own schooling.
(18:54):
We've been told that school is education. It's not. We've
been told that education equals money, doesn't. We've been told
that money is the greatest value. It's not. And anybody
who's lived a life will tell you that the most
important thing to them are their relationships. Relationship is the
(19:14):
number one and if you're not a good person, you
will not have those relationships. And unfortunately, we've done a
tremendous disservice in our culture. I love Erica Komisar is
going around. I just interviewed her for my podcast. You
should have her on if you get an opportunity. She's
talking about the zero to three of a child's life
(19:36):
are the most important for learning how to bond and
forming healthy relationships, and that when parents just subject their
children to childcare at six weeks, I think it's child abuse,
is what that is. It's not care. It's abuse that
those children then grow up to have severe attachment deficient
(20:00):
like disabilities and disorders. And uh so we have a
we have a bunch of walking zombies now because they
never learned how to form solid relationships, which is again,
which is another sort of chink in the armor of
marriage and the destruction of marriage, the destruction of the family.
And then those women when they have children, they don't
(20:22):
even want to attach to the children. They hire a
nanny or they send them to child care, and the
child's just an accessory. And it's this self perpetuating thing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So and it's frankly, Sam, it's it's straight out of
the communist playbook. You know. I have a quote from
the social the Communist education workers from I believe it
was the thirties or forty teachers' unions, Yes, exactly, thank you.
Modeled after that that says we must remove the child. No,
(20:55):
I'm sorry, we must remove the infant from the crude
influence of their families. Yeah, and get them away so
that we can raise them to be good communists.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I mean that's well, that's how you enslave a populace.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Absolutely, because if you're taught what to think, not how
to think, then you are maliable, and you are you know,
under the under the pressure of the of the majority,
or however they want to put it in the herd,
I guess. But I'm hoping we're reaching a point where
where at least we're stopping it, like to get it
(21:31):
turned around. And I want to get into the book now,
Parents Guide to homeschool making education fun and easy, which
is not two things people who haven't homeschooled would Those
are not two attributes they would ascribe to homeschooling. So
tell us a little bit. It's a labor of love,
(21:51):
you describe it, So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, So teaching a child is fun, if it's hard,
if it's too hard, if it's if it's uh, anxiety
provoking or antagonistic. Stop. I know that there are lots
of moms who yell at their kids. I will say,
you shouldn't ever be in a position to yell at
your children unless unless what they're doing is is severely
(22:16):
dangerous and they're gonna harm themselves or someone. Right. Look,
parents have to understand that they have all the power
and so all they have to do is administer consequences.
The problem is we don't want to administer consequences. So
that's where the hardship comes is. And the challenge is you.
You have to be able to stick to your guns.
(22:38):
You have to be able to lay down the law
and make it stick. But you don't have to shout
about it. It's you know, you can actually laugh about it.
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that you're not going
to be able to go out tonight. You're supposed to
do this thing and now you can't go with your friends,
or now you can't go to the movie or whatever. Right,
But all you have to do is be be strong
(23:00):
about it. Your no has to mean no. All my
kids at one point wanted to quit piano. The answer
was no, is that simple. No, I'm so sorry that's
not going to happen. But mom, I'd rather play guitar.
Guitar is a great instrument, yeah, and it's a really
good accompaniment for piano, so you can study both of
(23:22):
them at the same time. No, that's not what I
wanted to do. So, you know, you just have to.
You have to, and you have to pick your battles.
You have to pick which hills you need to die
on and which hills are just not worth fighting about. Yes,
And when my daughter was in tenth grade, math had
become very contentious between us, and so for her, math
(23:42):
is more confusing, and the rules don't really at that
point weren't really sticking, and so she was getting things wrong,
and I was getting very frustrated because I I mean,
at one point I thought she was just you know,
toying with me, you know, I mean, it just got
it was too contentious. And so for tenth grade, I
said to her, you know what, We're gonna let trigonometry go.
(24:06):
There's just it's not worth it. There's no reason for
me to provoke your anxiety, for you to provoke my aggravation.
Life is too short, and frankly, I don't understand how
important trigonometry really is for a budding artist. Now, did
I at some point go, how is she ever going
(24:27):
to make a living. Yeah, yeah, it takes a leap
of faith. But God created an artist in her, and
she's she'll get it figured out eventually. And and by
the way, the following year we went back to math.
But will she ever get through calculus? Probably not. And
you know what, that's okay. Much as I love calculus
and I wish that all my kids love calculus like
(24:48):
I do. They don't, but more they play piano a
lot better than I ever did. So you know, there
are these trade offs and you just have to figure out.
You know, we aren't taught. There's so much that school
fails to teach that we need. For instance, discernment we
don't learn discernment in school. Prioritizing we don't learn. In fact,
(25:10):
schools teach us make pros and cons lists. Have you
ever made a pros and cons list? You sit there
with the two lists and you're going back and forth
between the two, and you're like, but this doesn't get
me any closer to a decision at all. When all
you have to do is make a list of priorities.
What's your number one priority. If that's a deciding factor,
there's your decision. If it's not go to number two.
(25:32):
If that decides it, there's your decision. If not, you know,
rinse and repeat. So there are these life skills that
our schools fail to teach, and we don't even like
recognize that they're missing. We don't say, oh, my gosh,
I really should have learned that in school. You don't
know what you're missing until it's until it's too late.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Basically, well, I cried my way through calculus. But to
your point about artists, our son is an our artist,
and it was I too, was like, okay, it's in
the inbox, the Lord's inbox, right, because wow. But again,
we raised them to understand priorities and what was necessary
(26:14):
at each stage of life. And I was praying one
morning and what came to mind was, you know, I
complain often about the state of politics and about the
state of the entertainment or whatever the case may be.
And the conclusion to which I came at the end
(26:35):
of this, can't my people be artists? Can't God's people
be artists? Can't? Of course they can't. Your family is
living proof. And some of the dysfunction, I would say
a lot of the dysfunction that we see in certain
realms and society is because God's people left.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh gosh, yes God's people left. We've allowed a cultural
takeover for sure. And yes, God's people can be artists.
But why do I not value art because I went
to school. School taught me not to value art. School,
stupid school has has imbued the culture with stupid values.
(27:14):
And that's that's when I went to school. Right, I'm older,
so that was my schooling, and schooling today is off
the hook, like their values are so skewed and so wrong,
and so we need to go back. That's and that's
partly what this book does is it goes back to
impeach how you were taught, what you were taught a
(27:36):
little bit, but more importantly, how how the management of
the schooling for you, which informs what you think homeschool
should be, and it impeaches that, and it teaches you
what home education really should be and that it should
be easy and fun. And you know, we need to
give ourselves a break. We like the story that I
(27:59):
told you where I thought my son was remedial. What
was my metric? I don't know, I just had in
my mind, Well, he can't read well and he's in
second grade. Shouldn't he be reading at a I don't
know collegiate level by now, I don't. I have no
idea why I had that idea in my head. Well
that's not true. I know exactly why I had that
idea in my head. The school put in these parameters,
(28:22):
these assumptions that these things are natural and necessary. It
is natural and necessary for a five year old to
leave his parents and go to a complete stranger every day,
even though the parents have taught him out of tie
his shoes, how to use a knife and fork, how
to brush his teeth, how to wash his hands, how
to get dressed in the morning. The parents have taught
(28:44):
the child everything. All of a sudden, at age five,
the parents are useless. Now we have to bring in
the expert. And the expert, by the way, is some
twenty two year olds who just graduated from some Marxist
training college who majored in behavior management somehow. That's the
person needs to be teaching your child.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, some of the greatest minds in Western civilization didn't
leave the house till they were eight. I mean in
ancient Greece that you know, you were taught to read,
and you were taught to do basic math before you
even got I mean, that's.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
What pa In that case, they went to a tutor,
and there weren't a lot of them. And by the way,
the founders of this nation, the brilliant men who founded
the greatest nation in the world, the greatest nation in
the world, were all homeschooled. All of them were self taught.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's a huge part that people miss when you teach.
