Homeschool Curriculum Selection Part 2

The transcription discusses different types of homeschooling curriculum, including traditional homeschooling, road schooling, world schooling, unschooling, eclectic homeschooling, and classical homeschooling. It emphasizes the importance of teaching children how to think and learn, rather than what to think and learn. It also mentions the value of incorporating children's interests and real-life experiences into their education. The transcription concludes by discussing Montessori homeschooling, which focuses on play-based learning, and the importance of parent engagement in a child's education. It's the Homeschool Mom Survival Guide! Welcome back to another episode of the Homeschool Mom Survival Guide. You are listening to Lisa Jarvinson and Amy Lucas, and today we are bringing you Part 2 of the Homeschool Curriculum Types. In the last episode, we covered four different types of homeschooling curriculum. We covered traditional homeschooling, road schooling, world schooling, and unschooling. So today, we are going to pick up with eclectic homeschooling. So we got the next one that you... I think eclectic was the other one that you said that you think is going to be another one of the main ones that you guys use. It says... let's see... This one was the other one that I feel like we use a lot in our home as well. Eclectic homeschooling is also called relaxed homeschooling and teaches kids based on the way they learn. So families who follow this method will mix and match between different curriculums and different resources until they find what works best for each individual child. They incorporate the child's interests and learning styles into their education experience. It also incorporates a lot of real life experiences and hands-on work into their education. So in our house, our kid, or my child, absolutely loves playing video games, and he really wanted to start his own YouTube channel. So we did allow him to start his channel, but we used it as a learning experience. So we were teaching him about things you can and can't say on there. Why different rules exist. When he started learning about YouTube, how it monetizes some people, we had to teach him about that. He was able to learn about what sponsorships are and what that means. And the importance of why, if you were sponsoring something, why it is something that you actually use or believe in and that you shouldn't. And I know Morgan has a lot of experience with that as well. And he's had opportunities to take way more sponsorships than he has because Morgan does the gaming too. Morgan's a little bit further into the gaming. Well, he's older. But he started it at Sebastian's age. Oh, nice. And it was very frustrating for him because he didn't understand. I had told him at the beginning, it's a numbers game. The more subscribers that you get, the more chance that they're going to be on when you're on, and so on and so forth. So it took him a long, long time sometimes playing game after game after game after game, day after day. And he didn't have anybody on watching him. Yeah. And that's hard. But it's such a learning experience. And with the eclectic homeschooling, you kind of are able to take the things that your children enjoy. And maybe, I mean, never in a million years would I have thought video games or YouTube would be a part of a homeschool curriculum for our family. Right. But, I mean, they've led to other things as well. Right. I mean, right now, as we're recording this, Sebastian is in his coding class where he's out there in his coding class right now. He's learning how to write code for video games and for apps and things like that. But never would I have thought to put him into a coding class because that's not something he had ever shown any kind of interest in. It was just, like, the gaming that he was interested in. Right. And then we happened to find a coding class that was about gaming. So that introduced him to a whole new level. But if we hadn't allowed him to follow the gaming... And he's been in that a little while now. How long has he been in that? I want to say since September. Do you think it's, I mean, it's well worth... For us, it has been. Has it? Yeah. It's not that he's doing, like, this high advanced level of coding. No. But it's teaching him logical thinking. It's teaching him, like, in order to make one thing happen, it doesn't just happen on its own. You have to take steps A, B, and C. Right. And in order for this character to do this motion, this character doesn't just do this motion because you're hitting a key on a keyboard. There's actually a ton of coding that goes into it behind the scenes that actually make this character do, respond in the ways that they do. And do you think that you can see that he has gained knowledge from it? Oh, definitely. He'll start. I sit with him when he does his coding homework because sometimes the instructions are worded kind of confusingly. Okay. So sometimes when he's reading the instructions, he's like, I don't even know what it's asking me to do. Right. So I'll sit with him, and I'm literally reading the words. I have no idea what half of his instructions mean. And he'll be, I'll be like, does that make sense to you? And he'll be like, oh, yeah, because if I do this, this, this, and, like, he can just go off on his tangent. That's