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ladies and gentlemen boys and girls we are back another week another episode of The X homeschoolers Club I am of course
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your host Jacob Gooden and uh this week is going to be fun I have my friend Adam
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gs on we I until recently didn't actually know that Adam was a homeschool kid uh we went to college together and
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we were in band together and all kinds of stuff we're going to get into all that but um but yeah until recently I
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had really no clue that he was a homeschool kid so we're going to hear about his experience but before we do
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that I have a couple things to ask you number one uh if you enjoy the show please share it with a friend pick your
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favorite episode shoot him a text say hey what's up hey by the way there's
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this podcast out with uh our good buddy Jacob Gooden and uh you should give it a
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listen and a follow and all of the good things um so there's that the second
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thing is I want to know from you guys what you want to hear on this show the best way to do that I now have a six
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question survey okay there's a link it's going to be the top Link in the
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description of this video of this episode um click it two of the questions are just your name and your email
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address the rest of them are questions about more things you want to hear people you want to hear on the episodes
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um and some other community related things so give that a click we can wait pause it if you need
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to okay we're back so without further Ado let's get into the episode Adam
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welcome to the X homeschoolers Club thanks so much for having me I'm I'm
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excited I have uh never been on a podcast before so let's see how this goes I I'm amazed because your wife also
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has a podcast um and she you yeah she needs to have you on her show um shout out to Niche knowledge and nonsense um
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yes if you haven't listened to that show go check it out it's amazing um but yeah
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no I'm uh I'm beating her to it so absolutely maybe this will be the uh the
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what gets her to finally invite me on the show yeah yeah hopefully she'll hear
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she'll hear good you are on the microphone I she'll know this it's it
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needs to happen um so Adam you and I know each other we met in college really early on in college well at least for me
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I it was I think your sophomore year but were we the same year or no you came after I I joined I got into college in
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2014 I think I started in 2013 okay yeah but I know for me it was very early that's not true no
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I started in 2012 because I graduated in 2016 so we were we overlapped for two years at Greenville okay yeah I met you
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very early on though because we took a band class together and got put in a band together it was like one of those
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like just almost draw names from a hat type of thing um and so it's these random band assments I'll bet that you
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probably remember that way better than I do because it was your freshman year and
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it would have been what my junior year so like for me it was just like whatever let's just get this over with I I have
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crap to do after after class you know absolutely don't well it was definitely
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like it was kind of a filler class let's be honest it was but yeah we were in a
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band together with yeah I think you really got stuck in a band with all freshman um which probably also wasn't
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uh super fun but that was a symptom of my changing Majors a little late so I had to get that class
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in uh which I would have probably taken as a freshman but then I was in it as a junior you know yeah so it's all good
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yeah hey it happens but ended up we ended up getting to know each other your wife also went to college with us she
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and my wife were roommates at one point and so our lives have definitely overlapped uh a little bit and then um
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yeah and then we've just kind of stayed in rough contact I guess over the years
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but um but yeah I got follow you on Instagram yeah exactly on Facebook so yeah I didn't know you were
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a homeschool kid until uh I was chatting with your wife because she has a podcast
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and since I work in podcasting we've chatted a few times and she brought up that you were homeschooled and I was
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like no way I would have first of all never guessed that uh in a million years but secondly I was like okay I think
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Adam needs to come on the show um because I want to hear this story and I want to hear all these things so give me
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kind of the rundown what was your homeschool experience like you know set the stage a little bit of like family
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life and all those types of things I know probably everybody's going to say this but I feel like I had a unique
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experience as a homeschooler because I was what I would consider 5050 50 um for about half of my education I attended a
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public school um and then the other half of it it was of course homeschooled um and so that divide was like uh I think I
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was public schooled from uh early age until fifth grade and then it was the summer of when I would be going into
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sixth grade that my Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to take my older sister
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and I and put us into homeschooling and then I have I have three siblings so then the younger two
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siblings they decided you know what let's put them in public school let's
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just figure out if this works for us we're just going to do the two older siblings and it was so successful for my
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sister and I that they decided the following year to take all four of us and homeschool us and it wasn't until my
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junior year of um high school that I had actually ended up taking a couple of courses at the high school so I feel
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like uh really the only thing I missed out on public schoolwise was the Middle School
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experience and I think if anybody's being honest with themselves like I don't know that there was much that was
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missed I think that those years are usually like people's blender years they
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definitely were my blender years and so it was probably a good thing that I was insulated from you know the Behemoth of