When we teach how to learn, they become lifelong learners.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
And that's what you mean. Franklin was completely self taught.
He actually ran away from his indentured servitude. He was
the most famous man in the world. He was more
famous than Michael Jackson at a time when we had
printed documents to share information. But everybody knew Ben Franklin.
He was known on both sides of the ocean.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And he actually was the only individual to sign all
four of the founding documents of the United States. And
he was an inventor who captured lightning in a bottle.
Like the guy was unstoppable, and they never went to school.
Yale gave him an honorary degree because Yale wanted to
claim that he was educated by Yale, right, but he wasn't.
(30:25):
He was self taught. And somehow we think, oh, but
we do it better now with this grand experiment. And
it's an experiment that is schooling. Somehow we think that
we've got it solved. It's an experiment. It's a failed experiment.
It's time that we realize that it's a failed experiment.
And if you don't mind, I want to take a
few minutes to talk about school choice. Oh. Absolutely, they're
(30:48):
disbanding the Department of Education. They're taking it down. That
actually doesn't mean that much. So there won't be an
entity called the Department of Education. Four thousand people in
theory won't have jobs anymore, but the money will still
be going through the federal government. And so it's not
really what we think it is. But at the same time,
(31:12):
there's an initiative to promote school choice. And we have
twelve or fourteen states now that have implemented some form
of school choice. The rest of the states already have
school choice, and the states that implemented school choice already
had school choice because you do have the option to
take your child to any school of your choice already.
(31:33):
But the new version of school choice that they are
promoting and that they have installed in even in my
state in Florida, is a form of voucher or ESA,
education savings account or some kind of program where the
parents have access to the money to fund the education
of their child. Unfortunately, that money comes from the government,
(31:56):
and whenever the money comes from the government, it is tinged. Yeah,
it is tinged. Now the promise in for instance, in
Arizona and in Florida, actually I know these two states
pretty intimately, it was no strings attached. You cannot have
government money flowing with no strings attached. That's USAID, right,
(32:16):
and look where that got it right. You must have
strings attached, because otherwise it's taxation without representation. We fought
a whole war about that. So the idea that they
could actually pull the wool over people's eyes and people
would vote for yay, no strings attached like idiots is
beyond me. But of course in year two strings were attached,
(32:38):
and so in the state of Florida, the string was, oh,
but we need to see the test results of your child.
I know one parent who was like, heck, no, I
will not give you my child's data, because of course
they're data mining and what homeschoolers have to understand, and
I hope there are more and more homeschoolers, is when
you take the government funds, you become no longer an
(32:59):
independent homesore. You are now schooling with government funds. So
you are a government schooler. You're a public schooler. But
the other thing that I want people to understand, and
particularly parochial schools, Christian schools, religious schools of any kind, frankly,
is when they take the money, they are no longer
a private school. They become a government school. So school
(33:21):
choice is not what you think is actually the opposite.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Sorry, government is still in control.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
If you're taking government funds, the government has to have oversight,
and the moment that there's government oversight, you are under
the thumb of government. And so what they're doing with
school choice, they're saying, oh, but it's great, we're taking
the funds away from the public schools and putting them
in the private sector. No, you're making the private sector
government monopoly. And so we will. Now there's one other piece.
(33:53):
There are entities like the one that I pursued with
classical conversations. It's a Christian homes school will co op
that organization will never will never ask for government accreditation.
They don't want it. They do not want to be
on the so they will not take the funds, so
they will be out of business. So what this does
(34:17):
is it pollutes all the private entities that will take
the money and puts all the other private entities out
of business. It is a full government takeover of schools.
It is the exact opposite of what we are trying
to do with disbanding the Department of Education. It is
actually going to make children's schools like our colleges today.
(34:42):
And that's a scary thought, yes, because look at what
the colleges have become, right right it useless.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
We've been warning about this for a long time. You know,
our children are grown too. But I've been involved in
Ohio politics for quite a bit and we saw the
penetration through the public school into the private schools, and
I knew homeschools were next, and that was a lot
of the impetus for my involvement. And it was just
(35:09):
a matter of time before new groups of homeschoolers got
in and say, well, why am I paying double Why
aren't our property taxes going to my homeschool? So there
are and lots of different versions that legislative state legislators
are trying to pass, but it's all the same. And
I just remind people government whether it's well intended or not.
And I don't give government the judgment of charity ever
(35:32):
they get.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
The of the people. Some of the people are just misguided.
Some of them are nefarious.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Well on the Gammus that is my eighty twenty rule.
I do say that eighty percent are ignorant, and I
don't mean that pejoratively. I just mean they don't know,
and twenty percent are complicit and they know exactly what
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Some people that I really like and admire are on
the wrong side of this issue. Yeah, and I'm and
it makes me sad because I don't want to be
antagonistic to them, but they are on the wrong side
of this issue, and they cannot see two steps down
the road. They can only see what's in front of
them now. Some of them are just happy because they're
making buck, they're making bank, because they're taking government money
(36:15):
for their private schools or whatever their entity is, right,
and that makes me sad. But we have to be
clear on this. And one of the things I just
wrote another piece about this one of the moms that
I know who took the money she needed to spend.
You have to spend the whole amount before the end
of the year.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, and so they did public schools.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah right, And so she bought two flat screen TVs
because she didn't she couldn't find enough you know, curricula
or whatever for her child. Another mom bought a ginormous
beanbag for her kids because why not. And it's available.
And by the way, those things are available for purchase
with your government money on the site. You have to
(36:59):
understand when you're in a hardship situation and you go
to the church and you ask for some money because
you're in a hardship situation, and it brings you to
your knees. Right when the church gets together, your community
gets together to help you out. You're not going to
take that money and go get a manicure, I would hope, right.
But if the government cuts you a check, that's free money.
(37:21):
That is found money. That is Disneyland tickets. And by
the way, you can get tickets to Disneyland and Disney World.
Oh absolutely. And here's what's funny, Taya in the state
of Arizona, because I was studying Arizona because they were
one of the first states that did this no strings attached.
In fact, I spoke to a legislative community, the Christian
(37:45):
Legislator's community. Anyway, I spoke at one of their meetings,
and after I finished speaking, the first guy who answered
me was from Arizona, and he said, well, in Arizona,
we have these great essays we just implemented there are
no strings attached. It's a great program. And I'm like,
you literally didn't hear anything. I just said, okay, fine.
(38:06):
Within a year or two, their tuition rates had shot
up as much as forty percent in some schools, because
when there's more money in the marketplace, the rates go up.