cool. That's really cool. Yeah. So, but it's also spilled over into other areas where previously his thought patterns were maybe a little bit more scattered. Like science, sometimes in our experiments, he would want to rush ahead to get to another step because another step looked fun. And one of the, in our physics earlier this year, one of the experiments was building simple machines. And he wanted to, like, skip ahead and skip ahead and skip ahead. And this, like, the class, the coding class has made him stop to think, okay, there is an order that things have to be done. Right. If I skip ahead on this simple machine, it's not going to work right. Yep. So. That's cool. Yeah, I've seen it help him change in that way, too. Well, you know, the same with the unschooling. Sorry. The unschooling, that would be something they would do. Yeah. I mean, they might sign their child up for coding because they have an interest in that, you know. But it's interest-based. Yeah. So, unschooling and eclectic schooling, are they pretty similar? Are they close to the same thing? Are they? I think they mesh really well. Okay. Yeah. You'll have some. Are they just, yeah, they mesh. Oh, they do Feti-Feti, you know. Some claim to be, you know, mostly unschooling, but, yeah, they're using, you know, traditional curriculum, you know, on the side. Oh, wow. Math, language arts. Yeah, but then they're going and they're visiting, you know, history museums, and they're trying to do more hands-on experience rather than just sitting. Yeah, that's the same with the road schooling and the world schooling. Yeah. I mean, they're getting hands-on first-hand knowledge. That family that I know, I know that they visit every single national park. They visit, you know, the state parks. They do the, you know, the DNR, little DNR classes and get their stamps, and they're learning all kinds of stuff they get to do. That's awesome. That's so fun. Yeah. So, after we've read those two descriptions, do you feel like those two are, so far, the ones that describe your homeschool journey the most? Yeah, I think I'm kind of 50, I'm probably like 50% of both of those. Nice. Right now, I think mine is traditional and eclectic, mostly. But there were a couple that were further down that I was like, man, I would kind of like to learn more about those. But we'll get to that. So, next up we have classical homeschooling. I found this description on a website called curriculumchoice.com. I actually found a ton of information on different homeschool types and this curriculum, wait, was it curriculumchoice.com? Nope, I think I'm talking about the wrong site now. Darn. There was another site that I had pulled up that had a description of all the different styles, but then they had cool links on there that gave you sample lesson plans in each of those different styles. Oh. So, you could see what an ELA lesson would look like from each of the different styles. And I was like, that's really cool. I didn't have time to go through all of them. I want to see that website. I would figure out what that website is. I think Lisa doesn't share any of this stuff with me. She just kind of hoards her information. I don't like to share. It's all mine. Pretty much. That's Lisa. I'm not sharing. I will figure out what website that was and I will actually post that on our Facebook page. I would be interested. Because I don't think it was the curriculum choice. I don't know if I wrote it down or not. If I wrote it down and I find it in my notes here, I will tell you guys before the end of the show. Speaking of Facebook page, did you know that we have one? We're kind of hoping that it will be an interactive community where we're sharing information back and forth. Talk to us on there and be our friends. We like friends. We love friends. Friends are good. Classical homeschooling is, let's see. This one focuses on teaching your child how to think, not what to think. You kind of talked about this earlier with unschooling. You're teaching your kids how to learn, not necessarily what to learn. Correct. This is along that same line where you're teaching your kids how to think, not what to think. They use what's called, I'm probably going to say this wrong. It's the Trivium or Trivium, T-R-I-V-I-U-M method, Trivium. I'm going to call it Trivium. The Trivium method, which breaks down learning into three stages based on the child's age and developmental stage. I love the theory of teaching them how to think, not what to think, but they kind of lost me at the three stages. The first stage is the grammar stage. This is where they memorize facts and rules. I totally agree that kids have to do that, like sight words. You have to learn. Yep. You just got to suck it up and memorize them. Fun fact, I paid my children to memorize the sight words. But it worked, didn't it? What a charm. At the end of the day, it cost me probably, over a few years, it cost me probably $100 per child. Homeschool win. It was a big homeschool win. I put the sheets up on the fridge. We would study, we would work them, and they could only have the option to get the $5 per sheet. They had to, they could try to test out twice. When you choose test out, you don't get any help. So, yeah, I think that's why my boys are pretty good readers. I mean, that's amazing. They did well. So the second stage is the logic stage where they focus more