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of middle school so but that's kind of like a a brief rundown of my experience
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as a homeschooler yeah that's a definitely a unique experience CU yeah I know I know a lot of families where it's
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almost the opposite where they they homeschool their kids pretty much grade school through middle school and then
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High the high school years or even the junior high years they send them to to a public school or private school but yeah
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kind of the opposite for you is is interesting so what like so that that transition then from going to public
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school and then being at home all the time was that difficult because I mean you're going from like I'm sure you have
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friends and you're used to seeing everybody to like yeah are you then just stuck at home with mom and and sister
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and being like what do we do now so that period of my life well I guess our family's uh life was
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very very filled with change it was that summer that we um moved from Baran Springs Michigan to Herman Missouri and
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a big part of that move there was really two big reasons I didn't understand this
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at the time but now I do you know because I've talked with Mom and Dad about it and it was because Dad's
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position at the University was downsized so he didn't have a job in Michigan
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right so was nothing holding us there and my grandma was very close to passing away so we moved to Missouri to be close
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to her um and she passed a few years after we moved there so we got some good time with her but so that summer with
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that transition to homeschooling it almost felt like maybe that was the smallest transition you know because I
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had already left all my friends I didn't have any friends I didn't have a school
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you know system that I was familiar with um so it almost felt natural and just one more thing to change uh I don't
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remember being traumatized or like bummed or you know about homeschooling I was bummed about moving right um but it
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kind of felt kind of felt seamless almost yeah I can kind of relate because my parents I transition in home school
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because of a move as well so I had gone to public school for through first grade um and
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then we moved and yeah and so second grade kicked off and I was a home home school kid but we moved it wasn't very
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far it was only about 30 minutes away but it was definitely weird um there were other changes going on we had
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bought a fixer uper that kind of a thing so there was like we didn't we didn't
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have like a kitchen like we wash dishes in the in the um in the garage the sink in the garage and stuff yeah exactly we
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had one functioning bathroom like it was it was definitely nuts though so we had
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a very similar experience to that when we moved because we moved into my Grandpa's uh he owned a Farmstead and
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the The Farmhouse was not habitable when we moved there so like for a month we were living in a tent in the front yard
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and like Mom and Dad every day we just working on gutting that house and so yeah it was like a literally the same
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experience we didn't have like toilets sinks nothing you know it's crazy man
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yeah no that's so that's so wild like I think it's interesting because I've
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ched with a few people who have kind of that similar story of like there's big
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change it happens in life and so on they just kind of tack homeschool on top of it and so it almost feels less like you
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said it's not you if you remember that part of your life being a big shift but
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your least favorite part of it wasn't changing to homeschool it was just like
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I didn't want to move as opposed to other friends I have who yeah they went to public school and then their parents
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decided to homeschool them and that was the only change that was really happening and for them it was a much
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bigger situation so with that kind of that shift and and now being homeschooled so we're looking at that
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first year was there obviously it's a big shift first experience for you guys
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first experience maybe for mom being an educator but also like did you I did she
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I don't know did you get involved in homeschool groups that were in the area
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or like meet other homeschool families or did you have kind of a sense of community at all because that's one of
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the biggest things that I think a lot of people when they hear homeschool they just hear isolation and you know y
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antisocial right so so yeah um Mom and Dad were not Educators before that Dad had spent a lot of time in um higher
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curriculum his his my grandpa his dad was a professor at maou and dad went there for his PhD program so I think Dad
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was very familiar with education being a professor's son and spending a lot of
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time you know so there was there was that experience that I'm sure that they
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pulled off of um but no not really uh mom has always been kind of a just let's
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just do it roll my sleeves up let's do it and so I think a big thing that emboldened them to make that decision
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and probably you know was a big factor was that we were involved with a church very early after moving to um
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Herman and in that church there were many families that homeschooled so I'm sure that during that summer where I
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think one of the first things mom and dad did when we moved there during that summer was find a church family because
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that was important to them you know and so that was probably very very big uh for them to have that support that
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system those people that you know and can make friends with you have a common you know common Bond so yeah I'm sure
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Mom had conversations with the other moms and dad talked you know with the other dads and was they they figured out
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that homeschooling was an option you know yeah so yeah we did have a community we did have other
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homeschoolers we did things together you know it it was good in that sense I just
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had a conversation with with my mom and I was kind of piecing together some of the things of like when we got started