That's just how it happens. It happened with our colleges. Okay. Now,
if you try to search it online, it is very
hard to find evidence that tuition rates went up. So
(38:28):
they are scrubbing the Internet of history to prove that
Arizona is actually popular and successful. But also I want
people to understand we because this is one of the
things that we're not taught in school. Along with discernment,
is understand defining our terms, understanding the terms that the
(38:51):
people you are listening to, are using and their meanings,
their definitions. So they say the program is immensely popular. Okay,
define popular, successful, define successful. Their definition of success is
parents love it. But that is not what we would
define success as we would define success as test scores
(39:14):
for kids are rising, right, literacy is improving. Those are
definitions of success or popularity.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
And we remain free citizens.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But here's the thing. When is it not popular to
send people checks? Oh my gosh, they got a check
for seven grand and they were very upset. No. No,
So unfortunately, they've got language and they're misusing language to
mean things that don't translate into what they're actually supposed
(39:48):
to be talking about. And so this is a very
h this is a very dangerous place, and people have
to understand why school choice is actually the cheese in
the trap.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
With the protests that went on in Illinois, I was thinking,
this is exactly and this goes to your point. Protest
and stop it now before they create the infrastructure for it. Now,
you know Race to the Top that created a lot
of infrastructure for public and private schools, and the surreptitious
data mining and all of the crap that came with that.
(40:26):
But and again it was the homeschoolers, and this parlayed
my involvement into politics. Years ago, someone told me at
the state capitol that homeschoolers are always a target. We've
just not gotten to them yet. Yes, and so it's
like we know they're coming. So it was a blessing
and a curse because I knew I had to pay
(40:47):
attention from that moment on.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Unfortunately, there are many homeschool entities. In fact, there are
even fake homeschool entities that are very pro school choice.
So it is easy to get duped. It is very
easy to get duped, but you have to and well,
they have the money already anyway. Yeah, okay, let's change
the tax laws. Then amen. People are like, well, what
(41:12):
are you going to do for the inner city kids?
And I'm like, the inner city kids are not being
served already, right, this is not going to help them.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So that always comes up. Okay, well let's have a
separate discussion for that demographic. I'm happy to do that.
But guess what, to your point, they're not being served.
So whatever we do is going to be a step
up in my opinion, especially if you let homeschool moms
in so in addition to the impeachment of how we
were taught and indoctrinated to trust the experts with all
(41:44):
the degrees after their name. And in the book Parents
Guide to Homeschooling, do you go over some of these
things about school choice? And I'm assuming there are resources
for parents that are new or just starting out.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
So Parents Guide to homeschool is actually a workbook for
the parents so that they can work through how they
should be defining education and the future for their children
and reconsider the metrics that have been imposed on them
from their own schooling. I know that doesn't make it
sound like super interesting, but.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I think it's a fabulous idea. It's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think it's important for people to take a step
back and consider, Okay, what is my goal with having
a child? You know is at the corner office at
the at the you know, Goldman Sachs Building, Like, is
that your your goal for your child that you never
see them because they're too busy and they you know,
three times divorced, and you know they drive a Porsche.
(42:48):
I mean, if you take a step back and you go, okay, wait,
what is life really about? What do I want for
my children? What is what is their highest aim? And
that's the point of the book is to really gets
you to consider and help you to understand that you
are infinitely capable in raising your child yourself, getting them
(43:09):
an education and embark and helping them to embark on
a successful life. That's what it's about. It's not about
Goldman Sachs, Harvard University or whatever. It's about how to
have a successful life. And you know, I mean, look,
we've come so far. We used to we used to
be families. Dad worked at home because we were we
(43:33):
were carpenters or locksmiths or plumbers or whatever, cabinet makers, right,
And the kids always saw Dad because he was right there,
and Mom helped, and then the kids helped and then right. So, okay,
we're more sophisticated than that now, but we can go
back to some of that and the kids can. When
(43:53):
I first started homeschooling, the first thing that my husband
noticed was that he had more time to spend with
the kids because he traveled a lot, and he traveled
a lot on weekends and that was their time off
from school. And so he noticed that, my gosh, when
he was home and by the way, when he was home,
he'd grab the kids and take him to Costco, or
(44:14):
he'd you know, during the day, any time of day,
like they were free, and they weren't. They weren't just free.
They had things that we were doing. But I could
free up their time at any particular time so that
they were free for him. And I mean that just
forged a great relationship for him with the kids. But
(44:35):
the standard family today, dad goes off to work. The
kids have no idea what he does for a living. Literally,
they never get to know their father. Basically, they know
him as maybe maybe he's the baseball coach or the
little league coach or whatever, you know, like maybe there's
a little bit of that, but it's the disintegration of
the family, and it shouldn't be. Kids need their dads,
(44:56):
and they need their moms, and they need us more
than we we tend to imagine in this culture. And
so I mentioned Erica Coomasar, but there's also sorry doctor
Leonard Sachs who talks about this, and he says he's
on a crusade, you know, skip the playdate, do a
family date instead. He's saying children need their parents a
(45:18):
lot more than we credit them with, especially teenagers, he says.
So when your teenager says, I want to invite Sally,
my best friend, on our vacation, the answers no, the
vacation is for the family. Those are his. That's his view, right,
which of course I fully support because I'm a homeschooler
and the family is for the family all day long,
(45:41):
every day. And if you want to take some time
and go see Sally, that's fine, but you know, keep
your family close, protect them, and they will love you
for it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I would also add that you get to know your kids.
I used to tell people I don't just love my kids,
I really like them.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
One of the things that I tell parents is, you know,
if your child is interested in something, show an interest
in that thing. That is how you serve them. Okay,
And it's not about them doing the thing that you
want to do. Yes, it's about you doing the thing
that they want to do. And the other thing that
I will say, and this is sort of a secret
hack everything literally everything is more interesting in the details.
(46:26):
So I was just talking to a friend of mine
and she decided for her kids that they could pick
the science unit that they were going to do. She said,
whatever science you decide that's the science that will do
this year, and one of her kids said botany, and
she was like, oh my gosh, I kill every plant
I've ever had. This would be the worst thing. She
(46:46):
was so dreading it. But the kids chose botany. All
the kids were on board, so they started with botany.
She's like, Sam, did you know that flowers have male
and female parts? And I'm saying to you, everything is
more interesting in the details, so just dive in. If
your child is interested in it, you you owe it
to them to feign an interest, and if you feign
(47:10):
the interest, you will get the interest in the details.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Amen. I agree with that. There was another serendipitous event
that we found out during homeschooling is that we actually
like teenagers. I mean, you get a Socratic circle going
on about something crazy and with their friends. I mean
it's just you know, to your point, everything is learning
and you get down into the details and they learn
(47:35):
to define your terms and it just makes them better communicators.
And if one of the goals of education is to
produce productive human beings out in the world, certainly you
know that will that will aid them in doing so.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Absolutely, and thank you for being such a wonderful, articulate
advocate for home education. I hope you'll come back, and
God speed to you and your family. Okay, Sam Sorbo, everyone, Wow,
I always get a little intimidated when I talk to her, Joe.
(48:14):
She's just so amazing. She likes checks all these boxes,
and frankly, I'm just glad to know she's out there
on our side, right all right. So her book, Parents
Guide to Homeschooling Making Education Easy and Fun. Highly recommend
you go check that out. I'm going to get a
copy and share that with people I know who are
(48:35):
considering homeschooling, and if you are a parent with grown
children who are considering that lifestyle as well, I would
highly recommend that book. I'm just very grateful for the
time and effort that she put into that. You know,
it's consistent. She's a producer, she just produces great content,
(49:00):
all right. I also want to echo her point about
school choice. We've had both Lee and Robert Borton on
the show and warning about the same thing. Look, there
are always strings attached with government money. It makes sense, right,
I mean, we would like oversight with more of our money.
(49:20):
This is one of the things Doze is exposing that
there hasn't been any oversight, So we do want oversight
of taxpayer dollars. The question becomes how much of our
taxpayer dollars actually go to the intended targets and are
they used to buy or bribe or blackmail somebody. But
(49:42):
the school choice line about no strings attached, if we
don't know by now that that is a bald face lie,
then we've learned nothing, especially after the last five years.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
So just be aware and be.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Cognitive, and hopefully we will prevent government from taking over
the homeschool community because that's absolutely what it intends to do.
