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Welcome to the Free Cities podcast.

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My name is Timothy Allen and this is the official podcast of the Free Cities Foundation.

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Hello and welcome to this episode number 135 of the Free Cities podcast. This episode is brought

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to you as always by our most excellent sponsor Veritas Village. They're building an off-grid

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village for freedom lovers like yourself in Panama amongst other places. Energy self-sufficient

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luxury homes all in the process of being built right now and you can own a portion of that if

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you choose to. They're all close to the beaches and amenities but in a slightly elevated location

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so there is a perfect climate for growing your own food. Every home comes with its own solar

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system included. You can also get wind because energy independence is one of their goals paired

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with a modern luxury lifestyle. Get in touch with them and go and see the project to take a look at

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the house is currently being built if you'd like to know more about their ethos as well click on

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this link www.ecovillages.life forward slash free cities for more info there's also an interview

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there I did with Patrick their founder at last year's free cities conference and that will give

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you a sense of who they are and whether you would like to do business with them right today's show

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I am back in New Hampshire and I'm also back at the Underwoods off-grid homestead.

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You may well have heard me speaking to former NASA planetary scientist and author Ian Underwood

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in episode 129. Very interesting one that. Check it out if you've missed it. This week I'm talking

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with his equally fascinating wife Jodie. Now Jodie runs an education non-profit so it was

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inevitable that we ended up talking about education and in particular Jodie's speciality

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homeschooling in all its myriad contemporary forms and I learned a new word this week.

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Micro schools if you don't know what those are listen on and you can add that to unschooling

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self-directed education, classical charter school education, co-ops, learn everywhere,

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lots of new ways to homeschool your children. In this conversation we also talk about the reality

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of off-grid living and community life in New Hampshire amongst liberty-minded folk. Now that

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also includes local government educational politics and Jodie's fascinating story about

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the time that a local town meeting was convinced to back a motion that slashed the yearly education

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budget in half basically because tax is theft why not and when I say in half that's a 1.7 million

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dollar budget getting slashed to 800 000 dollars what ensued was quite chaotic and it ended up

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with the former budget being reinstated on a very small technicality.

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But what it does do is it gives you a fascinating insight into the incentive models,

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which influence state school programs.

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Jody's not a fan, as you can imagine.

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Anyway, many thanks to Jody and Ian for hosting me on their awesome homestead.

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Hope to see you both again soon.

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Sometime, right, Noster and Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

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and this week I've got a pre-announcement of an announcement if you like those kind of things

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things are happening over at Fountain and the Free Cities podcast going forward will be migrating

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all of our content over to their brand new hosting program which opens up a ton of new features

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potentially including subscriptions amongst other things and bonus episodes etc etc now

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I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to play this moving forward.

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As you know, I've been a fan of Fountain since the start, but especially since their NOSTA integration.

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So I'm happy to partner with the project.

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I just need to work out how to configure the new system.

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Any suggestions? Obviously greatly received.

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send me a message on NOSTA or you can do the old-fashioned way email podcast at free-cities.org

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next week I'll actually be publishing a huge three and a half hour interview with the extremely

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popular guest Ben Gunn so I had a thought that I might actually try splitting that episode in half

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and then offer the second part as a bonus episode for the first week so people can get early access

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to it just as an experiment I mean I really would like to see this project funded by listeners

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and that's not easy however fountains currently I think the best option I have for that anyway

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it's a work in progress so please bear with me but I think already and I'm looking at it now you

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can actually subscribe to this podcast via a button on fountain now so please do that if you're

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a regular listener and you can just make a small donation each month to help run the show and that

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will be greatly appreciated many thanks okay right strategic bitcoin reserve thanks for the sats

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goes to justin dovidas and on and on user 67 bc bob justin bianchi the other justin says i'm

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strongly considering a move to connecticut why aren't all bitcoin as a part of the free state

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project good question i don't know i suppose you need to live in america but also connecticut is not

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new hampshire right no it's it's just below but i suppose the nearer you are to new hampshire the

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better if you're a libertarian that would be my advice anyway 67 bc says talking also about the

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free state project is this a bitcoin a project uh no it's not but quite a few of the very early

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adopters of Bitcoin in the States were an R3 status at least that was my experience traveling

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around New Hampshire is I met a ton of Bitcoiners and a lot of them were extreme OGs 2013 and and

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and beyond so no it's not a Bitcoiner project yes it has a lot of Bitcoiners in it right

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oh a lot of people also looking forward to the chat i've just had with ben gunn starting next

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week that i mentioned on nostra music to my ears what a legend yes he is and yes it will be it was

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a really great conversation can't wait to put that one out right time to retreat back into the

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homestead i suppose you could always pull up a rocking chair this week why don't you grab your

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favorite pipe that's what my impression of a homestead is it's completely wrong anyway whilst

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you do all that please sit back relax and enjoy my conversation with Jodie Underwood

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it's probably worth mentioning that actually i'd like to set the scene before we start speaking

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because funnily enough when i knew i was coming to new hampshire and it was all kind of free

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status and people like that i assumed everyone was going to be living in places like this

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because that's what i think about you know if you're into liberty and freedom i always associate

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that with living right down the end of a track in the middle of nowhere because but obviously that's

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that's me and that's not true and that's not even a a useful um idea really but you have chosen to

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live what is it like a mile and a half into the wilderness it's you're already in the wilderness

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and then you drive a mile and a half down a snowy track if you call wilderness five minutes off the

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highway then sure we're in the wilderness five minutes that's dubious it took me more than five

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minutes to get from the highway to the bottom of our road it's only four miles yeah but it's it's

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it was let me let me just re-establish that was single track snow on the ground and ice

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no that's the mile and a half that's not five minutes oh right i mean from the highway to

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the turn on to forehand road okay i'm just going to turn you down okay um oh okay so

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What do you class that last bit then that we just did?

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The mile and a half.

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Oh, how long does that?

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Well, when the conditions are perfect, it takes me five minutes.

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But most people take a lot longer than that because I know my road, right?

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Yeah.

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And actually.

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How long did it take you to drive up?

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Well, I was all right.

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I mean, I lived down the end of a track.

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So the only thing I was nervous about was the fact I was in someone else's car.

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Number one, I'm in a higher car, you know.

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And two, I did get out at the very end there and check it, as you saw.

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because I know from experience that starting hills is easy.

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Completing them is difficult.

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And if you get it wrong, getting out of that situation is even harder.

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Trying to reverse back down a hill on ice, which it is.

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It's an icy hill there.

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It's literally my worst nightmare.

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Anyway, we are in the middle of nowhere, yes.

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So why is that then?

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Why did you – you're a freestater through and through, right?

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You came here because of the Free State Project?

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I would say mostly because of the Free State Project.

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I mean, we heard about the Free State,

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and you might want us to talk about this on the thing.

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No, I want to talk about everything, Jody.

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I'll tell you now.

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I've already spoken to a lot of people about the Free State Project,

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so I'm absolutely happy to go off on any tangent you like.

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Are we recording?

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Yes, we're recording.

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Oh, you said you wanted some background.

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No, no, no.

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I didn't know.

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Oh, now you tell me.

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Okay, I'm good.

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I don't do beginnings and endings.

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Well, I do do an ending, but anyway, go on.

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Okay.

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Ah, yeah.

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So, I mean, we heard about the Free State Project in Reason Magazine a long time ago.

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And we thought to ourselves, wow, what a great idea.

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One day when we're ready to go on an adventure, let's look at moving there for the Free State Project.

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And fast forward some good number of years.

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And that was probably, God, I don't know.

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I don't remember when it was.

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But it was after the vote.

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So we didn't even hear about the Free State Project until the vote, which you've presumably heard about.

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Yes.

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You're deciding where it was going to be, basically.

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Right.

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Which state in the U.S., yes.

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And so fast forward to, goodness, 2007 or so.

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No, that's when we moved here.

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So prior to that, we made friends with a couple of people who the four of us together decided that we wanted, they wanted to move to New England.

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He wanted to ski, live in a large property off grid.

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And we had sort of three people, like sets of three had different goals that they wanted to do.

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So three of us want to live off grid in large property and three of us wanted to do something with alternative education.

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So we chose New Hampshire partly because they wanted to move to New England and we wanted to do this adventure thing.

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And so we just did it.

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And where did you come from? Which state?

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We lived in Pennsylvania before moving here.

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Okay.

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I'm originally from New York City, so completely different now.

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That's amazing because New York is the polar opposite of what I'm experiencing here, I would say.

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Yeah, for sure.

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And even, as someone pointed out the other day, the state motto here is live free or die.

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The state motto in New York is the empire state, right?

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The empire.

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And actually, that's very telling.

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And yeah, do you know Melissa?

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Melissa Cream?

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I think you do.

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I do.

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Yeah, I spoke to her yesterday.

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She's a New Yorker as well, originally.

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Upstate New York, though.

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Yes.

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Very different animal.

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Yes, nicer, I think calmer.

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It's very like New Hampshire, actually.

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So this is a question that I've been asking a lot of people since I've been here then.

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When you leave New Hampshire, do you feel that it's different?

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Like, is it really better here?

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Is it really like, and I'm talking about day-to-day things,

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It's like generally the people you meet, the police say, the bureaucracy, the this, the that.

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Is it like, you know, can you tell you're in New Hampshire?

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I feel it.

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That's what everyone said.

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I don't know.

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I don't know how to quantify that.

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But a lot of people have said that.

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I just feel like I'm coming home when I come, when I get off the plane or when I blah, blah, blah.

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Yeah.

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There's something very freeing about it.

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But, you know, I've gone to New York City a number of times from here and it takes me a minute to like readjust my attitude.

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And how walking in Manhattan, just how you have to feel all the people around you all the time.

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I'm not used to that anymore.

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So there's just an overall.

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What about the kind of, you know, the day to day living?

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Would it be if you were in I mean, you wouldn't be able to live in New York in a place like this.

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But I don't know. I think it's somewhere else. Somewhere else. I don't know. Let's go to the other end of the spectrum. Then let's go to California. It would be hotter, obviously. But if you were living remotely in California, do you think your day to day life would be different?

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Oh, so, all right, that's a good question.

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I mean, we lived in suburbs in California,

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but so you have friends who sort of live in the middle of nowhere.

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The laws and the people there would make it feel different than here.

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They're much more restricting.

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The people are much more, I don't know, woke, for lack of a better word.

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No, I think that is the word, unfortunately.

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Yeah.

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So tell me about this place that you have here then.

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Did you always live here?