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because my memory was a lot of like feeling isolated but one of the things that she was telling me was that yeah
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for her as well she was like she had met other homeschool moms and was already living in community with other
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homeschool moms and so kind of doing this like they were encouraging her to be like hey you should at least just
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like think about it kind of a thing yeah and then when she bit the bullet they were like okay here's what you're going
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to join right you're going to be part of this Association and you're going to
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join this group of homeschool kids um and so we kind of had a built-in Community uh unfortunately it was still
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like 30 minutes away but but it was at least there I still had like friends and stuff and I think that was like it it
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helped right um because again it's like one of those things where I think so
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many people think of homeschool kids as just these like isolated weird weird isolated little nobody yeah we don't
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know anybody like we don't know how to talk to people yeah exactly and um and
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my dad always told me he's like the thing that was different with like my sister and I he's like you guys could
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talk to to like adults and like have a conversation with them and carry conversation and he's like I don't know
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if I can 100% attribute that to like being homeschooled but like he's like I
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think it was partly that because you just had no fear to go up to somebody and start a conversation I don't know
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maybe that's the I kind of feel the same way like yeah I I remember you know
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articulating with the other homeschool moms frequently like we would be out on playdates or something with the other
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kids and they would be my guard for the day and you know they were basically the
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mom figure or the dad figure so yeah do did you guys do anything along the lines
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of like co-ops or anything where you would go to somebody's house for like a
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class more of a classroom setting where you had other kids like doing the same thing or was it very much like we get
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together and have play dates but like you have your H school I have my home school and it's all kind of more
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individualized definitely the latter option I don't think I ever recall a time where we would Co-op like that you
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know it was always school was at home usually it was like morning times were for school and then afternoons were for
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socializing you know that's when we would do activities with the other moms the other families yeah so you you also
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brought up that when you got into High School you started also taking some additional classes at the local high
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school so what what did that look like like what was kind of that 50-50 split there mom was my main educator dad was
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you know working outside the home so Mom was the main educator and she did not feel up to
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par teaching specific subjects at a high school level and the reason for that is
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you have to have so many credits to graduate I mean right that's you have to
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have it like that's maybe one thing people don't understand about homeschool
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or maybe they do I don't know I've always had to explain this to people it's like you don't just get to do what
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you want there's a very clearly defined set of tests you have to pass uh curriculum you have to undertake they
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have to be approved I think had them approved like by the state of Missouri you know so there were there were
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benchmarks to make uh yeah for my education and two of the subjects that she did not feel like she had the
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ability to teach me to to pass you know was math and art she's not artistic and
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you know unless you're a math Wiz or a genius math just sucks I mean sorry guys
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if you like math I don't know what to tell you math is awful Adam and I cut more from the creative cloth so yes
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absolutely um so yeah uh what what what she ended up doing was researching options for someone in her situation
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where she had a student that you know her child her student that needed these credits and wasn't sure how to get them
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and it came up that you can actually I don't know if this is everywhere or if
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it was just in Herman Missouri you can just take a class much like a college you can just sign up for a class show up
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take the class um maybe it was a special arrangement with the school because of this you know Herman is a smaller
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community and and the school's like yeah we'll do him a solid we you know he can
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attend for that class as long as I'm sure she probably had to send over like
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documentation of my education so that you know Mom and Dad didn't end up going
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to prison you know for failing to educate me but so yeah I signed up for two art classes art one and art two
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Junior and Senior year and then I took uh geometry junior year and algebra two senior year I think I took
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algebra one at home you brought up something that I've recently had a talk with somebody about this because so
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California actually has some of I GR in California so that it has some of the most LAX home education rules so so you
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can do all you do have to submit things to the state and you are like a private education you you private school right
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other kids could enroll in your school if you wanted them to um but you're a
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home educator so but the way there there's not this process really of like hey like submit your curriculum and we
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approve it we say this is good like it there's a lot more F Flex to it and things and so um unfortunately there's
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some good and there's some bad to that right like yeah it does open up more of
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ability to kind of create some really cool curriculums however it also for the people who are maybe a little bit more
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the Bad actors in the space and they don't actually teach kids anything can get away with a lot more right and then
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you end up with with some other kids but I was looking into a couple other states
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and I was like okay this is interesting because there are some states where yeah