on discussion and debate and figuring out the whys. Oh, no, this isn't the one that they lost me. Okay, I lied about that. Just kidding. The second stage is the logic stage where they focus more on discussion and debate and figuring out the whys behind the information that they memorized in stage one. So it's kind of like that spiral method of learning where you approach a subject, and then you come back and learn a little more in depth, and then you come back and learn a little bit more in depth, and you just keep, which I kind of like that. So then stage three is the rhetoric stage where the students learn to really form their own opinions based on their research and practice being able to express those positions effectively. Classical homeschooling puts a lot of value into the study of history, literature, and language. That's their primary focus, and frequently they opt to use books that are not typically thought to be curriculum books in their studies. So I love the idea of teaching our kids how to think, not what to think, because that's how you build a society of free thinkers, a society of people who can think outside of the box and who can come up with maybe a solution to a problem that nobody else has thought of. When we just teach them to regurgitate back facts, and we never teach them how to think for themselves, we're doing such a disservice to our kids. Yes, that's what we do. An example would be, I don't know if I've spoken to that or not, we used to dress up for Halloween, and one year I came across some Bible verses that kind of touched home as to why I wasn't sure that we should be doing that, and it's a personal choice, not judgment, if you're doing whatever, it's your choice. But I mentioned it to the boys, and I was like, you know, I'm not sure that I want to make this call, we've always done it, like you guys, here's the set of Bible verses that I was going off of, can you two as pending men, because someday they'll be men, so they're pending, go in and read these verses and have a discussion on your own, and let me know what you think, we can make that decision as a family, but I really want to know what you think about it. And they did, they took some time, and came back out and asked if we weren't going to do that, could we create a new family tradition for that day, and absolutely, we absolutely can. But I liked the fact that it didn't just make that rule, that it was their thought process that kind of came to the same conclusion. Including your children in the decision process, it's like empowering them to be able to read the information for themselves, make their own decisions, use their own critical thinking skills. That's unschooling. Oh, well there you go. But I can still use your curriculum. You can use my curriculum too, I'm just hodgepodge, that's my eclectic. We go and the boys, they like to pick out books and things at the used book store at the homeschool building, and there are other interests, and I pick out the actual curriculum so that I can give them credit for it. That's awesome. But we just go about it differently. Yeah. You know, we don't do a lot of the testing that other people do. Yeah, I like testing. I really like math testing. Math is the only subject we test in. But, no, no, no, I lied, the ELA program that he is using currently does testing as well. But I like testing. It helps me to feel, like, more secure that he has learned the information that he needs to know, or has learned the skill that I'm trying to teach him. It just makes me feel like, okay, he's got a grasp on it, we can move on to the next one. I guess the boys will sometimes take tests, like in math under their unit study or in language arts in their unit study, but when they get something wrong, I give them the opportunity, these are the ones that you got wrong, I'll give you the opportunity to go back and fix it if you can figure it out yourself. Oh, okay. And then I'll give you half a point back for everything that you correct on your own. Nice. Most of the time, it just, it's their, it's the instructions being worded a specific way that they didn't catch on to. Okay. That causes them, and that's been enlightening, that's helped them. Yeah. Because they learn to have to be really careful. I was just curious, like when Sebastian gets them wrong, does he have to go back and figure out why he got them wrong? Usually if he gets something wrong, we will discuss it. Okay. Well, he'll come back in after I've corrected it, because usually he just goes and plays while I correct his test, and then I'll call him back in and we'll discuss, okay. Typically on his math test, the errors he tends to make tend to be the same thing. Yeah, you're finding a pattern. Yeah. Yeah, same as me. Yeah, so it's usually him rushing through, or he gets into, if there's like five problems in a row that are addition, and then there's one that's subtraction, he'll add it instead of subtracting, because he's gotten into that. Right. These are not things that they went over with me in public school. Yeah. Nobody ever analyzed, you know. Why you were getting things wrong or why. Why I was getting things wrong. But they're literally, I mean, each of my points are different. Yep. But there's a logical pattern to what they missed. Yep. So he and I will go back over it, and we'll talk about what he got wrong. And if need