Stuff You Should Know - Homeschooling: Not Just For Hippies and Religious People Anymore

Episode Date: December 11, 2014

Back in the 1970s, homeschooling was illegal in the U.S., but after activists of all stripes lobbied lawmakers, schooling kids at home has become a viable option for parents. And as more and more have chosen it, it's become more mainstream. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Noel's with us again, which means it's Stuff You Should Know.

It sounds like you just fell off a cliff. I did. That would have been good for the cliff-diving episode, remember that one? Oh man, that was interesting. You have parents, Chuck. I do. Who were both educators.

Yeah. Right? Sure. Dad, principal, mom, teacher. And I was wondering while I was researching this, because we're talking about homeschool today. I wasn't homeschooled, you weren't homeschooled. No.

In a way, you were homeschooled because you were... Because I went to my dad's school. Right, exactly. But I wondered like if you were raised with any kind of opinions one way or another on homeschooling because of both your parents' professions. No, not at all.

Because when I was in school, and when you were in school, it wasn't super popular. Well, it may have been illegal in a lot of places. Yeah, I guess that's a good point to bring up. Schooling, education history, 101. It started, compulsory school attendance, started in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Oh yeah?

In 1952, and by 1918, Mississippi, of course, was the last state to, I'm so sorry, Mississippi, it was the last state to demand compulsory attendance by law. Yeah. And then for many years, it was that way, like you had to go to school between, to like what, was it the 70s?

That was when I think the movement really started, but I think it's possibly until the 90s. Like there were states where you had to go to school. Yeah, and we should point out up front that every state is different when it comes to laws about homeschooling. So this is a super high view. We would have to do 50 podcasts to really get

into the nitty-gritty of the finer points of homeschooling in each state. For sure. So yeah, we're gonna do an overview. But you are right. Like homeschooling, it wasn't around until like they started to really, there was a group of grassroots people

who got together and started organizing and got homeschooling laws passed. Apparently they were trying really hard to get the Supreme Court to rule on a case, a homeschooling case, once and for all, that would give it some sort of constitutional or federal protection that may lead to like a federal law or mandate,

but they haven't gotten to that point. Instead, it's just been state by state, which is fine. Very few kids go to school interstate, right? Yeah. Or interstate, I should say. But there's no federal legislation. It's like you say all the states have different laws.

They all have homeschooling or allow for homeschooling, which is pretty amazing in and of itself, considering in 1970 it was illegal. And hold on, let me say one more thing too, Chuck. There's an article out there called A 500 Year Moment. It's on a new magazine called Muria M-O-O-R-I-A, and the article is written by a guy named Dougal D'Hein, who is an awesome thinker who I believe is Scottish.

I've only seen him online, but this is an amazing, best article I've read in years, as far as content goes. But one of the things he touches on is compulsory education and the history of it and how it was used to basically turn children into responsible, unquestioning little drones. And this is what originally gave birth to the homeschool movement.

Yeah, I wanna be more in control of how my child, how and what my child gets educated with. Exactly, because that's what free public education does. It indoctrinates your children. And for some people it's like, great, this is free daycare because I work, my husband works, or it's just me and I work and I've gotta have a place for my kids and if they're learning along the way, awesome.

So there is something that free public education gives to people, but a lot of people said, I want a better hand in that, because you don't really have much say in what your kids are taught in public school. Yeah, there are polls conducted, and generally states like to keep track of why you are homeschooling.

So they can theoretically, I guess, get better at their public schooling. So in most states, when you apply to homeschool, you have to give a reason. And this study was actually from a while ago, but I saw a recent one that the numbers are pretty close. So I think the reasons are fairly consistent. About 30% or so say it's out of concern

about the environment of the school. Right. About 30% are for religious or moral reasons. So a lot of Christians are up in arms about the secularization of schooling over the years, and they wanna be able to teach their kids stuff from the Bible and stuff, regular curriculum.

Yeah. And then about 16% because they're dissatisfied, basically dissatisfied with the instruction in either the curriculum or the teaching. Right. I don't think they're getting a good enough education, essentially. If I put my kid through this meat grinder,

I don't think they're gonna come out as smart as I want them to be, so I'm gonna teach them myself. Yeah, and this is not an indictment of teachers or public schools because boy, we know how hard you people work and how, what you're up against. Yes, but I went to public school and I just used the word, myself.

Yeah, but you're a big shot podcaster. Yeah, that's true. A couple of sort of not so fun things up front about taxes, because I started wondering, if you're homeschooling your kid, A, do you get tax breaks? Because you're buying this stuff, the curriculum. And B, do you have to pay taxes, education taxes for your kid that's not going to public school?

Since there's no federal law requirement or mandate or anything regarding homeschooling, I would guess you have zero tax break on the federal level, but probably on the state level, in some states you would, right? Boom, federal government doesn't offer anything right now. In some states, I think Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota offer tax credits.