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you have to go take standardized testing so as a way to also prove that your kid
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is educated enough to to go on right to continue on um which is good uh and then
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like you said you have to submit your curriculum choices to the state to kind of get them approved or you know explain
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yourself to them so that's definitely an interesting difference I don't know that
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I've had very many guests who have been able to kind of like talk to that because a lot of my friends like we
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didn't do very much standardized testing or the few times that we did it was it
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was just not consistent right um so kind of interesting I thankfully I had a mom
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who was like I'm going to keep really good records you know her goal was get
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me to college so she was like you know you have to have all this stuff which I mean obviously your mom also was kind of
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had that mindset of like my kids need to be able to go to college if they want to
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right yes that was very important her I remember having the discussion every year of all right the end of the school
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Year's coming up you have to have this done you have to have this done you have
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to take this test I have you know it needs to be done by this date so I can send it off and um kind of something I
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want to bring up here is uh maybe trying to steer the conversation myself a little bit I feel like that
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experience of being responsible for my own education in a sense has shaped who I am today greatly because my sense of
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responsibility to getting things done and meeting expectations and deadlines I feel like I
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have benefited from that experience in high school greatly or uh well not high school homeschool sorry because of that
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it was on us it was me and Mom you know and and if we didn't get it done I didn't get an education and so that was
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a a value that was instilled in me early you know yeah I it's interesting I had a conversation
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with a friend and we were talking about go getting to college and she was also homeschooled and and one of the things
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she brought up was that she had friends who they had been public schooled all the way through and they struggled in
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college for different reasons than her and I struggled in college I struggled a little bit more with the social aspect
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but when it came to school workor I was like I was because I had the motivation to just like do it and like set aside
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the time I knew how much time I needed to get it done and I just did it um and so very rar were things late but yeah
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but then there were other students who yeah you could tell they just struggled a lot more with the deadlines thing
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because of the fact that scheduling time management exactly they didn't have that
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so that is a huge benefit I think to if you do homeschool I'm going to say right
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um there's that ownership piece of like as a student you have ownership over the
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fact that like you got to do this you know because usually mom and dad are in addition to playing teacher they're also
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still mom and dad and they got a billion on their plate anyways and try toig so yeah so they they you know they
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need you to have some ownership over it um which is you know important it's good
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and like you said it shaped you into who you are today and so yeah so let's talk
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a little bit I guess more about that transition into college you definitely had probably to some degree a little bit
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better of an understanding of like I mean your mom was keeping Good Records going to college was seems like talked
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about consistently at your house so like yeah was College always in the plans was
00:21:02
it you know were you thinking about other things pretty much um pretty much I had had a lot of people tell me that I
00:21:11
needed to go to college and I think that's a very uh Universal experience for Millennials and maybe even for J Z
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yeah um and people younger is the stress that was placed on attending college so
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I had picked out very many colleges to look at and eventually uh settled on Greenville which you know
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the rest is history there uh I I think that my experience at Greenville was good
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um but yeah we'll talk about that in a second the transition it was strange um
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I remember choosing Greenville applying getting accepted and attending and just being absolutely in love with Greenville
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campus you know what I mean that first visit and you're like yeah this is this
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is GNA be good you know yeah oh man how how naive we were but I had a similar I mean it was it was
00:22:05
interesting because I originally didn't want to leave the state or if I did I
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like okay maybe some of the closer States was that the thing with Greenville is that they didn't have
00:22:15
outof state tuition I think that was the thing um it might have been and the for
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me I wanted to major in audio engineering so I was like there was limited schools who were doing that um a
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lot of a lot of the schools that advertise it tend to be kind of like the full sale style schools where it's like
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we're not a traditional education kind of a thing we're actually a scam um and
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so I was like talking as much as I could I was talking to like audio professionals to kind of be like what do
00:22:47
I need to do and a lot of them were like it honestly doesn't really matter if you
00:22:51
have an audio engineering degree or not but they were like but you should find a
00:22:54
school that has a program like that and has a traditional education because it will take you further and I was like
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okay found Greenville like you I tored it I fell in love with it I spent the night I was like oh my gosh I think this
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is the place and then moved and yeah I my first year I struggled with being so far away from family but aside from that
00:23:15
I loved it there I loved College I thought it was fantastic you know it's like yeah I'm on my own I remember the
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same yeah yeah yeah and then we woke up finally to to what Greenville was because
00:23:27
Greenville I don't know I don't know if this was a factor for you but we haven't even
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touched on the fact that like religion played a big part in both of our homeschool experiences and we
00:23:40
were going to church consistently Greenville was a Christian campus and so for me some of the things that were
00:23:45
attractive to it were things like the lifestyle statement and the fact that there was like a billion in one churches
