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What is good my ex-homies? It is your
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boy Jacob Gooden and we are back for
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another week in the exhomeschoolers
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club. That is right. This week I'm
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joined by a brand new exhomie friend.
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That is my new friend Marsh. And they
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are going to talk about some really
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interesting stuff. We're going to talk
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about the ACES curriculum. We're going
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to talk about uh having your
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grandparents be your homeschool teacher.
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Uh we're going to talk about also the
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way that homeschooling has changed. Mars
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is probably the youngest person I've had
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on the podcast and so the most recent to
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graduate from the homeschool experience
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and uh it was just really cool to hear
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how things shifted and changed. Uh they
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have a very unique and interesting story
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and uh yeah, I'm really excited for you
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guys to hear it. Uh it's a little long
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of an episode, but that's because we
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were just having such a good time we
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couldn't we couldn't end it. Uh but
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before I turn it over to past me, uh I
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do want to ask a favor. If you watch
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this show on YouTube or if you're
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listening in on audio and you didn't
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even know that there's a YouTube channel
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associated with it, I would love if you
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would hit that subscribe, okay? I'm just
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shy of 200 subscribers and I'm just
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trying to hit that goal. I would love uh
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if you do me that favor. So, thank you
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so much. I'm going to turn it over to
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pass me and uh we'll see you in just a
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second.
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Well, Marsh, we are here. Uh I'm stoked
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to be chatting with you. Um, it's Yeah.
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Hi. Welcome to the Ex Homeschoolers
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Club. Let's just start there. I'm I'm
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happy to be here, but I'm happy to be
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out. Yeah, I like that X part. Yeah,
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that's a situationship I don't want to
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go back to. Yeah. No, I I don't blame
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you. It's not It's not for everybody,
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that's for sure. No. No. Well, we got
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connected, I think, over Tik Tok, um, if
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I'm not mistaken. And, uh, I had found
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your page on my for you page, actually.
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Um, I had been going through Reddit
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looking for I'm sure you've seen the
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homeschool recovery subreddit. Um, and I
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think that that infected my phone with
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just homeschool stuff all around. So,
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but hey, it led me here. Yeah. Well, I'm
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glad we I'm glad we got connected and it
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means the algorithm is actually working
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for us, not against us. Um, so without
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further ado, I I'm going to just kind of
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like turn it over to you just to give us
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like a little bit of like snapshot.
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Explain your homeschool experience. How
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long were you homeschooled? Maybe where
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siblings,
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whatever you feel like. Sharon, just
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give us a little over overview of uh of
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your homeschool experience. Okay. Yeah.
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Um so from a very early age, I started
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off in just preschool in small rural
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town Woodward, Oklahoma. Um but very
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quickly, I went over to a place called
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the the Woodward Christian Academy. Um,
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shortly after that, probably around
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second or third grade, I went into
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homeschooling due to just I was a young
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ADHD kid. I was struggling in that
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environment. Um, and my grandmother
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pulled me out. Uh, I was homeschooled on
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and off periodically
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through those first few years. Um, but
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once I hit fifth grade on until
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sophomore year, I was homeschooled. um
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sophomore year is where homeschooling
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ended for me. What had occurred was um
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we experienced a loss in the family that
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just hit us pretty hard and it caused me
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to run away from home. So that was kind
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of the final straw in my homeschooling
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career. My grandmother and I weren't
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compatible in that way of a teacher
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student. So she sent me to public school
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um graduating class of 13 kids. Yeah.
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Awesome. Rural Oklahoma for you.
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Beautiful. Yeah. But uh more in depth on
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my homeschooling experience, I stayed
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with the reason the Woodward Christian
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Academy is so prevalent is because that
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is where I received my homeschooling
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curriculum. It's technically what my
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grandma went through throughout my just
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homeschooling experience in entirety. Um
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they used what we what we call this
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accelerated Christian education system,
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right? Um, and that is not not only can
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you have accredited schools with that
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curriculum, you can also order the books
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and teach your kids at home. It's a very
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uh
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solitary learning environment. So
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whether or not you are in a room with
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peers of a similar age to you or you're
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at your dining room table, it's going to
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be about the same. You're going to read
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through your paces, do your work, you're
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going to check and grade your own work,
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and until you reach uh the test, you're
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doing it on your own. Oh, we got a
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little cat spot cameo. Yeah, cat cam.
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Sorry, she distracted me. But, um yeah,
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it it was just uh we had I I went to a
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homeschool co-op uh about once a week.
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um more in the middle school
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slash early high school years. Um and
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that was great for connection, but it
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was still rural Oklahoma. There were
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only so many people who would show up
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and if a family was sick, it probably
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meant five families were sick and it was
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cancelled that month. Um, and so
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homeschooling for me was just kind of
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like a I was already in a very small
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bubble with the location I lived in and
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homeschooling just further enclosed that
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bubble. So you brought up
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Do you have any siblings that were also
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home? No, I do not. Uh, I do not have
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any siblings. My I have spoken my
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grandmother. So um I was adopted when I
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was five by my uh biological
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grandmother. Okay. Um, and that already
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sets up for a pretty interesting
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situation, right? You know, you have you
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have kids that live with their
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grandparents, but I don't know. I
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haven't heard of many people being
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adopted by their grandparents outside of
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Oklahoma. I've met probably two or three
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people from my hometown that were also
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adopted by their grandparents. Yeah, it
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it's a little odd. It is It is kind of a
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strange experience. I had friends
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growing up who his grandparents also
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adopted him um and raised him uh and
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things like that. So, I'm a little bit
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kind of familiar, you know, the family
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dynamic of what that kind of looks like.
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They didn't homeschool their their
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grandson, but um but you know, it it can
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be it can be weird. It can be good. It
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can be a lot of different things. Yeah,
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it's a really big generation gap. And so
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there's there's an understanding there
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that you have to try really hard to
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achieve because it's two completely
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different generational mindsets and two
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completely different ways of going about
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life and one is raising the other. So
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yeah, raising a for example um a baby
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boomer raising a Gen Z as if it as if I
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I were um a millennial like my parents,
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right? And it's just it's a different
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era, you know? It calls for different
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times call for different measures. Yeah,
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absolutely. But um with with her
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homeschooling,
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uh I'm I feel like if I did have
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siblings, it it would have been a
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situation where we couldn't have been
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homeschooled. I feel like that would
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have warranted needing public school
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just with my family dynamic because I
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had a um uh from the age of two, my
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grandmother had hired a um a babysitter
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or a she later turned into a tutor.
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Okay. She was my homeschooling tutor for
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years until about um
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probably freshman year, I want to say. I
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I want to say she didn't feel like she
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could handle I remember her saying she
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didn't want to do high school algebra
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again. Okay. Yeah. I mean, can you blame
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anybody?
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Yeah. Science
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science and maths, they weren't I feel
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like that was something that was pretty
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difficult for me. I wasn't wired the way
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that my fellow homeschoolers were. And I
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feel like a big part of that was a
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special kind of ADHD. And I'm not
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specifically diagnosed with anything
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besides depression and anxiety, but
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there's obviously a wiring difference in
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the way that I view the world and react
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in the world versus the way that my
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peers then or now do or did. So I wanted
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to ask then like so you had a tutor. So
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how heavily involved was your grandma
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then in the homeschooling experience?
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Was she super heavily involved or was
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she just kind of like, okay, we're doing
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this cuz you mentioned, you know, there
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was some some dynamics in the family
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where you kind of needed to be
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homeschooled uh because of needing to go
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places or whatever. Um and so public
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school wasn't going to really work out.
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But uh so was she primarily a teacher or
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or was it mostly this tutor person that
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she had come in? So it was kind of a
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give and take situation with them. My
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tutor would be my supervisor. Okay.
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supervisor while I was doing my work.
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And my grandmother would more take care
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of the end of the book test things. So,
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in a in a sense, it's administrative
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versus secretarial, which is kind of
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what they were. So, uh my tutor Kathy,
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she would just keep an eye on me and
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make sure I was doing what I was
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supposed to do. Um and I loved her. She
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was great. She she is my godmother. She
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raised me practically because aside
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besides school, my grandmother wasn't
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really too active in my growing up
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years.
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She got a babysitter for me at the age
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of two and then my grandmother adopted
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me at the age of five. But throughout
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that entire time, Kathy was the one with
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me from about 10 in the morning until
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4:00 in the afternoon, you know? Yeah.
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And that's a that's a little kid. That's
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a toddler. That's a baby. Yeah. So, she
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was my grandmother by any and all means.
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Okay. For sure. You also brought up
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using the the ACE curriculum, the AC
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curriculum. And uh for anyone who's not
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familiar with that, I highly recommend
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like looking it up because it is kind of
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an interesting thing. I had seen it
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before at a friend's house. I never my
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family never used it. Um we were more we
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started with a Becca just because that
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was that was what my mom had used in
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school. Um but okay, having seen um and
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now even like having kind of like pulled
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up their website and like flipped
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through it and been like, "Okay, let me
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take a look at what this looks like." So
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it very much is like a workbook like per
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section, but maybe you could kind of
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explain I guess maybe how it operates
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better than somebody who never did it uh
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could. But basically what it looked like
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to me was like miniature workbooks,
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which I believe are called the paces.
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Uh, and you kind of flip through those
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and almost a work at your own speed kind
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of a situation. Yes. Yeah. Um, and this
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was just something that I want to touch
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on before I forget. Was your mom also
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homeschooled? You said she used a Becca.
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No, she was not. She went to a private
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Christian school. Um, and so a Becca
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curriculum, for anyone who's not
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familiar, a Becca curriculum is designed
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to be a like full school curriculum. And
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I believe AC also kind of can be as
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well. Fully fully accredited. Yes. You
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can graduate without receiving a GED.
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Okay. You get a diploma. Yeah. So, a lot
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of the the curriculums that I think
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become popular for homeschool kids tend
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to be those because I mean, if you're a
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homeschooled parent and you you have
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just decided to homeschool your kid,
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what is if you don't have an education
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in education, right? like how do you you
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don't know how to build out a curriculum
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and so my mom Exactly. I think she just
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kind of used it as a like okay here's an
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easy jumping off point for us and then
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we'll figure out what kind of works from
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that. She knew that there was other ways
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to do it because she was connected to a
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homeschool uh co-op and and um kind of
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uh networking group so to speak. But uh
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but she was like okay this will just be
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kind of the easy the easy way out to
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begin with and we can kind of feel it
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out. And it just it wasn't the right fit
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for us. So, as time went on, we we
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slowly progressed into more and more
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things. Um, and just to give you some
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context, I went to public school until
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uh through first grade and then
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transitioned in second grade. My sister
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was all the way through and uh and we
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did all the way through high school,
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graduated as homeschool kids. And so, I
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had kind of that public school mentality
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going into it where like that first
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year, second grade was hard because I
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was like, I'm used to going to a
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classroom with other kids. Uh my sister
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never had any of that. So for her it was
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just like oh yeah this is normal. This
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is what we do. It was there wasn't
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another experience to compare that with.
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Yeah. Exactly. So yeah. So share a
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little bit about the AC like curriculum
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and like what that looks like and things
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like that. So the ACE curriculum like
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you said it's just little I want to say
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approximately 35 40 page books and I may
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be off on that. Some were longer some
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were shorter. It just depended
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uh depended what they wanted you to
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learn learn through that little segment.