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so when you came here you're like me basically i like places like this i thrive in places like this

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and um you know i would have done exactly the same thing i might even have gone even further up

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the lane or somewhere i don't know but um tell me a bit about this property and tell me a bit about

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what you're doing here are you running it so you're obviously off grid completely off grid

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um but what about like things like farming and forestry i don't know what's going on

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Um, so we own two set, two properties on this road. The first one is where we lived first. Um,

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and so, you know, when you came up the road, there was that fork. If you'd gone right,

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that's where we lived first. Um, and we still own that property and Neil and Emily, the ones we

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mentioned, um, they, they live there and they run a farm. They run a pig farm there, pigs and cows

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at this point. Um, some chickens and eggs and things like that. And they've gone through a

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number of different things so we get all our meat from there so from a farming perspective that that

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works really well for us when they started having kids this property became available and we worked

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out uh how to get this property and then ian and i moved up here um what but we lived in the house

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with them uh down at the farm all right you both lived in the same so you moved over here as a group

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literally we did ah right i didn't realize yeah we bought the property together yeah wow that must

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been interesting and how many kids were running around during that time no no kids yeah so they're

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20 years younger than us and um they weren't married when we first came up they got married

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in the first year um and we got two piglets as a as a we see i do this they got two piglets as a

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gift for their wedding and we all raised them you know and uh we harvested them at the end of the

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year and it's like wow that was easy let's do that again so your your free state experience was

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kind of an off you're an off-grid one it's like let's go try and be were you trying to be self

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sufficient at all or to whatever extent we we could sure and how's that worked out because that's a

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that's a big question I think about when it comes to people that want to live off-grid when you're

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sitting on watching YouTube and looking at people who've done it going that must be amazing

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it's all very well but when you actually come and do it you you can't have a job at the same time

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not in my experience, not if you're running a proper farm. It takes up so much of your time.

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And I think possibly the reality is a lot different to what people expect. How was it for you?

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Sure. So I always had that full-time job while other people ran the farm. And that's what allowed

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us to do this because I don't think the farm could have supported the mortgage that we have,

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for example. I retired a little over a year ago though, and we're doing okay. But I mean,

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the interesting thing to me is when people hear that we live off grid, they say, Oh, so you don't

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have electricity. And it's like, no, we do have electricity. And, you know, we had to make some

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compromises as we got used to where we were. Look, we were both from city suburb areas. I mean,

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Ian's more suburb than me, but he's lived in and around cities, whatever. And so living in the,

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in the country, living off grid, you know, the self-sufficient idea, we just had to get used to

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how it works. So minimizing our electric, you know, needs was the first thing. Now that we've

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upgraded our solar, that's less important, but still important. I mean, we can't just go nuts

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with electricity. But it's not a hardship. It just, it feels just fine. But right, so that's

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what people don't understand we live normal lives right we use electricity almost like everybody

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else does um and water and you know we have a great well so that makes it easy but um you know

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who knows what can happen with that and what about food and stuff when you uh apart from meat have

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you have you gone down that route of trying to be you know properly self-sufficient even in

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vegetables and you know right so we have a large garden at the farm never done it to the point of

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farming, but mostly, but we also have a short season for that.

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So, I mean, one of the things I do want to do, and we've been here over 17 years already,

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we moved in 2007 is to build a greenhouse so that we actually can do more extend the season and stuff like that We just haven done it yet They too busy on the farm with their animals

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And so that's something that I'm probably going to do.

243
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So they're running that as a business now?

244
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Correct.

245
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Right.

246
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That is useful.

247
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How does it work here with, like if you raise animals, can you kill them yourself?

248
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Or is there a lot of, like we're not allowed to.

249
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So it depends, is the answer.

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if you're going to, you are allowed to raise animals, quote, for other people and then slaughter

251
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them yourselves and, you know, butcher them and then give them to the people that you raised them

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for. But if you're going to sell parts, like, I mean, ground meat, like a pound of ground beef,

253
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then it has to be USDA. Probably both slaughtered and butchered and packaged.

254
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Has to be done officially.

255
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That sounds a lot fairer than our system. We don't have any options. You have to register every animal you own. It has to go through. It basically becomes a number in the system and goes through the system. But I've always wanted that version of it back home.

256
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You know, it just seems, you know, well, if you go back, even not in that too far into the distant past, when most people had a couple of animals who lived out in the countryside, it is a sign of the times that now, unfortunately, I'm going to say the government is basically sticking their nose in your business, even right down the end of a two mile track.

257
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Yeah, that's right. There's also limits on the number of chickens you can sell, like raise to sell. Anyway, yeah, there's all sorts of things. There are. It's not perfect.

258
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we've just had a new law in the uk where everyone has to register their chickens now in the

259
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even if you have two or one and and here's the theory behind it which i can understand it's

260
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quite hard to argue against if you believe in in the state running everything it's very hard to

261
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because we now have i think you have it here as well chicken flu which is the avian flu avian flu

262
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yes right and um and the price of eggs has gone up not for us but if um but the the new law is you

263
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have to keep them inside so and now you can see why everyone wanted they wanted to register all

264
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the animals i think and unfortunately the truth of the matter is because we have foot and mouth

265
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disease a number of years ago do you know about that one with cattle that is and the the strategy

266
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for stopping that is literally to cull absolutely everything so if a if if if it arises somewhere on

267
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a farm all the farms around there have all their animals slaughtered instantly and burnt and people

268
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were you losing herds that were 100 years old you know what i mean like some farmed herds that

269
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would have been the same herd for so long so i don't know i think you you kind of i don't know

270
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Well, you moved here to get away from all that stuff, I suppose.

271
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Yeah, we're trying, right?

272
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I mean, New Hampshire isn't perfect.

273
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Nor is the US government.

274
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Correct.

275
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Right.

276
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So as early movers then, tell me about your experience with the whole project.

277
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Is it something you closely monitor or part of?

278
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I've heard from different people.

279
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Before I came here, I imagined the Free State Project was going to be this all-encompassing thing.

280
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And now you realize there's people that come here, hear about it and come here, but don't really join in.

281
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There's people that really join in.

282
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There's also subgroups of people.

283
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There's now little satellite groups of free staters who all believe in the same principles and who all kind of stick together.

284
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So where do you fall on that spectrum?

285
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I was on the board for a number of years of the FSP organization.

286
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That was already a long time ago.

287
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And so I was involved in, you know, Porkfest and Liberty Forum and that level of thing.

288
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But very, it was a pretty hands-off thing.

289
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I was asked to join and, you know, whatever.

290
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They had a, you know, a slot.

291
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But what you've also probably heard is that everybody really just, we're just residents of the state.

292
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and we do what we want, what we can if we're interested.

293
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Some people just come and want to raise their families among like-minded people.

294
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There's a lot of people like that.

295
00:23:58,550 --> 00:24:03,690
Other people run for office and, you know, whether it's local, select board or school board

296
00:24:03,690 --> 00:24:08,370
or state level, state rep or senator.

297
00:24:08,610 --> 00:24:13,830
We actually, I think we have our first senator now who is a free stater.

298
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So, yeah, people get involved at different levels.

299
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And, you know, some people are more anarchistic where they don't even want to get involved at the government level.

300
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They don't think the laws are the things to do.

301
00:24:26,450 --> 00:24:32,110
They just want to do, you know, civ dis and just live the way they want to live.

302
00:24:32,310 --> 00:24:34,530
But, of course, there are problems with that.

303
00:24:36,010 --> 00:24:37,810
So where do I fall?

304
00:24:38,470 --> 00:24:42,730
So I was on the school board for over 12 years.

305
00:24:42,730 --> 00:24:49,010
that's the the kind of local scoreboard as in the the old old-fashioned nothing to do with the free

306
00:24:49,010 --> 00:24:53,850
state project the correct right yeah has nothing to do right this is where people just act individually

307
00:24:53,850 --> 00:24:59,130
um i and again there i was asked if i wanted to join when somebody stepped down or left town or

308
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whatever it was um and so i was involved in that local government it's an elected position so i

309
00:25:05,430 --> 00:25:12,670
um after that first appointment to the end of that year then i had to run and nobody ran against me

310
00:25:12,670 --> 00:25:18,090
for years. Last time somebody did and they won and that was that. So 12 plus years and it was

311
00:25:18,090 --> 00:25:25,350
sort of a big deal that happened a year before that that made me lose actually.

312
00:25:25,350 --> 00:25:34,350
I think I know the story. Do you mean something to do with the way it's funded and basically

313
00:25:34,350 --> 00:25:40,710
slashing the funds basically? Yeah. This is fascinating because it really does show you

314
00:25:40,710 --> 00:25:46,430
the incentive model at work here. Can you kind of break that whole thing down for me? Because

315
00:25:46,430 --> 00:25:52,430
I've heard about it and I can see exactly why it's happened, but I'd love to hear it from

316
00:25:52,430 --> 00:25:57,230
your perspective. Sure. I'll tell you mine, but I'll also suggest that you talk to Ian about it.

317
00:25:57,230 --> 00:26:04,950
Okay. Yep. So every year we have what they call a traditional town meeting and traditional

318
00:26:04,950 --> 00:26:10,970
annual district meeting. And there are sort of other versions that different towns and cities

319
00:26:10,970 --> 00:26:16,710
in the state have. But so basically, we have an election day on a Tuesday in March, which is like

320
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next week here. And then the following Saturday, we have these meetings where people get together

321
00:26:21,770 --> 00:26:28,310
and vote on things for the town budgets, mostly, but it's really all budget related.

322
00:26:28,310 --> 00:26:35,970
and so at this particular district meeting the school board as usual put forth the budget for

323
00:26:35,970 --> 00:26:42,350
the coming year for the town to vote on except this time one of the residents who happens to

324
00:26:42,350 --> 00:26:49,470
be my husband and I was chair of the school board at the time he put a pamphlet out on the registration

325
00:26:49,470 --> 00:26:53,710
the sign-in table not registration the sign-in table when people came in if they wanted to take

326
00:26:53,710 --> 00:26:56,550
when they could and they'd have something to read while waiting for the meeting to start

327
00:26:56,550 --> 00:27:06,590
and basically it laid out why um there it is the very same pamphlet go on right budget or ransom

328
00:27:06,590 --> 00:27:12,870
there we go croydon school district meeting uh-huh right go on then yep um and so do you know the

329
00:27:12,870 --> 00:27:19,030
difference between a budget and a ransom um well i think so but go on tell me i'm probably missing

330
00:27:19,030 --> 00:27:24,970
something aren't i no probably not um i mean the way our our taxes go so wait the way budgets go is

331
00:27:24,970 --> 00:27:29,690
you have some income and you have expenses that you need to have and you figure out what you can

332
00:27:29,690 --> 00:27:34,130
spend on what and what's important and you prioritize and sometimes you don't buy things

333
00:27:34,130 --> 00:27:39,750
because you can't afford it right that's a budget right but a ransom is we tell you how much we want

334
00:27:39,750 --> 00:27:44,510
and if you don't give it to us we're going to hurt you right and those are taxes

335
00:27:44,510 --> 00:27:52,890
correct so it lays that out and explains that um in in the pamphlet and then it also explains many

336
00:27:52,890 --> 00:27:59,110
reasons why it doesn't matter how much you spend on schools, the outcomes the same. And so there's

337
00:27:59,110 --> 00:28:05,110
a chart in there that shows states that spend very little per student and very, you know, a lot per

338
00:28:05,110 --> 00:28:10,110
student and how their achievement levels are basically the same across the board. So it doesn't

339
00:28:10,110 --> 00:28:17,010
matter what you spend. So they read this pamphlet. And then it comes down to voting on the budget.