00:23:52
inside that little town and I liked it because I felt I still felt safe like it felt like a bigger homeschool bubble in
00:24:00
a lot of ways I absolutely can agree with that it it definitely had that Vibe of this this it it felt like a youth
00:24:11
group yeah like it legit felt like an adult the next level youth group and I think that if if I were
00:24:20
to you know let's say there's like a strange tour of events and I were to
00:24:23
like consider attending something like that today with my current knowledge I'd
00:24:26
be like absolutely not it's a cult I'm I'm going to walk away but at the time I
00:24:32
was super into it you know and I think that that was one of the main things that attracted me to it and probably
00:24:38
helped the transition from living in Herman to living at Greenville um was that that that feeling the The Vespers
00:24:45
on Thursday nights and you know it was comfortable it was definitely yeah I I just agree with you it was just kind of
00:24:51
that like next step because you brought it up before we hit record but like I mean well brought it up even in while we
00:24:59
were recording is that like your parents you you were involved in a church that had a lot of homes school
00:25:06
kids that church it sounds like played a big significant role throughout kind of
00:25:10
childhood and those high school years in particular um so I don't know about you
00:25:16
I can speak to myself I mean I was heavily involved in things like youth group I served in the worship Ministry I
00:25:21
was like you know I would stack chairs on Sunday and do Bible study and community group and every other thing I
00:25:27
could get my hands on I would I would do that is that kind of a similar thing for
00:25:30
you 100% um being you know Mom and Dad raised us to try to be you know as much like Jesus
00:25:40
as as we could and so a lot of that was serving doing things for other people being involved in church activities you
00:25:46
know like you said stacking chairs helping with the sound booth I played on the worship team I it was just normal
00:25:52
like and then yeah the transition toille it just felt normal right it was just like continue doing the same thing I
00:25:57
know from me one of the big things I the reason I burned out of church was because honestly at Greenville I was
00:26:04
going to church like things six days a week I had one day off and I was like I after six months of that I was like I
00:26:11
can't do this anymore I was like I I need a break somewhere I think by my senior year I was only attending the
00:26:17
church services that Greenville put on to the number minimum you had to attend to graduate like I had it mapped out how
00:26:26
many Vespers I needed to tend and you know I was always bringing homework and sitting in the balcony like yeah no that
00:26:34
same I yeah I think I even just kind of at one point said like screw it like what are they going to do they're not
00:26:40
going to let me graduate because I didn't go to church like I don't know
00:26:43
right uh actually I think that was a thing I think like they were saying you couldn't graduate but I bet you they
00:26:49
probably couldn't prevent you I mean I don't know I I was I don't know I I feel
00:26:55
bad for this but I would always go in especially I was lucky and unlucky by my senior
00:27:00
year because I W I was my I was having some health issues and also I had a grandparent who was dying at the time
00:27:06
and stuff like that so I feel like I got a little bit I got a lot more leeway because I had a lot of these things that
00:27:11
I could go in and be like Oh but I just I couldn't even get out of bed or I couldn't whatever they' be like oh yeah
00:27:17
sign the paper it's all good you're you know good to kind of transition I guess
00:27:21
a little bit off of that now so you're dad now you got two kids two wonderful
00:27:26
kids who are they're both in in school school age and so what has I guess like
00:27:35
you know you did The Homeschool thing you're married to somebody who didn't do
00:27:38
the homeschool thing what like I guess what has shaped like your thoughts when it comes to your kids education now so I
00:27:46
want to say early on in brinn's life Brinn is my daughter she's six now okay
00:27:53
and attakus is my son and he's four so they are in kindergarten and preschool
00:28:00
respectively early on in her life bayy and I agreed she would be attending the public school system private schools out
00:28:09
of the question that's super expensive yeah if you can send your kid to private
00:28:14
school like I don't know Screw you like share a little bit of that wealth around
00:28:19
man like it's that's so much money to spend on what you could get for free but
00:28:23
anyway people have their reasons uh not judging um and homeschool also is not really an option uh I work
00:28:32
full-time to pay the bills and Bailey is at home with the kids currently that's
00:28:37
our you know we're we're really sticking it to the patriarchy there with that
00:28:40
Arrangement but it's working out for our family um yeah and she's just not
00:28:46
interested in homeschooling uh and I I I respect her for knowing her limitations
00:28:51
because it is a challenge homeschooling is not for everyone it requires a certain type of person a certain um you
00:29:01
know it's a lot of responsibility to take on in addition to like what you mentioned
00:29:06
earlier nothing else stops you're homeschooling but you also have to go to work you also have to pay the bills you
00:29:14
have to maintain your household you know all the things that are involved with that don't go away when you just decide
00:29:19
to be an educator as well so that's a big deciding factor for us and I think
00:29:25
that if the situation were different I would love to consider the possibility of homeschooling and I'm not necessarily
00:29:32
saying that that's not possible in the future um right you know we'll say
00:29:36
situations change and opportunities arise and whatnot but for now yeah so we're we're we're
00:29:43
definitely taking advantage of the fact that public schooling exists and just placing our trust in it you know I I
00:29:50
spent half of my education in the public school system Bailey spent her whole education in the public school system I
00:29:56
think that it as long as you are supportive of your child and making sure that they're benefiting from their
00:30:03
education and being involved in their life you can you can get a good education from what is available in the
00:30:09
public school system it's not without its faults that's not what I'm trying to
00:30:12
say but so that's kind of where we're at as parents with our kids as just yeah
00:30:17
yeah sorry it's not the vibe this is the homeschoolers podcast no you're you're all good it's
00:30:23
it's funny because I think I I got to run the numbers at some point but of the
00:30:27
people I've talked to and kind of ask that yeah you know I I usually ask them
00:30:32
well one if they have kids or they're think about having kids or you know if
00:30:35
someone comes to them and says oh would you recommend homeschool it's like I it's pretty high that most of
00:30:40
them are like no don't don't go down heav dependent on you and your lifestyle
00:30:45
but probably and but I think the thing that you said that I think this is what I
00:30:51
tell any parent is just the fact that it's like you being involved in your kids life and understanding how they
00:30:57
their thinking works and how like if they have learning disabilities or they just learn differently or they have
00:31:04
whatever it's like if you as a parent can understand that regardless of if they go to public school private school
00:31:09
or they're home educated you can advocate for them to have the best education they possibly can and learning
00:31:16
never stops um if you don't want it to right it's like you can also Foster that
00:31:21
healthy desire to always be learning about the things that they're interested
00:31:24
in and so abely you know I I definitely that's encouraging to hear you know because it's just I don't know I had I
00:31:32
had parents who they encourag me to always chase the things I was interested in and if I ever have kids or nieces and
00:31:39
nephews that's I want to do that to them too it's like I want to provide them
00:31:42
with that as well it's just like go after the things that you love you know so absolutely and you know
00:31:50
our our transition from young childhood to early school years has not been without its challenges um particularly
00:31:59
with my son and I think that this is a big reason why we are going to go with public schooling for him especially not
00:32:06