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Um something that the ACE curriculum
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prides itself on is that they they want
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to teach kids how to um oh what is
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what's the word? The ACE curriculum
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wants to teach kids to uh motivate
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themselves and um
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assign themsel with work they know they
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can complete. Um and following that I
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think it's funny that it's so
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um
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self-driven but there are still the
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rules and guidelines that you need to
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follow. So, for example, they want you
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to um set the your own amount of work
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that you want to complete each day in
00:14:07
each book. We would have about five
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books. I want to say I believe when you
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get to high school at six. Um
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we would have to assign ourselves at
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least four to five pages depending if
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there was a checkpoint in between. You
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know, it would just you'd lose a page or
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whatever. Um,
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and you were meant to keep yourself
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motivated throughout the whole day to
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get through and check off that list and
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go through all those pages and get that
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done. And what's so surprising is how
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little that works.
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Um, in a in a cubicle type situation, at
00:14:46
least for the the privatized schools.
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Um, at home for me it was
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it was drudging. I don't even know if
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that's the correct word to use, but it
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was um
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almost impossible to drag through.
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The ACE curriculum is such a
00:15:10
literalist interpretation of biblical
00:15:14
scripture. And that's in every single
00:15:16
booklet that you read. It's not just a
00:15:20
book, a booklet on the Bible that you
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learn from. Uh each pace was
00:15:28
each pace had a scripture that you would
00:15:30
have to memorize along with your uh
00:15:33
information. So in your math textbook
00:15:36
while you were learning geometry, you
00:15:39
were uh memorizing Philippians 4:13.
00:15:42
Okay? And in your social studies, you
00:15:44
were memorizing
00:15:46
uh a verse from Matthew. And it was just
00:15:48
very slowly integrating just Bible verse
00:15:52
by Bible verse in with what should be
00:15:55
real world knowledge that you're
00:15:57
learning. Let me ask you this because so
00:15:59
like I had some of my curriculum was
00:16:03
very uh had that Christian aspect to it
00:16:08
uh where Bible verses were, you know,
00:16:11
they they they were incorporated. Um we
00:16:14
weren't necessarily memorizing all of
00:16:16
them. And that was more of like a if
00:16:18
you've ever heard of Awana uh Aana was
00:16:20
like Aana was like it's kind of like
00:16:23
youth groupish like a church youth group
00:16:26
kind of a setting but it mixed with Boy
00:16:28
Scout Girl Scouts. So you would wear
00:16:31
like you had like a a a uniform that you
00:16:33
would wear and we play games and then
00:16:35
you had textbooks that you would or it's
00:16:37
not textbooks but little workbooks you
00:16:38
would work through and you'd memorize
00:16:39
scripture and you got badges and and
00:16:42
things like that. So it's kind of this
00:16:44
hybrid of the two. Um, that's really
00:16:47
interesting. It's It's mixing in a real
00:16:49
merit system. Yeah. Yeah. And it would
00:16:52
be based. Yeah. Exactly. And so it had
00:16:54
this weird kind of uh like I said, it
00:16:58
was like kind of Boy Scouty, Girl Scouty
00:17:00
type thing with games thrown in there.
00:17:02
So very like youth group Sunday
00:17:05
schoolesqueness
00:17:06
to it. Uh that was mostly where my like
00:17:09
biblical memorization came from. Uh was
00:17:12
things like that. uh less so my my
00:17:14
textbooks. But but what I was going to
00:17:17
ask was that the the the
00:17:22
were these textbooks like
00:17:26
my mom let me let me rephrase this. My
00:17:28
mom really believed in like us learning
00:17:31
what like math for instance. She was
00:17:34
like you got to know what 2 plus 2
00:17:36
equals and not just in a way of like you
00:17:38
can regurgitate it for a test and then
00:17:40
it like leaves your brain kind of way.
00:17:42
She was like, "You need to understand
00:17:43
this concept of like how math operates
00:17:45
and things like that." And you know, it
00:17:47
gets to a degree where it's like, you
00:17:49
know, you just need a basic
00:17:50
understanding of how things operate in
00:17:52
the world, whether it's, you know,
00:17:53
learning how to read and write and do
00:17:56
math and right like those types of
00:17:58
things. And I know that lend
00:18:02
you just kind of like it
00:18:06
just memorize it and then you can kind
00:18:08
of like wipe it out of your memory, free
00:18:10
up that space and learn the next thing,
00:18:13
right? And so I wonder if the AC's
00:18:15
curriculum like lended itself more to
00:18:17
that way of thinking or was it actually
00:18:19
a good building block system of like,
00:18:21
hey, you've learned this, now we're
00:18:22
going to move on to this next thing. At
00:18:24
least for me, um it was very much a once
00:18:28
the test is over, you can kind of just
00:18:31
let it go situation. And I don't know if
00:18:33
partially that was because the the
00:18:35
Christian values behind the education I
00:18:38
was taking in didn't sit right with me
00:18:41
or if it was just because this is a
00:18:44
curriculum based on repetition and
00:18:46
memorization. Okay? And it's evident
00:18:48
that it's a curriculum based on
00:18:50
memorization when at the end of every
00:18:54
five pages you're rewriting a scripture
00:18:56
verse. I don't know how they haven't
00:18:59
been sued for students getting carpal
00:19:00
tunnel.
00:19:02
That's that cuz it's h but it's
00:19:06
definitely um
00:19:10
I think I think for if if my opinion
00:19:14
could be true I would say that most
00:19:16
students would agree with me when
00:19:19
they would feel kind of just lent the
00:19:22
short stick for educational matters.
00:19:25
Okay. Um because a lot of it isn't the
00:19:30
the educational material within the ACE
00:19:33
curriculum isn't meaty. It isn't uh
00:19:36
fulfilling. And I think that's something
00:19:38
else too that and this is something I'm
00:19:41
just thinking of that must have made it
00:19:44
so in incompatible for me is I wasn't
00:19:47
really being challenged. But at the same
00:19:49
time, it was a little difficult for me
00:19:52
to retain the information, which is
00:19:54
something that I do lend to just the
00:19:56
traumatic experience of it all lent in
00:19:58
with rural Oklahoma. Yeah. I think too
00:20:01
to your point of like the the the
00:20:03
meatiness of of like a curriculum,
00:20:06
right? Mhm. One of we talked about, you
00:20:09
know, my family used a Becca to begin
00:20:11
with and we transitioned out of that.
00:20:13
And part of the reason for that was my
00:20:14
mom started to realize, she's like,
00:20:15
"Okay,
00:20:17
the great thing about homeschool was
00:20:18
that we could lean into the things we
00:20:20
were interested in. So, we can give them
00:20:23
the knowledge base of what they want to
00:20:25
know. I loved pirates as a little kid.
00:20:27
So, what are we going to do? We're going
00:20:29
to just study pirates until Jacob knows
00:20:31
everything there is to know about
00:20:33
pirates, right? It's like, you know, my
00:20:35
favorite pirate is Calico Jack. Why is
00:20:37
that? I know the whole history of it,
00:20:39
you know? Right. No one's ever heard of
00:20:40
Calico Jack aside from another pirate
00:20:43
nerd, right? Um I don't believe I've
00:20:45
heard of Calico Jack. Everyone knows
00:20:47
Blackbeard and Jack Sparrow. That's
00:20:48
about it. Like that's kind of And Jack
00:20:50
Sparrow is not even real, guys. Um these
00:20:53
other guys are real. Not even a real
00:20:55
pirate. Oh my gosh. No. I love This is
00:20:58
This is so off topic, but I love that
00:21:00
pirate culture is still alive and well
00:21:02
in 2025. Yes. Um, and so they leaned
00:21:07
into that, right? And so that's where
00:21:08
like that meatiness that you're talking
00:21:10
about kind of comes from where it's
00:21:11
like, okay, my kid loves this thing.
00:21:13
Let's just give them all of the
00:21:15
materials they need to like further
00:21:17
learn this thing. And I think with a
00:21:20
curriculum like ACE and even I would
00:21:21
argue maybe a Becca, it kind of lacks
00:21:24
that because it's just may maybe it's
00:21:27
meant to be the building blocks and the
00:21:29
intention is like, hey, a parent can add
00:21:31
this supplemental content on top. But if
00:21:32
you're in a situation like you where
00:21:35
maybe grandma doesn't have the capacity
00:21:37
to even provide that for you, it it it
00:21:41
really kind of cheats you out a little
00:21:43
bit of the the educational aspect of it.
00:21:46
Something that I think homeschooling is
00:21:48
excellent for is being able to lean into
00:21:50
your children's hyperfixations like that
00:21:53
for sure. But uh something that I do
00:21:56
think a lot of parental educators lack
00:21:59
is being in touch with their children in
00:22:02
the way of seeing them as another little
00:22:05
person who has interests and um things
00:22:09
that they just don't like and struggle
00:22:10
with rather than just seeing it as oh I
00:22:15
need to, you know, make sure my kid
00:22:17
learns this or blah blah blah or my kid
00:22:20
needs to do this before they can go have
00:22:22
fun with what they're interested in. Um,
00:22:26
and I think at least uh more of the
00:22:30
Midwest and South, that's just kind of
00:22:32
the uh the societal climate at least of
00:22:36
just pull pull up your bootstraps and
00:22:39
get school done. Yeah. Get it done. Go
00:22:41
get a job. Go get a career. And that's
00:22:44
what's really difficult for
00:22:45
homeschoolers, at least down here, I
00:22:47
think, is that they don't get uh a
00:22:50
well-rounded experience before they're
00:22:52
shoved out of the nest into the world.
00:22:54
And when you're in a curriculum like
00:22:58
ACCE, and I also knew some people in
00:23:00
Abeca. So, uh people in curriculums like
00:23:04
that when
00:23:06
your parent just has decided like, okay,
00:23:08
this is good. This is good enough. it's
00:23:11
past uh using it as a building block
00:23:14
when um at least the mindset for
00:23:17
Oklahomaans is
00:23:19
this one's got to last a while. You
00:23:22
know, it's for some reason it's the same
00:23:25
ideology behind um
00:23:28
I don't know why this popped in my head.
00:23:31
Buying good like machinery, buying the
00:23:34
best fridge, you just want it to right
00:23:38
work and stick around. And I feel like
00:23:40
at least for my grandma, that was her
00:23:42
take on it. That it was good enough for
00:23:45
her. It had to her a good moral leaning
00:23:50
to her. It had enough proper education
00:23:53
for her to and my grandmother is a
00:23:56
registered nurse. She's a smart lady in
00:23:58
herself. And her reasoning behind not
00:24:01
putting me through public school is due
00:24:03
to her being bullied in public school.
00:24:06
And she went to school in the same town
00:24:08
that I was raised in. and she never
00:24:09
really left Woodward, Oklahoma. Um,
00:24:14
and with that,
00:24:16
she's always struggled with moving with
00:24:18
the times. And, uh, that was something
00:24:22
that just persisted throughout my ad
00:24:25
adolescent life that once we had
00:24:28
something that was good. Nothing needed
00:24:31
changed about it and, you know, we would
00:24:33
just get through it.