You can write off a lot of stuff. I think in Louisiana specifically applies to 50% of eligible expenses during a year, up to $5,000 per kid. Oh, that's a nice break. Yeah, it's not too bad. Plus also, you remember there was this huge movement to get tuition vouchers given to kids to go to private school.

Lower income kids to get more of a mixture of people in private schools. Yeah. Apparently in some states you can take that voucher and just use it to fund your homeschool. Yeah. So that's actually opening up the homeschooling door for a lot of people who didn't have that opportunity

before they just couldn't afford it one way or another. Yeah, and things are changing every year. So I mean, this will be out of date a year from now. I know Ohio had it on the docket to consider, they were voting, I think, to decrease property taxes if you were a homeschool home. But I couldn't find, sometimes it's hard to find where these Senate bills,

sometimes they just seem to disappear. Yeah. Which that means they haven't been voted on, I guess. No, I think that the people, really, the senators really rally behind them around election time and then they get re-elected and they're like, I've got kickbacks to go get. Can't be bothered with this stuff.

That's disappointing. And then California is one of 12 states where homeschooling is considered a private school exemption. So you're sort of your own private school in the state of California. You don't pay property taxes or anything like that? I'm not sure about that for taxes, but they basically consider you part

of the private school pool. Well, that 12 states. That taxing, though, too, is a real reason there's a big, there's a tug of war between homeschool people and public school administrators. Because for every pupil you have in your school, you get X number of federal dollars. Oh, yeah.

And when you start to lose kids to homeschool, then you're losing federal funding and your whole school suffers. Because it's not like that money covers that kid down to the penny, it frequently goes over. And you can use that for the school and for all this other stuff. So there's a, I don't want to call it a vicious cycle

because it's not like, that's a pretty good term for it, actually. The public schools are perceived as failing in their mission. So they lose students. And by losing students to homeschooling, they lose funding. And so they are doomed to fail even further in their mission.

So yeah, that's a pretty vicious cycle now, I think about it. Yeah, but they, the real truth is, there aren't that many kids that are homeschooled still. No, it's like three. Three something? Is that what you got? Yeah, I saw a more recent one.

I got anywhere from 1.7 to 2. something, but. Oh, I thought you were going to say percentage. Yeah, I saw 1.77 million. Yeah. Which is like 3% of the overall school age population. Yeah, but I've heard those numbers could be higher as much as double just because it's, I guess it's not counted, it's a tough thing to count.

Well, yeah. An aggregator, or maybe no one cares enough to do so. Or school districts have a lot of reason to fudge numbers on the lower end. Yeah, it's true. But that's up about 20% from just like seven or eight years ago. Well, that's actually double from 15 years ago. So there's a very steady increase.

And I think the reason that it's increasing, I mean, doubling over 15 years is pretty significant. Even if it is. It's going to be like in 50 years. Right. And I think the reason that it's just picking up steam and it's spreading more and more is because the more people that have done it,

because the people who originally started homeschooling had to figure all of this out on their own. And there were very few homeschool textbooks available, very few resources, very few websites, very few groups. So the more people that tried it and were successful and built momentum, now homeschooling is not some scary weird thing that parents who only let their kids watch PBS do.

It's like a viable option for a parent who is considering where they want to send their kid to school. Yeah, my brother and his wife homeschooled their kids for a couple of years. Yeah. How'd it go? It went great.

Because it's my brother, he built a full on classroom. Oh, I'm quite sure. That was awesome. And, you know, well, we'll get into it, but it's something that you should treat like that. Yeah. And they eventually went back to public school because they wanted, the kids wanted to.

But it was great for a couple of years, I think, for everyone involved. So let's dig into this, Chuck. Like what are the considerations? I mean, this isn't something like you just hit upon it. This isn't something you take lightly. No, not at all. So, Chuck, let's dig into it and figure out

what the considerations are. Because you just hit upon it. This isn't something to take lightly. We'll do that right after this. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns

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This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so, my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

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about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You're right, Josh. As you said before the break, it is not something to take lightly.

You want to do a lot of research beforehand and ask a lot of tough questions of yourself, of your child, and maybe get some good books. There are a few recommendations here in this article. Real Life Homeschooling by Rhonda Barfield. It tells a lot of stories about homeschooling families, which can help. Yeah.

Homeschooling for Success by Rebecca Kolkendorfer and Elizabeth Kana. There's another going to check out in the Homeschooling Almanac by Mary and Michael Leppert. Right. And there are scores and scores of more books. Yeah. But read some of those, start thinking about it.

Can you afford it, is the first question. Well, the first question, I think, is why. Well, yeah, good point. Why do you want to do this? Yeah. And Catherine Neer, who wrote this article, How Homeschooling Works, says be as explicit as you can be. So use a lot of curse words in your answer to yourself.

