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Record Live is a conversation about life, spirituality and following Jesus in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
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ββHello everyone and welcome to another episode of Record Live.
You may notice that this is not Captain Jared, we have with us, we have with us Jesse, my other co host today, because Jared is battling a Welcome Jesse to the show. It's good to have you.
Thank you. It's great to be here. Zanita.
Yeah. While we, have the opportunity to talk about Jared, can I ask you what your favourite thing about Jared is?
My favourite thing about Jared, you know,
favourite memory, favourite quality.
When you ask such a question, a list miles long unravels in my mind. There's , his eyes, you know, I thought they were blue, but apparently he has green eyes.
, I was actually sitting across the table from him the other day and I made some mention about his blue eyes and he said, no, they're not blue, they're green. And so I had to stare into his eyes, they look blue to me, they're, they're green on the outside and they're kind of golden in the inside.
So his eyes, just fantastic. Um, and this is writing skills. His beard. Oh my goodness. You can tell that I'm trying to emulate it a little bit. Failing.
Not quick enough for the show.
It's very sad. Anyway, so,, it's great to be on this, Record Lives and needed to talk about how great Jared is.
Yeah, we've got 28 minutes to unpack. He has given us this topic to talk about specifically today. No, I'm just kidding. Today,
it is the topic of homeschooling. Um, And we have with us a wide panel today. We have yourself, who has experienced homeschooling. We have myself, who has never experienced homeschooling, and we should probably just clarify that neither of us have children, so we are talking from a limited point of view, but we do have experiences and we have opinions,
so that's what we're talking about today. Before I get into it, can you just tell us the logistics, when did you go to homeschool, how long were you homeschooled for? Start with that.
Okay, yeah, no, very good. I am the oldest of four.
And when it comes to homeschooling, it's kind of a little bit chaotic depending on how many kids you have. So for me, it was sitting down every morning, after breakfast chores, all that sort of stuff. I grew up on a farm, so, you know, there was a few chores around the farm we had to do every day, sitting down, doing lessons.
, we would have a curriculum. That was my experience at the least. I know that there are. Perhaps some who don't have a strict curriculum. However, my experience was a curriculum. It was fairly systematic. We would work through, science, maths, literature, history, all the stuff that you would kind of go into.
at a regular school. I guess the main difference is that your classmates are your siblings and your teacher is one of your parents. In this case, my mom was my teacher . And that is an interesting duality, dual relationship, right? You know, we talk about like in psychology, you have these dual relationships, which are often kind of deemed as a bad idea, like having your boss as your best friend or, having your, , colleague be your partner or, stuff like that.
In this case, it was definitely a dual relationship where. On the one hand, my mum was my teacher, on the other hand, she was my mum. So, it's a weird dynamic to handle. But look, in terms of the logistics of it, I will say that the one thing that was good for me was that it allowed me to set my own schedule, like, we didn't have periods, you know, it's not like first period, second period, the bells ring, and then I'm gonna go off to...
Recess. There would be days where I'd be working all day and there would be days where I'd be working half of the day and the rest of the day I'd be able to play in and build tree forts and stick my head in the stream or something like that, homeschooling, at least in my experience, was a much more self directed exercise rather than conventional school, which is teacher led curriculum led.
So Yeah. I hope that gives you a broad overview of what it looks like. It's hard to encapsulate because every experience is different, and every family is different. But that's what it was like for me.
You said that, , you still had a curriculum. I know some people when they're talking about like the pros of homeschooling, they have kind of like more tailored personalized learning.
So If they're, if the child is really digging something, like they're really digging, anatomy , then they can just zoom in on that and they can stretch that out. , is that kind of something that you were able to do in homeschooling?
Yeah, it was. Very early on, my mom identified that I was really passionate about the humanities.
And so my experience became a lot more focused on history, literature, English, those sorts of things. I still have to do math. So I still have to do science and those sorts of, STEM subjects, I suppose you could probably term them nowadays. I definitely had an opportunity to focus in on those subjects that I was Really passionate about I think my mom just kind of was quite pragmatic in the sense of well if Jesse's Really into history, but he really struggles in maths Why spend all of his time on maths when he you know, he's really passionate about history and look to be fair The subjects particularly maths that I really struggled with growing up My mom ended up getting like a tutor for me to help me in those areas So, she still saw that it was important for me to learn a wide discipline of, subjects, but definitely still encouraged me in those areas that, , I was passionate about, which was, I think, a good thing overall, because I still ended up with basic knowledge in those other areas.