00:24:35
Uh, something that I will say my
00:24:39
grandmother did have a good point on is
00:24:41
that the ACC curriculum is
00:24:45
excellent for anyone experiencing like
00:24:49
um a nonstable period in their life. For
00:24:53
example, my grandpa was going through
00:24:55
some health challenges. So, we weren't
00:24:57
really home all the time. We were back
00:24:58
and forth between Woodward and Oklahoma
00:25:01
City for hospital visits. And the paces
00:25:04
are just something you can throw in a
00:25:05
folder and carry around, right? It is
00:25:08
the the ease is amazing. The ease is
00:25:11
great. Um, but that even further
00:25:15
isolates you in a way when you're not
00:25:17
even at your kitchen table anymore.
00:25:19
You're in your car. You're in a hospital
00:25:21
where you don't this isn't a safe space
00:25:23
for you, you know? Yeah. But that's just
00:25:25
the specific Yeah. Well, I think you
00:25:28
make a great point there of like and I I
00:25:30
said this before too. It's like my mom,
00:25:32
we started with a Becca because okay,
00:25:34
there's some structure to it. It's a
00:25:37
transition period. It's it's, you know,
00:25:39
whether it's traumatic or just
00:25:41
overwhelming or whatever. You have this
00:25:43
thing that's already structured and
00:25:44
built for you. That's great, right? A
00:25:46
lot of people need that. Um, they need a
00:25:49
jumping off point. It's that next step
00:25:51
of like, you know, the AC might be a
00:25:54
great curriculum for some people. Um,
00:25:56
you know, I didn't use it, so maybe it
00:25:59
is. Um, maybe it's not. Uh, Marcy might
00:26:02
at least for those literal literalist
00:26:04
fundamentalist Baptists out there. If if
00:26:07
that sounds like you, you're going to
00:26:09
have a heyday. Yeah, great promotion
00:26:11
here for those specific people. Um,
00:26:14
there we go. But it's a great jumping
00:26:17
off point to get that structure that you
00:26:19
need. And then like we've been talking
00:26:21
about is just adding in those extra
00:26:23
things of like that's the whole point
00:26:24
about homeschooling for a lot of or I
00:26:26
think it should be at least is that
00:26:29
extracurricular element where it's like
00:26:31
you get to customize the education to
00:26:33
tailor your child. That's a huge deal.
00:26:37
It is. And it can it can change it can
00:26:41
change a life and you won't even know
00:26:43
because from such an early age you can
00:26:45
either have the best schooling
00:26:47
experience or a really poor schooling
00:26:51
experience that maybe sets you back in
00:26:53
the future. But if you know the the
00:26:57
ideal so um at least my my take on
00:27:01
homeschooling is you can do it wrong.
00:27:03
You can do it in a way that you are
00:27:04
going to hurt your child whether it's um
00:27:07
educationally or mentally or
00:27:09
emotionally. Um but you can also do it
00:27:12
right. There is a way to go about it
00:27:14
where you can be a loving parent as well
00:27:17
as
00:27:19
the person who kind of teaches your
00:27:22
child navigating
00:27:24
just life. Yeah. Um, and I think there
00:27:29
there has to be a really good balance
00:27:31
between um being a parent and being that
00:27:35
teacher. And I feel like that's
00:27:37
something that a lot of parents struggle
00:27:38
with. They they don't have a line in
00:27:40
between. Yeah. The two personas. And at
00:27:44
least for as as someone who as someone
00:27:47
who was a homeschooled child, I didn't
00:27:50
really particularly like my grandmother,
00:27:53
the person who was supposed to be caring
00:27:55
for me emotionally,
00:27:57
telling me I did a really bad job and
00:28:00
I'm just I need to retake the whole book
00:28:03
and blah blah blah blah blah. That's
00:28:05
just not, you know, kids don't show
00:28:08
their parents their grade cards for a
00:28:09
reason. Yeah. They don't want their
00:28:11
parents to hear about their grades. Um,
00:28:14
that's something that, uh, at least for
00:28:17
my non-h homeschooled friends, I've
00:28:18
always said, "Yeah, you didn't want them
00:28:20
to see your B minus. I didn't want mine
00:28:23
to grade my test." Yep. Cuz she Oh my
00:28:28
god. It's just uh cemented in my mind
00:28:31
her pointing finger trailing across the
00:28:34
paper with her red pen exing circling
00:28:40
writing over my essay. I wanted to bring
00:28:43
this up too because you brought up a
00:28:44
great point of um
00:28:48
someone of like the the or something you
00:28:50
said made me think of like the isolation
00:28:52
of also growing up in in rural Oklahoma.
00:28:55
you you said even just like when you did
00:28:57
go to public school, your graduating
00:28:58
class was 13 people. My graduating class
00:29:00
as a homeschool kid was 12 people. So,
00:29:03
not a huge difference. That's something
00:29:05
that I thought of in public school
00:29:06
there. It wasn't it wasn't a very big
00:29:09
change. Yeah. And I think one of the
00:29:12
things that I'm learning a lot more now
00:29:15
is that because I'm starting to make
00:29:17
friends who do uh road schooling where
00:29:19
they RV and they they go around and I'm
00:29:21
like, "How do your kids have friends?"
00:29:24
And they were like, "Well, there's the
00:29:25
internet." And I'm like, "Well, duh."
00:29:29
And and their kids, they play video
00:29:30
games online and they they Zoom call
00:29:33
each other and they, you know, they text
00:29:34
each other and whatever. And I and I
00:29:36
realized I was like, so there really is
00:29:39
no excuse anymore for homeschool kids to
00:29:42
be isolated and antisocial because we
00:29:46
have the internet. We have these great
00:29:47
tools to make friends online. I say that
00:29:50
in a kind of generalized parents should
00:29:53
still be involved kind of like it is
00:29:55
dangerous out there. The internet can be
00:29:56
a scary place kind of a way. But and it
00:29:59
is it is for sure. But there are safe
00:30:01
places for homeschool kids to make
00:30:04
friends from across the country and do
00:30:06
pen pal. I mean people used to do pen
00:30:07
pals back in the day like how did that
00:30:09
start? How do you get connected with
00:30:11
somebody you know halfway across the
00:30:12
world? Um I know you know so um so there
00:30:16
very much is like opportunities I think
00:30:18
for a lot of these rural areas to have
00:30:22
some of that diversity of like you could
00:30:25
have easily been friends with someone in
00:30:27
California and someone else on the on
00:30:29
the east coast, you know, in Boston or
00:30:31
or whatever. Um where you know we can
00:30:34
kind of create these support groups
00:30:36
almost of and these friendships where it
00:30:39
it limits that isolation to some degree.
00:30:42
um as well. It definitely does. The only
00:30:45
thing that I see being kind of a
00:30:46
blockade for that is at least uh in the
00:30:49
town that I grew up in. Um and this is
00:30:52
something I'm sure you've heard being
00:30:53
from California, having interacted with
00:30:55
people not from either of the coasts,
00:30:59
the further in you get, the less
00:31:01
technologically advanced it seems, at
00:31:03
least
00:31:05
climatewise. Um, and my specific
00:31:08
situation,
00:31:10
um, I did not have a phone until I was
00:31:12
16. Okay. So, that was 4 years ago. God,
00:31:18
that was about, yeah, four or five years
00:31:20
ago. Um, and you'll find a lot of
00:31:23
parents who really do limit their
00:31:25
child's uh, internet access and use of
00:31:27
technology due to it being a dangerous
00:31:29
place for young people. And that is such
00:31:32
a valid fear. I had my own experiences
00:31:35
online where I experienced grooming
00:31:38
where I experienced sexual assault
00:31:39
online from a young age. And that is the
00:31:42
real the real fear behind it. But there
00:31:46
is,
00:31:47
at least from my perspective being the
00:31:49
kid, there was taking it too far of,
00:31:52
okay, your kid messed up once and it
00:31:55
wasn't even really their fault and
00:31:58
you're going to deny them means to
00:32:00
connection and means to anything but
00:32:03
loneliness and isolation
00:32:05
for years, right? And that's the
00:32:07
Midwestern stubborn attitude of you mess
00:32:10
up once, you don't get it again. Um, and
00:32:13
I think that that is a real
00:32:16
struggle with homeschoolers down here is
00:32:19
that they either don't get access to
00:32:23
internet like, you know, most kids do
00:32:25
and kids in public school, you know,
00:32:27
having school laptops, for example. Oh,
00:32:31
sorry.
00:32:33
It's never mind. It was kind of
00:32:34
unrelated. I just thought of uh my brain
00:32:37
has been all politics recently and um
00:32:41
Ryan Walters has this has to do with
00:32:43
public schoolers, but public schoolers
00:32:45
aren't allowed to use their phone from
00:32:46
first to last bell in school anymore.
00:32:49
Okay. Not one bit gets taken from him
00:32:52
for I believe it depends on the school,
00:32:54
but they can take it for the whole
00:32:55
school week. Dang. I might be I I just
00:32:58
know he blocked. Yeah.
00:33:01
Anyway, I have my own feelings. Yeah, it
00:33:04
can be it can be good. I think um
00:33:07
there's something to be said about
00:33:09
teaching proper uh phone and laptop
00:33:12
etiquette. I I'm a big advocate for
00:33:14
things like uh there's a great book
00:33:16
called Indistractible which talks about
00:33:19
it talks about these guys right here. It
00:33:20
talks about the dings, the bings, the
00:33:21
the whistles, uh the whistles, not the
00:33:24
whistles, um the whistles. um and and
00:33:27
how you can like you know you you need
00:33:30
to teach yourself how to how to ignore
00:33:32
those things so that you can actually
00:33:34
maintain being a productive person to
00:33:36
some degree. Um and I think that those
00:33:38
are things that should and will get
00:33:40
taught at some point in in the education
00:33:43
system and at young ages and parents
00:33:44
need to learn them as well. Um right and
00:33:47
e thinking about it even further you
00:33:50
know uh millennials or my generation
00:33:53
were really the first generation to full
00:33:55
have like almost lifelong access to the
00:33:58
internet. Um and that's something that I
00:34:01
feel like
00:34:03
maybe humanity as a whole hasn't
00:34:05
realized how new technology is and how
00:34:07
much it probably is [ __ ] us up and we
00:34:10
don't even we aren't even able to look
00:34:13
back and realize. It's kind of like um
00:34:16
uh scientists wanted to figure out the
00:34:19
effects of microplastics on the human
00:34:21
body, but they couldn't find a control
00:34:22
group. And um I believe technology is
00:34:25
the same way. Um we won't know until 50
00:34:30
more years down the line, wherever it
00:34:32
takes us. Yeah. Um what that does to a
00:34:36
person's brain. And uh at least
00:34:40
for adolescents who were at home maybe
00:34:42
doing um their schooling through the
00:34:45
internet, you know, Abeca was mostly
00:34:47
online. Correct. Uh when I did it, it
00:34:50
was it was textbooks, but I'm sure that
00:34:53
I'm sure that it's probably primarily
00:34:55
online at this point. Um Okay. I'm from
00:34:58
You and I are not that much older. I was
00:34:59
going to bring this up because you
00:35:01
you're fairly fresh out of the
00:35:03
homeschool world. Yes. Yeah. Uh when did
00:35:07
you you left sophomore year which was 20
00:35:11
so that was 2021.