But you have to wonder why. And that's probably a pretty easy question for most parents who are considering homeschooling to answer. Yeah, you probably got that reason already in your head. Right. But if your answer is like, because I don't want to let my child out of my sight

ever for the rest of his life. That's not a good idea. Maybe you should talk to some other people about that idea and see if they can talk you out of homeschooling. Yeah, that's a good point. The next question that I alluded to is, can you afford it? Because there's a couple of expenses. One are all the things that you need to buy

to support the education. All those field trips, too? Those aren't cheap? Sure. All that stuff costs money. And the other one is, depending on your situation in your house, you may be dropping a salary if you're not going to take a job as a spouse

to homeschool your kids. Yeah, that's in economics called an opportunity cost. And that is a big one for a lot of people. That's what's prohibited a lot of people from being able to go to homeschool their kid. Like, they just can't afford it. Sure. So that's why those tuition vouchers have come into play

and helped a lot more people be homeschool teachers, because you can use that. Yeah, that's not to say, I mean, with today's modern work trends, like telecommuting, working from home, creative scheduling, you can tag team it with the parents, or you might can work it out where you both still have an income and you can homeschool. But when you traditionally think of homeschooling,

you think of like, one of the parents isn't going to work and they're going to be the teacher. Right. Another option for you, too, is to have grandparents do it. Yumi's boss. I never thought about that. Yumi's boss' daughter is just sharp as a tack. She's homeschooled by her grandparents.

That's cool. So yeah, they're responsible for her education, and they're apparently doing like a bang-up job with it. I bet that's a very patient teacher, too. The grandparent, yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good scene. Yeah, but the point is with the grandparent, they're already retired.

They already have income. And if you have money from your job, you can kick them a little bit, too. Yeah. So everybody wins. Yeah, plus you're not doing that parent thing where you're just trying to make a little mini version of yourself, that narcissistic, like, oh,

here, wear this Ramon shirt. And I'm going to give you a mohawk and an earring at seven. Man. Grandparents don't care about that. They just want the best for you. They're mellow. They're mellow. All right, the next question is, are you qualified to teach?

Just because you have a college degree or a high school degree doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher. Right. And the whole concept of homeschooling, too, I think kind of comes out of the sense that you are qualified because kids, not every kid, but a lot of kids, are homeschooled in some way, shape, or form where they learn to read or recognize words

or how to run or walk or crawl or all the stuff they learn before they have to go to school. Yeah. You want that head start these days. Right. But even without a head start, even just basically being there, absorbing the information that you get from a family and from being around family

members, that is a form of homeschooling. And a lot of people think, hey, we're on a roll with this stuff. Let's keep it going. And I'll be this kid's teacher. Yeah. That's something to think about for sure. You want to think about your kid and talk to your child.

Like, do you want to be homeschooled? What do you think about it? They may be ready. They may be not ready. You want to, I wouldn't say treat them like adults, but treat them as if they have their own opinion because they do. Right.

You know? Nice. It's probably not something you want to force on your kid if they really, really want to go to a public school. Of course, everyone's going to make their own decision about their children. I can tell you how to parent. But I think it's a good idea to have

a good, open, honest line of dialogue with your kid about homeschooling first. Yeah. And I mean, if your kid is just dug in, like, I do not want to spend all day every day with you. Like, it's not going to work. Yeah. It may, you should consider that answer.

Yeah. And it doesn't, it's not, it doesn't have to be the final word either. You could, like my brother, they did it for a couple of years. Right. And you can try it and see if it works. And it's not like the public school's going to say, nope. Sorry, you had your, you had your chance. Smarty.

You left us. You abandoned us. Man, that'd be weird. The principal's just got his arms crossed at the locked front door. Yeah. That's how local government works. So let's say everybody's on board, Chuck. Everyone's on board.

You've got to get in touch with your state and find out exactly what the rules are to do this legally and correctly. Right. And Katherine Nier says, don't just look at synopses of laws. Go to your state's education website and find out the laws. And she uses these, she uses North Carolina as an example. So for example, in North Carolina, you would have to, you file a notice of intent, which basically says, you don't need to worry about my kid.

I got my kid covered. Yeah. And why? Right. You would, yeah, why am I doing this for religious reasons? Am I doing it because the bullies are really bad at the local school? Whatever. And that would also be your claim for whether you were a religious school or just an independent

non-public school. Right. You in North Carolina have to have at least a diploma or GED from high school level to be a qualified homeschool teacher. Yeah, that's probably a pretty good idea. Whatever. North Carolina is obviously a nanny state. And then you need to keep track of attendance.

You also need to do immunizations, which I was kind of surprised by. Yeah. I don't know if that's still accurate in North Carolina or not. It is. I looked it up. Oh, is it? Yeah. The only one that's not on here is annual standardized testing.