340
00:28:17,010 --> 00:28:24,570
And so then Ian gets up and he makes a motion on the floor and anybody can do this to change the amount of the budget.

341
00:28:24,670 --> 00:28:26,190
Now, this is a bottom line budget, too.

342
00:28:26,370 --> 00:28:30,510
So that means that whatever gets passed, that's what the school board gets.

343
00:28:30,730 --> 00:28:35,150
They don't have to necessarily spend it on the same line items that they have, like each thing.

344
00:28:35,210 --> 00:28:36,050
Right. So bottom line.

345
00:28:36,390 --> 00:28:39,350
Quick question. Does it come from the federal government or the local government?

346
00:28:39,990 --> 00:28:42,910
Our property taxes pay for all of it.

347
00:28:42,910 --> 00:28:58,010
We get some revenue from the state and some grants and contracts from the federal government, but that's less than 6% federal government for, on average, across the U.S., like what the schools get, because schools are a local issue.

348
00:28:58,090 --> 00:29:04,950
The federal government really has no written powers to do anything with government at the state level.

349
00:29:05,190 --> 00:29:06,710
Not government, sorry, with education.

350
00:29:06,870 --> 00:29:07,470
I said that wrong.

351
00:29:07,990 --> 00:29:08,930
At the state level.

352
00:29:08,930 --> 00:29:19,610
and the state provides revenue to the town so it offsets the cost but it doesn't change the budget

353
00:29:19,610 --> 00:29:27,170
at all right and that that's called an adequacy grant so it's supposed to mean that you that they

354
00:29:27,170 --> 00:29:36,150
will goodness provide the bare minimum is it well an adequate education undefined okay right but

355
00:29:36,150 --> 00:29:41,610
everyone's quoting a different level every state's quoting a different yeah of course and they're

356
00:29:41,610 --> 00:29:46,050
doing way more than just the bare minimum and even and they're not really measuring what's adequate

357
00:29:46,050 --> 00:29:52,330
right people graduate half the country graduates from high school reading at below a sixth grade

358
00:29:52,330 --> 00:29:57,110
level i mean that's just absurd that they're allowed to do that and yet nobody seems to care

359
00:29:57,110 --> 00:30:02,030
honestly and that's something that sort of came out of all of this even in our small town our town

360
00:30:02,030 --> 00:30:06,730
has a population of 800 people, by the way. And so at this particular district meeting,

361
00:30:06,910 --> 00:30:10,990
what were there? 35 people showed up and they were the same people that show up every year.

362
00:30:11,530 --> 00:30:17,890
And they make the decisions for the town. 35 out of 800. It's crazy. So he makes this motion.

363
00:30:19,490 --> 00:30:25,950
So I'm going to pop back to that. And he explained what was explained in the pamphlet for those who

364
00:30:25,950 --> 00:30:32,610
didn't read it and he gave his you know little um explanation for it and basically came to the

365
00:30:32,610 --> 00:30:38,310
idea that it should cost no more than ten thousand dollars per kid we have about 80 kids we actually

366
00:30:38,310 --> 00:30:43,610
upped the number a little bit for a little fluff room there was discussion around the room um and

367
00:30:43,610 --> 00:30:51,310
um the town voted for it to go it can happen that quickly can it someone raises a point and then

368
00:30:51,310 --> 00:30:51,810
That's right.

369
00:30:51,850 --> 00:30:54,890
By the end of the meeting, the budgets, what, how much did it?

370
00:30:55,190 --> 00:30:58,710
So it was 1.7 million to star and it went to 800,000.

371
00:30:59,410 --> 00:31:01,970
Right, 54% of the original budget.

372
00:31:02,250 --> 00:31:05,390
And interesting though, I must ask,

373
00:31:05,690 --> 00:31:08,750
the people who were voting to slash the budget,

374
00:31:09,250 --> 00:31:11,270
were they people that you knew well?

375
00:31:11,270 --> 00:31:14,270
Were they libertarians?

376
00:31:15,130 --> 00:31:18,650
Were they just looking at it going,

377
00:31:18,770 --> 00:31:20,790
well, hell, if we can halve the budget,

378
00:31:20,790 --> 00:31:23,470
this makes a lot of sense. We can put money elsewhere.

379
00:31:23,910 --> 00:31:29,390
Right. So who are these people? So Croydon, traditionally, I mean, these are people who

380
00:31:29,390 --> 00:31:35,530
show up to the town meetings every year. And so I know them from there, mostly. I'm not really

381
00:31:35,530 --> 00:31:39,590
good friends with anybody in town, but everybody's, you know, pretty civilized. And

382
00:31:39,590 --> 00:31:44,530
most people that we've met and had any level of conversation with, they're all libertarian,

383
00:31:44,710 --> 00:31:49,350
except they don't know the term. And so they don't know the philosophy either, but they do know they

384
00:31:49,350 --> 00:31:53,910
want the government out of their pockets and out of their bedrooms, right? Those things they would

385
00:31:53,910 --> 00:31:59,990
all agree with until it comes to schools. And then probably half of those people, and maybe

386
00:31:59,990 --> 00:32:05,150
probably less than half, but the people show up who have connections to the schools, those with

387
00:32:05,150 --> 00:32:12,450
kids or grandkids or teachers themselves or something, they just think differently about

388
00:32:12,450 --> 00:32:19,170
how schools are funded. And there's a lot of old timers. There's not a lot of kids, 80 kids out of

389
00:32:19,170 --> 00:32:26,410
800 people, you know, 300 households to put another perspective on that.

390
00:32:27,910 --> 00:32:29,290
Yeah, so more than half.

391
00:32:29,370 --> 00:32:33,070
And it was just a majority wins situation at the town meeting.

392
00:32:33,470 --> 00:32:36,090
So that put a lot of people's noses out of shape.

393
00:32:36,370 --> 00:32:36,610
Yes.

394
00:32:36,710 --> 00:32:39,610
And then some people got up and said, oh, no, this isn't happening.

395
00:32:39,610 --> 00:32:40,330
And then, right.

396
00:32:40,450 --> 00:32:45,630
So fast forward a couple of months, they found a law, a little known law, but it is a law.

397
00:32:45,630 --> 00:32:53,030
They were allowed to redo the meeting for this question and they regained the $1.7 million budget.

398
00:32:53,030 --> 00:32:55,910
So what was that little get out clause then?

399
00:32:56,230 --> 00:32:56,670
What was it?

400
00:32:58,070 --> 00:33:00,550
You know, it's funny because nobody knew about it.

401
00:33:00,650 --> 00:33:08,170
Our business administrator in the district said, you're just going to have to go to court to fight it, that there's no law that says that you can redo the vote.

402
00:33:08,970 --> 00:33:11,630
And then somebody, well, somebody found it.

403
00:33:11,650 --> 00:33:12,870
I don't even know who found it.

404
00:33:13,870 --> 00:33:15,230
But it existed.

405
00:33:15,230 --> 00:33:23,390
and that's fine but then what they did was they did a big smear and fear campaign in town to get

406
00:33:23,390 --> 00:33:29,590
everybody afraid of freestaters and ian and me in particular um and i mean they just threw mud they

407
00:33:29,590 --> 00:33:34,890
didn't they and they lied about so many things you're gonna see your taxes go up and it's like

408
00:33:34,890 --> 00:33:41,650
no the taxes would go down like or the money would go elsewhere presumably i mean that a how much did

409
00:33:41,650 --> 00:33:48,690
it save eight it was like 800 000 it was half the budget pretty much we can we can so what happens

410
00:33:48,690 --> 00:33:53,330
to that what would have happened to that extra 800 oh our property taxes would go down it wouldn't

411
00:33:53,330 --> 00:34:01,110
they wouldn't get it they would the the district would only receive the 800 000 wow yeah and were

412
00:34:01,110 --> 00:34:06,310
there unions involved do you have unions here not in our town but the larger towns i think if you

413
00:34:06,310 --> 00:34:10,970
have us under a certain number of teachers you're not required to have a union um and so we don't

414
00:34:10,970 --> 00:34:12,290
So that wasn't an issue.

415
00:34:12,690 --> 00:34:20,470
So when it was re-voted then, the people that voted in favor of it, what convinced them?

416
00:34:20,610 --> 00:34:25,830
What was it about this new finding that meant that they suddenly went, ah, we can't do that?

417
00:34:26,230 --> 00:34:30,630
Were their hands tied or was it more of a kind of opinionated vote?

418
00:34:30,950 --> 00:34:33,170
Do you mean to come to the second vote?

419
00:34:33,190 --> 00:34:34,070
The second vote, yeah.

420
00:34:34,070 --> 00:34:46,270
So what happened there was they needed a majority of the registered voters to file a ballot, to actually enter a ballot.

421
00:34:46,430 --> 00:34:47,590
So it was a closed ballot session.

422
00:34:47,870 --> 00:34:49,870
Often it's just raise your hands or yell.

423
00:34:50,930 --> 00:34:52,410
But this was a closed ballot.

424
00:34:53,150 --> 00:34:55,870
And then the vote would be valid.

425
00:34:57,810 --> 00:34:59,890
So 377 people showed up.

426
00:34:59,990 --> 00:35:03,970
So they got their quorum, which honestly to all of us was amazing.

427
00:35:04,070 --> 00:35:06,090
We didn't even expect them to get a quorum, but they did.

428
00:35:06,190 --> 00:35:11,290
But what nobody reported in the news was that 300 people didn't show up.

429
00:35:11,750 --> 00:35:16,230
So those people who wanted the $800,000 budget didn't show up.

430
00:35:16,930 --> 00:35:17,910
That's interesting.

431
00:35:18,710 --> 00:35:24,170
And what would that budget cut off look like in real life if it had happened?

432
00:35:24,170 --> 00:35:27,130
I mean, even me, I'm thinking, blimey.

433
00:35:27,530 --> 00:35:28,090
What would you do?

434
00:35:28,410 --> 00:35:28,830
Well, no.

435
00:35:28,970 --> 00:35:29,750
What does that mean?

436
00:35:29,810 --> 00:35:33,650
Do they get less books and teachers and whatever?

437
00:35:33,650 --> 00:35:45,990
I mean, it does seem like either the original budget was a complete scam or, which it probably was, that's probably what you're going to tell me, or, yeah, there's going to have to be cut.

438
00:35:46,270 --> 00:35:50,430
Would it have resulted in any kind of degradation of the service?