We are the only demographic they cannot control.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Think about that.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
We produce. And I'm not saying don't email me my
kid went to this school or that school and they're fine.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Okay, fine.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
Outliers always exist, But in a grand study, I'm sure
we would find lots of sane, fiscally responsible, grounded people
coming from our community. And government frankly doesn't want that.
They want zombies they can control and indoctrinate. Like I said,
(50:45):
we must remove the infant from the crude influence of
their family. So Let's not give them that opportunity. Okay,
I want to thank everyone for listening. Thank you as
always too, Magic Man, Joe Strucker.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Until next time, who will.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Stand at either hand and keep the bridge with me?
Have a great day.
Hey everybody, and welcome to Everything's Political. I'm your host,
Taya Shoemake. You can also find us online at Everything's
Political dot substep dot com, Shout Out Too, Magicman. Joe
Strecker the president John Tyler of Podcast Producers. He was
born on this day in seventeen ninety wow, right before
(00:24):
we mucked up the republic with the seventeen ninety one
Judiciary Act. But I digress. So John Tyler was our
tenth president, and if you're unaware, he stepped up after
William Henry Harrison perished after one month of being in office.
He was the guy that didn't wear the coat, and
(00:46):
he came down with pneumonia and quite literally caught his death.
So John Tyler stepped up. He had been a Democrat
but switched to the Whig Party to run as Harrison's
vice president. And you know, John Tyler gets a lot
of criticism, Joe, he gets not a lot from me.
(01:09):
But when people talk about John Tyler, they talk about
him not doing anything noteworthy. And I have to shake
my head because part of the conundrum in which we
find ourselves is in large part due to the fact
that elected employees get into office and think they have
(01:32):
to do something.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, no, you don't.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
And if a piece of legislation crosses your desk that
has no authority or nothing to do with the Constitution,
or expressly violates the Constitution, you put that baby in
the shutter. I don't want government doing stuff. It either
destroys existing programs or platforms or systems, or creates a
(02:01):
new bureaucracy. For Leviathan, that just is a headache that
never goes away. And so it's okay that John Tyler
didn't do a lot he was I will say this, Joe,
he was in favor of secession. So that's why they
really hate him. In fact, I think he was elected
to the Confederacy the Confederate States, but died in eighteen
(02:25):
sixty two before he was seated in that government. So
interesting character, John Tyler. Give him a second look, will you? You
know that we've got every president that wants to be
the education president, that wants to be the defense president,
that wants to be da da da da da. No,
(02:50):
there might be things powers, not powers, but issues that
presidents have assumed. But I like to remind people that
anyone who puts their hand on the Bible and swears
to Almighty God to uphold and defend the Constitution. They
have one job, and that is to keep us free
(03:12):
from all the things that are going on now, Free
from debt, free from scandal, free from big business, free
from invasion. Government has allowed the very things it was
instituted to keep free, or to keep us free from them.
(03:39):
So again, give John Tyler a second look. I like
that he didn't do much. I want my government to
do very little, and that's why I want it to
be very little.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Okay, we're going to talk more about education today. I
can't wait.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
We've got a great guest and she's gonna knock your
socks off, Joe, let's take us out there.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Yeah, same as the whole buss.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Okay, many of you will be familiar with our next guest.
She is amazing an actress, conservative pundit, radio show host, writer.
My goodness, she is also a passionate advocate for home education.
She's joining us today to talk about her new book,
Sam Sorbo, Welcome and thanks for coming today.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Thank you so much for having me on. This is
my favorite topic, so I'm happy to be here to
talk about this.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Fantastic We're ready to go. Lots of buzz about homeschooling lately,
especially with a lot of the issues that have come
out that I think started at COVID, Right, So a
lot of stuff came out of backpacks or parents were
looking at the zoom calls or teams and found out
a lot of stuff they didn't know. Before we get
(05:09):
into the book, let me ask how you all started
with homeschooling.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Oh gosh, okay, so that goes back to So my
oldest is now twenty three, So this is what fifteen
sixteen years ago, and he was in He did first
and second grade. We moved for the schools to go
to the good public schools, and he had this cute
little red brick public school. And after during third grade,
(05:35):
I started to wonder really what they were doing, Like
this wasn't education as I thought education should be. He
wasn't being challenged, and I just really didn't like a
lot of the things that I saw happening, including his
behavior that he was adopting from being in school. He
was a very popular kid, and he started to sort
(05:57):
of lord that over his younger siblings because they were
stupid because they were younger, and you know, agism is
taught in the classroom, and so I said to my husband,
I think I could fail at homeschooling him and he
would still be better off, which is really quite a statement,
like he could end up dumb, but at least he'll
be a good person. But I actually believed that, and
(06:19):
so I started homeschooling him and then his younger brother,
So he was third grade, Shane was first grade. And
it went pretty well for about a year, a year
and a half and a year and a half in
I just felt like I was just a failure. His
younger brother was a little math with He finished first
grade math on Halloween, so it took him what two
(06:41):
months to do first grade, and then he was in
second grade, and then he moved to third grade. And
by the time he was halfway through second grade, he
was in fourth grade math. But he couldn't read very well.
So I forced him to do the reading book over again,
and you know, we did every lesson and even on vacation,
and he still wasn't that good. And so I just
(07:01):
felt like a failure. So I put them into a
little private Christian school, very small, where they really believed
in rigorous academics, which is what I believed in, and
they stay that it was the hardest thing I'd ever done.
Oh my gosh. Driving home from school that day when
I dropped them off, And the funny thing is when
I when I brought them in, the headmistress said, we're
(07:23):
going to test him to make sure that we put
him in with the right group of students. And so
she took Shane away and she tested him. She came
back and she said, yeah, you're right, he's he's second grade.
I said yeah. She said, well he is testing at
a fourth grade math level, so you know, good for you, mom.
And I had said to her, I told her he
was remedial and reading he just really wasn't it just
(07:45):
wasn't clicking. I don't know. She said, he is reading
at a fifth grade level. And I looked at her
and I said, so I'm the one with the problem.
She was like, yeah, kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I left him there. I still left the kids
there because I'm still under this impression that there exists
an expert who can educate properly. That is a chimera.
That's a mirage. It doesn't exist. There is no such thing.
(08:19):
And so, at least certainly not one size fits all,
and so I left them there and after six weeks,
and by the way, it was a hybrid, So a
cautionary tale about hybrids for parents. This was, you know,
two days of homeschooling, you do the work that the
school sends home with you. You're the teacher those two
(08:41):
days and then they're the teachers the other three days
of the week or whatever. And I would try to
download their homework and it wouldn't download. You know, there
were always technical glitches. So it was the whole online
learning thing was still new, and so it's not like
I blame them that there were tech glitches, but why
would call the teacher in the evening and I'd say, listen,
(09:03):
I tried to download the homework and it just won't download,
like I can't make it, you know, work, And her
answer was always, well, then don't worry about it. Now
wait a minute, hold on, because you assigned it. It
has to be important. If it's not important, don't give
me the assignment, do you know what I'm saying? Like,
it was just so frustrating, and so after six weeks,
(09:26):
I was like, do you guys like school? And they
were both like, no, Mommy, I was like, okay, we're
gonna quit. And I brought him back home and that Monday,
I put math down in front of Shane and he
started crying and he said, I can't, Mommy, it's too hard.
I can't do it, which was words that he had
(09:48):
never spoken about math ever, and it broke my heart.