Well, this is North Carolina because that's where Katherine lives. Right. And that's the only state's website that they're allowed access to. But like we said, every state is going to be different as according to whether or not you have to pass standardized tests, whether or not how many, quote unquote, vacation holidays are allowed during the calendar year, what months of the year you were required to be in school. Well, some states, there's 11 states out there that are like, you don't have to tell

us anything. Just do what you want. You don't even need to tell us you're homeschooling your kid. That's pretty cool. Yeah. You know? There's 11. There's two or three that one of the homeschool associations say is highly regulated, like

New York will have people come visit your house to make sure you're doing things right. Sure. And then most other states fall in between. Gotcha. Where it's kind of like, yeah, you have to tell us what you're doing. But other than that, it's your show. Yeah, and this might inform your decision on whether or not you want to follow through on it too, depending on what how lax your state is.

I mean, lax, but how permissive, I guess, or whether or not they have like a lot of rigid standards that you're trying to get away from in the first place. Sure. Like standardized testing, which the whole different can of worms. Yeah. So if you've got this figured out, like, I think if you're, if you're thinking you can homeschool your kid, you can probably navigate your state's regulations. Yeah.

If you can't, or let's say the other way, if you can't do that, you probably shouldn't homeschool your kid. I think that's a good point, Chuck. Yeah. So you've reached this point where you're like, OK, my kid's excited. We've chosen our school mascot. We've gone over the state's website together. We've agreed.

Yes, now you have to get it immunized, whether you like it or not, because we're doing a homeschool in North Carolina. What teaching method should we use? This is a pretty big, it's a big decision, but it's also one that is not a final decision, like even the decision to homeschool. It can change and evolve, and apparently with most people it does. Yeah. It's weird to say that, but I totally agree.

I think it is the most important decision you can make, but don't freak out because it's not written in stone. You can evolve your teaching method according to what works. The traditional approach, Catherine points out, is when I just want to school my kid at home, I'll use the state's curriculum, I'll get all their books, and I'll kind of try and mimic what goes on at the public school in my home. Right. Or I'll get all of my sources from Oral Roberts University's curriculum or whatever.

It's like, I imagine your brother's house was, you walk into this special room and it looks like a classroom, or at least all the stuff that's going on is what you find in a classroom too. Yeah, and you don't have to build out a special classroom. If you don't have room, you can do it however it works for your family, but I think they found just having that separate room was beneficial for sure. Well, yeah, there's fewer distractions, I would guess, and it's just the psychology behind it is like when you're in this room, you're learning, like this is what this place

is for. Classical education, if you want to talk about the three principles known as the trivium or the three phases, you have the grammar school age students, which they focus on memorization, gathering facts, the logic, which is middle-aged students, and that is when you start to focus more on critical thinking. Middle school-aged. What'd I say? Middle-aged.

Those are called nontraditional students. I watched back to school the other day, by the way. I think that's good. It was so great, man. I haven't seen it in so long. I wouldn't believe you if you said it didn't hold up. It totally holds up. Of course it does.

It's very funny. And the triple windy? Oh, yeah. It was still so funny to me. All right, middle school-aged, yeah, and that is when you're concentrating more on critical thinking and you're putting all this stuff into context. And then the final stage is rhetoric, which sounds like a bad word these days, because you think of rhetoric as just a bunch of gobbledygook, someone spouting off.

Some gas bag. Yeah. But that's not what rhetoric is. You don't know what he's talking about, even. This is your high school age, and that's when they can actually articulate a language-focused discussion about topics in education. Yeah. The whole thing behind classical education is that it's language-focused and language-oriented.

And all this probably sounds pretty familiar to you. If so, it's because it has its roots in the middle ages. Not middle-aged students, but the middle ages. So it's been around for a little while, and a lot of people opt for that one. There's a lot of course material out there based on classical education. What else, Chuck? Well, you have Montessori, which is a type of schooling based on this really awesome, awesome Italian physician named Maria Montessori.

She basically was like, someone needs to make a movie about her. She was so awesome. She was basically like, I'm looking around, and I think this stinks, and this was the early 1900s. This wasn't like in the 1970s when some hippie lady, and she was saying, the way we're teaching our kids is wrong. And so she started doing things like, get this heavy furniture out of here, let's put some kids' furniture in here that they can move around.

That's like child-size, let's lower the bookshelves to where the kids can access this stuff. Let's teach kids how to care for pets and gymnastics and how to cook, and let's put these big open air sections where they can move about freely if they want to, and really just sort of opened up really revolutionized education in early 1900s Italy. Nice. There's another, I guess, turn of the century educator. She was British though. Her name was Charlotte Mason.