that like we're like sitting here talking about it but I think that the fact that this will be such an advantage
00:32:11
to him is that he we had some significant issues with him going into preschool um so my daughter is ADHD
00:32:21
which is very common for kids in fact most of most of the time I think people will like grow out of that so like part
00:32:27
of me is like is it actually ADHD or is it just them being a kid but then again I'm not you know a psychiatrist or a
00:32:35
psychologist or whatever so yeah take take my take what I say with a grain of salt on that subject so my son is
00:32:41
probably the same you know I think I probably could have been diagnosed when I was a kid biley as well so we're just
00:32:47
a crazy bunch of people over here you know yeah we're uh but anyway his he started preschool and it it just was not
00:32:55
good uh what we ended up doing is is uh there's a school in town called The Early Childhood and Family Center and
00:33:03
they're they exist mainly for uh like less privileged or disadvantaged families so they have like an assessment
00:33:10
they do and they they they take all factors of a child's life and whether or
00:33:14
not they can attend there and Bren got in and it was really good uh her experience at the Early Childhood Center
00:33:21
and so we naturally signed my son up and he was not qualified uh for whatever reason he's dang smart or something you
00:33:29
know I make too much money whatever whatever reason they told him that he couldn't attend and um so we decided to
00:33:36
sign him up for a montauri school which is a whole another style of Education that I don't think has been brought up
00:33:43
yet and I think that that style if you don't know what monu education is it's
00:33:48
basically student-led education so the child will steer their own schooling uh it's a very
00:33:57
wild concept to me when when you say it out loud like that um but I think the idea is to Foster that sense of wonder
00:34:05
that we were just talking about that sense of always wanting to learn new things and I think it can be good I mean
00:34:10
uh there's it had the school had high ratings you know we were gonna have to
00:34:14
end up paying for it but it was it was affordable because of he was only going to go like part of the day or something
00:34:19
yeah well that student Le thing did not work out for my son uh he he just would not listen to the teacher
00:34:28
he was like stealing toys from other kids there were even a couple times where he would like hit another kid and
00:34:34
so we ended up we ended up taking him out of that and putting him but we reapplied to the Early Childhood Center
00:34:40
and he was eventually uh approved to go into that so he's now in school now he started I
00:34:47
think it was like December 5th or something so he got a little bit of a late start to his education but that's
00:34:54
where we're at with our kids you know little bit of a rocky start yeah I mean hey everybody learns
00:35:00
differently right it's like I my sister has uh add and dyslexia and so I but I
00:35:07
don't and so I could sit there and read a book for hours and it just my brain
00:35:11
just would absorb it but she's an auditory learner and so for her yeah having it read to her or whatever so it
00:35:16
was interesting I that was an advantage I think for Me growing Up In The Homeschool Community was like we had
00:35:21
such a vast variety of kids who had all different types of learning capabilities
00:35:26
and needs and we learned to just play with each other right we learned how to understand
00:35:32
each other um and it's coming super beneficial now as an adult um I worked in a toy store for a number of years and
00:35:41
we would do birthday parties and kids would come in and there' be that one kid
00:35:45
who kind of he just got invited because he's in the class kind of a thing but
00:35:48
nobody really likes him um and it's because he's a little different right
00:35:52
and and but I understood that it's like well they just need this you know and
00:35:56
and not to my own horn but it just it was always interesting because the parents usually would come up afterwards
00:36:01
and be like how do you like are you an educator I'm like no I just grew up with
00:36:05
friends who also you know are like that and so we just knew you know here's when
00:36:09
you give your space Here's when you lean really in you know all those types of
00:36:12
things and so learning your kid style of of learning and just their personalities
00:36:17
it's like you and Bailey are you know you're the the best equipped to to lean
00:36:21
into that and figure it out to see it every single day you know yeah I was I have been wondering
00:36:28
how homeschooling I don't know this is kind of a new A New Concept that I've
00:36:31
been introducing to the show is kind of this like how homeschooling impacted your relationship with like your parents
00:36:38
and your siblings years later and what I mean by that is like do you have like different views than like your siblings
00:36:46
you know like the way I look at homeschooling I had a very positive experience but I know for other people
00:36:53
it wasn't right and so and even with people I've met I've talked to now I'm
00:36:57
like their their siblings are like all super gung-ho for homeschooling and going to do it for their kids and and
00:37:02
they themselves are like uh no I'm I'm good I want to do public school and that
00:37:06
kind of thing but I I'm I'm trying to flesh out I guess the question here a
00:37:11
little bit better but like how have you seen that your homeschool experience within like your family and stuff has
00:37:18
shaped your your your family relationship you know with your siblings and and your parents like where you look
00:37:25
back on it kind of differently than them almost like in a disagreement kind of a
00:37:29
way or or you guys have kind of a similar like like and dislike for it this is a really difficult question
00:37:39
to answer I know it's like really I'm sorry it's okay I'm I'm here for
00:37:47
it I would say that I think that one of the things that homeschooling has significantly benefited and that would
00:37:57
share the sentiment with my siblings is the ability to be be CR like what am I trying to say
00:38:06
the ability to be critical of what you're learning verify information for yourself
00:38:12
yeah because you know when you're your own teacher which I mean maybe this was
00:38:17
your experience maybe it wasn't mom wasn't like actively sitting there teaching me stuff all the time right I
00:38:26
was mostly just going through my curriculum on my own and then Mom was in the room if I had a question or didn't
00:38:32
understand something she could go over it with me right so that ability to take in information process it catalog it and
00:38:40
figure out okay this is this that is that you know organize it that I feel like I have seen my siblings and
00:38:49
I not NE not not necessarily uniquely but I'll use that word uniquely in the
00:38:53
world be able to sift through navigate life's challenges um there's there's like a self- dependency to us
00:39:03
that I do not observe in in some other people that you encounter in life and so I think that on the by and
00:39:12
large my siblings and I would all say that homeschooling was a good experience and I think that my parents would share
00:39:18
that same sentiment um but I think that we're just going to turn the stone over I think that one of the things that
00:39:25
homeschooling might have actually done is killed personally mine and I know my brothers because I've spoke to him about
00:39:31
it I haven't really spoke to my sisters about it but like that the religion aspect of Our Lives you know I
00:39:37
kind of have critical thinked my way out of that and that's that's a personal
00:39:41
decision you know yeah and I think that that that's kind of like the vibe in my
00:39:44
family now is that like my mom even which surprises me has shared with me that she's not super big into church
00:39:51
anymore and it was because of that time in Herman and her buying into to it fully and not
00:39:59
getting back that same effort from her peers in the church and um so yeah it yeah I think that maybe I answered your
00:40:07
question or maybe the question just prompted a thought but yeah no I that's really what it's meant to do I just
00:40:15
I I just did interviews with my parents at the time of recording this they just went live and and one of the things that
00:40:22
we keep them and I keep coming back to is this thought of like I mean I took critical thinking that was a class that
00:40:29
I had yes I remember taking something like that too yeah my dad and I we talked about we we did a whole I don't
00:40:36
even know it was a couple months we read like The Da Vinci Code when The Da Vinci
00:40:39