I was devastated. I was like, wow, they damaged him.
And of course I didn't know how. I just had
this boy who was melting down, afraid to do math.
And so I pulled the math book away and I
just very quietly, you know, closed it back up, put
(10:10):
it to the side. I said, okay, let's do some grammar.
Let's do some you know. A week later, I pulled
the math book out again. I went back a couple
chapters and I started from there and I said, hey,
let's try this. No problem. He went right into it,
no problem. And so I realized. It took me a
couple of years to realize in actually somebody coming up
to me at a speaking event and saying to me,
(10:32):
isn't it beautiful that God allowed you to make the
mistake putting your children in that little school for six
weeks to prove to you that you are enough. And
that's my message for parents is God gave you your children.
You are enough, and if you're not enough, he will
equip you. If you don't have patience, he will equip you.
If you lack the skills, he will equip you. If
(10:55):
you lack the knowledge, he will equip you somehow. But
we have lost faith. We've lost faith in God. We've
lost faith in ourselves because we went to school and
we were trained to not have faith in ourselves. And
we've lost faith in children that they are intrinsic learners.
And so we not only have we lost faith in children,
(11:15):
my goodness, our culture hates children. We hate children. We
institutionalize them all day, we send homework home to make
them continue working even in the evenings. We deprive them
of their childhoods. We abort them and celebrate it. We
put them into gender studies and call it health care.
And I'm just here to try to wake people up
(11:36):
and say, you know, your children are precious gifts and
you should do everything you can to protect them. And
when you do that, the rewards are astonishing.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Amen. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. It's you know,
we talk here often about reclaiming the blessings of liberty
that we've outsourced. And first and foremost our family, the
care of our children, the education of our children, are healthcare.
You know. I was brought up the same way, trusting
the experts. And I say that one of the great
(12:07):
blessings that came out of COVID is that more and
more people distrust the experts. They have all these degrees
after their name and the Department of Education. People have
all these degrees. And I like to say, after the
last five years, Sam, I'm reminded that thermometers have a
lot of degrees. And now I know why nurses stick
them where they do for their most accurate readings. It's
(12:31):
amazing to me the and I agree with you, the
lack of faith in ourselves in of other things, and
if we just put more money or more expensive schools.
I had a friend that told me once we were
going too hard in our home school. You know, enjoy.
It was great advice, it was timely advice. And she said, Taya,
(12:51):
your kids learn just by being with you. Yes, you know,
you're a history buff, you love math, you know, and
our situation and is ironically very similar to yours and
she said, things that you do with your children will matter.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I like this phrase because I think it encapsulates a lot,
and people can sort of sit with it and revisit it. Often.
You are the curriculum. And so children want to be
like their parents. And you know, we've adopted in our
culture this idea that children are well, they don't want
to be like their parents. They kind of disdain their parents. Oh,
(13:29):
the parents are older. And that's a cultural norm that
we have adopted. That is highly suspicious. It's incorrect, and
actually it's infectious and dangerous. Children want to be like
their adults. So I wrote a piece the other day
that I can't remember where it was published, but it
(13:51):
pointed out that children should have their parents' values and
if they don't grow up with the parents' values, if
they don't grow up and retain the values of the parents,
that's wrong. Like that is decidedly wrong. And of course
we've seen that over the past several decades where the
(14:13):
parents are like, yeah, my child's a liberal go figure.
It's so weird. You know, it's not weird. It's that
you didn't raise your child. It's that you sent your
child to other authorities to have them pour out what
they wanted in the child. You gave the child a
different adult as the curricula, because the idea is education
(14:34):
of a child is simply bringing a child from childhood
into adulthood so that the child can be a productive, loving,
giving adult, right, And so there are many different paths
to get there, just like there are many different paths
to find a job. So you know, you have to
understand that just because school is the norm and people
(14:56):
send their kids to school, a lot of people said,
a lot of people are deep, and that doesn't mean
you're going to jump off the cliff if everyone else
jumps off the cliff, I would hope. So, you know,
start thinking for yourself and stop thinking that you're incapable.
That's what my book is about. It's about empowering the parents.
It's it's you know, people say, well, what curriculum do
you recommend. I recommend the parent as the curriculum. Yes,
(15:19):
there are curricula, by the way, and I have recommendations
in the book also because there are curricula that I
pursued that I just found to be an extreme blessing
for the family and the kids, and I just think
they're great they don't pay me. But I've reached a point.
You know, I've got three grown kids now, and I
was highly academic with the first two, and my third
(15:42):
one is an artist. And I finally figured out that
it's not about academics. It's about the whole picture, and
so academics are one part of the picture. But I
heard Marissa Strait, the CEO of Prager, you say, and
I've been quoting her at nausea. You can't teach academics
(16:02):
without character. You must pour into the character of the child.
And actually you must do it first, because a child
doesn't understand what integrity and honor and all of those virtue,
all those good things are will not be interested in academics.
But if you imbue the child with character, then you
(16:26):
can say these are good things, and the child will go, well,
I want to pursue good. Therefore I will pursue these
things that you're telling me are good because it's in
my interest.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So I'm glad you mentioned that the about the soul.
You know, there's a quote it says education is simply
the soul of one generation passed to another. And when
our youngest matriculated, I think it was a senior year
for a particular program into a local school, and they
(16:59):
knew we were homeschol but they were going to allow
him to do this particular program. And it was a
small private school, and so they were trying to sell
me on academics. Well, he was pretty solid in the academics,
and he was he's our math guy too. And finally
I said, you know that, I'm sure your academics are fine.
(17:21):
That is not my number one concern with our son.
My number one concern is his soul.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
You're absolutely right, or concern should be for the soul
of our child. If you give your children truth, beauty
and goodness, if you give them character, if you give
them virtue, if you if you set the bar for
good living, they will And and you show them how
(17:50):
to learn. You teach them to read, You show them
how to read a textbook so that they can understand
and interpret. Okay, this is what it's teaching me. They
can learn anything. And then when you give them the
free time that they should have, right, they should have
maybe three hours of academics, but the rest of the
day should be basically free time to pursue things that
(18:11):
are good and virtuous. Not video games for eight hours
a day or whatever. Then you'll have a child that
is deeply motivated to pursue the things that interest them.
And that's what you want for your child. You know,
raise up a child in the way he should go.
That proverb in Hebrew. The translation is much more like
(18:33):
raise up a child to discover who he's meant to be.
Inside basically, raise a child to be who God meant
them to be, and then they will not depart from
it because they will have found their calling in life.
And so, you know, I want people to understand that
we've been sold a bill of goods in our own schooling.
(18:54):
We've been told that school is education. It's not. We've
been told that education equals money, doesn't. We've been told
that money is the greatest value. It's not. And anybody
who's lived a life will tell you that the most
important thing to them are their relationships. Relationship is the
(19:14):
number one and if you're not a good person, you
will not have those relationships. And unfortunately, we've done a
tremendous disservice in our culture. I love Erica Komisar is
going around. I just interviewed her for my podcast. You
should have her on if you get an opportunity. She's
talking about the zero to three of a child's life
(19:36):
are the most important for learning how to bond and
forming healthy relationships, and that when parents just subject their
children to childcare at six weeks, I think it's child abuse,
is what that is. It's not care. It's abuse that
those children then grow up to have severe attachment deficient
(20:00):
like disabilities and disorders. And uh so we have a
we have a bunch of walking zombies now because they
never learned how to form solid relationships, which is again,
which is another sort of chink in the armor of
marriage and the destruction of marriage, the destruction of the family.