She came up with her own method that I think is kind of clever in a way. Charles Manson? Yeah. She came up with this education idea. Oh, Charlotte Mason. Charlotte Mason. She said just teach your kid a bunch of stuff, and I'm not exactly clear on how it's taught, maybe in a normal structured environment, but also teach them fine arts and a bunch

of other stuff that most schools just kind of are getting rid of these days. The thing that makes her so revolutionary is you don't use testing. I love this. Instead, you use what's called narration, where you say, okay, kid, I've taught you everything that I know about whales. Stand up and tell me about whales. The kid narrates everything he or she knows about whales. I did my book report on whales.

Whales live in the ocean, in the salt water, and they are large and blue. Right. Because I guess you probably wouldn't be able to have notes because you're not really narrating. Yeah, they have to understand it in order to talk about it. Exactly. That's the whole key is that to narrate something, you have to understand something. Of course, you could be like a complete BS artist, which is kind of awesome in and of

itself. I mean, your kid has got some skills, right, and another... Those are creative skills. But Charlotte Mason's point was, if your kid can stand up and tell you about whales in a smart, intelligent way, then your kid has learned about whales. Yeah, that seems like a pretty cool notion, if you ask me. The next one is my all-time favorite. The Waldorf method?

Oh, no, sorry. The second to next one. Oh, okay. You were thinking the Waldorf salad. Yeah, which, man, those are weird. Another one, the grapes and stuff. Grapes and apples, but also mayonnaise. Oh, right.

Grapes and mayonnaise, not a winning combination. Someone wrote in with that cotton candy grapes. Did you see that? No. She said that they had them at Whole Foods, and they are grapes that taste like cotton candy. Weird. They're crazy.

Those are called mutants. The Waldorf method is based on Austrian scientist Rudolf Steiner. He has the concept of educating the whole child, basically concentrates on creative topics, fine arts, painting, music, drama, foreign language, gardening, sewing, things that you are, like you said, are kind of going by the wayside in a lot of public schools these days. Yeah. Sadly.

But then you build upon these things based on the kid's age that determines what the kid's studying at any given point. Yeah. So the head, heart, and hands method, that is the Waldorf method. Here's my favorite one, the unit studies method. Oh, yeah. I like this one. That's what's kind of cool.

It's a little vanilla, but it makes sense to me. Basically you choose a topic or a theme, and you stretch it out over, say, like a week or a month or a semester or whatever. And the theme is, say, pirates. And then you use pirates to investigate, or you investigate every aspect of pirates using math, science, history, documentaries, projects, like visits to, like a pirate ship if you're in the San Diego area, all that kind of stuff. So sort of finding the individual lessons within a topic.

Yes. Like you can teach economics through talking about pirates. Exactly. Or history. Yes. Like all those things you mentioned. Yes. And so in the end, you fully get pirates, but you also get a really good understanding

of how everything has all these different aspects and components to it that come together and form a whole. It's our trade, is what you and I do. Yeah, absolutely. Like we take that whole and break it apart. I think that's why it appeals to me so much. Yeah. I was right there with you on that one.

Then you have unschooling, which they call child directed learning or natural learning. And this is, I was originally used by author John Holt. And this just sounds like kind of crazy way, not crazy way, but basically let your child learn how to manage their time and run the show, which is really super interesting. He was one of the early homeschool activists that was like agitating in the early 70s. Agitating. So your kid is still learning and you are still teaching and guiding, but they interviewed Catherine.

I don't know where she got this quote, but one of the unschooled students has a really great quote. I'm planning what I do. So I have an overwhelming sense of commitment to what I'm doing instead of being told what to do and when to do it and simply being shuttled back and forth from activity to activity, I get to choose. So your kid is learning planning and logistics and scheduling. And this seems like a really good real world way of teaching.

Oh, yeah, for sure. I think I would guess everybody would choose this. The problem is, is a fear that accompanies this of like, what if your kid's committed to like eating Captain Crunch and doing Jack all day? What do you do with that? Well, then they're not a good candidate for unschooling. Oh, that's a great point. Great point.

Like I think you only do this if your child is a good candidate and that way your kid's like, you know what, I want to do science experiments all day. Right. I just want to go to the library and read today. Yeah. Then go for it. But part of the key to unschooling is the kid isn't like, so take me. And I noticed that you have a slot in your schedule where you could take me to the library

and then you could pick me up two hours later. Let's work this out. And then you go, hey, don't get smart with me. Right. Don't point to your imaginary watch. You're not wearing a watch. Can't even read time yet, kid. How do you know when I have yoga?

Because it's on the fridge. I would imagine you'd have to have a family schedule of stuff on the fridge for unschooling. Yeah. I think that's pretty smart anyway. And then after that, Chuck, you have to figure out what kind of learner your kid is. Yeah. Well, there's also the eclectic method, which we didn't mention. And that is just sort of a cornucopia of all these different methods kind of cobbled

together. I guess that's the best way to say it, right? Yeah. Most parents who are new to homeschooling start off their kid with a much more rigid structure method. And then apparently by like year three, it's much loosey-goosey, much more loosey-goosey. Or lay back, I guess, is a better term for it, but it's not necessarily just unschooling or just this.