Code was super controversial inside of the church and we would discuss it and and look at it and go okay well this is
00:40:45
a work of fiction right and like so we could kind of break it down and and kind of come from it from a different point
00:40:50
of view but to your point we learned how to have critical thinking skills and how
00:40:55
to do our own you know for information find correct information or find information that you know we believed we
00:41:03
resonated with right and so same as you that led me down the path of like I I'm
00:41:09
no longer religious I identify as agnostic but yeah I definitely like it took a long time and then it was really
00:41:17
scary to kind of like be like I don't know I I don't know if you had this
00:41:21
exper I I really I hated and loved that whole experience because I was I was super angry the entire time but I also
00:41:27
was very much like I just I I I was like I don't want to give it up because there
00:41:32
was a comfort to it like we were talking about Green such a to go from Comfort to
00:41:36
a comfort I I was like I don't want to I I just knew it was going to be uncomfortable and it's this big scary
00:41:42
world out there and so I was like I don't I don't know and then to feel all
00:41:46
alone in it you know but it's been nice because to your point my parents and I
00:41:51
we can have discussions on it and they still are very much involved in church and religion but we can just have open
00:41:58
dialogue and and ask questions of each other and stuff and I think that that is a lot better
00:42:03
than that some people some homes school kids don't end up with that unfortunately you know their their
00:42:09
parents definitely are just very stuck in the like I'm your teacher this is I'm
00:42:14
teaching you the correct thing this be this how it is you know and you either accept it or or don't you know and if
00:42:19
you don't well yeah AO um but that's good that you you can have kind of those open conversations it
00:42:28
sounds like with your family yeah I mean I would say that I would say that homeschooling made us very close yeah
00:42:35
you know um and I think that's a big benefit you know yeah a big benefit to homeschooling I I work on a show right
00:42:43
now that it deals a lot with you know college kids young early 20s um and they talk about relationships
00:42:54
and sex and and you know uh um life being a young person today and and how it's shifted and how it's changed and
00:43:02
then they they very it's to um they're not old by any means but older ladies
00:43:08
kind of coming in and one of one of them is a therapist and she talks about that
00:43:12
that process of being like you know if you're a parent and your kid is like you
00:43:17
you view it as like them being like defiant or pushing back on whether it's religion or whatever um usually it's not
00:43:24
it's just them being Cur they're being human right they're being curious they
00:43:27
asking questions and that kind of a thing and so you either you have two options you either open yourself up to
00:43:33
being able to accept that we can have dialogue around this or you just close yourself off and when you close yourself
00:43:38
off it's no wonder that you're going to lose your kids right and that's the sad
00:43:43
thing um and so yeah so if there are parents listening to this don't shut your kids out
00:43:51
please conversations um and it's not easy I don't know I don't know about you I
00:43:56
definitely gone through times with my parents where it's a little bit more strained or you know conversations can
00:44:00
be awkward but it just yeah you just do it right you just push through it and eventually you'll come out another side
00:44:06
of it and usually it's a little bit better so yeah anyway okay I gotta I got to ask this to
00:44:14
kind of get us maybe a little off the heavy notes but is there a cringy homeschool moment that you can remember
00:44:22
and I'll give you an example it comes up a lot on this show so if you're playing
00:44:26
the ex- homeschoolers drinking game I'm going to bring up my red pants um I had
00:44:30
skin tight red skinny jeans that I wore I looked like somebody from One Direction that was kind of the vibe I
00:44:36
was going for uh it was super cringey and I look back on it and it's not exclusively a homeschool thing right
00:44:41
it's just a fashion statement of the time but are there any moments like that
00:44:46
that you can think of that you're like that you're willing to share with the
00:44:48
class I guess also yeah I mean hey it there's I have been I've had some blunder years let's just leave it at
00:44:56
that um and so I'm not really okay so something that has to do I wrote down some funny stories because I didn't want
00:45:03
to like be on the podcast you're like what's a funny story and I'm like yeah so uh specifically with
00:45:11
homeschooling and this still cracks me up to this day uh mom and I were like you know what we need some elective
00:45:17
credits like what if what if we learned what if you took like a foreign language
00:45:22
as a class and I'm surprised that art made it to the high school public school choice
00:45:30
and like right I was kind of amazed when you said that too I was like art of all
00:45:34
things like just go buy some paint and some brushes and you're good right yeah
00:45:38
for real well I do appreciate those two art classes because truly I learned a lot in them about Humanity the culture
00:45:47
you know it's not just art right it's almost a history course yeah because you
00:45:52
go anyway we're getting off topic so I tried to take German as a foreign language as a
00:46:01
homeschooler and the only resources we had was my mom my dad and me and I remember we took about a month of this
00:46:12
course of just trying to get wheels off the ground and the only phrase well I probably learned like hello yes goodbye
00:46:20
you know no whatnot the only phrase that I remember from this failed German class
00:46:26
was to which translates to where's the toilet which was the first phrase in the
00:46:35
book of what you needed to know if you're gonna visit Germany hey I mean hey if I ever go to
00:46:42
Germany you yeah you're prepped you're ready that's all you need to know you
00:46:48
know yep you know I growing up in California you're surrounded you know we're on the border of Mexico
00:46:54
technically if you don't know how to stay d yeah you know same thing you know you're
00:47:00
you're screwed I'm probably saying it wrong too you know it's been so many
00:47:04
years my aunt is from she was a German uh Native a Germany she was born in Germany and so that was I think probably
00:47:13
why we chose German because it would be really fun to talk to my aunt in German yeah and so if you're if you're
00:47:18
listening to this aun DJ I'm sorry for butchering uh butchering how to ask where's the toilet in German
00:47:27
oh my gosh that's I also struggled with foreign language yeah I still can't
00:47:31
speak Spanish but you know I know that's what I should have chosen I feel like
00:47:35
Spanish would have been a lot easier as a first language or like well as a first
00:47:39
second language yeah I think the and the thing with choosing like a Latin based language is then it opens up the door to
00:47:48
so many so if you have the aspiration of like you want to learn a lot of languages Spanish tends any of the Latin
00:47:55
based languages tend to be a good yeah jumping off but German's hard I'm going
00:47:59
to give it to you I have an uncle who's German yeah it I'm like I don't even
00:48:04
sometimes I don't even know how he makes certain noises with his mouth that you
00:48:07
know yeah awes it's a one like that yes yeah oh my gosh that's a good one there
00:48:16
was another experience that we had um and this one was like simultaneously cool I feel like this was
00:48:24
a really neat experience uh as a homeschooler specifically because I think it bought me a lot of like street
00:48:31
cred okay with the kids in town I was 15 at the time but it was also like Mega cringe like Mega
00:48:41
cringe um so I was uh super interested in music from a very young age I played Sports in elementary school you know
00:48:51
basketball soccer whatnot but when I became kind of like into my ad lons started figuring out who am I what do I
00:48:59
like it was guitar man I was obsessed with guitar I was obsessed with metal hardcore music you know under oath Demon
00:49:06
Slayer represent you know yeah uh religious Christian metal music was my thing yeah uh so anyway uh my parents
00:49:16
signed me up for lessons at 12 years old and we went we went consistently I want
00:49:23
to say for years and I was not one of their kids that they had to remind to practice like
00:49:30