439
00:35:50,730 --> 00:35:53,030
Right. So you're thinking about this as a cut in budget.

440
00:35:53,210 --> 00:36:00,610
But Ian's idea was, no, let's start with a bottom-up budget and let's see what we can do with the $800,000 that we're going to get.

441
00:36:00,610 --> 00:36:11,050
And so what ended up happening in reality was that the district administrators stepped back and basically said, we have no idea how to handle this.

442
00:36:11,970 --> 00:36:15,950
And they used to sit in the front of the room with us in the school board meetings.

443
00:36:16,130 --> 00:36:19,250
They moved to sit with the audience after this happened.

444
00:36:19,530 --> 00:36:23,330
I mean, so both by stating it and physically, they did all this.

445
00:36:23,330 --> 00:36:29,750
And in hindsight, they should have been fired because it is their job to figure out what to do with the budget that the town votes for.

446
00:36:30,610 --> 00:36:35,370
Um, and, but hindsight is always good, right?

447
00:36:35,510 --> 00:36:39,930
But when we were there, the school board said, well, if they're not going to do it, we have

448
00:36:39,930 --> 00:36:40,210
to.

449
00:36:40,390 --> 00:36:44,250
And so then we got ourselves moving and figuring out what we could do.

450
00:36:44,410 --> 00:36:48,570
We were, you know, talking to people at the state level and the, you know, the Department

451
00:36:48,570 --> 00:36:51,390
of Ed to advise us on what our options were.

452
00:36:51,390 --> 00:37:00,170
And so what we ended up deciding on, um, was having these new things called micro schools

453
00:37:00,170 --> 00:37:04,630
right that started popping up they started popping up probably back in 2010 but really

454
00:37:04,630 --> 00:37:11,510
surged during the um the pandemic um and the state was actually supporting micro schools

455
00:37:11,510 --> 00:37:17,870
post pandemic so this is 2022 this happened right i've never heard that term before can you go can

456
00:37:17,870 --> 00:37:21,930
you explain what that is is that a bunch of people getting together and just employing a teacher

457
00:37:21,930 --> 00:37:28,870
basically yes um micro school so you've never heard that okay no but i mean um we did a similar

458
00:37:28,870 --> 00:37:35,570
well we during the during the first lockdown that we had we all thought the same thing and actually

459
00:37:35,570 --> 00:37:42,230
opened my eyes to the fact that um we homeschooled for a year after what during the pandemic actually

460
00:37:42,230 --> 00:37:48,150
was we went away but that whole thing opened my eyes to the prospect that maybe if i privately

461
00:37:48,150 --> 00:37:55,250
funded my kids education i.e found them a teacher and got together with my neighbors we could give

462
00:37:55,250 --> 00:38:00,530
them a phenomenal education for a fraction of the price. It sounds like the same theory here.

463
00:38:00,870 --> 00:38:05,730
That was the same theory. And so the organizations that the state was supporting,

464
00:38:06,130 --> 00:38:11,270
one was called Prenda. And what they do is they bring in somebody who isn't a certified teacher

465
00:38:11,270 --> 00:38:16,390
necessarily, although we could require them to be certified, but they just knew how to facilitate

466
00:38:16,390 --> 00:38:22,230
student learning. And then half the day, they would be on computers and moving at their own pace.

467
00:38:22,230 --> 00:38:25,290
and then there were projects that they would all do together

468
00:38:25,290 --> 00:38:27,970
and, you know, things like that, and that's how it would be run.

469
00:38:28,350 --> 00:38:31,810
I mean, the town was up in arms about those people who were, you know,

470
00:38:31,870 --> 00:38:34,930
against the $800,000 budget, the parents in particular.

471
00:38:35,670 --> 00:38:38,470
So, I mean, that's the general idea behind micro schools.

472
00:38:38,570 --> 00:38:52,100
So there a whole bunch that have popped up that are there something called Acton I said Prenda already There Kypods and those are like the most famous names But you can How many kids in one of them for example A maximum of like 10

473
00:38:52,340 --> 00:38:54,920
And do they have a property or do they do it in someone's house?

474
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:56,440
You have to give them a place.

475
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:58,320
And they would have done it in our school.

476
00:38:58,820 --> 00:38:59,980
So that would have been easy.

477
00:39:01,620 --> 00:39:06,540
So we only have a K-4 village school is what we call it.

478
00:39:06,540 --> 00:39:13,180
and so um you know it's honest we didn't even think about this but we could have reduced that

479
00:39:13,180 --> 00:39:18,480
to k to three to even have fewer students but we really have like 25 to 30 kids in those grades so

480
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:23,780
we could have had a few pods like that they call them pods learning pods um it's a good way to

481
00:39:23,780 --> 00:39:29,880
describe them yeah um although it's sound derogatory to call it a pod so it's turned into

482
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:34,200
that somehow i don't know why maybe that's because they've been vilified yeah probably

483
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:38,300
And then even micro school, I don't like that they use the term school because it's done

484
00:39:38,300 --> 00:39:38,680
differently.

485
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:40,640
Again, it's a grassroots thing to do it.

486
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:43,400
So I'm trying to use learning center as the more generic term.

487
00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:45,960
And anybody can start a learning center.

488
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:50,260
You have to, in New Hampshire, actually, probably anywhere, you have to officially homeschool

489
00:39:50,260 --> 00:39:53,920
your kid in order for them to attend these learning centers.

490
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:58,120
That wouldn't have been the case, right, had we done the micro school in our school.

491
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,880
So yeah, there's somebody just in the next town in Newport who she and a friend just

492
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:07,900
started a learning center meant for poorer kids that weren't fitting into the local Newport public

493
00:40:07,900 --> 00:40:13,700
schools. And so she has about 15 kids. This is her second year. How many of those micro schools are

494
00:40:13,700 --> 00:40:19,640
just four families getting together and educating their own kids? So when they when the families do

495
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:25,400
that, they're called homeschool co-ops. So they're not really hiring somebody to do it. And there's a

496
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:30,260
ton of them. They're uncountable because nobody reports them. They're not like official businesses

497
00:40:30,260 --> 00:40:35,020
or anything. But, you know, some families will get, it's like the Upper Valley. We live in the

498
00:40:35,020 --> 00:40:39,480
Upper Valley of New Hampshire. It's what the region is called. Sun at B to Dartmouth goes

499
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:46,460
into Vermont a little too, actually. They get together weekly or more. They might hire somebody.

500
00:40:46,540 --> 00:40:53,000
They have somebody now who teaches both coding skills, like programming, and what's it called?

501
00:40:53,000 --> 00:41:00,960
like acting, but what's it called? Improv. He teaches an improv class. And so the kids who

502
00:41:00,960 --> 00:41:07,680
are interested go to that and he's hired to do it. Ian and I, my husband and I also teach a

503
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:12,880
creative writing class this year. We're going to publish a book out of it. Not creative. I keep

504
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:18,500
messing my words up. A short story writing class. And so Ian writes, he's published a number of

505
00:41:18,500 --> 00:41:22,700
books. And so he's sort of the expert in that area. And I've done the publishing. So we do this

506
00:41:22,700 --> 00:41:27,580
together and we have about i don't know four families kids who come to this or five and it

507
00:41:27,580 --> 00:41:31,380
goes up and down each week so anyway that's what they do and we don't even get paid so they're not

508
00:41:31,380 --> 00:41:35,040
hiring us we do it because we we're part of the community and we just want to contribute

509
00:41:35,040 --> 00:41:41,000
so that's a co-op where and they'll do fun things too they'll go to museums they'll go to parks

510
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:46,640
they'll go skiing you know do the micro schools run as a business then they can yes and they and

511
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:51,780
they generally do yeah are they are they an entrepreneurial thing or are they more of a kind

512
00:41:51,780 --> 00:41:59,000
of social thing. Totally entrepreneurial. Yeah. Wow. And what about the funding for them then?

513
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:05,340
So if it was 10,000 per child, like, is there any way to get that 10,000 if you want to homeschool

514
00:42:05,340 --> 00:42:12,640
your kids? Right. So, so. Because that, we can't do that back home either. Right. So,

515
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:18,160
so there are these things that are running around the country now called education savings accounts.

516
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:28,420
and this is state funded um i mean people call them grants uh that kids can get they're around

517
00:42:28,420 --> 00:42:37,000
five thousand dollars each per year per year um and they can only be used on approved places you

518
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:41,820
know so anybody that you go to so if it's that micro school of learning center they have to be

519
00:42:41,820 --> 00:42:47,040
approved by the scholarship organization that that handles the in new hampshire they're called

520
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:49,000
education freedom accounts, EFAs.

521
00:42:50,020 --> 00:42:52,520
Everywhere else, education savings accounts, ESAs.

522
00:42:52,540 --> 00:42:53,900
And different states call them different things.

523
00:42:54,540 --> 00:42:55,760
So that's a new thing.

524
00:42:55,940 --> 00:42:58,600
But so again, it is state pays for this.

525
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:00,900
So this is the government getting more involved

526
00:43:00,900 --> 00:43:02,860
in homeschool education.

527
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:04,300
It can be used for private schools too.

528
00:43:04,380 --> 00:43:05,140
I want to throw that in.

529
00:43:05,500 --> 00:43:06,320
Kind of paying for it.

530
00:43:06,380 --> 00:43:09,020
$5,000 a year doesn't really fund much, does it?

531
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:11,500
You'd be surprised.

532
00:43:11,700 --> 00:43:11,960
Really?

533
00:43:12,180 --> 00:43:13,980
So homeschool families tend to spend

534
00:43:13,980 --> 00:43:16,020
less than $1,000 per year per kid.

535
00:43:16,020 --> 00:43:23,660
that's without funding really but what about i mean what what i loved about the realizations i

536
00:43:23,660 --> 00:43:31,560
had during the first lockdown were that online i could find very high class very highly regarded

537
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:38,680
teachers who were prepared to teach groups of people online relatively cheaply because it's

538
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:43,420
you know they make they would they make more money than they would being a physical teacher

539
00:43:43,420 --> 00:43:49,920
in real life, if you see what I mean, because each student is charged a smaller amount per student,

540
00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:53,940
but they get directly all the money pretty much because it's, you know.

541
00:43:54,500 --> 00:43:55,240
Right, no overhead.

542
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:55,600
Yeah.

543
00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:56,400
Pretty much, yeah.

544
00:43:56,460 --> 00:43:58,440
And in fact, I told this story to someone the other day.

545
00:43:58,540 --> 00:44:00,000
I'm a Bitcoiner.

546
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:01,340
I've been a Bitcoiner for a long time.

547
00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:05,800
And the most famous Bitcoiner in existence, a guy called Safety in a Moose, he wrote the

548
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:08,820
Bitcoin Standard, which is the kind of Bible of the Bitcoin world.