It's probably along the lines of the eclectic method. Yeah. That makes sense. And like we said, you're not locked into any of these. Right. It works for your kid. And a good way to start is before you start, figure out what kind of learner your child is and what kind of learner and teacher you are, maybe.

Yep. You want to figure out, apparently, if your kid is one of the four, there's four modalities, I guess, is what it's called of learning. Yeah. There's visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic. Your visual learner is basically like you see things and you get it, whether it's a pie chart or a drawing or a photo or something like that, you see, you learn through seeing. Yeah.

So that's visual learning style, and that's pretty common. Yeah. Auditory, obviously, is going to be listening and speaking. It's akin to the Charlotte Mason method. Yeah. Tactile has to do with touch. It does. And I was wondering which one would have to do with writing stuff down, because that's

how I remember stuff, and how I get it in my head is through writing or typing it out, and apparently that falls under tactile. Oh, yeah. Doodling, too, people who doodle are tactile learners. I think I'm a much more visual learner. Yeah, I get it when I see it, too, but it doesn't, I don't get it until I write it myself. Actually, I'm a combination between visual and kinesthetic, because kinesthetic is really being involved.

Like, she's an example of a sailboat, if you want to teach a kid about sailboats, take him sailing. I know. To research for this episode, you went and sat in on a home school class for a couple of weeks. I did not. I should have. That's the method, isn't it?

Oh, and acting? Yeah, it would be method podcasting. I think so. If you have, once you figure out what kind of learning your child is, though, you're going to have a good, and those aren't the only teaching methods that we mentioned, but those are some of the leading teaching methods for homeschooling. But you're going to have a good head start on figuring out a good place to start and then just observe, go from there and do the eyeball test, as they say, and if things seem

to be working, then great. So there's one huge, huge thing that's still outstanding, Chuck, and that is that a lot of people worry that if you take your kid out of school, even a crummy school, but that standard course that a school provides, then they're going to have a harder time getting into college. And most homeschool resource places say, no, if anything, your homeschool kid is going to have an easier time getting into college because it'll be more well-rounded, probably smarter.

Homeschool kids tend to excel more at academics and other stuff. But I couldn't find any quantitative evidence on that, like that homeschool kids get into college more easily than non-homeschool kids. I couldn't find anything like that. It was all anecdotal. Yeah. I don't know about actually getting into college, but as a parent and a homeschooler, you need to keep really good track of their scores and records if they did any.

And this is a benefit of homeschooling if they do any apprenticeships. All of that stuff is going to help because that's what's going to take the place of being in the beta club or whatever. Is that called the beta club? Yeah. Like those school activities that supposedly look good on college transcripts, I don't even know if that's true, by the way. Well, there's a lot of homeschool groups that form so that they can do things like have

a beta club or have debate club or have a sports team go on field trips. So if you do homeschooling, it doesn't mean you can't do any of that. You're just not doing it with your school. The other elephant in the room is concern over socialization. Yeah, as your kid can be weird if you homeschool. Yeah. And all the evidence and the research that I saw points to, no, no, no, your kid is not going to be weird and they're probably going to be better for the real world because they

aren't like you said, trapped in a school of peers constantly worried about what their peers think and being judged or trying to fit in. They're kind of doing their own thing. This great article, and of course, this is from a homeschool advocate, so it's pretty one sided, but it's called socialization colon homeschoolers are in the real world. And it was by Chris Klicka and his, his notion basically is that your kid is already in the real world. They're not going to be, you know, shuttle off the college and be like, what in the world

is going on? I'm going to go hog wild and crazy. Who are these people? Exactly. Uh, they say that they overcome this potential for isolation by being on these, um, and like in the YMCA or the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, uh, singing groups, Little League, basically there are all kinds of ways to socialize your kid outside of a school that parents in schools do too.

They probably just don't think about. Yeah. I mean, it didn't have to be in a classroom. No. And it's entirely possible that we take the damage that's done by, um, elementary and grammar school and high schooling, uh, as for granted, like that, that you have to be damaged as a result and you don't necessarily, and you can isolate your kid from that kind of stuff.

And maybe they'll turn out better than they would have if you had to put them through regular school. Yeah. It seems like research indicates that, uh, self-esteem, um, what they call self-concept and self-esteem of a homeschooled child is higher. Yeah. They generally score higher on, on tests. Um, this one guy, uh, what's his name?

Smedley Thomas Smedley, uh, he did a thesis, a master's thesis, and he had a pretty cool quote. Uh, he said in public school systems, children are socialized horizontally and temporarily into conformity with their immediate peers. Home educators seek to socialize their children vertically toward responsibility and service and adulthood with an eye on eternity. That's awesome. Pretty cool.

