BTB article
No, this isn't it
This past Saturday, I woke up as usual- my German Shepard puppy (10 months old) woke me up and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. I put on my slippers, grabbed my phone and headphones and headed out for a walk with him.
I quickly checked X DMs and saw that a friend had DMed me, “Hey, are you writing for Bow Tied Bull?!?!?!” I quickly shot back, “What? Of course not! I know borderline nothing about what they talk about!” Then, I checked my notifications and saw what he meant- BTB had tweeted, looking for the jungle homeschool guru and I had been tagged in about half of the comments. If you were one of those, I greatly appreciate it!
For those of you not familiar with the jungle, Bow Tied Bull started it. They (gender unclear because of anonymous status) are a cryptocurrency and stock market guru. The idea of the jungle is a bunch of anonymous gurus who don’t publish their credentials, but give actionable advice and you can see for yourself that they are the gurus. That rang true for me in the arena of homeschooling, so I joined.
I still hesitate to say that I’m a guru, however. With homeschooling, the guru is the student. Really, only they know how they learn best. And the best people to support their quest to be the most well rounded, highly educated person they can be isn’t a teacher. Shocker, I know. It’s the people closest to them, the ones who love and believe in them. Therefore, my goal as a jungle homeschool guru (there are several) is to equip students and those who love them to find the path that brings them the most learning rewards.
Just yesterday, I was thinking about how my mom ran into these types back in the mid 90’s, the types that knew how she should homeschool and pressured her to do it their way. My mother is a very sweet woman and was very unsure about herself. Fortunately, she never bowed to the pressure. We were able to enjoy pod style classes, like Spanish, history, mock trial, even Israeli dance. At home, we read a LOT, didn’t have a television, and weren’t required to much in the way of homework. I did enroll in a correspondence school for high school and finished a year early, and could’ve easily graduated earlier.
Back to Saturday. I was absolutely floored. While I feel passionately about my mission, I never expected to get much attention from it. I know it’s a hot area right now, but so many people are selling their style being best that it’s hard to have much of a voice when I’m trying to help individuals.
Bull has asked me to write an article about how to homeschool if you’re upper middle class and both parents work. King Bee and I are upper middle class and have done that for fifteen and a half years and have tried all sorts of scenarios, so this article is coming together quite nicely, imho.
My passion, however, is to help the people who sacrifice money to homeschool their families by bringing a parent home. That’s what my parents did. That’s what most of the pioneers did in the 80’s. In a family I grew up with and am still very close to, the parents met at MIT, but the mother never worked using her degree because she felt the need to teach her own children. These are people I greatly admire. By the way, you can read their story in the first issue of Renegade Education here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C9SGX1GN
So when I’m done writing the article for BTB, my plan is to continue the same articles for different demographics. The likelihood is low that I’ll publish that article here, as it’s for their audience, but their space is one I highly recommend subscribing to. They do all kinds of great things and have all kinds of wonderful writers.
I want to live in a world where everyone feels equipped to homeschool, notwithstanding their current financial situation. So stay tooned!