00:35:15
So my grandpa grandfather passed away in
00:35:18
2020 which shortly shortly after led to
00:35:22
me leaving home and then um staying the
00:35:26
summer of 2021.
00:35:29
Yes. With my father in South Dakota. So
00:35:32
that was a big change, a big abrupt and
00:35:34
then I went to public school which was
00:35:37
another complete change to the world I
00:35:39
had known. Yeah. Because that even
00:35:41
though I had gone to a private Christian
00:35:43
school and I had had about the same
00:35:45
classmates that I did at that first
00:35:47
public high school that I attended, it
00:35:50
was still
00:35:52
it still felt different because uh
00:35:55
privatized Christian schools, we didn't
00:35:56
leave our classroom. Our grade had a
00:35:58
classroom. uh this small public school I
00:36:02
went to, I was following um the same
00:36:04
kids around to different classrooms each
00:36:06
day, but it was still one group of
00:36:09
uh 10th graders. 10th graders, is that
00:36:12
what you were sophomore year? Uh no,
00:36:14
sophomore uh Yeah, sophomore was 10th
00:36:17
grade. Yes. Yeah. Um it was just 13 10th
00:36:21
graders walking down the line to our
00:36:24
coding class, to our English class, to
00:36:26
our math class. And in a way it kind of
00:36:29
felt like um what I had been doing
00:36:32
mentally through the years of
00:36:33
homeschooling. Uh home something that
00:36:36
homeschooling I think lended me or maybe
00:36:40
blessed me with was I have a great
00:36:42
imagination. And something that it leans
00:36:45
into is uh the fancy term for it is
00:36:49
maladaptive daydreaming.
00:36:51
But it's basically just disassociation
00:36:53
into another world almost entirely to
00:36:57
where you're just
00:37:00
so dissatisfied with where you are
00:37:02
currently being in a fictional reality
00:37:04
is better than being where you are. Um,
00:37:08
and I can vividly remember uh almost
00:37:12
seeing myself like a CCTV camera. Um,
00:37:16
just zoned out, falling into whatever
00:37:18
headsp space it was, sitting at my
00:37:20
kitchen table, staring at the words in
00:37:23
my paces. Um, and so, uh, homeschooling
00:37:27
in that way, it can easily easily fall
00:37:33
down the rabbit hole of this isn't
00:37:35
healthy for a child anymore. Yeah. And
00:37:38
it takes a it takes a level of parental
00:37:40
supervision,
00:37:42
aides, besides from the educational work
00:37:46
itself, it takes checking in with how is
00:37:50
this kid just doing in general? like
00:37:53
besides academically what's going on
00:37:56
within is the development developing if
00:37:59
you will. Yeah. Yeah. I would imagine
00:38:02
too because I know some states when it
00:38:06
comes to the homeschool world there's a
00:38:10
lot more guidelines and like checking up
00:38:13
that has to happen within
00:38:15
uh within that space. California is
00:38:18
pretty loose, uh, not going to lie, with
00:38:20
like you set up your school and like
00:38:22
you're pretty good. Um, you don't really
00:38:24
have to do follow-up exams and testing
00:38:26
and things like that. Other states, I
00:38:28
know, uh, I believe it's Missouri has
00:38:31
much more of like a yearly like you have
00:38:34
to pass, your kid has to pass a test and
00:38:36
then the state helps you kind of assign
00:38:38
where they're at and things like that.
00:38:39
But it also helps, you know, with that
00:38:42
kind of like not necessarily needing to
00:38:44
always keeping things on track, maybe
00:38:46
not having to get CPS involved in and
00:38:49
you know, stuff, but seeing where kids
00:38:51
sit uh mentally, physically, th those
00:38:53
types of things, right? It's that it's a
00:38:55
it's a checkup. It's a yearly checkup
00:38:57
almost um is the way I kind of looked at
00:38:59
it. And so, but I I know for a fact, I
00:39:02
don't know all of them by memory, but
00:39:03
I've been learning more and more about
00:39:04
the Midwest is that mix of like some
00:39:07
other states are really loose with like
00:39:09
you can just kind of get away with
00:39:11
murder. um and others you have more of
00:39:13
that structure of like you know there is
00:39:16
a checkup and and and so to your point
00:39:18
about that dissociating and kind of like
00:39:22
seeing yourself almost like through CCTV
00:39:24
camera it's like there in some states is
00:39:29
are things in place to kind of like help
00:39:31
protect kids from from doing that or to
00:39:33
at least help educators know like okay
00:39:36
hey like your kid is acting this way
00:39:38
this is not normal they there's
00:39:40
something bigger are going on here. Um,
00:39:43
and yeah. Yeah, there's just a form of
00:39:46
like it's so easy to in in most states I
00:39:49
feel like it's so easy to say, "Oh,
00:39:51
we're doing homeschooling now." And not
00:39:53
many people these days will bat an eye
00:39:56
because of how popular it is and almost
00:39:59
uh I feel like it's been since co it's
00:40:02
gotten more and more popular because
00:40:04
everyone was a homeschooler in 2020.
00:40:06
Yes. And a lot of people realized how
00:40:09
nice it was and how easy it was to be at
00:40:11
home. And um for a lot of parents, I
00:40:17
think if you know they were able to
00:40:19
continue working from home after the
00:40:21
pandemic pandemic, sorry, my accent
00:40:25
comes out sometimes.
00:40:28
Pandemic.
00:40:30
God. Um, but uh if people can stay home,
00:40:36
they will. Like we were talking about
00:40:38
earlier, our desk is our comfort space.
00:40:40
Like this is where we feel just at ease.
00:40:44
The stress of the world melts off your
00:40:46
shoulders and the only thing you have to
00:40:47
worry about are your probably your
00:40:49
editing deadlines.
00:40:51
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is what I
00:40:53
do for a job, too. So, that's that's
00:40:55
like I work with other podcasters, so uh
00:40:58
Yeah. And that's epic. Yeah. That's just
00:41:00
editing. This is the editing zone right
00:41:03
here. Yeah. Yeah.
00:41:06
It's where you eat. It's where you
00:41:07
breathe. It's where you sleep. Exactly.
00:41:09
Exactly. I did want to ask I kind of
00:41:12
wanted to pivot just a little bit and
00:41:14
talk about Go for it. Creativity
00:41:17
and where that kind of came in and how
00:41:20
that came into into your world. If
00:41:22
people are watching the video, it you
00:41:25
look like a creative person. you look
00:41:27
like someone I would meet on the street
00:41:28
and be like, they make art of some kind.
00:41:32
That's an artist. And which we don't my
00:41:36
brain I don't typically associate that
00:41:39
with rural Oklahoma. Um and so right so
00:41:44
just I I don't know maybe um I I'm
00:41:46
trying to think of what my question is
00:41:48
here but like can you unpack for me a
00:41:49
little bit of like where the love for
00:41:51
art comes from? And you talked about
00:41:53
kind of, you know, disassociating, going
00:41:55
to that fantasy realm. Does that play a
00:41:58
part in it? You know, anything like
00:41:59
that? Yeah. Um, so I feel like I really
00:42:03
started drawing. I had always been a
00:42:05
doodler and I remember uh being younger
00:42:08
and watching um uh Ink Masters with my
00:42:11
grandpa on TV and being like, "Oh, I'm
00:42:13
going to be a tattoo artist one day."
00:42:15
And making my little flash doodles,
00:42:17
right? Um, but uh I do have a specific
00:42:21
memory of getting my first like actual
00:42:24
sketchbook um on a trip to Walmart while
00:42:26
we were in uh I believe it was Oklahoma
00:42:28
City or Tulsa for a hospital trip to
00:42:31
keep me occupied while we were in the uh
00:42:34
whatever his room is. Is there his
00:42:38
hospital room? I was trying to think if
00:42:40
there was a better word. No, I think
00:42:41
that's Yeah, that's right. I think
00:42:43
that's just it. Yeah. But uh that was
00:42:46
when I really was like, "Oh, okay. I
00:42:49
kind of like this." And I think I think
00:42:51
part of the reason that it resonated
00:42:53
with me so hard is that it was almost
00:42:57
shutting off my brain or at least
00:42:59
quieting it down enough to where I could
00:43:01
just concentrate on what I was drawing
00:43:04
and I could just watch the line
00:43:06
transform the paper into something else
00:43:08
entirely. And I think kind of hand
00:43:12
inhand my I have a very vivid mind's
00:43:15
eye. Hand in hand, I think they both
00:43:18
helped each other. It was like a knife
00:43:20
sharpening a knife in a way. Um cuz my I
00:43:24
feel like after
00:43:26
after I left homeschooling and
00:43:29
coincidentally also regained access to
00:43:32
the internet, I had a phone, I had a
00:43:34
computer, I feel like my creativity had
00:43:37
dulled down. Um, but that was just due
00:43:39
to the fact that I didn't need
00:43:42
distracted constantly anymore. Um, and
00:43:45
that's something that's been kind of
00:43:47
difficult to
00:43:49
uh realize and not hold it against
00:43:51
myself that, oh, you don't draw like you
00:43:53
used to 5 years ago. Okay. Well, you're
00:43:57
a lot happier now. Yeah. And life is
00:44:00
life is those waves too of like Yes.
00:44:03
of having a creative moment and then you
00:44:06
know sometime and then it'll it es and
00:44:08
flows right it comes and it comes in a
00:44:10
big wave and you're like okay I got all
00:44:11
this really cool stuff just like it's
00:44:13
almost too much where you're just like
00:44:15
calm down I need to like I can't get it
00:44:16
up right I can't like process it fast
00:44:18
enough and actually like create it um
00:44:21
fast enough um and then and then before
00:44:23
you burn out yeah exactly and then you
00:44:25
go through maybe a wave where you're
00:44:26
just kind of like it's even just a
00:44:27
struggle to like create something
00:44:29
because you're just like I don't it's
00:44:31
it's the the well has run dry in a sense
00:44:33
of like okay maybe I can do something
00:44:35
but it's not the same degree. Um and I
00:44:38
think we always crave that like going
00:44:39
back to like that time of like oh I was
00:44:42
like so I call it productivity I but
00:44:45
like just that creative just like it's
00:44:48
just an overflow of Yeah. It's just
00:44:50
there's always ideas there's always
00:44:52
something there. Um, yeah. And I think I
00:44:55
think part of that for me was finding
00:44:58
comfort in the creation of new ideas
00:45:00
because of how uh stagnant my life and
00:45:03
situation was while being homeschooled,
00:45:06
while even though it was better once I
00:45:08
went to high school, it was still, you
00:45:10
know, it you said it sounded very just
00:45:13
similar to where I was before public
00:45:15
school. Yeah. Um, but it still felt like
00:45:20
uh
00:45:22
something to fall into and something
00:45:25
that was always there for you whether
00:45:27
you need it or not. To me, creativity is
00:45:30
almost an entity in itself. It's a
00:45:33
mother that you can crawl to when you
00:45:34
need help. when you can't um describe
00:45:37
how you feel or you can't really even
00:45:41
mentally understand what you feel, if
00:45:44
you sit there with a paper long enough,
00:45:46
it it will come out. And that's
00:45:48
something that uh had always helped me.