549
00:44:08,820 --> 00:44:14,760
I started studying with him during the pandemic because I I was sitting around thinking what's

550
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:20,440
going on no one's doing anything and I thought online education and it turns out I could study

551
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:26,540
with the most preeminent person in the field I wanted to study and it cost and I did a 10-week

552
00:44:26,540 --> 00:44:31,520
course with him for $70 and they were like and this was really he didn't charge you Bitcoin what

553
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:35,620
no you paid him Bitcoin I paid him Bitcoin back then I probably ended up paying about

554
00:44:35,620 --> 00:44:38,040
I probably ended up paying $500 now.

555
00:44:38,380 --> 00:44:39,780
But, you know, it doesn't matter.

556
00:44:40,320 --> 00:44:41,540
Bitcoiners always do that.

557
00:44:42,260 --> 00:44:54,240
The point was that I suddenly realized, oh, my God, if I can do that with this, like, imagine if me and five families I knew got together.

558
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,320
We could probably hire a very proficient teacher.

559
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:03,460
You know, if we all chipped in, like, a lot, if we put in $10,000, that's $50,000.

560
00:45:03,580 --> 00:45:05,540
That's, you know, where we live, that's a salary.

561
00:45:05,620 --> 00:45:12,660
you could get you get a full-time very good teacher to teach very closely with just five

562
00:45:12,660 --> 00:45:17,840
of your kids anyway it sent my mind reeling and I realized that there were much better ways to do it

563
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:25,560
obviously so you've obviously discovered this a lot sooner than we did yeah but um so what's the

564
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:31,320
current situation with micro schools and and these kind of the pod ones what do you what do you what

565
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,800
have you decided to call them? Learning centers. Learning centers. I'll write that down. What about,

566
00:45:36,300 --> 00:45:42,940
so are they, are they flourishing? They are still growing. They are. And so, I mean,

567
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:47,940
it's interesting. So this is an interesting segue for me. So more and more families are realizing

568
00:45:47,940 --> 00:45:52,980
that the schools aren't giving them everything they need. Right. So, I mean, I just talk about

569
00:45:52,980 --> 00:45:56,400
academic achievement, right. With half the kids not really learning to read. I mean,

570
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:01,220
half the adults in the U S read at below sixth grade level. How do they quantify that? I

571
00:46:01,220 --> 00:46:05,680
hear those kind of stats all the time and it seems hard to believe that's a good question you know

572
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:13,900
what i don't know how they measure it yeah um do you have anecdotal evidence i mean if i i don't

573
00:46:13,900 --> 00:46:19,560
know i thought the way that government schools worked was they they quantified results and if

574
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:24,060
they weren't getting results then they tried to make them better right but that's what except for

575
00:46:24,060 --> 00:46:29,000
that last part yeah i agree with you yeah but why but but what's the point of just seeing schools

576
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,780
get worse and not doing something about it then that because maybe that's not their goal

577
00:46:32,780 --> 00:46:38,320
right schools have turned government schools anyway have turned into daycare centers more

578
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:43,660
than anything because working families right you got two family two parents working they can't or

579
00:46:43,660 --> 00:46:48,540
single parents or you know whatever um they what are they going to do with their kids during the

580
00:46:48,540 --> 00:46:53,500
day and so then they've added things on like what's the evolution of schools been right it used to be

581
00:46:53,500 --> 00:46:58,580
reading and math and that was it it's all they did in the original like one room schoolhouses at least

582
00:46:58,580 --> 00:47:04,780
in the US. And now they do everything, right? And, you know, there's nothing wrong with learning arts

583
00:47:04,780 --> 00:47:09,520
and gym and music. And there's nothing wrong with that shop and, you know, whatever skills.

584
00:47:09,940 --> 00:47:15,340
But why is everybody paying for those things? You know, you know, where I grew up, we didn't,

585
00:47:15,420 --> 00:47:18,180
I didn't grow up with a lot of money. And because my parents didn't have a lot of money,

586
00:47:18,240 --> 00:47:22,100
I didn't get to do a bunch of things. It's just how it works, right? It's luck of the draw.

587
00:47:22,460 --> 00:47:27,440
I didn't feel entitled that somebody else should be paying for ballet lessons for me or whatever.

588
00:47:28,580 --> 00:47:33,360
But today people do feel entitled that that's what schools offer and that's what they should

589
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:34,000
always offer.

590
00:47:34,780 --> 00:47:36,620
So I'll jump back to the Croydon budget thing.

591
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:42,500
We were asking parents about what their priorities were because we needed to figure this out.

592
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:49,000
And hands down, not one of them mentioned better academics, better reading.

593
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:51,100
They wanted extracurriculars.

594
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:52,300
They wanted sports.

595
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,180
They wanted job training.

596
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:58,400
And though they didn't say it, they wanted daycare because they wanted no transportation.

597
00:47:58,580 --> 00:48:03,220
who's going to pick them up and drop them off and you know this whole thing um so yeah they're just

598
00:48:03,220 --> 00:48:11,200
i don't know less interested in it and i can't explain that well i mean there's no doubt that

599
00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:18,140
schooling is changing and i would say it's not all bad because if you look to the schools of the past

600
00:48:18,140 --> 00:48:26,180
they were very much they were like production lines to prepare your kids to work in very specific

601
00:48:26,180 --> 00:48:34,640
kind of jobs I think you know whereas these days a lot of those jobs I mean the whole job market's

602
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:40,420
changing isn't it the whole of the whole of everything's changing and as a result your

603
00:48:40,420 --> 00:48:46,600
priorities in educating your kids this is my experience at least have to be different and

604
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:53,860
even things like university for example when I when I went to university when I was young

605
00:48:53,860 --> 00:48:59,860
it was an achievement to get to university it was like i mean it was a very small percentage of

606
00:48:59,860 --> 00:49:06,760
people that went and now large amounts of people go to university so it's really just further

607
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:13,540
education it's not it yeah it's so you don't get a you don't get a benefit necessarily it's more

608
00:49:13,540 --> 00:49:18,380
like keep them in the system keep the money coming in keep them to the end but you're dilute you've

609
00:49:18,380 --> 00:49:24,000
diluted the levels of achievement. That's exactly right. And I mean, it's interesting

610
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:30,260
why that might have happened. So back when we were in college, what they found was that with

611
00:49:30,260 --> 00:49:34,240
a college education, you were more successful than if you didn't have one. So therefore,

612
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:40,520
everybody should go to college. But it's not, it's a correlation. It's not a causation. And so now

613
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:45,460
people go to college who aren't really meant for college to learn the things that college are going

614
00:49:45,460 --> 00:49:50,380
to teach them um and now of course there's a trend going the other way getting back to the trades

615
00:49:50,380 --> 00:49:56,940
and not going to college um so do you know mike rowe you know who he is right mike rowe mike yes

616
00:49:56,940 --> 00:50:02,660
yeah so he has like a scholarship for people to go learn the trades so there are you know cool

617
00:50:02,660 --> 00:50:07,600
things like that going on you have that problem here as well do you yeah trades people are

618
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:12,880
oh yeah it's hard to find them and trades and would do you find that the trades people that

619
00:50:12,880 --> 00:50:18,020
do exist are doing very well in life are they they're they're learning good money they're some

620
00:50:18,020 --> 00:50:23,140
are some aren't right yeah that depends on their own you know what they say about starting a

621
00:50:23,140 --> 00:50:27,020
business is just because you have the skills doesn't mean you have the business chops so you

622
00:50:27,020 --> 00:50:31,140
need a team and not everybody does that they try to do everything right so they don't necessarily

623
00:50:31,140 --> 00:50:37,880
do it all um well you know if you will but yeah it's just hard to find them and they don't show up

624
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:44,360
you need a scheduler yeah but that's because it's funny that isn't it when you well in my experience

625
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:50,020
dealing with builders it's one of the only businesses i know where they can completely

626
00:50:50,020 --> 00:50:54,900
sort of like let you down but you still kind of have them back you know what i mean like

627
00:50:54,900 --> 00:51:00,480
because they're in such demand i think possibly i mean that will obviously the market will change

628
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:06,760
that presumably over the next few years because certainly where we live um trades people are doing

629
00:51:06,760 --> 00:51:13,960
very well um you know when i was young um the kind of the white collar jobs were what everyone

630
00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:22,540
wanted um and the blue collar jobs were less paid it's now pretty much you know what you would pay

631
00:51:22,540 --> 00:51:27,760
on a daily basis i'll give an example so when i was a journalist in london i worked for a national

632
00:51:27,760 --> 00:51:32,660
newspaper and i ended up i was the chief photographer at a national newspaper so and this

633
00:51:32,660 --> 00:51:40,460
was in the early 2000s so i was doing pretty well and i think my day rate was about 275 pounds a day

634
00:51:40,460 --> 00:51:47,640
right now our plumber gets more than that when he comes around and at the time i think a plumber

635
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:55,160
would have been more like 125 pounds a day so that the system has flipped on its head yeah and um

636
00:51:55,160 --> 00:52:00,720
especially because i think most plumbers most trades people are also self-employed

637
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:04,840
self-employed you make more money when you're self-employed and if you're a good business

638
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:11,060
person obviously um but you know agreed their costs have definitely gone up yeah well i mean

639
00:52:11,060 --> 00:52:15,340
and we that's i'd say that's a good thing i wouldn't say that's a necessarily a bad thing

640
00:52:15,340 --> 00:52:21,420
i say that's a fair thing i agree um so it's a market thing exactly the market has but is it to

641
00:52:21,420 --> 00:52:28,380
do with the fact that there's less of them or is it to do with the fact that the whole world is

642
00:52:28,380 --> 00:52:34,420
changing and um things are becoming i don't know we've got more things that need fixing right

643
00:52:34,420 --> 00:52:41,820
haven't we like you know like i i i never fix my own car for example because i can't i open the

644
00:52:41,820 --> 00:52:48,400
well i can actually i can now i've gone back to an older car now but the one before that used to

645
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:53,520
bleep at me all the time saying something's wrong and we had to plug it into a computer and in my

646
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:58,240
local garage said sorry mate i can't i can't fix that we have to send that to the dealer you know

647
00:52:58,240 --> 00:53:04,120
so so is it is it that there's less trades people or is it that we've got more stuff that needs

648
00:53:04,120 --> 00:53:12,760
specialist fixing or i don't know wow both yeah i mean certainly there's fewer trades people um

649
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:17,560
and that's why we need more right um and i don't know about you but if i go to a car guy and i

650
00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:22,560
don't like how he fixed my car i'm not going back to him have you got enough choice around here though

651
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,060
Oh, yeah. Oh, goodness, yeah.

652
00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:30,620
But what about, so at these micro schools and learning centers and all this kind of stuff, what are they teaching then?

653
00:53:31,100 --> 00:53:32,940
What's the kind of focus of those places?

654
00:53:32,940 --> 00:53:37,340
Do they think in a more contemporary way about education?