And then those women when they have children, they don't
(20:22):
even want to attach to the children. They hire a
nanny or they send them to child care, and the
child's just an accessory. And it's this self perpetuating thing.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
So and it's frankly, Sam, it's it's straight out of
the communist playbook. You know. I have a quote from
the social the Communist education workers from I believe it
was the thirties or forty teachers' unions, Yes, exactly, thank you.
Modeled after that that says we must remove the child. No,
(20:55):
I'm sorry, we must remove the infant from the crude
influence of their families. Yeah, and get them away so
that we can raise them to be good communists.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I mean that's well, that's how you enslave a populace.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Absolutely, because if you're taught what to think, not how
to think, then you are maliable, and you are you know,
under the under the pressure of the of the majority,
or however they want to put it in the herd,
I guess. But I'm hoping we're reaching a point where
where at least we're stopping it, like to get it
(21:31):
turned around. And I want to get into the book now,
Parents Guide to homeschool making education fun and easy, which
is not two things people who haven't homeschooled would Those
are not two attributes they would ascribe to homeschooling. So
tell us a little bit. It's a labor of love,
(21:51):
you describe it, So tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, So teaching a child is fun, if it's hard,
if it's too hard, if it's if it's uh, anxiety
provoking or antagonistic. Stop. I know that there are lots
of moms who yell at their kids. I will say,
you shouldn't ever be in a position to yell at
your children unless unless what they're doing is is severely
(22:16):
dangerous and they're gonna harm themselves or someone. Right. Look,
parents have to understand that they have all the power
and so all they have to do is administer consequences.
The problem is we don't want to administer consequences. So
that's where the hardship comes is. And the challenge is you.
You have to be able to stick to your guns.
(22:38):
You have to be able to lay down the law
and make it stick. But you don't have to shout
about it. It's you know, you can actually laugh about it.
Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that you're not going
to be able to go out tonight. You're supposed to
do this thing and now you can't go with your friends,
or now you can't go to the movie or whatever. Right,
But all you have to do is be be strong
(23:00):
about it. Your no has to mean no. All my
kids at one point wanted to quit piano. The answer
was no, is that simple. No, I'm so sorry that's
not going to happen. But mom, I'd rather play guitar.
Guitar is a great instrument, yeah, and it's a really
good accompaniment for piano, so you can study both of
(23:22):
them at the same time. No, that's not what I
wanted to do. So, you know, you just have to.
You have to, and you have to pick your battles.
You have to pick which hills you need to die
on and which hills are just not worth fighting about. Yes,
And when my daughter was in tenth grade, math had
become very contentious between us, and so for her, math
(23:42):
is more confusing, and the rules don't really at that
point weren't really sticking, and so she was getting things wrong,
and I was getting very frustrated because I I mean,
at one point I thought she was just you know,
toying with me, you know, I mean, it just got
it was too contentious. And so for tenth grade, I
said to her, you know what, We're gonna let trigonometry go.
(24:06):
There's just it's not worth it. There's no reason for
me to provoke your anxiety, for you to provoke my aggravation.
Life is too short, and frankly, I don't understand how
important trigonometry really is for a budding artist. Now, did
I at some point go, how is she ever going
(24:27):
to make a living. Yeah, yeah, it takes a leap
of faith. But God created an artist in her, and
she's she'll get it figured out eventually. And and by
the way, the following year we went back to math.
But will she ever get through calculus? Probably not. And
you know what, that's okay. Much as I love calculus
and I wish that all my kids love calculus like
(24:48):
I do. They don't, but more they play piano a
lot better than I ever did. So you know, there
are these trade offs and you just have to figure out.
You know, we aren't taught. There's so much that school
fails to teach that we need. For instance, discernment we
don't learn discernment in school. Prioritizing we don't learn. In fact,
(25:10):
schools teach us make pros and cons lists. Have you
ever made a pros and cons list? You sit there
with the two lists and you're going back and forth
between the two, and you're like, but this doesn't get
me any closer to a decision at all. When all
you have to do is make a list of priorities.
What's your number one priority. If that's a deciding factor,
there's your decision. If it's not go to number two.
(25:32):
If that decides it, there's your decision. If not, you know,
rinse and repeat. So there are these life skills that
our schools fail to teach, and we don't even like
recognize that they're missing. We don't say, oh, my gosh,
I really should have learned that in school. You don't
know what you're missing until it's until it's too late.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Basically, well, I cried my way through calculus. But to
your point about artists, our son is an our artist,
and it was I too, was like, okay, it's in
the inbox, the Lord's inbox, right, because wow. But again,
we raised them to understand priorities and what was necessary
(26:14):
at each stage of life. And I was praying one
morning and what came to mind was, you know, I
complain often about the state of politics and about the
state of the entertainment or whatever the case may be.
And the conclusion to which I came at the end
(26:35):
of this, can't my people be artists? Can't God's people
be artists? Can't? Of course they can't. Your family is
living proof. And some of the dysfunction, I would say
a lot of the dysfunction that we see in certain
realms and society is because God's people left.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Oh gosh, yes God's people left. We've allowed a cultural
takeover for sure. And yes, God's people can be artists.
But why do I not value art because I went
to school. School taught me not to value art. School,
stupid school has has imbued the culture with stupid values.
(27:14):
And that's that's when I went to school. Right, I'm older,
so that was my schooling, and schooling today is off
the hook, like their values are so skewed and so wrong,
and so we need to go back. That's and that's
partly what this book does is it goes back to
impeach how you were taught, what you were taught a
(27:36):
little bit, but more importantly, how how the management of
the schooling for you, which informs what you think homeschool
should be, and it impeaches that, and it teaches you
what home education really should be and that it should
be easy and fun. And you know, we need to
give ourselves a break. We like the story that I
(27:59):
told you where I thought my son was remedial. What
was my metric? I don't know, I just had in
my mind, Well, he can't read well and he's in
second grade. Shouldn't he be reading at a I don't
know collegiate level by now, I don't. I have no
idea why I had that idea in my head. Well
that's not true. I know exactly why I had that
idea in my head. The school put in these parameters,
(28:22):
these assumptions that these things are natural and necessary. It
is natural and necessary for a five year old to
leave his parents and go to a complete stranger every day,
even though the parents have taught him out of tie
his shoes, how to use a knife and fork, how
to brush his teeth, how to wash his hands, how
to get dressed in the morning. The parents have taught
(28:44):
the child everything. All of a sudden, at age five,
the parents are useless. Now we have to bring in
the expert. And the expert, by the way, is some
twenty two year olds who just graduated from some Marxist
training college who majored in behavior management somehow. That's the
person needs to be teaching your child.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, some of the greatest minds in Western civilization didn't
leave the house till they were eight. I mean in
ancient Greece that you know, you were taught to read,
and you were taught to do basic math before you
even got I mean, that's.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
What pa In that case, they went to a tutor,
and there weren't a lot of them. And by the way,
the founders of this nation, the brilliant men who founded
the greatest nation in the world, the greatest nation in
the world, were all homeschooled. All of them were self taught.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's a huge part that people miss when you teach.
When we teach how to learn, they become lifelong learners.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
And that's what you mean. Franklin was completely self taught.
He actually ran away from his indentured servitude. He was
the most famous man in the world. He was more
famous than Michael Jackson at a time when we had
printed documents to share information. But everybody knew Ben Franklin.
He was known on both sides of the ocean.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
And he actually was the only individual to sign all
four of the founding documents of the United States. And
he was an inventor who captured lightning in a bottle.
Like the guy was unstoppable, and they never went to school.