But I was able to really get into those things that I was passionate about. And to a large degree, I think contributed to where I am today.
Yeah, it's awesome. I guess it's sometimes in bigger schools, you get that opportunity. Like when you get to your senior years, you still have those core subjects like math and English, but you also have the availability to choose your other subjects, , at bigger schools you have subjects like the specific sciences or you have like drama or dance or music or accounting or whatever. But at small schools, because I've been to both a big high school and a small high school, at smaller schools you don't have that option, you're just stuck with whatever subjects they have teachers for or whatever subjects there are.
I think there's a little bit of that in homeschooling as well. Like it's. It's the smallest school that you could probably imagine. So like if I was incredibly into trigonometry or whatever, or, I wanted to get into chemistry or astrophysics or something, something very specific, homeschooling doesn't necessarily give you the infrastructure to be able to maybe it does nowadays.
Maybe there's programs or curriculums that have. Offered by homeschooling associations that allow you to do that sort of stuff. But, , certainly when I was growing up, if I was really into a very specialized specific thing,, it would be incumbent on me to. Do a lot of that research and get that myself.
, I suppose , technology probably makes it easier. There's probably a course on every time we come to the sun. But yeah, it is a good point. How long did you do homeschooling for? Was this your entire life or was it just a season or what did it look like for you?
Yeah, so I'm the eldest of four.
As I mentioned, I got one brother, two sisters, all younger than me. And I. up to HSC, the equivalent here in New South Wales, year 12. Now I did end up, doing my upper high school, , schooling through a course in Queensland of all things. That was just the particular school that offered.
I guess it was, I'm not sure of the details because I was a kid, but I think it was sort of like correspondence learning that a school offered. I still remember it's called Riverside Christian College somewhere in Queensland. Unfortunately, because It was in Queensland, I didn't get an HSC certificate.
So if I wanted to get into a university, I would have to take an entrance exam, which is what I did.
So yeah, that's what, =I had to do now, my youngest siblings, I think, after I got through year 12, my mom did a survey of the land and facing the prospect of doing this. With three other children. I think she kind of decided I don't want to do this anymore. This is probably a little too much.
And so my brother and my two sisters end up going into school and finishing their education that way. So, yeah, that's, that's how it ended up for me.
So you really got the full experience, homeschooling, out in the bush, the whole time.
Squatting on sticks and stone tablets, you know. It wasn't much, but it's what we had, Janita.
When your siblings went to school, was there any part of you that was like, Oh, lucky them, or were they excited for that? Like, what was their experience like, having done both? Did they enjoy it? Did they want to go back home?
Yeah, so, the two middle siblings in our family, they're both extroverts.
Like, very social. , myself and my youngest sister are both introverts. And so, I guess... For her, it was harder than it was for them. They instantly sort of slotted into school life, you know, doing sports and doing music. That was, yeah, it was huge for them. Performance, all that sort of stuff. We all ended up, all of us ended up being humanities kids.
We all ended up singing, performing, writing, all that sort of thing. My youngest sister now does pottery. That's her hobby slash trying to make it into a job. So we all ended up being very artsy fartsy sorts of people. A part of me did get a little bit jealous, , that they got that experience because I, I just didn't, I didn't get that wider, broader,, life experience that comes from being exposed to lots of different people from different viewpoints all crammed into a classroom day in, day out.
Obviously there are parts of school that everybody kind of remembers fondly, and then parts of school that Everybody kind of wishes they could forget. So who's to say whether I could have, whether I would have preferred it to what I went through. I ended up going to a university, where part of the experience was almost like an extension of high school life.
So I guess there's that, living in the dorms, going to cafeteria, all that sort of stuff with a lot of kids who had just graduated high school. So for them, it was just like, High school 2. 0, whereas I know that's not true for every university, but it certainly was kind of the case, for me. I, as much as I really, you know, my mom was a great teacher.
She, she's actually a nurse. She's not a teacher like trained, but she did a great job with us. And as much as my mom did a great job, , I'm probably not, like pro homeschool, as bad as that is to say. Look, , it's probably not as simple as that. I do recognize , the benefits of homeschooling, but , if I had children and I had the choice of sending them to school or keeping them home and schooling them, I probably would send them to school nowadays.