655
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:40,200
In the sense that it's individualized learning, yes.

656
00:53:40,660 --> 00:53:45,680
The idea is that each kid moves at his own pace to get where he needs to go.

657
00:53:46,080 --> 00:53:48,580
And do you need some kind of what we would call a national curriculum?

658
00:53:48,580 --> 00:54:11,280
So when the schools, government schools have something called a national curriculum, obviously, if you homeschool, you can you can do whatever you want. But what do you base homes? What are these on the whole? What do these micro schools base their learning on? Is it like, right, get them to this level of maths and English or whatever? And then what? See where the kids, you know, what you call like self-directed education.

659
00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:19,100
Right. Try to find their interests. Exactly. And help them move in those directions and try things that that they might like to do, like any homeschool family would. Yeah.

660
00:54:19,460 --> 00:54:40,100
And do you have any idea? I know that homeschoolers always say that their kids are much better than I know that everyone says it. I have an anecdotal evidence of that. My kids, when we during the pandemic, we went away for a year to escape the lockdowns, you know, and we homeschooled really basically.

661
00:54:40,100 --> 00:54:46,440
basically i just took the school curriculum away with us in a book and thought right as long as they

662
00:54:46,440 --> 00:54:50,840
get to the end of this by the end of this year we should be good because they're probably going to

663
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:57,260
go back to school after this right and i did about an hour me and my wife we did about an hour a day

664
00:54:57,260 --> 00:55:04,860
if if that and towards the end we would take weeks off you know and they did actually end up in when

665
00:55:04,860 --> 00:55:08,660
they went back to school they were ahead of everyone else because nobody else did that well

666
00:55:08,660 --> 00:55:12,440
I mean, no, this was when, this was the kids that actually carried on going to school.

667
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:13,560
This was after the pandemic.

668
00:55:13,720 --> 00:55:20,100
So it wasn't, you know, it was simply because, Mark, well, my understanding was it was simply

669
00:55:20,100 --> 00:55:23,440
because I taught them one-on-one.

670
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:29,940
And as a result, we moved fast through the stuff that they could understand.

671
00:55:30,260 --> 00:55:33,260
And we never went past the stuff that they didn't understand.

672
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,400
So they understood everything by the end of it.

673
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:40,300
because you know what it's like in a in a classroom when you've got 25 30 people

674
00:55:40,300 --> 00:55:45,720
you you if they don't all get it you don't wait for everyone you just move on and half the time

675
00:55:45,720 --> 00:55:51,481
no one knows what's going on whereas when you're dealing with a kid one-on-one you can tell when

676
00:55:51,481 --> 00:55:56,960
it's clicked and you can read and we had this policy where we don't go past this page until

677
00:55:56,960 --> 00:56:02,660
you really understand it actually not that you get the question right through kind of guessing or

678
00:56:02,660 --> 00:56:06,920
whatever which is what they do in a lot of schools but you really have to understand what's going on

679
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:11,460
here and after time that meant me understanding it as well because you know the other thing i

680
00:56:11,460 --> 00:56:17,460
discovered about school was none of it really well a lot of it didn't matter a lot of what even what

681
00:56:17,460 --> 00:56:24,040
i was teaching them at age nine um yeah i don't really use that in real life you know what i mean

682
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:28,820
right and so if you homeschool you have the flexibility to do whatever you think your kids

683
00:56:28,820 --> 00:56:33,320
need to learn? Boy, there's so many things that you've said there. So first of all, I would start

684
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:38,180
with this. One of the things they do in school is they start you learning to read in first grade.

685
00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:43,380
And actually now it's in kindergarten in the US. And a lot of kids just aren't really ready for

686
00:56:43,380 --> 00:56:47,540
that. If you're homeschooling or you're in a micro school, they're going to wait till you're

687
00:56:47,540 --> 00:56:52,720
ready. They'll do like things to make you ready, you know, make sure you know your letter sounds

688
00:56:52,720 --> 00:56:56,900
and make it, you know, even fun. Kids should be playing at that age. Kids really should be

689
00:56:56,900 --> 00:57:01,080
spending time with their parents and their families until they're ready to learn to read.

690
00:57:01,140 --> 00:57:02,660
And then they should go to school.

691
00:57:02,740 --> 00:57:05,220
But nope, we have mandatory schooling starting at six.

692
00:57:05,740 --> 00:57:07,800
So kindergarten is not mandatory here, by the way.

693
00:57:09,380 --> 00:57:17,220
And then most homeschool families that I know spend like a maximum of three hours a day on school-related stuff.

694
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:23,320
And then there are some that do unschooling, which they don't sit their kids down to learn this stuff.

695
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:26,940
and they pick it up when they need it and when they're ready.

696
00:57:27,580 --> 00:57:33,280
John Holt, he's an author that I first found these ideas from.

697
00:57:34,220 --> 00:57:38,800
He said, when a kid is ready to learn, it'll take him about two weeks.

698
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:39,960
You just give him some feedback.

699
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:43,280
Like he'll ask you questions like, what does this say?

700
00:57:43,360 --> 00:57:46,481
And so on, two weeks, and he'll be a fluent reader when he's ready.

701
00:57:46,620 --> 00:57:47,280
Why push it?

702
00:57:47,500 --> 00:57:50,040
Some kids aren't ready until they're nine or so.

703
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:52,780
And then things like the Waldorf School,

704
00:57:52,780 --> 00:57:53,860
This is a private school.

705
00:57:53,981 --> 00:57:59,740
They have a different approach to teaching than most schools, even private schools.

706
00:57:59,900 --> 00:58:03,640
They wait for a kid to be ready before they actually force them to read.

707
00:58:03,780 --> 00:58:15,550
Also they don allow them to use any technology But now I would argue that the level of technology today can really help kids learn individually when they ready and not move forward until they know

708
00:58:15,550 --> 00:58:23,731
I mean, the thing that, you know, my husband and I have often said, like when you're learning math and you're in school and you get a C, you learn 70% of the stuff.

709
00:58:23,831 --> 00:58:28,651
Like which 30% do you not need to move on to the next piece of material?

710
00:58:28,951 --> 00:58:33,771
You know, it's just the mind reels to think about that, that this is allowable.

711
00:58:34,091 --> 00:58:44,731
hmm yes 100 and unschooling i have unschooler friends back home um and they tend to use online

712
00:58:44,731 --> 00:58:52,191
platforms which basically give you a list of things what do you want to study and i wholeheartedly

713
00:58:52,191 --> 00:58:57,771
agree with that that idea i'll tell you where i find i find it a bit uncomfortable so for example

714
00:58:57,771 --> 00:59:06,970
my daughter my oldest daughter is very intelligent and as a result school's easy for her and we speak

715
00:59:06,970 --> 00:59:13,291
very candidly about it and so she's often saying this is a waste of time this is crap or calculus

716
00:59:13,291 --> 00:59:18,411
even they're doing calculus at aged 11 and i'm looking at it going what do you think about this

717
00:59:18,411 --> 00:59:24,791
and she's like you know how am i going to use this you know but you know and whereas if you

718
00:59:24,791 --> 00:59:32,631
compare that to so she's a horse rider if you basically said right Alice you're you're not going

719
00:59:32,631 --> 00:59:38,231
to go to school instead run our stables as a business you wouldn't see her she'd be up at six

720
00:59:38,231 --> 00:59:43,811
in the morning she'd be doing all that stuff she'd be egging to go she'd see money coming in she'd have

721
00:59:43,811 --> 00:59:50,431
to do a cost benefit analysis on stuff she'd have to buy and sell things you know that I know in my

722
00:59:50,431 --> 00:59:58,731
heart of hearts would be exactly the way to school her right however this is where this is where i

723
00:59:58,731 --> 01:00:05,871
i came up with a problem the problem is right so she wants to be a vet right and you know i know at

724
01:00:05,871 --> 01:00:11,231
11 you you could you could change your mind right but there's only one way to become a vet in the

725
01:00:11,231 --> 01:00:16,691
uk and that is to go through five years of further education even six sometimes it's one of the most

726
01:00:16,691 --> 01:00:23,111
highly contested things you can do you need you need more than than being a doctor yeah in the

727
01:00:23,111 --> 01:00:32,371
US too right god knows why um but um so so I can't do that for her you know because because I know

728
01:00:32,371 --> 01:00:39,171
that I want her options to stay open and that my my sort of the way I've made peace with it is that

729
01:00:39,171 --> 01:00:45,351
we talk about how futile a lot of school is she understands that she understands that if she's in

730
01:00:45,351 --> 01:00:50,251
a lesson and she's like bored that's absolutely fine that doesn't mean anything's wrong that means

731
01:00:50,251 --> 01:00:55,771
they're wrong but you're actually in this thing and you kind of have to you have to find a way

732
01:00:55,771 --> 01:00:59,831
to deal with it she has to keep her eye on the prize yeah and and figure out how to get there

733
01:00:59,831 --> 01:01:04,951
well it's a good skill to know too actually well exactly yeah and i think i mean what we've always

734
01:01:04,951 --> 01:01:11,731
taught them and that i think my big realization is being of being a parent is that that this

735
01:01:11,731 --> 01:01:18,530
the sort of the superpower you can give your kids currently is critical thinking that's all it is

736
01:01:18,530 --> 01:01:25,291
you don't even really need to point them in particular educational directions because here's

737
01:01:25,291 --> 01:01:35,391
another good example right so um without prompting at all my daughter the same one um put together

738
01:01:35,391 --> 01:01:42,710
a book of all the things she knew about horses so she put it together so she did word processing

739
01:01:42,710 --> 01:01:50,431
she did um you know design she she's got books she worked you know and she'll tell you she'll

740
01:01:50,431 --> 01:01:57,631
quote things about veterinary science that that i have got no idea but she's read it and she wants

741
01:01:57,631 --> 01:02:03,071
to find it out she's i'm not telling her right now go and do your veterinary science stuff you know

742
01:02:03,071 --> 01:02:09,851
and but yeah but you know the only way is to go through the system unfortunately to do that but

743
01:02:09,851 --> 01:02:17,871
can she could she get a homeschooled high school diploma and then go on to college university

744
01:02:17,871 --> 01:02:23,550
studying the things she needs she could but i think when you look at the cost benefit analysis

745
01:02:23,550 --> 01:02:32,791
of that going to school is better simply because now me and my wife both work basically and liz my

746
01:02:32,791 --> 01:02:38,431
wife was a mum for the first sort of eight or nine years and then she started her own business

747
01:02:38,431 --> 01:02:44,210
because the kids were going to school more and she personally she doesn't like teaching she's not an

748
01:02:44,210 --> 01:02:49,951
innate teacher whereas I love it but I can't do it all the time that's the thing because I'm the

749
01:02:49,951 --> 01:02:55,571
main breadwinner you know so the when you you know like looking at it on paper you the decision is