Yale gave him an honorary degree because Yale wanted to
claim that he was educated by Yale, right, but he wasn't.
(30:25):
He was self taught. And somehow we think, oh, but
we do it better now with this grand experiment. And
it's an experiment that is schooling. Somehow we think that
we've got it solved. It's an experiment. It's a failed experiment.
It's time that we realize that it's a failed experiment.
And if you don't mind, I want to take a
few minutes to talk about school choice. Oh. Absolutely, they're
(30:48):
disbanding the Department of Education. They're taking it down. That
actually doesn't mean that much. So there won't be an
entity called the Department of Education. Four thousand people in
theory won't have jobs anymore, but the money will still
be going through the federal government. And so it's not
really what we think it is. But at the same time,
(31:12):
there's an initiative to promote school choice. And we have
twelve or fourteen states now that have implemented some form
of school choice. The rest of the states already have
school choice, and the states that implemented school choice already
had school choice because you do have the option to
take your child to any school of your choice already.
(31:33):
But the new version of school choice that they are
promoting and that they have installed in even in my
state in Florida, is a form of voucher or ESA,
education savings account or some kind of program where the
parents have access to the money to fund the education
of their child. Unfortunately, that money comes from the government,
(31:56):
and whenever the money comes from the government, it is tinged. Yeah,
it is tinged. Now the promise in for instance, in
Arizona and in Florida, actually I know these two states
pretty intimately, it was no strings attached. You cannot have
government money flowing with no strings attached. That's USAID, right,
(32:16):
and look where that got it right. You must have
strings attached, because otherwise it's taxation without representation. We fought
a whole war about that. So the idea that they
could actually pull the wool over people's eyes and people
would vote for yay, no strings attached like idiots is
beyond me. But of course in year two strings were attached,
(32:38):
and so in the state of Florida, the string was, oh,
but we need to see the test results of your child.
I know one parent who was like, heck, no, I
will not give you my child's data, because of course
they're data mining and what homeschoolers have to understand, and
I hope there are more and more homeschoolers, is when
you take the government funds, you become no longer an
(32:59):
independent homesore. You are now schooling with government funds. So
you are a government schooler. You're a public schooler. But
the other thing that I want people to understand, and
particularly parochial schools, Christian schools, religious schools of any kind, frankly,
is when they take the money, they are no longer
a private school. They become a government school. So school
(33:21):
choice is not what you think is actually the opposite.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Sorry, government is still in control.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
If you're taking government funds, the government has to have oversight,
and the moment that there's government oversight, you are under
the thumb of government. And so what they're doing with
school choice, they're saying, oh, but it's great, we're taking
the funds away from the public schools and putting them
in the private sector. No, you're making the private sector
government monopoly. And so we will. Now there's one other piece.
(33:53):
There are entities like the one that I pursued with
classical conversations. It's a Christian homes school will co op
that organization will never will never ask for government accreditation.
They don't want it. They do not want to be
on the so they will not take the funds, so
they will be out of business. So what this does
(34:17):
is it pollutes all the private entities that will take
the money and puts all the other private entities out
of business. It is a full government takeover of schools.
It is the exact opposite of what we are trying
to do with disbanding the Department of Education. It is
actually going to make children's schools like our colleges today.
(34:42):
And that's a scary thought, yes, because look at what
the colleges have become, right right it useless.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
We've been warning about this for a long time. You know,
our children are grown too. But I've been involved in
Ohio politics for quite a bit and we saw the
penetration through the public school into the private schools, and
I knew homeschools were next, and that was a lot
of the impetus for my involvement. And it was just
(35:09):
a matter of time before new groups of homeschoolers got
in and say, well, why am I paying double Why
aren't our property taxes going to my homeschool? So there
are and lots of different versions that legislative state legislators
are trying to pass, but it's all the same. And
I just remind people government whether it's well intended or not.
And I don't give government the judgment of charity ever
(35:32):
they get.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
The of the people. Some of the people are just misguided.
Some of them are nefarious.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Well on the Gammus that is my eighty twenty rule.
I do say that eighty percent are ignorant, and I
don't mean that pejoratively. I just mean they don't know,
and twenty percent are complicit and they know exactly what
they're doing.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Some people that I really like and admire are on
the wrong side of this issue. Yeah, and I'm and
it makes me sad because I don't want to be
antagonistic to them, but they are on the wrong side
of this issue, and they cannot see two steps down
the road. They can only see what's in front of
them now. Some of them are just happy because they're
making buck, they're making bank, because they're taking government money
(36:15):
for their private schools or whatever their entity is, right,
and that makes me sad. But we have to be
clear on this. And one of the things I just
wrote another piece about this one of the moms that
I know who took the money she needed to spend.
You have to spend the whole amount before the end
of the year.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Yeah, and so they did public schools.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah right, And so she bought two flat screen TVs
because she didn't she couldn't find enough you know, curricula
or whatever for her child. Another mom bought a ginormous
beanbag for her kids because why not. And it's available.
And by the way, those things are available for purchase
with your government money on the site. You have to
(36:59):
understand when you're in a hardship situation and you go
to the church and you ask for some money because
you're in a hardship situation, and it brings you to
your knees. Right when the church gets together, your community
gets together to help you out. You're not going to
take that money and go get a manicure, I would hope, right.
But if the government cuts you a check, that's free money.
(37:21):
That is found money. That is Disneyland tickets. And by
the way, you can get tickets to Disneyland and Disney World.
Oh absolutely. And here's what's funny, Taya in the state
of Arizona, because I was studying Arizona because they were
one of the first states that did this no strings attached.
In fact, I spoke to a legislative community, the Christian
(37:45):
Legislator's community. Anyway, I spoke at one of their meetings,
and after I finished speaking, the first guy who answered
me was from Arizona, and he said, well, in Arizona,
we have these great essays we just implemented there are
no strings attached. It's a great program. And I'm like,
you literally didn't hear anything. I just said, okay, fine.
(38:06):
Within a year or two, their tuition rates had shot
up as much as forty percent in some schools, because
when there's more money in the marketplace, the rates go up.
That's just how it happens. It happened with our colleges. Okay. Now,
if you try to search it online, it is very
hard to find evidence that tuition rates went up. So
(38:28):
they are scrubbing the Internet of history to prove that
Arizona is actually popular and successful. But also I want
people to understand we because this is one of the
things that we're not taught in school. Along with discernment,
is understand defining our terms, understanding the terms that the
(38:51):
people you are listening to, are using and their meanings,
their definitions. So they say the program is immensely popular. Okay,
define popular, successful, define successful. Their definition of success is
parents love it. But that is not what we would
define success as we would define success as test scores
(39:14):
for kids are rising, right, literacy is improving. Those are
definitions of success or popularity.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
And we remain free citizens.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
But here's the thing. When is it not popular to
send people checks? Oh my gosh, they got a check
for seven grand and they were very upset. No. No,
So unfortunately, they've got language and they're misusing language to
mean things that don't translate into what they're actually supposed
(39:48):
to be talking about. And so this is a very
h this is a very dangerous place, and people have
to understand why school choice is actually the cheese in
the trap.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
With the protests that went on in Illinois, I was thinking,
this is exactly and this goes to your point. Protest
and stop it now before they create the infrastructure for it. Now,
you know Race to the Top that created a lot
of infrastructure for public and private schools, and the surreptitious
data mining and all of the crap that came with that.
(40:26):
But and again it was the homeschoolers, and this parlayed
my involvement into politics. Years ago, someone told me at
the state capitol that homeschoolers are always a target. We've
just not gotten to them yet. Yes, and so it's
like we know they're coming. So it was a blessing
and a curse because I knew I had to pay
(40:47):
attention from that moment on.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Unfortunately, there are many homeschool entities. In fact, there are
even fake homeschool entities that are very pro school choice.