00:45:51
It whether it was just event drawing in
00:45:54
my sketchbook or stupid stupid fan art.
00:45:57
It it always just managed to make me
00:45:59
feel a little bit better to see, oh, I
00:46:02
can I can create this and I like the way
00:46:04
that this looks. Life isn't that bad.
00:46:07
And it was just minimizing
00:46:10
well, I guess it was zooming in to those
00:46:12
very small happy moments to block
00:46:15
everything else out. Yeah. So, like in a
00:46:18
way zooming in on the pixels to not see
00:46:20
the rest of the image. Um and
00:46:24
growing in my creativity after um high
00:46:28
school, which it's only been two almost
00:46:31
three years. Um it's something that I've
00:46:34
definitely had to
00:46:36
I've had to find that drive rather than
00:46:38
have no other option than to create.
00:46:41
It's finding that will to do it just
00:46:45
because I want to. Yeah. Just because I
00:46:48
want to uh have these finished products
00:46:51
and I want to feel this satisfaction
00:46:54
just because it doesn't feel as natural
00:46:57
anymore. It wasn't natural. It was um it
00:47:01
was survival. Mhm. And that's something
00:47:03
that I feel like if any other creative
00:47:05
homeschoolers out there, and I don't
00:47:07
think it sticks to homeschooling at all,
00:47:09
just any creatives out there growing up
00:47:12
or getting out of like that really heavy
00:47:15
canon event part of your life of your
00:47:17
adolescence, it's it's something that
00:47:20
you just you age a little bit and you
00:47:23
realize that like it's just it's like
00:47:27
you said, the eb and flow of life. The
00:47:30
other the thing that I love so much
00:47:32
about creativity and and my art form, if
00:47:38
you will, is is uh well, it's like two
00:47:42
things, but like I I consider my like
00:47:43
recreational fun is like I love Lego.
00:47:46
And the great thing about Lego is okay,
00:47:48
you can follow the instructions, which
00:47:49
like I'm a big I'm a firstborn kid. I'm
00:47:52
like a rule follower. Give me the
00:47:54
instructions, I'll build whatever it is
00:47:56
kind of a thing. So like I love that.
00:47:58
But then the great thing is you take it
00:47:59
apart and build something completely
00:48:01
different with it and the imagination
00:48:03
aspect of it. And so a few years ago, we
00:48:06
talked about like the dry spells and the
00:48:08
needing to push yourself. I hit that in
00:48:10
my life and it was like burnout
00:48:12
nastiness and I was like I got to go get
00:48:15
a real job to some degree. Um I got to
00:48:17
like get outside of the house, do
00:48:19
something this to to reset my brain. And
00:48:22
I worked at a toy store um that was
00:48:24
primarily Legos. Okay. And we were like
00:48:27
secondhand Legos, so we just had like
00:48:28
big bins of just like loose pieces. And
00:48:30
the cool thing about that that's sick.
00:48:34
Yeah. And the the great thing about that
00:48:36
is that like I would just build stuff.
00:48:39
And I remembered I was thinking back to
00:48:41
when I was a kid and like the challenges
00:48:43
I would give myself as a kid sitting on
00:48:45
the floor playing with my Lego and being
00:48:46
like, can I make a ball? Can I build a
00:48:49
person? Can I build this thing? like and
00:48:52
and so can I only use one color to make
00:48:55
something right? It it's a
00:48:57
problem-solving creativity exercise that
00:49:00
for me was just like it it's like a
00:49:02
necessary thing to like challenge myself
00:49:05
to do it and then once you do it it like
00:49:07
unlocks that next thing. Do you have
00:49:09
anything like that where you're like I
00:49:11
get stuck and I'm just like okay. I mean
00:49:13
you brought up like d you know doodling
00:49:15
in a sketchbook and just like it will
00:49:17
come out eventually even if you sit
00:49:18
there long enough. Is that kind of your
00:49:20
version of that or do you have something
00:49:21
else that you do? Something that I love
00:49:23
to do is mindless. So I I do just draw
00:49:28
obviously, but at least for me there's a
00:49:30
there's a difference between um working
00:49:33
on an idea or throwing pen down just
00:49:38
immediately. Um, something that helps me
00:49:42
really process things is such it's so
00:49:47
simple, but it's just hatching out lines
00:49:50
and filling it in with webbing. Okay.
00:49:52
And for some reason, the physical act of
00:49:57
um
00:49:59
hatching out what looks just like a
00:50:02
complete mess and turning it into
00:50:05
something that still looks cohesive.
00:50:07
It's something that by the end of, you
00:50:10
know, a few hours of filling in the
00:50:12
lines, it's almost like a trip of okay,
00:50:18
no, no matter what issue it is, if you
00:50:22
just work at it long enough or you think
00:50:24
about it long enough that you will find
00:50:26
some sort of answer. whatever it is I'm
00:50:29
struggling with, it helps me figure out
00:50:35
the little minuscule um thought like
00:50:39
connections between the behaviors. I
00:50:42
think I'm thinking of a specific um type
00:50:46
of situation.
00:50:48
So, say um I'm in like another just
00:50:53
specific
00:50:55
rut like you said before when you were
00:50:57
working in your the Lego shop and just
00:50:59
putting things together. Um
00:51:04
if I've had like a a depressive week or
00:51:08
a depressive day and I pull out my
00:51:10
sketchbook and I'm just frustrated and
00:51:12
I'm just almost fuming. I feel the
00:51:16
anxiety and stress creeping up my back,
00:51:18
I attack my paper. And that's something
00:51:20
that's really helpful for me to get out
00:51:24
that energy and then it goes into the
00:51:26
the deep scribbling while my thoughts
00:51:29
are connect while the synapses are
00:51:32
firing and the tiny little micro thought
00:51:34
connections are happening.
00:51:36
I guess what I was trying to say was the
00:51:38
the subconscious thoughts underneath the
00:51:42
conscious thought pattern. Yeah, if that
00:51:44
makes sense. It's the the mentally
00:51:48
unspoken things that um very tactile
00:51:54
um
00:51:57
movements help me work through. So, kind
00:51:59
of like you putting putting your Legos
00:52:01
together. It's really that scribbling on
00:52:03
paper for me as well. It's it's such a
00:52:06
weird
00:52:08
reconnect between the physical and the
00:52:11
mental. And I feel like that's a lot of
00:52:13
times just what is lacked is you've
00:52:15
disconnected. Yeah. And you need to get
00:52:18
back into your body. It's interesting
00:52:20
because the brain does this thing where
00:52:22
it will
00:52:25
problem solvers. That's what humans do.
00:52:27
We solve problems. And so what happens
00:52:30
and the reason people burn out and the
00:52:32
reason people like overwhelm and things
00:52:34
like that is there's so many decisions
00:52:36
we make in a day and there's so many
00:52:38
problems that we solve in a day and it's
00:52:40
all up here. It's all in the brain and
00:52:42
it's it's a lot. It is more information
00:52:45
we are processing on the daily than at
00:52:48
any other time in history. It's
00:52:50
constant. Like you said, it's also on
00:52:52
our phone. It's the dings. It's the the
00:52:54
the noises outside on our street. There
00:52:57
aren't quiet moments anymore. And that's
00:52:59
what doing something creative and
00:53:01
putting pen to paper, putting bricks
00:53:04
together, putting paint on a canvas,
00:53:07
whatever your art is, and I think art is
00:53:10
subjective. Um, this is something else
00:53:12
we could totally get into, but but it is
00:53:15
uh it's one of those things where it for
00:53:18
whatever reason it quiets the brain and
00:53:21
it will it will problem solve for you
00:53:24
what is going on. So, like I I had this
00:53:28
uh I had an issue with like a client and
00:53:30
I was trying to figure out like how to
00:53:31
deal with it appropriately and it was
00:53:33
just kind of a like I don't want them to
00:53:35
be mad at me. I'm lowkey mad kind of a
00:53:38
thing and and I was just uncomfortable
00:53:40
and I didn't know what to do about it
00:53:41
and I was like okay like let's just do
00:53:43
something creative and whatever it was
00:53:46
whatever creative exercise it was I just
00:53:48
did it for like an hour and like at the
00:53:50
end of it I was like oh this is a great
00:53:52
solution.
00:53:53
It just came to me after an hour, but it
00:53:55
was that hour of like taking all the
00:53:58
other things out of my brain and putting
00:53:59
them in that energy into something else.
00:54:02
Um, it like reset me. And so I think
00:54:05
that's important. It's stopping that
00:54:07
overthinking that uh merciless cog
00:54:11
turning smokes coming out of your ears.
00:54:14
You can just tell when
00:54:17
your brain is just frying because of the
00:54:19
the cortisol that's actually rushing
00:54:22
through your system and just it's
00:54:25
turning off any type of um you can't
00:54:28
think logically when you're stressed
00:54:31
out. All you can think about is what it
00:54:34
is that's stressing you out and you know
00:54:38
the whole alphabet of what you can do
00:54:40
about it. But nothing is just good
00:54:43
enough.
00:54:45
where you feel safe
00:54:49
and stepping and letting your brain
00:54:52
reenter itself and letting yourself
00:54:54
regground to where you are and letting
00:54:58
those emotions settle and simmer. It's
00:55:00
like a can of soda. It's shaken. It's
00:55:02
stressed. You sit it there for five or
00:55:04
10 minutes and you can drink it. Yeah.
00:55:06
And that's just the human condition,
00:55:09
too. It's not We're just cans of soda.
00:55:11
Yeah. This brings up a great point too
00:55:13
of of something I've been learning this
00:55:15
past year. And anyone who has watched
00:55:19
the show knows like I read a book not
00:55:21
that long ago called When Religion Hurts
00:55:23
You. And one of the things that they
00:55:25
talked about in that book was this
00:55:28
always on kind of stress level in the
00:55:31
background. Um, exactly what you're
00:55:33
talking about, the cortisol just running
00:55:34
through you at all times. And when your
00:55:35
body is in that stress mode, you go into
00:55:38
like fight and flight mode. Um, yes. And
00:55:41
so you exist in that forever and that
00:55:42
becomes your new natural after a while.
00:55:44
And I think this I'm going to tie this
00:55:47
back into the homeschooling, but like a
00:55:49
lot of homeschoolers were homeschooled
00:55:51
for religious reasons or with religious
00:55:53
curriculums. And so religion played a
00:55:55
significant role and unfortunately
00:55:59
religion tends to kick on that cortisol,
00:56:03
you know, push. It does. And it's it's
00:56:06
unfortunate cuz it it you know it it
00:56:08
messes with you truly. Uh when you're a
00:56:11
kid, you can't you can't tell the
00:56:14
difference between literal, oh, I could
00:56:16
die tomorrow and go to hell if I don't
00:56:17
act right. You know, at least that's
00:56:20
that's what that spurred for me. But
00:56:21
continue. Yeah. Well, I was going to say
00:56:23
because I wanted to bring it back
00:56:24
because you had mentioned something
00:56:25
earlier about,
00:56:28
you know, the ACE curriculum being that
00:56:30
Christian curriculum, kind of growing up
00:56:31
in that Christian environment, but
00:56:33
always having this thing in your back of
00:56:35
the brain that was like
00:56:38
not really buying into that. And so I
00:56:41
wanted I was wondering if you could, you
00:56:44
know, uh explain more of of your
00:56:46
thinking when it comes to that. Yeah.