750
01:02:55,571 --> 01:03:00,431
okay and the school's great and the bus picks them up from the end of the lane and they've got great

751
01:03:00,431 --> 01:03:05,771
friends at school and they're happy at school and you know but but but in all honesty if i if i think

752
01:03:05,771 --> 01:03:13,871
about it truly she could be getting a much better education if we were in a different scenario right

753
01:03:13,871 --> 01:03:20,471
and if she didn't want to be a veterinarian even then i would still do the same thing i i would well

754
01:03:20,471 --> 01:03:27,451
like what is she learning at school actually learning that that that is important at that age

755
01:03:27,451 --> 01:03:33,210
it's it's really not much really what's important is that she likes her friends and she likes hanging

756
01:03:33,210 --> 01:03:39,691
out and she loves sports and they all do sport together which is and all these things are useful

757
01:03:39,691 --> 01:03:44,530
and i know homeschooling you could organize your own sport events oh here you can even take them

758
01:03:44,530 --> 01:03:49,411
in the public schools you can be on the sports teams if you're homeschooling right yeah but that

759
01:03:49,411 --> 01:03:53,651
would be great i don't know we wouldn't be able to do that i think you're either in or out of the

760
01:03:53,651 --> 01:03:57,751
system where we are which is weird because you're paying for the system too you should get the

761
01:03:57,751 --> 01:04:04,911
benefits correct we are and um in fact you even if you go to private school you're still paying

762
01:04:04,911 --> 01:04:10,030
tax that goes to fund the public school system the private what we call the government school

763
01:04:10,030 --> 01:04:14,831
is actually we call it public school you here you call it public school is private school in the uk

764
01:04:14,831 --> 01:04:20,151
i know that and i don't get it no i don't get it i think it goes there's something historical

765
01:04:20,151 --> 01:04:25,311
you know what other types of schooling are there now you've mentioned unschooling

766
01:04:25,311 --> 01:04:33,371
micro schools learning centers um self self-directed education like you run a non

767
01:04:33,371 --> 01:04:38,231
are you running do you run a education non-profit i do what what other kind of

768
01:04:38,231 --> 01:04:44,631
versions of this are people trying out if any so charter schools and that's also publicly funded

769
01:04:44,631 --> 01:04:47,490
that's paid for wholly by the state.

770
01:04:48,210 --> 01:04:50,831
And they're all public charter schools.

771
01:04:50,990 --> 01:04:52,510
They're supposed to have a different angle

772
01:04:52,510 --> 01:04:53,490
than the public schools.

773
01:04:53,651 --> 01:04:55,990
Many of them teach classical education, for example.

774
01:04:57,251 --> 01:04:59,710
There's a curriculum they follow with Hillsdale College.

775
01:05:00,651 --> 01:05:02,851
They do nature, for example,

776
01:05:02,990 --> 01:05:03,990
like that might be their focus.

777
01:05:04,671 --> 01:05:05,530
They can change,

778
01:05:06,311 --> 01:05:08,271
they have flexibility in how they run things.

779
01:05:08,271 --> 01:05:09,431
So they have a charter,

780
01:05:09,431 --> 01:05:15,191
which signifies what they believe and what they do.

781
01:05:15,451 --> 01:05:15,571
Correct.

782
01:05:15,591 --> 01:05:17,731
Are they religious schools often or not?

783
01:05:17,731 --> 01:05:18,251
They're not.

784
01:05:18,411 --> 01:05:22,311
Actually, as a publicly funded school, I don't think they can be religious.

785
01:05:22,631 --> 01:05:22,751
Right.

786
01:05:22,971 --> 01:05:24,530
Give me an example of one then.

787
01:05:24,710 --> 01:05:25,771
What's their bent?

788
01:05:25,871 --> 01:05:26,651
What's their angle?

789
01:05:26,891 --> 01:05:28,871
Oh, I mean, the ones I know mostly in New Hampshire

790
01:05:28,871 --> 01:05:32,451
and they're popping up is this classical education.

791
01:05:33,050 --> 01:05:34,030
Kids wear uniforms.

792
01:05:34,691 --> 01:05:36,691
They're just stricter about things.

793
01:05:36,691 --> 01:05:40,030
they still have large class sizes

794
01:05:40,030 --> 01:05:41,951
and

795
01:05:41,951 --> 01:05:44,651
the values that they teach

796
01:05:44,651 --> 01:05:46,411
you know they're not using

797
01:05:46,411 --> 01:05:49,471
what is it called

798
01:05:49,471 --> 01:05:50,490
DEI

799
01:05:50,490 --> 01:05:52,751
diversity equity inclusion

800
01:05:52,751 --> 01:05:55,010
exactly they don't use things like that

801
01:05:55,010 --> 01:05:55,710
the critical

802
01:05:55,710 --> 01:05:58,931
CRT critical race theory stuff

803
01:05:58,931 --> 01:05:59,911
they don't do that stuff

804
01:05:59,911 --> 01:06:01,530
so it's really more about the values

805
01:06:01,530 --> 01:06:03,030
that the parents prefer

806
01:06:03,030 --> 01:06:05,891
it's funny they call it a classical education

807
01:06:05,891 --> 01:06:12,831
and it's basically what i don't know how you your education was but that's when my daughters get the

808
01:06:12,831 --> 01:06:20,010
same education pretty much they wear school uniform they you know i don't know the dei stuff does

809
01:06:20,010 --> 01:06:26,671
does exist but it's it's more that it rather than being taught it's that you get the odd teacher who

810
01:06:26,671 --> 01:06:32,510
who likes to talk about it a lot and includes it in their lesson plans and that kind of stuff and

811
01:06:32,510 --> 01:06:37,071
And it's not as bad, I think, as I've heard it is here.

812
01:06:37,111 --> 01:06:38,111
Is it really that bad?

813
01:06:38,831 --> 01:06:45,671
It's hard to say because it's not in the curricula, you know, like you can't look at the materials and say, oh, here's where they're doing it.

814
01:06:45,671 --> 01:06:49,851
But there's evidence more than I mean, can I just say anecdotal?

815
01:06:49,991 --> 01:06:55,351
Maybe. I mean, I mean, that's just diversity, equity, inclusion.

816
01:06:55,351 --> 01:07:08,231
I mean, then they have these books that look like pornography books to me in the children's libraries, you know, which in the school libraries, too, that a lot of parents are really not happy with.

817
01:07:08,291 --> 01:07:10,611
This is yet another thing that parents aren't happy with here.

818
01:07:11,831 --> 01:07:20,071
It is hard to know, though, because I always think things like that are taken with a pinch of salt because you hear about them on the news.

819
01:07:20,071 --> 01:07:24,111
And it is, I've seen that stuff, you know, promoting whatever,

820
01:07:24,271 --> 01:07:27,271
certain types of sex in kids' books, which is totally unnecessary.

821
01:07:28,010 --> 01:07:31,831
But that might just be one book in one library and, you know.

822
01:07:32,030 --> 01:07:32,851
There's more than that.

823
01:07:33,710 --> 01:07:35,871
So is it a real, is it a thing?

824
01:07:36,210 --> 01:07:42,171
Is it like, is it really, I know that education's always leaned a little bit

825
01:07:42,171 --> 01:07:44,851
to the left side of the aisle, or not always, actually.

826
01:07:45,550 --> 01:07:49,351
I mean, obviously these classical schools, that's why they're existing.

827
01:07:49,351 --> 01:07:54,431
But certainly since the sort of 60s and 70s, it's been that way, right?

828
01:07:54,611 --> 01:07:55,471
Yeah, leaning more and more.

829
01:07:55,710 --> 01:07:56,671
I would agree with that.

830
01:07:56,751 --> 01:08:00,911
And that sort of trickled down from the colleges for whatever reason.

831
01:08:01,071 --> 01:08:03,251
Because, you know, schools are meant to feed into colleges.

832
01:08:03,471 --> 01:08:07,311
So, you know, it used to be you didn't even need high school if you weren't going to college.

833
01:08:08,050 --> 01:08:09,491
And that still makes sense.

834
01:08:10,050 --> 01:08:15,831
You know, if you can read and you should, by the time you're done with the fourth or fifth grade, even say eighth grade,

835
01:08:15,831 --> 01:08:22,130
You should be able to read and think well enough that you can do whatever you want and go start a job, go do whatever, you know.

836
01:08:22,371 --> 01:08:27,351
Well, the best advert for that is how much does further education cost you here these days?

837
01:08:27,570 --> 01:08:28,730
Hundreds of thousands, right?

838
01:08:29,411 --> 01:08:30,051
Oh, university?

839
01:08:30,270 --> 01:08:30,531
Yeah.

840
01:08:30,810 --> 01:08:31,451
They're ridiculous.

841
01:08:31,911 --> 01:08:34,871
The costs have gone up just ridiculously.

842
01:08:35,391 --> 01:08:42,291
The best advertisement to not go is to say, all right, I'll take that 200,000 and start a business.

843
01:08:42,491 --> 01:08:42,810
That's right.

844
01:08:42,951 --> 01:08:43,730
That would be incredible.

845
01:08:43,911 --> 01:08:44,871
I mean, that's a lot of money.

846
01:08:44,871 --> 01:08:48,110
I know you might necessarily might not be able to borrow it up front.

847
01:08:49,190 --> 01:08:51,951
But just going back to something you were saying,

848
01:08:52,130 --> 01:08:55,371
when you were talking before about this price per child,

849
01:08:56,391 --> 01:08:58,610
so it was $18,000, did you say?

850
01:08:58,931 --> 01:09:00,831
I don't remember saying that, but we'll go with that.

851
01:09:01,051 --> 01:09:03,610
Oh, well, it was something like when it came down to $10,000,

852
01:09:03,670 --> 01:09:04,451
it was almost half.

853
01:09:04,531 --> 01:09:04,991
Oh, I see.

854
01:09:06,891 --> 01:09:08,891
That $18,000, say,

855
01:09:09,091 --> 01:09:12,011
is there any way as a homeschooler that you can get hold of that?

856
01:09:12,210 --> 01:09:12,391
No.