be, then I can show him how to do the problem. Right. Or a lot of times if we're, his math program uses a lot of story problems. So a lot of times if we go back through and I just read him the story problem, he'll be like, oh, I thought it said something else, or I misunderstood. Right. So instead, I should have done this. And he'll be able to tell me how he should have done the problem. He doesn't get any more points for it, because I mean, apparently, I never really thought about giving him more points for it. But maybe I'll incorporate that next year. Because then that would kind of be like, if you can go back and look at it, you can earn back some of your points. Kind of like incentive to... Because he'd then logically figure out how he got it wrong. Yeah, like a reward for going back and taking another look at the problem. So maybe I'll try that next year. That's kind of how the patterns ended up being identified with Morgan and Bailey. They kind of figured out, oh, well, consistently I'm missing such and such when they do it this way. Yeah. It helps them to look for that in the future. Yeah. So maybe we'll try doing that next year. But let's see. I never heard of Montessori homeschooling. I just thought Montessori was Montessori. I didn't know there was Montessori homeschooling. It's a newer thing, I guess. I'm not exactly sure. So the information that I found said it's basically the same thing as a Montessori school. So it's an approach to early childhood education that's basically just playing. It's like learning through play. That sounds cool. Except with this one, it sounds like it's basically preschool level and below. It didn't sound like Montessori applies to higher levels of education. I mean, preschool level and below in homeschooling, it should be playing. Yeah. That's basically what it is. The Montessori was... They just put a fancy name on something that really should just be that way. But it's parent-engaged playing. So it's not just like letting your kids play. It's actually getting down on the floor with them and doing things like that. So a lot of parents, I feel like, aren't doing that. So maybe putting the fancy name on it is like reminding the parents, hey, engage with your kid and they learn a whole lot more if you're right there playing with them. If you're homeschooling to have your kids do everything on their own all the time, you're missing the point of homeschooling. You are literally missing out on the opportunity of the few years. And it is a few years that you have to be with these children before it's over. It flies by. It does. It does. It goes way too fast. I agree. But I've heard a lot of... Not a lot. I've heard several parents talking about their education being pretty much like hands-off for the parents and it just being child-led. They've got their curriculum and they've got their schedule. This is what you need to accomplish today. Do it and then turn it into me. More type of setting versus let's go out and build something together. It just seems lonely. I know. To me, the whole point of homeschooling is that I don't have to share Sebastian with a teacher. I don't have to share that time when he is growing up. You get those precious years. Yeah. I get to spend that time with him. It has been the biggest, best gift I've ever been given. Yep. Definitely. And you have the opportunity to completely influence your children. You don't have to worry about the things that they're being taught outside of the home. You don't have to worry about, okay, when my kid goes to school, is somebody... Oh, but the opposing view would say you're indoctrinating your child. I am indoctrinating my child. The point is somebody is always going to be indoctrinating your child. Exactly. It's into one thing or the other. Yep. And hands down, I prefer this way. Absolutely. I feel like all parents should want to be the one indoctrinating their children. If you hold a sincerely held belief that you want to pass on to your child, what better way to do so than to homeschool them? Even if you can't homeschool them, to just be pouring into your kid when they are home. Ideally, obviously, I think that homeschooling is the best option because that's what we're doing. But if you're not a homeschooler, you could still pour into your kids. You just have to set your phone down. You've got to maybe walk away from the text. What parent doesn't attempt to instill their own values and beliefs into a child, no matter what those values and beliefs are? That's indoctrinating. Yeah. It's true. It's true. It's all indoctrinating. It's all indoctrination. Yep. It just depends on who's doing the indoctrinating. Yes. I prefer it be me. Yes. Same. Versus like a public school. Same. Or the government. Yes. I think we probably just got canceled again. Dang it. I think we should set a new goal of saying at least one thing on every episode that will get us canceled with one or more groups. And see how long it actually takes. I don't think it's going to be that difficult, given your mouth and my mouth. If we're canceled on one, we'll always be on the other. Yeah. All right. So the next one is homeschooling with unit studies. So this one is super fun to me. I didn't know this was an entire style. I didn't know people could do their entire homeschooling using unit studies. I don't know why I didn't know that. It seems pretty obvious that you could do that. So we've used unit studies in different things. And they're super fun. Oh, sorry. I guess I should back that up a minute. What are you defining as unit study? I mean, our books have units. So homeschooling using a unit study is taking whatever subject you're studying. So if you decide, okay, you know what? This year we are going to do a geography unit. We're going to study the geography of Spain. All right? Then you would do your ELA focus, what has to do with the country of Spain. Like your reading and writing assignments would be about the country of Spain. Oh, every subject then. Yeah. You work all of them, or as many as you can. You incorporate all of the different subjects into whatever that subject is. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. That'd be cool. We did that with dinosaurs a few years ago. We did geography one year and we cooked recipes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you incorporated multiple subjects into it. Yeah. That's the unit study method. So, I mean, when you think about it, it makes sense that you could do all of your homeschooling based on unit studies, but I just never... That was like an aha moment for me. History would be fun. I maybe chose... Yeah. You know, we used Easy Peasy. Yeah. Easy Peasy is an online program that is free and they have complete curriculums. So, it's full grades. You could do math, science, English, history, geography, Bible study. They even have foreign languages on there. They have... Like, it's a very well-rounded education. It didn't work as well for us because the lessons are a lot of sitting still and reading, which doesn't work well for our families. But I personally really... I liked the lessons. Like, I thought they were really kind of cool. Sebastian, on the other hand, was pre-bored and didn't care for it. But they did... The way they set their stuff up is in a unit study style. So, we had Old Testament history and we had ancient history and then we had ELA. Those were the three that we were doing on Easy Peasy last year. I was trying to think. Those were the three we did on Easy Peasy. And our ELA studies were on the same thing as our Old Testament study. And the Old Testament study was on... We would cover the ancient history that was being talked about in the Old Testament at that time. So, they all interlinked together and they were all... Yeah, so that was really cool. I mean, we've used unit studies a few times, but we've never tried to use it as an entire curriculum. I think that it's really cool, but I think, like, it would... For me, it would be difficult because that's a lot of coordination. It is. A lot of coordination. It is a lot of coordination and a lot of planning, and I feel like that would be really hard for me. Do you guys use unit studies at all, or... I mean, I guess it would kind of be the same thing, like, that would be similar to unschooling. We did for geography one year, but that didn't apply to any other. No. No? No, but I mean, it sounds cool. Yeah. It sounds really cool. So, maybe you can incorporate unit studies into your unschooling and your eclectic style. Yeah. And you can combine them all together. Yeah, possibly. Yeah. I mean, it was cool, and I think I would like to try it more maybe when he's a little bit older. Right. Because right now, we've got a lot of, like, his history is being covered in his science because we're doing the history of the different scientists and things like that. Right. But when we go back to doing geography again, I think it would be fun to do a unit of geography following whatever section of the Bible we're on at that point in time. Oh, that would be cool. Yeah. Yeah. I have a geographic Bible, too. FYI, if you were... Of course you do. I have 7,050 different Bibles, and they're all different kinds. And Amy is a proponent of KJV because it's the most accurate in its translation. And I am not a Bible purist. I will read pretty much any Bible, except for the Queen James. I'm not. I can't go there. But other than that, I will pretty much read any Bible I can to try and figure out what's being said and what it meant. King James only for me, but I love you just the same. Exactly. Exactly. And Amy's trying to help me become more of a King James purist, so that way I can read Shakespeare, too. Oh. But I hate Shakespeare. Shakespeare's not my friend. I don't like him at all. It'll be so easy. Yes. Maybe I will love Shakespeare, then. You might. And I do like one because there's lots of THs in the King James. And number nine. Moving on. Fine. All right. So after you finish with your unit study, you move on to Charlotte Mason. This is one that we do partially in ours, too, but I would love to look into it more because it sounds really fun. So Charlotte Mason style homeschooling, they don't use textbooks as much, but they use living books, which sounds like what you're talking about. So living books are teaching a subject, but using more of a story format. So you're not just reading dry, boring material, but they are actually engaging books instead of boring. Right. Yeah. So instead... Let's see. Where is it? Testing isn't really a thing in Charlotte Mason. They don't do testing. Instead, they have the child explain back in their own words what they were reading. So you would, like, read a book. Maybe... Wow. Okay. Maybe we're a little bit of that, too, then. I think you are because when I was reading this stuff, a lot of the stuff I was thinking sounded... Because when the boys got in trouble today and they had to read Matthew 18, they had to interpret it back to me. Yeah, explain what it meant. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what this one does, is you would read stuff. Either they would read it by themselves or you would read it together as a family or whatever, and then they would have to tell you what was happening in the story, what it meant, all of that in their own words. They can't just, like, pare it back to you. Yeah, no. That's not... Is it, like, its own curriculum or it's just a style? Charlotte Mason is a style, but there are a ton of Charlotte Mason curriculum. It's also a little bit more feral. Okay. All right. So... All right. Charlotte Mason focuses on a wide variety of subjects. It doesn't stop teaching... Wait. It doesn't... Oh, it doesn't stop at teaching the students reading, writing, arithmetic, and science. It also includes subjects like bushcraft and knitting. Those are actually, like, curriculum parts for Charlotte Mason. Okay. But I would have associated those with, like, unschooling. But, okay, maybe we're more... Maybe we're a mixed-study project in Charlotte Mason. Yeah, it gets rid of the idea of a school day, and it just makes it, like, life is the learning. So it's, like, an all-the-time kind of thing. Okay, I'm... We're probably a mix of Charlotte Mason and eclectic. That's a better description of what we do. Yeah, like, there's lots and lots of interactive... There's a lot of deep discussions that the boys and I have to saturate the information and make sure that we have an understanding. But it's more like two colleagues talking back and forth, discussing it, not me quizzing them. Yes, that is Charlotte Mason. Okay. That is, like, her whole... That would be me. ...thing. Why does she like that? We are Charlotte Mason. Now, the final style we're going to talk about is the wall-door homeschooling. And I struggled with that when you were talking about it. I... Yes. So I'm going to be honest. I had never heard of this before now, and I had no... I didn't either. I had no idea that there are apparently dozens of schools dedicated to this style, like public schools. There are dozens of public schools dedicated to this style. Really? Wow. So this style sounds a lot like my original understanding of unschooling. So I could be completely off on this, and maybe that's why I don't get it. If I am and one of you guys are listening and you hear this and you're like, you're dumb, that is not what wall-door is, please let me know because I... I don't know. This one, I was just shaking my head. So there are no textbooks used at all until the child is older, like high school age. And then the use of textbooks was described as being very infrequent. Early education focuses on experiences in playing instead of academic learning, which is fine. But when it talks about the early education, that's all the way up through, like, early elementary. So that would encompass not just, like, the toddler years, also the preschool years, and, like, the beginnings of elementary school. Which playing, to me, is great, and you absolutely should be playing with your kids. But if you're doing absolutely no academic learning, then I feel like your kids are going to... I don't know. I feel like they're going to end up behind if you're not teaching them even how to, like, write their name or how to have that small motor skill. Because if you're not sitting them down and teaching them, they have to develop a small motor skill. Small motor skills and large motor skills can only develop through play. Period. Let's just tip that off the table. They absolutely can. Somewhat, but not... If you don't teach them how to write, they are not going to have the small motor skills to write, to move their fingers that way. I disagree with you. I disagree. Some of those skills... So you're telling me they can learn how to write with a pencil without ever touching a pencil? I'm telling you that if you had an adult that... Or even, we'll say, a middle school student, high school student, and they had never been exposed to pencil, naturally, where they are in their mind's development, their brain development, naturally, at that time... Yes. They would pick up on it loads faster than when they are a small child. Yeah. See, I would have to see... I don't know. I would question that. Because when I was teaching a friend of mine, he was an adult. Okay. And he had been placed into special education. Okay. They chose not to teach him any of that stuff. And basically played all the time and not have any academic. And as an adult, when we went back to try and teach him things, he struggled a lot more because he didn't have that foundation. He didn't have those basic learning things that we literally had to take him back to basically a kindergarten level and start over again. And it was a huge struggle for him. Like, a huge struggle. Just learning basic things. So if you're not catching them during the developmental stage, when they would naturally be learning this stuff... But they're not coloring? No. In homework, they're not coloring? They're not... I don't know. This one is talking about basically no... Let's see. Where is it? Yeah. It