Yeah. And all of this is just intuitive, you know, the idea that if you have that much more attention and your education is, is tailored to you, the individual, uh, how can you not benefit and excel? Yeah. Well, we have a list of people here that have excelled that were homeschooled people like Irving Berlin, Ansel Adams, Da Vinci, Agatha Christie, Einstein. Does Da Vinci count?

Nah. Okay. Peter Jennings, C.S. Lewis, Abraham Lincoln, well, Abraham Lincoln was backwood, so I don't know if that counts. That's homeschooling. I mean, that was the origin of homeschooling. Benjamin Franklin, Agatha Christie, uh, Thomas Edison, and, um, our colleague from Stuff Mom Never Told You, Kristen Konger, was homeschooled and you're in for a treat because right after

this message break, we're going to get Kongs in here and we're going to talk to her. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new tell-all podcast, the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope, but I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about.

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Thanks for having me. So we were doing this show on homeschooling and obviously, Abbie, you came to mind because you were homeschooled. Yeah, I was homeschooled from second through eighth grade. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, just give us a little background. We kind of want to know why you guys made the decision, who taught you, and just sort

of how it went down, what methods you guys, methodology you guys used. Yeah. Okay. So in terms of the why, we were a little bit of the hyper religious family who wanted a little bit of sheltering from secular education. Okay. So there's that. We kind of fit that homeschool stereotype.

Yeah. We still persist today. Sure. But there was also a desire on my parents' part to provide a higher quality education than they thought we would get in public schools because my mom at the time was teaching in public schools and she did not like what she saw and she was like, I can do better at home. She said, we stink.

Yeah. I am doing a terrible job, so I will try this on my children. Yeah. I want to focus that on you. So your mom's a public school teacher. What grade did she teach? She taught high school. Okay.

Yeah. And she quit her job to teach homeschool to you? So my mom stayed at home with my siblings and me full time for the first two or three years and then she actually went back to work teaching once we were a little bit older and had the hang of things, which might sound wildly irresponsible, but we stayed on task easily and she had assignments for us every day and since she taught, she got home from work by the early afternoon anyway, so it was a minimal lack of supervision. But my siblings and I were so well behaved and she was so good at organizing and leaving

us tasks to do that we would just kind of do our schoolwork while she was gone. No way. Wow. Yeah. That is awesome. I don't know if that was legal, but... Yeah. Who cares?

Did she chain you to anything while she was gone? She didn't need to, Josh. That's the thing. Wow. I was just that good of a child and I loved reading. Wow. Were you the oldest? Youngest.

Oh, the youngest. Yeah. So... Brothers or... You have a brother, right? I've got brothers and sisters. Okay. Yeah.

I've been talking about homeschooling. This is the end of the episode. There don't seem to be any drawbacks to it. Was there anything negative about homeschooling that you encountered in your experience or was it all just good? For the most part, it was really great. I think it worked well for our family. It worked really well because my mom knew what she was doing.

We had formal textbooks. She formally taught us and even though I probably made it sound like she just let us run wild all day. She was around every day and do schoolwork one-on-one with her to check over tests and work and stuff like that. So she kind of used the method where you basically take the school's curriculum and just try and replicate it out of the school. What's it called?

Sure. The structured homeschooling or school at home? Yeah. I mean, she hand-selected all of our curriculum and put together lesson plans for all of us. So it was even more intensive than something like that. But she had the background to be able to do that. As far as drawbacks go, probably the biggest one was just the socialization factor. So that is a thing.

Yeah, we talked about that and I saw a lot of research that says like, that's sort of a non-issue these days. There are so many ways to socialize your kids outside of a classroom and you may be doing your kid a favor by not having them in a classroom. But these were written by homeschool advocates. Yeah. That's true. Well, there were absolutely social outlets that we had during homeschool.

For instance, I played on a soccer team, I took ballet, we went to church, so we had youth group activities and things like that. And especially in elementary school and middle school, I don't think that I really missed out that much socially. When I started high school in what we called regular school, much to my mother's chagrin, there was a little bit of a transition simply of having to deal with kids, peers, day in and day out in a more intense way than I ever had before. And there are still some socialization factors I think I'm trying to figure out at almost

30. Oh, really? No. I mean, I joke. But sort of. I mean, on the one hand, I'm really grateful that I did not have to go through middle school because everyone I know who went to middle school, that sounded like a horrific and confusing time to be in school.

But there were some humps here and there because my concept of school and social life and getting along and even high school dating and all of that was largely just based on TV and movies. So the Brady Bunch method? I had a few missteps. Yeah. Interesting. Oh, why did you eventually go back to school? How did that all work?

Well, there was a decision on my parents' part largely because I was the youngest in my family. So by that time, I was the last one at home. It would have just been me by myself and they could kind of tell that I was sort of jostling for a little bit more. So plus your mom was done. She's just done. She was so tired of me, Josh.