00:56:48
Okay. So, uh, my religious upbringing,
00:56:51
my grandmother her whole life, I believe
00:56:55
her mother was a Lutheran and my
00:56:58
grandmother also had an experience with
00:57:00
running away when she was a child and
00:57:01
she fell into the arms of Baptists. Uh,
00:57:04
and in Woodward, Oklahoma,
00:57:06
Bapt Baptists as far as far as the I can
00:57:10
see, they're everywhere. Um but uh she
00:57:14
eventually when I got when I came around
00:57:17
we were going to like a
00:57:19
non-denominational church. Um but church
00:57:24
was fine and Sunday school was fine. I
00:57:26
had friends there. Church wasn't a a bad
00:57:29
environment for me to be in. So, my
00:57:33
religious trauma wasn't necessarily
00:57:36
from the church more than it was just
00:57:38
from my grandmother, which uh with the
00:57:41
AC curriculum that that's the AC
00:57:44
curriculum is built upon a literal
00:57:48
fundamentalist
00:57:49
Baptist view of the Bible, right? So, it
00:57:52
was right up her alley. Um and a lot of
00:57:58
uh sorry I just thought of this. I had
00:58:01
found a quote earlier um from the uh CEO
00:58:07
of well the previous CEO of the ACC
00:58:11
curriculum. It was founded by this
00:58:13
husband and wife and later their son
00:58:17
just ended up taking it. But um
00:58:21
Howard, the CEO, called AIDS a godscent
00:58:25
plague meant to punish gay people and
00:58:27
other idol worshippers, including
00:58:29
feminists, pro-choice, and Planned
00:58:30
Parenthood activists. And from a very
00:58:34
early age, I
00:58:39
wasn't a fan of
00:58:42
what I didn't know was bigotry until I
00:58:45
got older and I learned more words. I
00:58:48
wasn't a fan of the attitude that a lot
00:58:50
of people in my circle had towards
00:58:53
people that I saw on my TV that I didn't
00:58:56
really see in my hometown.
00:58:59
um and mixed in with just
00:59:04
Christian ideologies and you know you
00:59:07
need to uh live this way, you need to
00:59:09
act like this otherwise God won't be
00:59:11
happy with you and
00:59:14
you you'll have to redeem yourself,
00:59:16
whatever. Besides that, at least in
00:59:20
rural Oklahoma, obviously homophobia was
00:59:23
mixed in. Unfortunately, racism was also
00:59:26
mixed in and sexism was mixed in and all
00:59:29
the isms that you can think of. Anything
00:59:32
that a white person can hate someone
00:59:35
else for, like that was somewhere in the
00:59:38
community. Um, especially within the
00:59:43
private school slash the homeschool
00:59:46
groups weren't as bad because uh
00:59:48
specifically there was the family that
00:59:50
ran it which they were kind of hippie-
00:59:53
dippy. They were from California. I
00:59:55
loved them. Um, even though they were
00:59:57
still very strict in their religion,
01:00:00
they
01:00:03
were more of the actual
01:00:06
uh hate the sin, love the sinner type,
01:00:08
but flip-flop it. Love the sinner, hate
01:00:10
the sin. They would be the type to put
01:00:12
that first. Um, but
01:00:15
uh at least I started rambling with uh
01:00:20
my upbringing and the bigotry and the
01:00:23
hatred just not sitting right with me
01:00:25
not being something that I could bow and
01:00:27
go along with, which is something that I
01:00:29
feel a lot of kids do to receive the um
01:00:32
the affection and approval of their
01:00:34
parents. You know, your parents, at
01:00:37
least in the Midwest, it's cute to be
01:00:40
the mini me. It's cute to be just like
01:00:42
your dad or just like your mom, you
01:00:43
know. And um
01:00:47
it's
01:00:49
there's another addition into it of it
01:00:53
depends how uh
01:00:56
it depends how radical your parents are
01:00:58
with their own religious and political
01:01:00
beliefs, but it can quite literally be
01:01:03
beaten out of you as a child, at least
01:01:06
down here. Um, and that's something that
01:01:10
I never experienced. I was not a victim
01:01:12
of physical abuse from my parents, but I
01:01:15
do know people who dealt with that
01:01:17
whenever they were caught
01:01:20
having lipstick in their drawer, if they
01:01:22
weren't born a girl, you know, or if
01:01:24
they were caught
01:01:26
uh going by a boy's name online or, you
01:01:30
know, etc., etc. I've always held a lot
01:01:34
of empathy within myself for people
01:01:37
around me and that includes the
01:01:39
minorities around me within my area. And
01:01:43
I'm white obviously, but I'm obviously
01:01:47
gay as well. I'm part of the LGBTQ plus
01:01:50
community. And I think in a way that
01:01:53
just also goes to prove that uh you're
01:01:56
born this way. And it's not that you're
01:01:58
born
01:02:00
gay or lesbian or trans. It's that
01:02:04
you're born with an innate moral code
01:02:06
and a sense of empathy that sets you
01:02:08
apart from other people in your life and
01:02:11
sets you with a group of like-minded
01:02:14
people who hold the same opinion of
01:02:17
humanity. That there's no need to be
01:02:21
strict with the human condition. that
01:02:23
we're just existing and that a lot of
01:02:27
the um
01:02:30
rules placed on people or stressors
01:02:32
placed on people's shoulders to behave a
01:02:35
certain way in order to fit in
01:02:38
doesn't really matter. Yeah. But rural
01:02:41
Oklahoma, you know, wear your jeans,
01:02:43
wear your boots, wear your overalls, go
01:02:45
to work. That's that's the area. Yeah.
01:02:48
You bring up a a great point too about
01:02:52
rural areas and and lack of technology
01:02:55
which kind of can lend itself to lack of
01:02:57
education unfortunately and and I even
01:03:00
hate to say that lack of experience lack
01:03:01
of experience. Yeah. Exactly. And so I
01:03:03
think it can foster this area of of fear
01:03:10
of the unknown.
01:03:12
And not that that doesn't happen. I mean
01:03:14
I grew up in a decently big city. Um,
01:03:17
like I didn't grow up in LA. I didn't
01:03:19
grow up in San Francisco. But like I
01:03:20
grew up in a bigger city in California.
01:03:23
There was still a lot of fear around gay
01:03:26
people. There was a lot of fear around
01:03:27
trans people. There was a lot of fear
01:03:29
around like in my circles were were
01:03:32
Christian about uh Planned Parenthood
01:03:34
and and things like that, abortions and
01:03:36
like all that kind of thing. Um, it
01:03:39
existed. However, I also wasn't walking
01:03:42
down the street like if I saw a gay guy.
01:03:45
I wasn't like losing my mind. I wasn't
01:03:47
freaking out. Uh bec because it wasn't
01:03:50
it wasn't uncommon. Uh if that makes
01:03:54
sense. Like there was no avoiding it. A
01:03:56
fairly there was a fairly diverse area
01:03:59
there for you. Exactly. I I think it's
01:04:02
it was interesting to move from
01:04:04
California to Illinois and be in the
01:04:06
Midwest and and kind of have this I grew
01:04:08
up conservative. I was like I'm a
01:04:10
Republican. You know, if you're a
01:04:12
Christian, you're a Republican. That's
01:04:13
the deal. like we love our guns. Like
01:04:15
that's that's kind of the thing, right?
01:04:17
Um
01:04:19
and um but I yeah, I love God. I love
01:04:22
guns and I love girls. Uh that was like
01:04:24
the thing. And I got to college and it
01:04:26
was weird to be labeled as like a
01:04:28
liberal conservative because I was just
01:04:31
like if I saw a gay person, there wasn't
01:04:33
a physical reaction out of me. I just
01:04:35
was like, "Oh, that's just a normal
01:04:36
person living their life." I can
01:04:38
disagree with their lifestyle at that
01:04:41
point. At that stage in my life, that
01:04:42
was what I believed. But but I was like,
01:04:45
but me, I don't need to be outwardly
01:04:48
uncomfortable or verbally. It doesn't
01:04:51
need to be demonized. Exactly. Um I also
01:04:55
grew up my my view on religion was that
01:04:59
the way you win people over is through
01:05:01
relationship and it's through you get to
01:05:03
know somebody, right? And you can then
01:05:05
have those deeper conversations around
01:05:07
what you believe and what you think is
01:05:09
right and what you think is wrong. Um,
01:05:11
and that's the way you do it. You don't
01:05:14
do it by standing on the corner of a
01:05:15
street and yelling at people that
01:05:17
they're going to go to hell. Um, kind of
01:05:19
a thing. Um, Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So,
01:05:24
it's Yeah, it's kind of interesting to
01:05:26
look back at some of those things now
01:05:28
and be like, "Oh, wow. I'm Yeah. Um,
01:05:30
because I have been that guy. I've stood
01:05:31
on street corners as well with signs and
01:05:33
and promoted things." But you brought up
01:05:36
knowing too that at a young age of like
01:05:40
maybe not knowing, but like you can
01:05:42
recognize in yourself that you were
01:05:43
like, "Okay, I am part of
01:05:46
the LGBT. I am I'm different. There's
01:05:49
something about me that's different."
01:05:50
Um, and that's okay. That's just
01:05:53
inherently part of you. Um, it's
01:05:55
something that I knew at that age. It
01:05:58
wasn't chosen. It was something that I
01:05:59
discovered about this consciousness that
01:06:02
I was embodying and this life that I was
01:06:05
a part of. It was something that even at
01:06:08
a really young age I could tell like not
01:06:10
even that I could tell at that young of
01:06:12
an age my thoughts weren't necessarily
01:06:15
going to my thoughts and reactions
01:06:17
weren't really going to lie to me like
01:06:18
that because there was no other way for
01:06:22
this kid to genuinely react besides what
01:06:26
they were feeling in that moment or over
01:06:29
the course of however many years of
01:06:31
adolescent growth. you know, thinking in
01:06:34
your own head at a really young age, um,
01:06:39
okay, but I don't like girls. Okay, but
01:06:41
what if I do and no one in my family
01:06:44
supports that? And it comes down to a
01:06:47
point where, I don't know, maybe you're
01:06:48
10, 12 years old, I wouldn't still be
01:06:51
thinking about it if I wasn't.
01:06:54
It wouldn't matter this much. And that's
01:06:57
something it comes down to. It's it's
01:07:01
uh unless you're uh in a very affirming
01:07:04
area, if you're anywhere near at least
01:07:07
an anxiety that you might not be safe
01:07:10
where you are, if you are queer, just
01:07:13
any anything that's not normal or just
01:07:17
Yeah. Um, if you're
01:07:22
nervous at all or genuinely
01:07:26
stressed out about this new discovery
01:07:29
about yourself, no one could choose
01:07:31
that. No one would choose that
01:07:34
discomfort and no one would choose that
01:07:37
life path if they could choose the
01:07:39
easiest way. If I honestly though I love
01:07:44
being alternative and though I love uh
01:07:47
being queer, I do know that life would
01:07:50
be so much easier if I weren't right.
01:07:53
Like that's just something I I know I
01:07:56
would get a job way easier if I had
01:07:58
brown hair. I would, you know, not to
01:08:01
mention the face piercings,
01:08:04
just brown hair, a natural hair color.