857
01:09:12,391 --> 01:09:16,291
is anyone trying to make that happen so first of all that's just a calculation

858
01:09:16,291 --> 01:09:21,031
right you got your budget and you got your number of kids it's the budget that doesn't change you

859
01:09:21,031 --> 01:09:27,670
lose a few kids that budget stays the same so the cost per kid is just a calculation so you can't

860
01:09:27,670 --> 01:09:34,351
take it out it's part of what runs the school pays the the heating bills right so you'll never

861
01:09:34,351 --> 01:09:40,051
be able to it's not that there are people trying to you know change the rules around that apart

862
01:09:40,051 --> 01:09:45,210
from you're right you can get that five thousand exactly and that's how people view it yeah that

863
01:09:45,210 --> 01:09:50,331
that that it's their money and that's why they take it to to go to to use it for private schools

864
01:09:50,331 --> 01:09:56,031
or micro schools or or whatever or extracurricular things for themselves or even curriculum that they

865
01:09:56,031 --> 01:10:01,190
can purchase with it like you know anything school related anything schools anything government

866
01:10:01,190 --> 01:10:09,190
schools can buy so can people with these funds with the efas but through registered only certain

867
01:10:09,190 --> 01:10:14,791
approved vendors approved vendors that's right that already there's already a red flag when i

868
01:10:14,791 --> 01:10:20,591
hear approved vendor they all they normally well i think part of the reason why school especially

869
01:10:20,591 --> 01:10:28,310
further education became so expensive is because it's kind of you know guaranteed you've got

870
01:10:28,310 --> 01:10:33,751
funding coming from government i mean that's true right and that's one of the fears absolutely

871
01:10:33,751 --> 01:10:37,570
yeah that that's where it's going to go and people that say they're feeling it already

872
01:10:37,570 --> 01:10:41,491
These have been around three years in New Hampshire, the EFAs.

873
01:10:43,210 --> 01:10:44,391
You know, I don't have kids.

874
01:10:44,471 --> 01:10:45,031
I don't get them.

875
01:10:45,150 --> 01:10:46,971
I don't, you know, I don't, those costs are different for me.

876
01:10:47,011 --> 01:10:48,911
So I don't, I'm not feeling that directly.

877
01:10:49,310 --> 01:10:51,991
But the cost of schools will go up to meet whatever that is.

878
01:10:52,031 --> 01:10:54,791
If they were charging less before, why wouldn't they charge that full amount, right?

879
01:10:55,831 --> 01:10:59,831
I'm not necessarily against them, by the way, just to, you know, put that out there.

880
01:11:00,110 --> 01:11:06,791
And EFAs in New Hampshire right now, you have to, there's an income limit that you have to

881
01:11:06,791 --> 01:11:10,891
qualify for in order to get it. But there are some bills in the legislature right now that are going

882
01:11:10,891 --> 01:11:17,150
for universal and there are a number of states who have already passed universal ESAs. So what's

883
01:11:17,150 --> 01:11:23,150
your, when you're with your nonprofit, what, or no, let's say personally, what would you say would

884
01:11:23,150 --> 01:11:30,251
be the prime best way? If you, if anyone's listening to this, especially if they're in,

885
01:11:30,411 --> 01:11:35,670
no, I mean, it could be worldwide, but obviously you're very much related to what's going on in

886
01:11:35,670 --> 01:11:36,831
in New Hampshire, in the States.

887
01:11:37,630 --> 01:11:40,471
But if someone was bringing up children now,

888
01:11:40,531 --> 01:11:42,751
thinking about the path forward,

889
01:11:43,270 --> 01:11:46,491
what would you suggest to them would be the best path forward?

890
01:11:46,610 --> 01:11:48,230
I always start with homeschooling.

891
01:11:48,531 --> 01:11:51,591
The best would be the parents guiding their education.

892
01:11:52,630 --> 01:11:52,871
Yes.

893
01:11:53,051 --> 01:11:55,451
And then if they can't do that, if they think they can't,

894
01:11:55,451 --> 01:11:57,610
a lot of people just don't have the confidence to do that.

895
01:11:57,690 --> 01:11:58,551
Oh, I'm not a teacher.

896
01:11:58,791 --> 01:12:01,070
It's like, but like, like you said, you and your wife,

897
01:12:01,070 --> 01:12:02,730
you're not a teacher either, but you are a teacher.

898
01:12:03,091 --> 01:12:05,570
If you like to teach and you're good at it,

899
01:12:05,570 --> 01:12:09,471
you're a teacher, you don't need that certification. But they feel like a lot of people feel like they

900
01:12:09,471 --> 01:12:16,031
need that certification. So I try to encourage them that they don't. In, you know, just anecdotally

901
01:12:16,031 --> 01:12:21,710
giving stories. Next would be a homeschool co-op where you actually get together with a few families

902
01:12:21,710 --> 01:12:27,031
and one family who said, there's no way I can homeschool. I live in the middle of nowhere. And

903
01:12:27,031 --> 01:12:32,791
she just had no idea that there was a big homeschooling community and in that area. And

904
01:12:32,791 --> 01:12:36,411
And I suggested this idea of homeschool co-op to her.

905
01:12:36,570 --> 01:12:38,670
And she was like, we're allowed to do that?

906
01:12:38,791 --> 01:12:39,690
Like she just didn't know.

907
01:12:40,331 --> 01:12:43,891
So the idea for my organization, so we're called Education Options.

908
01:12:44,210 --> 01:12:45,570
It's edopt.org.

909
01:12:47,371 --> 01:12:50,591
We, I lost my train of thought.

910
01:12:50,991 --> 01:12:56,810
How do you, I'm trying to get out of you some hard, good quality sort of advice.

911
01:12:57,070 --> 01:12:57,251
Right.

912
01:12:57,251 --> 01:13:02,931
So I'm probably suggesting that how does your nonprofit advise people?

913
01:13:02,931 --> 01:13:08,431
Right. And so that's how we go. And so the thing is, is that there's so many things that people just don't know.

914
01:13:08,531 --> 01:13:11,710
And we want to make sure they learn about all their options. So I start in that direction.

915
01:13:11,810 --> 01:13:15,451
Then I go to micro schools. Is there a drop off near you if you really need a drop off program?

916
01:13:16,170 --> 01:13:21,130
And sometimes there is, you know, and then people look into that and they go down those paths.

917
01:13:21,310 --> 01:13:26,431
And even with the co-op person, she's like, and how do I do that?

918
01:13:26,431 --> 01:13:29,531
So I sent her to a Facebook group and, you know, told her what to do.

919
01:13:29,570 --> 01:13:33,991
And she got four responses within a couple of hours of people like right down the road

920
01:13:33,991 --> 01:13:34,471
from her.

921
01:13:35,511 --> 01:13:41,310
You know, and then I would go to, I would try to encourage entrepreneurship too at that

922
01:13:41,310 --> 01:13:41,670
level.

923
01:13:41,670 --> 01:13:45,570
And then look, if your kid's already in high school and they just hate it there, then we

924
01:13:45,570 --> 01:13:47,851
have a program in New Hampshire called Learn Everywhere.

925
01:13:48,130 --> 01:13:52,371
So things that you already do, let's say you're taking flying lessons, because this is actually

926
01:13:52,371 --> 01:13:58,831
one that's approved, or martial arts, you can get credit in high school for those things that

927
01:13:58,831 --> 01:14:03,630
you don't have to also take it in high school. So that's a program we have. There's dual enrollment

928
01:14:03,630 --> 01:14:09,270
in community colleges. So there's a bunch of community colleges in the state that you can take

929
01:14:09,270 --> 01:14:14,051
classes either at the college or in your high school and get credit in both. So you're already

930
01:14:14,051 --> 01:14:17,871
working towards a college degree while you're in high school, and that just gets you out sooner.

931
01:14:18,551 --> 01:14:22,130
So there are things like that. There's, you know, there's apprenticeships. And so there's some

932
01:14:22,130 --> 01:14:27,411
organizations there's some charter schools that actually focus on apprenticeships so I would point

933
01:14:27,411 --> 01:14:33,051
people to those if that's that what they were interested in so getting jobs actually right

934
01:14:33,051 --> 01:14:37,951
starting to figure out what they like to do and and learn you know on the job skills that way

935
01:14:37,951 --> 01:14:47,770
um well my experience was very much that as soon as I tried tapping into the Hoden school community

936
01:14:47,770 --> 01:14:55,411
everything was there but sometimes it's it's hard to know how to get into that but all i you know

937
01:14:55,411 --> 01:15:01,710
like i fortunately i have one friend who's very vocal about homeschooling in the uk and he put me

938
01:15:01,710 --> 01:15:07,610
into one telegram group and then when we traveled around the world with our family every new place

939
01:15:07,610 --> 01:15:11,650
we went we just tapped straight into that if we wanted to and there was there was a wealth you

940
01:15:11,650 --> 01:15:16,851
know they're lovely welcoming people homeschoolers i think they all understand that you're all in the

941
01:15:16,851 --> 01:15:22,251
same boat you'll never not get a reply from a homeschool family if you if you get or on a

942
01:15:22,251 --> 01:15:28,291
facebook group or whatever you know i take it's the same round here it really is yeah yeah well

943
01:15:28,291 --> 01:15:33,730
anyway i've i'm looking at the time here i've taken we've been talking more than an hour did

944
01:15:33,730 --> 01:15:41,351
you know that i was wondering but it went fast it has gone fast um but anyway yeah thanks thanks

945
01:15:41,351 --> 01:15:46,831
for spending a bit of time talking about that i do like the homeschool conversations um because

946
01:15:46,831 --> 01:15:52,991
But like I say, I've always, I always feel like I've, I don't, I haven't let my kids down.

947
01:15:53,491 --> 01:15:54,291
I haven't.

948
01:15:54,471 --> 01:16:05,471
But I do know that if I put my mind to it, they could have had like a really exceptionally interesting level of education.

949
01:16:05,471 --> 01:16:09,730
Because I think most people don't realize it.

950
01:16:10,351 --> 01:16:11,991
You know, they don't realize what's out there.

951
01:16:11,991 --> 01:16:15,991
They don't realize how good much value, how good value it is.

952
01:16:16,190 --> 01:16:16,431
That's right.

953
01:16:16,431 --> 01:16:21,371
and um and what they can bring to it yes the value they can bring to their kids education

954
01:16:21,371 --> 01:16:27,610
well yeah and the truth is and i know this from experience that since my kids the more they go to

955
01:16:27,610 --> 01:16:33,051
school the less they learn from their mom and dad that's as simple as that we used to spend all our

956
01:16:33,051 --> 01:16:38,931
time together and now they're learning from their peers right and actually that's where it gets a

957
01:16:38,931 --> 01:16:42,650
little bit dodgy because and that's where the critical thinking stuff comes in if you haven't

958
01:16:42,650 --> 01:16:48,751
primed them in critical thinking by the time they start learning outside the home you end up with

959
01:16:48,751 --> 01:16:55,730
blue hair and um strange ideas it's very true yeah you don't like blue hair what well you know what

960
01:16:55,730 --> 01:17:00,371
i mean i do i'm kidding i don't mind blue hair it's just sometimes people with blue isn't it's

961
01:17:00,371 --> 01:17:07,070
a meme isn't it um if my kids want blue hair they can go ahead but anyway jody thanks very much

962
01:17:07,070 --> 01:17:09,851
Thanks for hosting me here as well in this amazing place.

963
01:17:10,891 --> 01:17:14,011
And, yeah, thanks for spending a bit of time telling us about that.

964
01:17:14,131 --> 01:17:14,710
It's my pleasure.

965
01:17:14,831 --> 01:17:15,570
Thank you for having me.