Yeah. Super interesting. Yeah. I have a number of friends who are homeschooling their children and I can definitely see the appeal and like all respect them. , I think it's come a long way from like 15, 20 years ago where maybe the stereotype we had of it was, it was like. , you're out in a wooden house in the bush, and that's the only people who do homeschool whereas now it's a lot more diverse and there's a lot more tools.
I think personally, I'm also a massive extrovert and so I can't think of anything worse than being homeschooled and homeschooling my children and not having , freedom outside of that. But yeah, I can definitely see, and especially, I think there's been a lot of changes with school systems and I can see why people are afraid.
But, , can you go into a bit more of the, pros and cons of, the things that you've mentioned, like, a couple, but what are some more of the pros you found?
Sure, very quickly. I just saw that we have a question here. Is homeschooling using the same curriculum offered by government? So is it a one to one experience for a child?
And look, I can't speak for right now. I can definitely speak for in my time. And this kind of goes into the pros and cons that you, that you asked Anita. When I was in primary school, my mom used a Christian curriculum that was based in the United States. So I learned a lot about George Washington and, Abraham Lincoln and,, Things like that alongside maths and science and all that sort of thing.
, I didn't learn a lot about Edmund Barton or, you know, any of our early pioneers. I didn't learn that much about James Cook or anything like that. So , yeah there's definitely some pros and cons depending on what curriculum you use. As I mentioned, the, late upper high curriculum that I used was through Riverside Christian College in Queensland.
So that was, I assume. A government, , sanctioned, curriculum. So. In terms of the pros and cons though, there are a lot of pros. Okay, so look, if you're living out in the middle of nowhere, to give you context, my family, we've lived out, in the country near Dubbo and I say near, I'm talking like an hour and a half out of Dubbo on a farm.
We've lived an hour and a half out of Tamworth when we were growing up. We lived in Western Australia for a little bit. I've lived in a lot of different places, mostly rural. And so in that sense, , families who move around a lot, or who just live somewhere really remote can be a really good option simply, because yeah, that, that flexibility gives you continuity.
You might move to a different place. But you're still doing the same stuff. And we went through all the same sort of struggles that you get when you're moving around a lot. , we'd get to know kids at our local church or, in our local area, our neighbourhood, and then we'd leave. The same sort of thing goes on if you're going to school.
So, that's not great. , my mum had a hard experience growing up with two of her brothers. My mum has two disabled brothers and she's the middle child and being, I suppose, the only quote unquote normal kid in a family of three, where two of the others have special needs, it's quite difficult for her, and she grew up in the 70s, where obviously kids can be cruel, and back then, I imagine kids were even crueler than they are these days.
And when it comes to people with special needs, and so she had a bad experience with school and that contributed toward her decision to schooling us at home. And I think if you're in a similar situation where there's complications in your family situation, then that can be a good option as well. So, hats off to mum.
She did a great job, with that. , I suppose as far as cons, , there's a couple. So number one is the social aspect. If you're not part of a homeschooling group or association, it can be very isolating. Not just for the kids. But particularly for the parent , who's schooling them. So,, my mum was a farmer's wife living out in the middle of nowhere.
And dad would go and work often early in the morning, home late at night. So , she's the housewife, but she's also schooling the children. And, you know, that was many people's, lots in life. For many years, I recently visited a, , lighthouse here in Sydney, Baron Joey Lighthouse, where we did a little tour and the, lighthouse keeper's wife was expected to keep the home and to school the children and to do all this stuff.
She wasn't paid, she wasn't employed. She was expected to do all this stuff. And so for a lot of people, , that's just life and, such as the case , with mom, it does limit your outlook on life, especially back before the internet., you and I grew up without the internet and then we got the internet.
, whereas kids these days, kids these days, , they have the internet, as soon as they're born. . Back when it was just books and textbooks and pads of paper. That's all I had to know what the outside world was like, unless we were going into town and that sort of thing. , I know a lot of people homeschool their kids, because of a desire to get them away from like a corrupting influence, like a school that's often seen as like, Oh, well, you know, that's where all the bad kids are or whatever.
There's a religious aspect that I suppose for some people. But yeah, it definitely has a possibility to limit your outlook on life. And I saw that with a lot of my, fellow peers. We would go to a homeschooling group every single Wednesday and we'd hang out with all the kids and the mums would have a cuppa and a chance to catch up and all that sort of thing.