So it is easy to get duped. It is very
easy to get duped, but you have to and well,
they have the money already anyway. Yeah, okay, let's change
the tax laws. Then amen. People are like, well, what
(41:12):
are you going to do for the inner city kids?
And I'm like, the inner city kids are not being
served already, right, this is not going to help them.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
So that always comes up. Okay, well let's have a
separate discussion for that demographic. I'm happy to do that.
But guess what, to your point, they're not being served.
So whatever we do is going to be a step
up in my opinion, especially if you let homeschool moms
in so in addition to the impeachment of how we
were taught and indoctrinated to trust the experts with all
(41:44):
the degrees after their name. And in the book Parents
Guide to Homeschooling, do you go over some of these
things about school choice? And I'm assuming there are resources
for parents that are new or just starting out.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
So Parents Guide to homeschool is actually a workbook for
the parents so that they can work through how they
should be defining education and the future for their children
and reconsider the metrics that have been imposed on them
from their own schooling. I know that doesn't make it
sound like super interesting, but.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
I think it's a fabulous idea. It's absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
I think it's important for people to take a step
back and consider, Okay, what is my goal with having
a child? You know is at the corner office at
the at the you know, Goldman Sachs Building, Like, is
that your your goal for your child that you never
see them because they're too busy and they you know,
three times divorced, and you know they drive a Porsche.
(42:48):
I mean, if you take a step back and you go, okay, wait,
what is life really about? What do I want for
my children? What is what is their highest aim? And
that's the point of the book is to really gets
you to consider and help you to understand that you
are infinitely capable in raising your child yourself, getting them
(43:09):
an education and embark and helping them to embark on
a successful life. That's what it's about. It's not about
Goldman Sachs, Harvard University or whatever. It's about how to
have a successful life. And you know, I mean, look,
we've come so far. We used to we used to
be families. Dad worked at home because we were we
(43:33):
were carpenters or locksmiths or plumbers or whatever, cabinet makers, right,
And the kids always saw Dad because he was right there,
and Mom helped, and then the kids helped and then right. So, okay,
we're more sophisticated than that now, but we can go
back to some of that and the kids can. When
(43:53):
I first started homeschooling, the first thing that my husband
noticed was that he had more time to spend with
the kids because he traveled a lot, and he traveled
a lot on weekends and that was their time off
from school. And so he noticed that, my gosh, when
he was home and by the way, when he was home,
he'd grab the kids and take him to Costco, or
(44:14):
he'd you know, during the day, any time of day,
like they were free, and they weren't. They weren't just free.
They had things that we were doing. But I could
free up their time at any particular time so that
they were free for him. And I mean that just
forged a great relationship for him with the kids. But
(44:35):
the standard family today, dad goes off to work. The
kids have no idea what he does for a living. Literally,
they never get to know their father. Basically, they know
him as maybe maybe he's the baseball coach or the
little league coach or whatever, you know, like maybe there's
a little bit of that, but it's the disintegration of
the family, and it shouldn't be. Kids need their dads,
(44:56):
and they need their moms, and they need us more
than we we tend to imagine in this culture. And
so I mentioned Erica Coomasar, but there's also sorry doctor
Leonard Sachs who talks about this, and he says he's
on a crusade, you know, skip the playdate, do a
family date instead. He's saying children need their parents a
(45:18):
lot more than we credit them with, especially teenagers, he says.
So when your teenager says, I want to invite Sally,
my best friend, on our vacation, the answers no, the
vacation is for the family. Those are his. That's his view, right,
which of course I fully support because I'm a homeschooler
and the family is for the family all day long,
(45:41):
every day. And if you want to take some time
and go see Sally, that's fine, but you know, keep
your family close, protect them, and they will love you
for it.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I would also add that you get to know your kids.
I used to tell people I don't just love my kids,
I really like them.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
One of the things that I tell parents is, you know,
if your child is interested in something, show an interest
in that thing. That is how you serve them. Okay,
And it's not about them doing the thing that you
want to do. Yes, it's about you doing the thing
that they want to do. And the other thing that
I will say, and this is sort of a secret
hack everything literally everything is more interesting in the details.
(46:26):
So I was just talking to a friend of mine
and she decided for her kids that they could pick
the science unit that they were going to do. She said,
whatever science you decide that's the science that will do
this year, and one of her kids said botany, and
she was like, oh my gosh, I kill every plant
I've ever had. This would be the worst thing. She
(46:46):
was so dreading it. But the kids chose botany. All
the kids were on board, so they started with botany.
She's like, Sam, did you know that flowers have male
and female parts? And I'm saying to you, everything is
more interesting in the details, so just dive in. If
your child is interested in it, you you owe it
to them to feign an interest, and if you feign
(47:10):
the interest, you will get the interest in the details.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
Amen. I agree with that. There was another serendipitous event
that we found out during homeschooling is that we actually
like teenagers. I mean, you get a Socratic circle going
on about something crazy and with their friends. I mean
it's just you know, to your point, everything is learning
and you get down into the details and they learn
(47:35):
to define your terms and it just makes them better communicators.
And if one of the goals of education is to
produce productive human beings out in the world, certainly you
know that will that will aid them in doing so.
Speaker 2 (47:51):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Absolutely, and thank you for being such a wonderful, articulate
advocate for home education. I hope you'll come back, and
God speed to you and your family. Okay, Sam Sorbo, everyone, Wow,
I always get a little intimidated when I talk to her, Joe.
(48:14):
She's just so amazing. She likes checks all these boxes,
and frankly, I'm just glad to know she's out there
on our side, right all right. So her book, Parents
Guide to Homeschooling Making Education Easy and Fun. Highly recommend
you go check that out. I'm going to get a
copy and share that with people I know who are
(48:35):
considering homeschooling, and if you are a parent with grown
children who are considering that lifestyle as well, I would
highly recommend that book. I'm just very grateful for the
time and effort that she put into that. You know,
it's consistent. She's a producer, she just produces great content,
(49:00):
all right. I also want to echo her point about
school choice. We've had both Lee and Robert Borton on
the show and warning about the same thing. Look, there
are always strings attached with government money. It makes sense, right,
I mean, we would like oversight with more of our money.
(49:20):
This is one of the things Doze is exposing that
there hasn't been any oversight, So we do want oversight
of taxpayer dollars. The question becomes how much of our
taxpayer dollars actually go to the intended targets and are
they used to buy or bribe or blackmail somebody. But
(49:42):
the school choice line about no strings attached, if we
don't know by now that that is a bald face lie,
then we've learned nothing, especially after the last five years.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
So just be aware and be.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Cognitive, and hopefully we will prevent government from taking over
the homeschool community because that's absolutely what it intends to do.
We are the only demographic they cannot control.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Think about that.
Speaker 1 (50:16):
We produce. And I'm not saying don't email me my
kid went to this school or that school and they're fine.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Okay, fine.
Speaker 1 (50:24):
Outliers always exist, But in a grand study, I'm sure
we would find lots of sane, fiscally responsible, grounded people
coming from our community. And government frankly doesn't want that.
They want zombies they can control and indoctrinate. Like I said,
(50:45):
we must remove the infant from the crude influence of
their family. So Let's not give them that opportunity. Okay,
I want to thank everyone for listening. Thank you as
always too, Magic Man, Joe Strucker.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
Until next time, who will.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Stand at either hand and keep the bridge with me?
Have a great day.
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