was talking about, like, nothing academic. Nothing... No workbooks. No... Nothing like that. But it doesn't necessarily say they weren't learning how to use a pencil. No. No, no, no. It doesn't say you're not allowed to use pencils. But it's talking about, like, using nothing formal at all. All I'm saying is there are other ways to get your fine motor skills than using a pencil to learn how to write your name. There are tons of other ways. But you feel like it's a better idea to not teach your child anything academic until they're in, like, middle school? That's the problem that I have with this, is that there's zero academic learning. No, no. It was just a simple statement of fine motor skill. That was just one example, though. Like, I'm talking about the overall picture of the Waldorf not using any kind of academic training. I guess I'd have to read about it more and understand. Yeah. That's why I'm saying I don't understand it. In general, from what you read and what we were talking about the other night, it did not sound like that would work for our family at all. Yeah. I, you know, we would have to see, I don't know, a study or something of, you know, Waldorf... People who have graduated. Yeah, have graduated using that. And here's some feedback. So if you've used Waldorf or your parents used it on you and you've graduated and you are an advocate for it, I would love to have you comment and here's some more information. Yes. Give us the inside scoop on it and how it would work. Yeah. I think we're missing something over here, maybe. Very much so. So then it says when they hit the older elementary school ages, they do start learning at that point, you teach them art, music, gardening, and foreign language. So they learn from those four subjects. So, again, you're not teaching them to read. You're not teaching them science or math. We'll have some nine-year-olds in our homeschool group that don't know how to read that. Yeah. Easy. And I know that reading comes at all different ages. But you'll have the nine to 12-year-olds. Yeah, who don't know how to read. Who don't know how to read yet. To me, that's a problem. I don't know because I haven't seen the end result. Yeah, yeah. It's different than what... Yeah, not to say that your kid needs to be learning to read by four or anything like that. But if your child is at the point where they would be entering middle school, almost, and you haven't yet taught them how to read, reading is the fundamental for all subjects. Yeah, it's a big difference. Yeah. So to me, that would be concerning. And maybe there's outside issues or something like that. Not to judge any parent whose child isn't reading by a certain age or anything like that. I have a friend whose kids didn't learn to read until later, or a couple of her kids. Some of them learned to read very young, and others didn't learn to read until they were older. And they were able to catch up. But I believe that there were underlying issues that were causing them to not be able to pick up reading as fast. Things like dyslexia, things like that. Yeah. Not so much just that... It wasn't just that she didn't teach them how to read on their own. But then, so in the early elementary, that's what they're learning, is art, music, gardening, and foreign language. Which, some of that could be really beneficial, too, because you're teaching them how to garden, so that's a life skill. Learning a foreign language taps into a lot of brain development areas that apply to that later learning. It does on the one side, though, but that's using the one side of the brain that's skipping the other side. The math and the science go from the, is it the left side? I don't remember which side's which, but language arts and math and science use the opposite sides of the brain. Art, music, language arts, and gardening are all going to be just exercising one side of your brain. It's not going to be exercising the side that does logic and mathematical thinking and scientific thinking. Yeah, I don't know. Again, if you've got some more information to share, if you've got personal experience with that, we'd love to hear. Yeah, and then academic instruction is introduced during the late elementary school years, but the focus is only on expanding a child's imagination and teaching them to manage their emotions. Which, managing your emotions, very, very important. Definitely something you should teach your kids how to do. I often need help managing my emotions. Right, and I have no problem with that. I do question the focus being on expanding your child's imagination. Like, absolutely encourage your child to think outside the box. Absolutely encourage them to think critically. You said public schools are using this method? No. Like, yes. Yes. There are dozens of schools, of public schools, dedicated to this style of learning. Which makes me wonder, what are they teaching them? Because if you're not allowed to do academic instruction... Maybe they're furries. Maybe. And then from middle school on, the focus is on critical thinking. Excellent, which is perfect. You want people to think critically. But if they don't have any facts, if you've never taught them how to get to facts, what are they critically thinking about? And if the public schools are doing it, then are they critically thinking based on social justice issues that you've