01:08:06
Um, you know, maybe if my sense of humor
01:08:10
were more typical, I would get along
01:08:12
with more people in more spaces, but
01:08:16
some some people are just made to be a
01:08:19
little funkier. And I think that's fun.
01:08:22
Yeah. I I think uh a lot of those funky
01:08:27
people unfortunately or fortunately um I
01:08:31
think it's 50/50 end up being
01:08:32
homeschooled just due to school not
01:08:34
working for them being like a different
01:08:37
case where you know school is cookie
01:08:40
cutter. It's not made for everyone.
01:08:43
There are some kids that just will not
01:08:45
thrive in a public school situation the
01:08:47
same way some kids will not thrive in a
01:08:49
homeschool situation. there is a a time
01:08:53
and place for everybody to be able to
01:08:55
learn the way they need to and to grow
01:08:58
the way that they need to in a healthy
01:09:00
way. Um,
01:09:03
where was I going with that? Well, I
01:09:05
think I I wanted to to ask this now too
01:09:09
was like Yeah, go ahead.
01:09:12
You're a couple years out at this point
01:09:14
of homeschool. I'm about I'm a little
01:09:15
over a decade at this point.
01:09:18
you are the you are I think the youngest
01:09:21
person or one of the youngest people
01:09:23
I've had on the podcast and so you're
01:09:25
the closest to it where like I can kind
01:09:27
of look at it now and and I I have 10
01:09:30
years of reflection on it. Um, and so,
01:09:32
right, maybe have gone through the
01:09:34
cycles of anger to grief to acceptance
01:09:37
to, you know, all these different uh
01:09:39
emotions. And I'm not saying you haven't
01:09:41
done that yet, but I do wonder where you
01:09:44
sit with the homeschool experience now
01:09:47
of like looking at it and going, okay,
01:09:49
if someone comes to you today, and you
01:09:52
kind of have answered this already, but
01:09:53
if someone comes to you today, it's
01:09:54
like, hey, I'm looking at homeschooling
01:09:55
my parents. What are you saying to them?
01:09:57
What are you what are you advising them
01:09:59
on?
01:10:01
Right. I would just I would honestly
01:10:04
have them sit down because I would say,
01:10:06
"This is going to take a minute." Yeah.
01:10:08
They would, at least from my
01:10:10
perspective, I would want to make sure
01:10:12
that they knew that
01:10:15
it's not going to be as simple as
01:10:18
whatever curriculum tells you it's going
01:10:20
to be, right? Your child will deal with
01:10:24
um dissatisfaction. Your child will deal
01:10:27
with frustration. You will deal with a
01:10:30
very similar type of frustration when
01:10:33
you feel like you're doing the best you
01:10:35
can, but your child still isn't working
01:10:37
with you on that. And there is a level
01:10:40
of stepping back and not taking it so
01:10:43
personally that as a parent, I feel like
01:10:46
they need to realize
01:10:49
it isn't me. It isn't my parenting. It's
01:10:52
the way that I'm going about this.
01:10:54
Whether it's schooling, whether it's
01:10:57
even just being at home more often, if
01:11:00
another pandemic were to come around and
01:11:02
someone was to be like, "You were
01:11:04
homeschooled. What What was being with
01:11:07
your parent like all the time? What was
01:11:09
that like? How was that?"
01:11:13
And I can tell them like you need to
01:11:16
treat your child with a little more
01:11:17
respect because at the end of the day
01:11:20
they are still another human being and
01:11:23
they deserve to be listened to and their
01:11:27
emotions are as true and honest as a
01:11:31
human's emotions can be because they are
01:11:34
a child. Even if you're getting into
01:11:35
those adolescent years where um
01:11:38
misleading comes into play, if your
01:11:41
child is misleading you, there is still
01:11:43
another issue that's underneath that
01:11:46
that needs to
01:11:49
get talked about. And I feel like
01:11:52
parents and their children can have
01:11:56
great relationships
01:11:58
um if parents would just listen a little
01:12:01
more. And you know, I feel like we are
01:12:04
getting out of that age of children are
01:12:07
to be seen, not heard. I feel like
01:12:09
that's something that even though we
01:12:11
feel like as a society we aren't in
01:12:14
anymore, that kids are get a lot more
01:12:16
lean leniency than they did 20 30 years
01:12:19
ago, which I do fully agree with. We're
01:12:22
still
01:12:24
as a society kind of dealing with our
01:12:27
just lump of collective trauma and
01:12:31
collective aging. So if that makes any
01:12:35
sense, we're
01:12:37
coming to a realization that kids
01:12:42
aren't not people until they turn 18.
01:12:46
You are raising this kid to be the
01:12:49
person you want them to be. And if you
01:12:52
want your child to be aggressive and not
01:12:55
listen to authority and break rules, be
01:12:59
mean to them and homeschool them
01:13:00
horribly. And that's exactly how they
01:13:02
will turn out. Um, if you are your
01:13:05
child's first bully, you will be the
01:13:08
first person they run away from. And
01:13:10
that's just a hard truth that I feel
01:13:12
like a lot of parents before they get
01:13:14
into homeschooling need to swallow. That
01:13:17
genuinely if you
01:13:21
It's kind of like a Pandora's box in a
01:13:23
way. Once you open that,
01:13:26
there's just you keep going in the best
01:13:30
way that you can, in the healthiest way
01:13:33
that you can while listening to your
01:13:37
emotions as a parent teaching their kids
01:13:39
and making sure to listen to the little
01:13:42
guy that can't really fight for himself.
01:13:44
And that is your child who you are
01:13:46
teaching who is stuck in your house
01:13:48
whether they like it or not until the
01:13:49
age of 18.
01:13:51
Um, and for uh adolescence and
01:13:54
homeschooling, I feel like there should
01:13:57
be a certain point where a parent takes
01:13:59
into consideration their child's opinion
01:14:01
on where they feel like they need to be
01:14:04
or if the child feels like they are out
01:14:07
of place or if they feel they are behind
01:14:10
not connecting with peers that are their
01:14:13
age or in the similar age group. There's
01:14:17
there is an age where a kid reaches
01:14:21
where they they're autonomous. They have
01:14:25
their own feelings, their own
01:14:26
processing, their own their own cortisol
01:14:29
rushing through their head. And it takes
01:14:32
parental empathy to look at your child
01:14:35
and say, "What do you need?" not what is
01:14:39
easiest for me and my situation raising
01:14:42
you, but what is going to turn you into
01:14:45
the most successful adult you can be.
01:14:49
And that's what I feel like a lot of
01:14:51
just homeschooled parents don't take
01:14:52
into account. Yeah, I 100% I agree. I
01:14:56
think um something I've been looking at
01:14:59
more is
01:15:01
there is that there's a line between
01:15:04
listening to your kid and and the
01:15:06
guidance that you're talking about
01:15:08
because if you veer too far to the I'm
01:15:11
only going to listen to my kid. You end
01:15:13
up in an unschooling environment. I
01:15:15
don't know if you've ever heard that
01:15:16
term before, but unschooling for anyone
01:15:18
who doesn't know is is the point of
01:15:20
homeschooling where it's like we're only
01:15:22
going to do what the kid wants to do. So
01:15:25
the kid has to want to learn to read.
01:15:27
They have to want to learn how to do
01:15:29
whatever. Um and I think personally
01:15:34
I think that's too far like you are a
01:15:36
parent still and you do need to create
01:15:37
some guidance and things like that. But
01:15:39
I think more to your point of what you
01:15:40
were saying was
01:15:42
there's also a point of looking at your
01:15:44
kid and saying they are not thriving in
01:15:46
this environment and I need to listen to
01:15:48
them when they say this is not working
01:15:51
for me. Mhm. That's where we make the
01:15:54
shifts. And you we talked about it
01:15:55
before, like my family, we started with
01:15:57
a Becca. It did not go well. It was not
01:15:59
fun for us. It was not fun for my mom.
01:16:01
It was not fun for me or my sister. Like
01:16:04
it was just not fun. It did not work.
01:16:06
Lose lose. Exactly. It was not good. Um
01:16:09
and that's why we started to pivot and
01:16:11
we changed things up and we were like,
01:16:13
"Okay, let's try this other math. Maybe
01:16:15
that one didn't work." Okay. Once we got
01:16:18
to the thing that worked for us and we
01:16:19
were like, "This is it." Uh, which was
01:16:21
Matthew C, by the way, for anyone who if
01:16:24
you know it, you know it. Um, but uh,
01:16:28
Matthew C is is like I think I'm going
01:16:31
to say it's like a cult, but like if you
01:16:33
know it, you know it. That's all I'm
01:16:34
going to say. Um, Matthew, I'm going to
01:16:36
have some Googling. Matthew C was great.
01:16:39
Um, but, uh, once we found that, it was
01:16:42
like this is the thing and it just like
01:16:44
we latched on to it and it was good. Um
01:16:47
but that took my mom looking at the way
01:16:50
we learned and being like okay like we
01:16:53
can make adjustments here we can do this
01:16:55
we can pivot we can shift. Um
01:16:58
she also had that network of people who
01:17:00
were in her corner also saying you can
01:17:03
shift it's okay like it doesn't have to
01:17:05
be golden every single year and you can
01:17:07
catch up like if if one year just goes
01:17:10
really badly you can still make it up
01:17:12
you know. Um, that's the beauty of
01:17:14
homeschooling. It It really is. It makes
01:17:17
school nonlinear.
01:17:20
Yes, 100%. Well, and you have in in
01:17:22
situations like myself where it's like I
01:17:25
my sister's three years younger than me.
01:17:26
There were times where we were learning
01:17:27
very similar things and so there's a lot
01:17:29
of overlap when it comes to that, right?
01:17:31
Maybe it's a similar history or
01:17:32
whatever. The the actual workload is
01:17:35
different. Maybe I write more papers and
01:17:37
she's doing coloring pages or, you know,
01:17:39
something like that. But but it was
01:17:42
overall it was the same thing. So you
01:17:44
kind of can do this this double duty of
01:17:46
like okay hey we're going to like this
01:17:48
is what we're going to focus on. This is
01:17:49
how we're going to do it. You learn to
01:17:51
for for us we learned how to learn in an
01:17:54
environment where you have two very
01:17:56
different thinkers. I'm pretty atypical.
01:17:59
Like I just my brain just I would argue
01:18:02
operates like quote unquote a normal
01:18:04
person. Like I don't have the ADHD. I
01:18:06
don't have the dyslexia. I don't have
01:18:08
anything like that. My sister is the
01:18:10
polar opposite of that. She's got some
01:18:12
of those things and so the learning
01:18:14
style is just very different. Well, you
01:18:15
have to tailor it to that person, which
01:18:17
is what we've been talking about is like
01:18:19
figuring out what works and roll with
01:18:22
it. That's what it takes. And uh you
01:18:25
know, at least for my specific
01:18:27
situation, I just had a stubborn
01:18:30
bullheaded grandma. And I'm sure there
01:18:32
are countless other homeschoolers that
01:18:34
are in that same parental situation. And
01:18:37
the only thing that I want anyone still
01:18:40
in homeschooling in a situation like
01:18:42
that to know is that they are not alone
01:18:45
and eventually they will be free. It
01:18:47
sucks. It sucks so much. But it is uh
01:18:53
encouraging to hear that like okay some
01:18:55
homeschoolers do succeed and they do
01:18:58
turn out really well and they leave
01:19:00
their hometown and they escape. they
01:19:04
they embrace their true colors and they
01:19:07
blossom once they're out of that system.