She was like, I've had it with you. Not really. So you were the last kid. It was basically just kind of felt like the right time. Yeah. So did your older siblings graduate from high school through your mom's homeschooling? Two of my siblings graduated homeschool. So that was a little bit of a sticking point when I got to go to real high school.

Oh, they were jealous. Oh, yeah. Maybe a little bit. So was that? I got to go to spring break. I got prom. My older sister and brother did. I mean, is that the dream of all homeschool kids to go to regular school or is it like

when you're in homeschool, you're kind of like, I have it way better than my peers in high school. Well, first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of all homeschoolers, but I get the sense, especially from what you guys are talking about in terms of homeschool today. I don't think there's as much of that longing for quote unquote regular school as maybe there used to be. What decade were you in homeschool? In the fifties.

I would have been in the nineties. So I think for again, it has a lot to do with age, probably for elementary schoolers, middle schoolers even, who cares? Elementary school, homeschool was awesome. Yeah. I could hang out on my PJs. I could go play in my fort when I wanted to. It's like work from home now.

Exactly. I could do my math in the woods if I really wanted to. But I think once you get older, you just naturally want to start sort of finding your place outside of the home a little bit more. What about your siblings that graduated homeschool? What did they go to college and what was that process like? They went to college. It was a little more challenging for them with, I think they had to take the ACT and

the SAT and perhaps some SAT twos because I did too. There are SAT twos and they are a bear, but people were a bit more skeptical of the quality of homeschooling back then. I don't know that it's as stringent today. But they both went to and graduated from college and are well adjusted adults with families. And one of them is actually a teacher now, which is kind of interesting. Speaking of families, if you had kids or if you do ever have kids, would you ever consider homeschooling them?

No. No? No. No. Actually, because... You're lazy. I am horrendously lazy. I've forgotten how to read and I just would make a terrible teacher.

I don't have the patience for it. Would you ever hire your mom as a homeschool teacher for your kids? No, because she'd want to be a full-time grandma. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, we did see that was one of the big questions that you should ask yourself, like, just because you're super smart and that means you're a good teacher. Yes.

Yeah, I've definitely seen some questionable homeschooling attempts on parents who are clearly not qualified. And there are kids too, I think, who benefit more from structured classroom environments who might, especially if they have perhaps a learning disability or something like that, who need more specialized attention. Gotcha. I got nothing else. I don't need it.

That was super enlightening. Yeah, thanks a lot. Hey, thank you. And you can catch Kristin and her colleague, Carolyn, every week. What day does Stuff Mom Never Told You come out? Mondays and Wednesdays. On iTunes, on your site, what's the website? StuffMomNeverToldYou.com.

Appropriately enough. Yeah. Thank you for joining us, Kristin. Thanks again, Josh and Chuck. And if you want to know more about homeschooling, you can type those words into the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said search bar, it's time for the listener mail. All right, Josh.

I'm going to call this crop circle email. Just listen to the Crop Circle podcast. I was particularly amused to hear you take a romantic view on overhearing people conspiring to make crop circles in a rural English pub because I am from Salisbury, Wiltshire, a mere 10 miles from Stonehenge. That's the epicenter. It is. One of my favorite pubs in Salisbury is called Windham Arms.

What's special is they have a very, very local crowd. Secondly, the pubs brew their own ale, one of which is called Crop Circle. If you let me know your shipping address, I'll happily send you some bottles of it. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. I was quite excited to hear you mention my home country, home county, excuse me, of Wiltshire, and I thought I'd share a local legend. The collective nickname people from here are Moonrakers.

Now once upon a time, long ago, there were a group of bootleggers making illicit booze somewhere in North Wiltshire. These guys were walking along the road with their wares. All of a sudden, here comes the custom officials, thinking quickly they placed the booze in a nearby pond. The custom officials hear the racket investigate and they see these guys in the pond, ask what they're doing. The Wiltsherman noticed the reflection of the full moon in the pond and say to the officials

that they were just trying to get this giant cheese out of the pond. The officers supposedly looked at each other and said, hey, look at these stupid yokels. That's no cheese. They're trying to rake the moon. So that's where Moonrakers came from. Is that where the James Bond title comes from? I don't think so. And that is from Chris, near Stonehenge.

Thank you, Chris. Nice. Thank you very much, Chris. We appreciate it. Yeah, we'll send you the address because I would love to drink that beer. Oh, heck yes. I'll send you the address too. You'll get it at least two, three times.

If you want to send us some beer, we would love that. You can tweet to us for some weird reason about it to syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send us an email to stuffpodcastathowstuffworks.com. And as always, join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Attention, Bachelor Nation, he's back, the host of some of America's most dramatic TV

moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all. And now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple

podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.