taught them this time? They are right now. Yeah, because at no point in time does typical academic instruction kick in. According to the descriptions that I found, which is why I was so confused. Because I was like, I don't understand what you're even teaching. Like, all of the stuff that they are teaching their kids, according to this description, everything they're teaching their kids is good stuff, but not standalone education, in my opinion. In my opinion, you have to teach your kids how to read. You've got to teach them how to do math. You have to teach them how to do science. Because if you're not, are you creating productive members of society? Are these kids employable in any aspect when they get older? Because they don't know how to read. They don't know how to write. They don't know how to do math or science. I don't know. You know, statistically, studies are showing that homeschoolers outperform public schoolers in testing. So, I'd have to think maybe we're missing something here. That's why I was like, I don't understand. There's got to be more to it. There has to be. Maybe Waldorf isn't a standalone. Maybe Waldorf is something that you add on to another style. So, maybe that's why I'm not getting it. I don't know. But then, let's see. Oh, in addition to critical thinking, you also focus on empathy and community service, which I do love that, too. I love that they focus on empathy because I think a lot of people are missing that piece. It's a little bit sad to me. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they're missing the empathy piece? I have a theory. Because they took God out of the school. Because people are being taught to worship self instead of worship their creator. Social media and in person, having real conversations with people. Answering the phone when I call. Because sometimes it's so impersonal to be in text. You totally could text, though. Why would you call me when you could text me? I mean, if Reels could say everything. Maybe we could create and try to create and have a whole conversation through memes. I was just going to say, I could have an entire day's conversation with you just using Facebook Reels. What's the one I send you all the time? I cannot think of what it is. The one that... Not YouTube. What are the ones I always get on? She's always on TikTok. TikTok, that's it. I could have an entire conversation with TikTok, Facebook Reels, and memes. I could communicate with you for, like, weeks. I don't know how you avoid the naughty stuff on TikTok. I just keep scrolling. There's naughty stuff in there. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't want to see it. No. I just don't want to see it. So, thank you for sending me just the snippets. The wholesome ones? Yeah. Wholesome is a sliding scale when it comes to Lisa at times. This is true. I mean, there's just... I don't... Again, I want my children to be able to discern for themselves, but I just... I can't do it. I don't know. What's the other one? Snapchat is the other one that we used to have. Is that still around? It is. It is? Oh, wow. It is? Oh, yeah. I think Josephine has that. It is? Yeah. A lot of naughty. Yeah. Oh. A lot of naughty. Of course it is. Of course it is. But they all do. I mean, you really do have to pick your poison and whatever. Yeah. Statistically, Lisa and I probably send each other 1,500 memes a day back and forth. I'm certain of it. Reels, whatever. Yes. Yep. That's okay. That's funny. But we also learned that neither Amy nor I can write an outline. Just throwing that out there. If you saw Lisa's outline... Mine is a detailed outline. Lisa is definitely a college graduate. She is very detailed, and mine is not at all. Amy's was written on a napkin with coffee spilled on it. Okay. It's a spiral notebook. And there's only five words on it, and three of them are blurred out by the coffee stains. I use Star Wars spiral notebook. You use Star Wars. Because that's the one I could grab first, because that's how we roll. That's fantastic. Lisa's is nicely printed from the computer. Five pages long. Yeah. I typed out my script. Twelve font. I did write a script for you, too, but Amy refused to use my script, even though it was really good material. She said, you know what? I don't want to use your script, because even though your instruction for me is amazing, I'm just going to go ahead and wing it. I don't know. I think we should put pictures of our outlines on the Facebook page. I think you should share your pictures. Yeah. Go for it, man. Your access. We need to do that. We need to put, or at least add up, show them what your lines were supposed to be. Yeah. I didn't write any lines. No. But I wrote you stuff. I think that everybody will find it very funny if Lisa shares her outlines with you and what she scheduled for me to say. I always do. And do without any notice whatsoever. I'm going to go ahead and share that on Facebook. Anyways, we're going to have to get this wrapped up for tonight. Don't forget to, as of right now, go out on Facebook and like and follow. Say hi to us. We're lonely. We'll start listing out the other platforms that we're on and like and follow on all of them, if you would. That way, if one gets canceled, you have backups. You can still find us. You can still find us. Because they can't silence us. Okay. Take care until next time. Love you guys. Bye.