01:19:10
And with public school, you know, that's
01:19:12
a whole another system that people
01:19:14
blossom out of. But yeah, you said
01:19:16
something at the near the beginning when
01:19:18
we were talking about your your
01:19:20
homeschool experience and you were
01:19:21
bringing up your grandma being the one
01:19:23
who homeschooled you and and almost
01:19:25
raising you with that mentality of what
01:19:28
she would have raised like a millennial
01:19:30
uh with and that schooling thought
01:19:33
process. And I would and and I've kind
01:19:35
of been mulling that over in the back of
01:19:37
my head this whole time and and thinking
01:19:38
about it and I was like
01:19:40
that's how like my parents were brought
01:19:42
up. Like when my dad talks about going
01:19:44
to school, he talks about feeling like a
01:19:47
dumb kid sometimes and being left
01:19:49
behind, but his parents were kind of
01:19:52
that what you're talking about the
01:19:54
refusal to change it because they were
01:19:55
like, "But this worked for me, so it
01:19:57
will work for you. We just you'll get
01:19:59
there eventually." And then my grandma
01:20:01
had that same thought of I was bullied
01:20:03
in high school, you're going to be
01:20:05
bullied in public school, right? So it's
01:20:07
that it's that same thought of it
01:20:10
doesn't change. Yeah. She maybe wanted
01:20:12
better things for you, but also missed
01:20:15
some of the opportunity to like actually
01:20:18
truly make it a better environment for
01:20:19
you, right? Yes. She was so It's It's
01:20:23
being wrapped so wrapped up in, you
01:20:26
know, your own trauma that you can't see
01:20:29
that little um
01:20:33
things might be different and different
01:20:35
outcomes are possible. And that's just
01:20:38
on whoever's so wrapped up in their in
01:20:41
their stress response that they can't
01:20:44
step out of that. And that's really
01:20:46
unfortunate. I I feel like we could talk
01:20:48
all day. This has been a great
01:20:50
conversation. And I was looking at the
01:20:52
time and I was like I was like, "Oh my
01:20:53
gosh, we're almost at an hour 30 at this
01:20:54
point." Um,
01:20:56
which um has been great. It's just been
01:20:59
a Yeah, it's been a great conversation.
01:21:01
I think it's it's really flown by, but I
01:21:03
want to I want to give you the
01:21:05
opportunity. Um, you know, we talked
01:21:07
about art. You're an artist. If people
01:21:09
are looking for art, what do you what do
01:21:12
you offer? Do you do you make art? Where
01:21:14
can people connect with you? That just
01:21:16
let me hand it to you. Yeah. So, uh, I
01:21:19
do I do some silly doodles. Uh, I do
01:21:22
take commissions. Um, but more so I do
01:21:25
it for the enjoyment of it. Um, you can
01:21:28
find me on Tik Tok, Martian to Battle.
01:21:31
You can find me on Instagram. Uh, my
01:21:34
Facebook is dead. It is dead dead. And
01:21:37
I'm really bad about posting, but I will
01:21:39
respond. I promise. And I also have a
01:21:43
portfolio, which I can send you a link
01:21:45
for if anyone's interested in what the
01:21:49
inside of my brain looks like, which
01:21:51
Yeah, I love that. Yeah. And I'll link
01:21:54
I'll make sure all that stuff is linked
01:21:55
in the show notes as well so people can
01:21:56
find you and connect and all of that all
01:22:00
that jazz. But yeah, Mar, this has been
01:22:03
this has been awesome. I really
01:22:04
appreciate you. And before I really shut
01:22:07
it down, turn it off, I guess. Uh is
01:22:10
there anything else that has popped in
01:22:12
your brain that you're like, "Okay, we
01:22:13
didn't touch on this. We need to quickly
01:22:15
touch on it."
01:22:18
I think
01:22:21
my usual answer is no. I don't think I
01:22:23
have any questions. But let me look
01:22:25
through my tabs here.
01:22:28
Oh, this was something that I just I was
01:22:30
just researching on earlier and I
01:22:33
thought was so funny. So, the um the
01:22:37
original founder of the AC curriculum,
01:22:40
his name is uh Donald Howard. Great
01:22:43
name, right? Um, I found this this
01:22:47
random article just while searching like
01:22:50
a net worth blah blah blah uh campaign
01:22:54
contributions. Just trying to dig up the
01:22:56
dirt I can, right? I find out that um
01:23:02
I'm just going to read this verbatim
01:23:03
from a Paththe blog. Mr. Howard, AC's
01:23:08
52-year-old founder is involved in a
01:23:10
church controversy and in embarrassing
01:23:13
civil litigation. In a civil suit in US
01:23:16
District Court in Missouri, two
01:23:18
marketing consultants charged Mr. Howard
01:23:20
with breach of contract. The suit also
01:23:23
states that he was subject the last he
01:23:26
was subject last September of a
01:23:28
Christian tribunal. An unofficial jury
01:23:30
of five fund fundamentalist church
01:23:33
deacons in Dallas judged Mr. Howard
01:23:36
unqualified to serve as a pastor,
01:23:38
deacon, elder, or Christian leader,
01:23:41
according to the meeting's minutes. Why,
01:23:43
you ask? The tribunal said that Mr.
01:23:46
Howard has presented himself publicly as
01:23:50
a preacher of the gospel and a Christian
01:23:52
educator at the same time. The evidence
01:23:55
revealed that he carried on a series of
01:23:57
clandestine, immoral relationships with
01:24:00
young women in violation of his marriage
01:24:02
vows. According to the meeting's
01:24:04
minutes, an attorney for Mr. Howard
01:24:06
denies the allegations,
01:24:08
but what uh assaultant
01:24:12
doesn't deny their allegations. And I
01:24:15
think that
01:24:17
it's just whether or not, you know, this
01:24:20
went on, there's really nothing about
01:24:22
this man's wife online so far that I've
01:24:24
been able to dig up. I'll have a
01:24:27
hyperfixation moment on it probably here
01:24:29
in the next few weeks. But this this
01:24:33
sparked something in me today to hear
01:24:35
that the the founder the original
01:24:37
creator of a fundamentalist Christian
01:24:40
education meant to bring children up in
01:24:43
a righteous way under God to teach them
01:24:46
selfm motivation and you know keeping
01:24:49
track of
01:24:50
your your own work and kind of just
01:24:56
building up that ability to push
01:24:58
yourself
01:25:01
that that man who wanted to teach
01:25:04
children all these values
01:25:07
would break his own moral code that
01:25:10
quickly and that easily. And it's just
01:25:14
it it kind of shatters the whole house
01:25:17
of cards. Yeah, it does. Yeah. I that's
01:25:21
the eighth curriculum. I don't blame you
01:25:23
for Yeah. hyperfixating on stuff like
01:25:26
that because I I've been learning more
01:25:27
and more about that and one of the
01:25:29
reasons we got connected was one of one
01:25:32
of the the the callouts I did on the
01:25:35
show was that I wanted to talk to people
01:25:36
about their curriculum and the first
01:25:38
thing you messaged me was hey I did the
01:25:40
ACE curriculum let's talk about it kind
01:25:42
of a deal
01:25:44
because what I've been learning as I've
01:25:45
been educating myself and not just
01:25:48
homeschool curriculum other curriculums
01:25:50
and things like that is is just things
01:25:51
like this right you trace it back to who
01:25:54
created did it, the founders of it,
01:25:55
anything like that. And you start seeing
01:25:58
these weird people were there. Who are
01:25:59
these people and what do they do? And I
01:26:01
think there's a level of people can be
01:26:03
redeemed. I I still believe that. I
01:26:05
think people can make a right rights out
01:26:08
of their wrongs. Um, but you look at the
01:26:10
histories of some of these curriculums
01:26:12
and some of these things, and it really
01:26:13
makes you start to question,
01:26:15
is this the thing that I should actually
01:26:18
be handing over to my kid um, and
01:26:21
putting them through. And so, I just
01:26:24
highly encourage if there's any parents
01:26:26
out there listening, like actually take
01:26:28
the time to do the research on what is
01:26:30
the history of this company. And I'm not
01:26:31
just talking about pull up their web
01:26:33
page and look at, you know, what they
01:26:35
say about their company. I'm talking
01:26:36
about actually doing some of the
01:26:37
dictates you. Yes. Yeah. They will give
01:26:40
you all this bells and whistles on their
01:26:42
website. The AC curriculum website's so
01:26:44
polished. It looks beautiful. It looks
01:26:47
so godly. And then you read the comics
01:26:51
and the book and the black students
01:26:54
don't go to the same school that the
01:26:56
white students go to, right? Within the
01:26:59
curriculum's
01:27:00
entertainment. And that's a lot of
01:27:03
people
01:27:05
don't want to teach their children just
01:27:08
inherent racism. You know, maybe if you
01:27:10
live in Oklahoma, that's a different
01:27:13
Maybe that's a conversation I don't even
01:27:15
want to bring. That's a whole another
01:27:17
podcast and maybe we need to have at
01:27:19
some point. Um yeah, get some diverse
01:27:23
voices in here and and chat about those
01:27:25
things. But um yeah, cuz I but yeah, I
01:27:29
think that's a great point to bring up
01:27:30
here at the end of just like please
01:27:31
educate yourself on like what is it that
01:27:33
we're teaching our kids? What is it that
01:27:34
we're promoting and pushing? And
01:27:38
do your own research. That's just just
01:27:40
do it. Take the time to do it. It's
01:27:42
worth it. I promise you. Half the time
01:27:44
Reddit does it for you. It's not that
01:27:46
hard. Exactly. Exactly. I also I argue
01:27:49
like Wikipedia it can be a great jumping
01:27:51
off point of like learning things and
01:27:54
but it's going deeper than just the
01:27:55
article. It's going deeper than just the
01:27:57
Reddit post. It's looking for that next
01:27:59
level. But yeah, for sure. For sure.
01:28:03
This has been incredible. I thank you
01:28:05
once again.
01:28:07
Thank you so much for having me on. This
01:28:09
has been a great conversation. Yeah, I
01:28:11
appreciate it so much. And for the
01:28:12
audience, I hope you guys enjoyed it as
01:28:14
well. You know what to do. If you if you
01:28:16
enjoyed it, thumbs up, like, subscribe,
01:28:19
do all of the things that you know you
01:28:20
at this point, we've been on the
01:28:22
internet long enough. Yes, please do.
01:28:24
Um, and press the buttons, interact, you
01:28:28
know, and if you've got uh questions,
01:28:30
comments, concerns, compliments, uh, you
01:28:33
can feel free to shoot me an email at
01:28:34
01:28:37
or a DM at exhsclub on Instagram, Tik
01:28:40
Tok. I think that's the only places I
01:28:43
have DMs at. Uh, but I'm on most of the
01:28:45
socials as that as well. So, that's it.
01:28:49
Until next week, we'll see you. All
01:28:50
right. Peace and love.
01:28:53
[Music]
01:28:59
[Music]