And that was great for mum. She got a peer group support, all that sort of thing so flexibility, it's a double edged sword.
It can be really great. Like doing, your homework. And spending half the day up in the bush, , making tree forts and stuff like that. But,, you can also kind of fake your work a lot of the time. And if mom doesn't catch on to it, then you can actually miss out. Whereas you don't have a teacher peering over your shoulder all the time.
So,, I think I've rambled enough on some of the pros and cons that I experienced. I do think , it's a tricky situation because everybody's situation, everybody's circumstances are different. Yeah, for sure.
I think like, I guess we're talking to primarily an Adventist audience here.
And I guess maybe one of the risks that you've mentioned is. The social aspect, and I think, , for Adventists who are considering homeschooling their children, sure, they might be getting social interactions at church and at church groups, but are they also getting interactions with people outside of that sphere?
Which I guess, I don't know, myself and my siblings, we went to, various schools. We went to, public schools and Adventist schools, and we had neighbours who were not religious, and I think that's hugely benefited all of us because... We can relate to so many people, and so even now, often I find it, harder to relate to Adventists, just because I've had such a broad, , broad views in my lives, and so many different people from different backgrounds, that, yeah, I don't know, I think it's helped me to think a bit more critically, and it's helped me, engage with people from all sorts of walks, but I think if you're intentional about it, then you can still give your child those experiences homeschooling.
It's just you've got to be intentional about it. , I guess that's, that's for the audience to ponder and to think. Another thing you mentioned was, , that people feel like the schooling system or the ideologies that are being teached. Do you think, , there's a, there's a risk to sending people to school these days, or like, you know, if we're sending our children to school and we're nervous about what's being taught or what is being told, like, what can we do about that?
Is taking them out of school the only option, or is there a way we can kind of engage with them to, I guess, like, help them to understand things or manage these things differently?
Yeah, that's a good question. I distinctly remember my mum got a science textbook from another curriculum that was not the Christian American curriculum that we usually got.
And it, had some, , Sections on evolution. And my mom being the good Christian mother that she was decided well, what do we have to do? We're gonna have to glue these pages together. So she did just that. She got the glue stick and she got the pages and she she glued them together. Now, I being the inquisitive, , I wouldn't say naughty, but maybe somewhat naughty child that I was at that age, , thought, I didn't know what evolution was.
I had no idea. I just knew that, the word meant something that my parents didn't like or that thought they thought was evil. So I remember every time I flipped through that particular book, I would notice the pages kind of, you know, how glue kind of dries and then it cracks and it kind of, it comes away from itself, the pages kind of coming away and I would kind of like peel the pages out a little bit and have a look inside what is this?
But it's a secret information that mom doesn't want me to know about. , and that was my first introduction to things like evolution. Now, as far as your question is concerned, I personally believe that conflict, whilst, we're not made for conflict. You know, sin is sin. And, we're not made for a sinful world.
I do believe that conflict builds resilience and that challenge builds resilience. And , I personally think that some of the least resilient people in the world are the ones who shelter themselves from the outside world. , and that's simply. Like, that's, you know, that's that's no attack on anybody that's I'm not calling out anybody.
I'm not taking a shot at anybody. But all I'm saying is that, , when you come into conflict with somebody, or when you come into contact with anybody that doesn't think the way that you think, and that challenges your worldview and challenges the things that you believe forces you to look inside and to maybe research or maybe to ask yourself, what do I truly believe?
Can I back up my belief with reasonable discourse or argument? And I think that's what school is for. There are obviously certain dogmas that certain schools. Prefer to, introduced to their students. There are certain things they prefer to keep away. We can take that on a case by case basis that, if you go to a Christian school, you're going to get a certain kind of experience.
If you go to a public school, you're going to get a certain kind of experience. , I don't think that we should be scared of having our beliefs challenged because one thing I do know from experience is that when you go out into the world after you've, cut the umbilical cord as it were from your parents and you have to get a real job and you have to at some point interact with real people, you're going to come across people who don't have the same viewpoint as you.
And so your worldview is going to be challenged. And if you've been brought up in an environment where anybody, anything that is contrary to your worldview is discarded. Discounted, made fun of, shoved in a corner, you're not going to be well equipped to be able to deal with people who don't think the same way as you.
And look, I'm not saying that my mum, , hid certain things about the world from me in order to protect me. I think every parent wants to protect their child, whether they're schooling them or just raising them. But I do think that when you put your child into an environment where their views can be challenged.