you better go upstairs and practice your teacher said you have to practice for 30
00:49:33
minutes every day you know I was upstairs playing my guitar for hours and hours and hours and so one of the things
00:49:42
that we wanted to do is my friends and I at the church we had uh I think all five
00:49:46
members of the band were kids that went to church we started this metal band okay but if you know do you know attack
00:49:56
attack I do day like the people's elbow sticks thickly yeah that was what we were
00:50:02
trying to be so we had a keyboardist and we were trying to do the whole techno thing and we played we had an
00:50:08
opportunity to play a show in Herman Missouri and the only other bands that were playing there was one
00:50:16
like hard rock metal adjacent band that was headlining kind of like countryfied metal Rock if you can imagine it okay
00:50:24
but everybody else was just like a country band or like a a I don't know pop band so here we were these
00:50:31
15-year-old kids in like what you were saying like the red skinny jeans the long Sid swept hair yeah you know the
00:50:38
spiky belt we roll up to this show and we start playing this horrible poorly rehearsed not organized at all metal
00:50:49
music and then all of a sudden we go straight into this like super cringey techno breakdown thing we had like a
00:50:55
choreographed dance that we we were doing and let me tell you everybody at the paloa was like what is
00:51:03
happening except for and this is the cool part except for the high schoolers right they all came up from the crowd
00:51:12
and stood on the steps and they were getting into it and I want to say it was because the lead singer was uh very
00:51:19
popular at school like he had a lot of friends and so that experience was really fun because here I was this
00:51:26
yearold kid I had not taken any classes at the high school at this point I met a
00:51:31
lot of people that night yeah like it was cool I got a lot of a lot of exposure to the high school crowd in
00:51:38
Herman because of that night and so even though like that was like probably the cringiest thing I did was getting up in
00:51:46
front of that crowd and playing that awful metal music that nobody liked um it was it was honestly one of the best
00:51:53
nights of my life oh my gosh that's amazing I very similarly I yeah I also played guitar and same as you I would
00:52:01
you know they 30 minutes a day I would play for hours especially when I started learning how to play more lead guitar I
00:52:09
would play the same guitar lick over and over and over again and uh I remember one day my sister barging in my room
00:52:17
because we lived in a tiny little house and she goes are you ever going to stop because it was just our the same thing
00:52:23
over and over and over just like slight differences right or change yeah you're exactly just perfecting it I'm
00:52:29
like you know and I'm sitting there going well if I want to be John may somay I have to I have to do this you
00:52:35
know she's like you're not gonna be John May I'm not gonna be John may but but um
00:52:42
oh my gosh yeah and then dude I also had a band The the choreograph dances I mean
00:52:48
at one point we wanted to be the All-American Rejects or like Fallout Boy or something like that so we just kind
00:52:53
of were like you know we would dress like that and act like that and wear our guitars like at our knees and all the
00:53:00
stuff and it's just it's so dumb looking back on but at the same time I don't I
00:53:04
don't really regret it because absolutely not just such fun memories it's such a fun memory I remember that
00:53:11
night we found a phone like that same night of the Pala we found a phone in the grass and we're like oh crap we got
00:53:18
to figure out who this belongs to so we took the phone which was a mistake because then the police got called and
00:53:24
they found us and we had the phone and so like we were being accused of stealing the phone and it was yeah no
00:53:31
regrets Man Memories high school high school was like the best it's it's like
00:53:36
the best and worst time because y there's so many things to be like cringed out and be like oh it was
00:53:41
terrible but at the same time it's like but we all did it together and anytime I
00:53:45
I get together with my high school buddies it's just like we just remember the most cringy stuff we ever did and
00:53:52
it's hilarious it's just hilarious cuz like some of us are parents now and some
00:53:56
of of us are like doing completely different things and it's like it it's
00:54:00
great to just we mock each other with it I think it's just what it is it is but
00:54:04
it's all it it ends up all being equal because we all were the cringiest people
00:54:09
in the world so anyway dude Adam this has been so fun I it's been love getting to know more
00:54:18
about your homeschool experience because it is very different than mine it's very
00:54:22
different than a lot of people who have been on the show and and the fact that you have two kids who are are uh school
00:54:29
age is is awesome because kind of get to actually hear not the hypotheticals of like well what would you do if you had
00:54:37
kids but it actually getting to hear from somebody this is the thought process behind it and here's how we want
00:54:41
to be involved in our kids life it's amazing um and just like I don't know I
00:54:47
I love you and Bailey you guys seem like amazing parents to me um anytime I chat
00:54:51
with either of you I'm like you guys it's so clear you love your kids it's so
00:54:55
clear you want the best for them um and so and that's just I don't know it warms
00:54:59
my heart let's just say that well thank you for saying that because it's
00:55:02
important to hear because there are times where I'm like God I just this old
00:55:06
dead thing is not it man but then again it is you know it's just in the moment
00:55:12
it can feel like a challenge but it's it's it's encouraging to hear people see
00:55:17
see that the fruit of that labor you know yeah even even through just something as as frivolous and and
00:55:24
unimportant as social media you're able to pick on that pick up on that so it's
00:55:28
meaningful absolutely absolutely well um any last words before we sign off this has been a great experience honestly you
00:55:38
know I I legit thinking before starting the show today I was like what are we even gonna talk about man like
00:55:45
homeschooling yeah I I guess and you know it's actually been I feel like a really fruitful positive conversation
00:55:53
it's it's been enjoyable you're you're a great host and I just thank you for the
00:55:57
opportunity thank you I mean the point I really have wanted this show to be a space one to share stories to to
00:56:04
remnance to to know that you are not alone um in any of those thinkings because I for many years even though I
00:56:11
had so many homeschool friends growing up that I know had similar experiences I sat for so many years just being like no
00:56:19
my experience is so weird it's like such a bubble nobody else has had that and so
00:56:23
even getting to just chat with you who it's like you were not a part of my bubble you had your own bubble but like
00:56:29
there are shared commonalities there um so it is not it is not an individualized
00:56:35
thing I guess is what I'm trying to say yeah and um that's really the point of
00:56:38
this is to build a community of people who we had similar experiences and we can get together and and like we were
00:56:44
talking about you know getting together with buddies and reminiscing about our cringey high school stuff it's like yeah
00:56:49
I want to get together with people and reminisce about cringey homeschool stuff together so Adam this has been amazing
00:56:55
thank you so much much to our audience I hope you guys enjoyed this if you've got
00:57:00
questions for me if you got questions for Adam you can you know shoot me a DM shoot me a message um exhs Club on uh
00:57:08
pretty much all the social medias I know Tik tok's going to go away here soon
00:57:11
sadly but Instagram it will be there I'm not I'm not happy about that yeah me
00:57:15
neither uh or email me because email is definitely not going away um at exhs [email protected]
00:57:22
um yeah shoot me questions and like I said at the top of the show share the with a friend um if you you know if you
00:57:28
got somebody in your life who you just even even just somebody came to mind while you were listening to this and you
00:57:33
go oh my gosh I remember this hes school friend track him down send him this episode send him your favorite episode
00:57:39
whatever it is um get him in the club you know uh we're where the doors are open so uh until next week this has been
00:57:46
the X homeschoolers club and uh we'll see you all right peace [Music] [Music]