, you're running a risk, but you're also equipping them hopefully with wise guidance and love and support to be able to develop a critical thinking brain that can deal with the complexities and the gray areas of life.
Yeah. And as a result, probably give them more security in their views and beliefs as opposed to hiding things from them and then one day then being like what?
Yeah, I think it's similar to I know some parents fear putting their children into education because they fear them like losing their innocence sort of thing but it's the same kind of thing it's like we can't protect our children forever and at some point they're going to be exposed to the world and I guess it's more about like teaching them to become like you said resilient teaching them to question things teaching them to have open conversation with you and share what they're learning, or share what they're conflicted about, those kind of conversations.
We've run out of time so quickly. . Let's say you have a friend who comes to you and is like, Jesse, I just don't know what to do. Should I send my kids to homeschool, or not? I don't, I'm not expecting you to give me like a yes or no question, but like, are there people you would suggest them talking to, or, like, bible verses you would suggest them reading, or,, places you would suggest them going to be more informed, I suppose?
I'm not sure if there's any particular Bible verse that I could, in all good conscience link to homeschooling. Maybe there is, if there is, I'd love our listeners, viewers to, to let me know. No, what I would say, I think is you got to count the cost because it's no small commitment to do homeschooling.
My mom was a nurse and she gave up, , her whole career. To do this. And,, now she's, , well past, I think wanting to go back into her old career. So she's doing other stuff now, which is great. There's a lot that you miss out on by doing homeschooling. Some would say that there's a lot that you gain from doing that.
And I think that's a perfectly valid response when it comes to your kid's education, though, I think possibly the hardest thing that you have to answer to yourself is do I have what it takes? to give them a good education. Now, of course, one of the greatest gifts that we have is distance education, that can work with a parent to be able to provide a good curriculum.
, so it's not all on you, the teacher to, to be all in and all to be the maths, science, history, all these. All things to all your child, , but you also have to be , the intermediary between the curriculum and the student, which is great in primary school. It's, pretty easy to handle, but once you get into high school, you're starting to deal with some pretty serious stuff.
And, some pretty heavy stuff. So I think that's why a lot of, and I've seen this a lot, a lot of, a lot of homeschooling parents will, take their kids through primary. And then once they hit high school, they'll send them to real school, quote unquote. And I think that's perfectly valid. And I think that, you have to be aware of your own limitations.
There are some teachers who want to homeschool their kids, move out into the country. And I think the other thing that you have to also be aware of, as I said before, is that. You might lose a career,, it's hard in this day and age. I think far harder in this day and age to have one parent at home schooling children than it was, , when I was, when we were kids.
I don't know how, if, my wife and I. , decided to have kids. We would be able to manage on one income. . , probably wouldn't be able to live in Sydney or we'd have to win lotto. Either way, it's a really hard thing and not something that should be done lightly.
Because at the end of the day, if you want to protect your kids. From the corrupting influence of the outside world. You can only do that for so long., and when they do go out into the outside world, you want them to be equipped , to deal with it and to be able to thrive and not just survive.
And if you think that you can do that through homeschooling, then I'll say, more power to you, I'll cheer you on. But I think for most people, it's hard enough going through life and all the complexities and the challenges that it throws at you, without adding that burden of education onto the plate of parenthood.
So, I wouldn't tell the person, don't do it. I would tell the person, however, you really have to count the cost and decide as a family if it's something that you think is worth doing.
Yeah, I think it's, like you've outlined this, I think it's different. For everyone. Like, I know, and I'm sure you know as well, I know people who have loved homeschool, I know other people who have hated it and have run away from home and gotten jobs so that they can pay for themselves to go to school.
Like, it's such a broad spectrum. And yeah, obviously some parents can do it really well. And maybe some people are doing it for the wrong reasons, but that's up to them to decide. Respect to those who choose it, respect to those who don't. Thank you, Jesse, for sharing your homeschooling experiences.
, we appreciate just your just your stories and your insight. , it's been good to have you on.
Awesome. And, and look, I will say, most of all, thank you, mum. She did a great job and, , even if my feelings on homeschooling are mixed, this is the experience that I had and I'm grateful for it.
So thanks for the discussion. Appreciate it.
Awesome. Cool. Everyone else. We π will see you next week for another episode of Record Life.
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