The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
103. Homeschooling Teens: Preparing for College and Navigating Social Challenges
Can homeschooling really prepare your child for college and beyond? Join us on the Radiant Mission Podcast as Rebecca and Rachel share their journeys through homeschooling, with Rebecca starting college at 16 and Rachel making the switch to public high school in ninth grade. This episode uncovers the unique challenges of teaching teenagers at home, from managing hormones to deciding whether to continue homeschooling or transition to a traditional school setting. Rachel offers a candid reflection on her high school experience, discussing the exposure to negative influences and her eventual appreciation for the homeschooling environment.
Is homeschooling the answer to better socialization and peer influence? We tackle this pressing question by comparing homeschooling with public schooling. You’ll hear about the misconceptions surrounding homeschool socialization and learn how curated social experiences can foster meaningful interactions. Rebecca and Rachel discuss the balance between maintaining moral values and dealing with prevalent issues like drinking and drug use. They also explore the potential for homeschooled children to be positive influences among their peers and the complexities this role entails.
Navigating the educational landscape for homeschoolers can be daunting, but we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover insights on choosing the right curriculum, preparing for college, and understanding the impact of recent school choice bills and varying state regulations. We delve into opportunities like dual enrollment and early admission programs, as well as the evolving landscape of higher education influenced by tech giants like Google and Facebook. Whether you’re contemplating homeschooling or seeking to enhance your current approach, this episode is packed with valuable information to help you make informed decisions about your child's educational journey.
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Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast. My name is Rebecca Toomey and I am here with my lovely co-host and sister, rachel Smith. Hey guys, we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Christ, and we're back today to talk about homeschooling. And, yeah, last week we got into kind of the benefits of homeschooling, why people homeschool, talking a little bit about curriculum and kind of what is up in the homeschooling world, and we of love to go on our tangents. So we have more to talk about.
Speaker 1:We really want to get into what about when things get hard, like in middle and high school. How do I teach high schoolers and middle schoolers, what do I do? And then we also want to get into the college aspect of this. Can homeschoolers go to college? What do they need to do to go to college? How does this all work? The short answer is, of course, kids that are homeschooled can go to college. In fact, they can go earlier than anyone because they're brilliant. No, I'm just kidding. If anything, college is easier, absolutely, absolutely. So yeah, let's just jump right into what about when things get hard, because homeschooling middle school and high school kids has unique challenges. You know it's not as easy and fun per se as when they're in elementary school, because you have this extra little tiny ingredient called hormones, as I always hear I don't have teenage children yet we can only talk about this from the perspective of us experiencing it, since we don't have middle or high school kids yet.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if it's going to be smooth sailing for us or if this will be a challenge that we have to overcome too, and make different decisions.
Speaker 1:On Sure For context, if you didn't listen to the last episode, rachel and I were both homeschooled. I was homeschooled until I went to college, which was at age 16. And then Rachel was homeschooled until ninth grade and she went to public school for high school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm the youngest of all of our parents' kids, so by the time they got to me they were real worn out and I didn't want to homeschool anymore. I wanted to go to school. So that combination created the scenario of just be done homeschooling and go to school.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's going to lend to some of what we'll talk about. But I think it's important to note that our parents and our mom gave us all a choice when we were homeschooled towards the end right, homeschooled towards the end right, like as we got to the end of middle school. All of us had the choice to and honestly, we all kind of had the choice, probably starting in like seventh grade. I would say that if we really pushed and we really wanted to go to school, then our mom probably would have been like, okay, if that's what you guys, if you really want to do that she did, I feel. Feel it was important to homeschool for as long as possible to kind of protect us from all the nonsense that we talked about last time. But she gave us the choice as we were getting to high school. You can either stay homeschooled and you can start college early, or you can not start college early. But why wouldn't you if you could? It's kind of silly, I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to, I mean if you were going to stay homeschooled.
Speaker 2:Oh right right.
Speaker 1:Who would choose to stay homeschooled for four years and then go to college?
Speaker 2:when you could get credits and I just wanted to go to school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm saying or you could go to high school and you chose to go to high school. You were like I don't want to start college early, I'm going to high school. I'm getting out of this place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really, really, really wanted to go to school and, to be honest, like all throughout high school, I never wanted to go back to homeschooling, Like I don't remember ever having a thought of wanting to be homeschooled again, Even when in my sophomore year my school I. So I made friends, you know, at school my freshman year, and that was hard because I didn't know anyone, like everybody else did. And then my sophomore year I got rezoned to a brand new high school that nobody was going to know anyone because everybody was going to be new. It was in our neighborhood and I had to go there sophomore year and I hated it. I was miserable.
Speaker 2:And then I found my own loophole to get back into my original high school. But then dad had to drive me every day because there was no bus that would go there because I wasn't zoned for there anymore. He hated that at that time. Anyway, he misses those days driving me to school now. But anyway, all that to say, I don't remember ever thinking I want to go back to homeschooling at that time. After high school, once I grew up and the frontal lobe of my brain finished developing and I matured into an adult. It was a huge mistake I think I would have. I mean I'm not going to say that I regret it, or I guess I shouldn't even say it was a mistake. I mean I'm not going to say that I regret it, or I guess I shouldn't even say it was a mistake, but I now have the perspective that I can see all of that nonsense that I experienced going to a public high school that I never would have had to deal with or been exposed to if I never would have gone.
Speaker 1:Do you want to share a little bit about some of that, because maybe that could be a learning experience for some parents whose kids are like I want to go to school and now? I know that we all want to save our kids and protect our kids and sometimes we just can't, but I think that that's part of what you're referring to is like you were exposed to kids that didn't always treat each other the best way.
Speaker 2:They had no morals and values at all it was like. So it was the school in the, I guess, if you want to say, the rich part of town, so it was where mostly wealthy kids went. And so, to give a brief summary, without making this podcast about an entirely new topic, the things I dealt with, which is the list of negatives is going to be long Bullying, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, relationships with boys at a young age that were very intense and too serious for the age that I was alcohol, drugs, parties, all kinds of other debauchery and things that are just incredibly inappropriate for someone between the age of 15 and 18. And so I'm being kind of vague, like I said, to not make this about something else, but I had extreme mental health issues when I was in high school and it's possible that I would have struggled with a lot of those things even if I had stayed home. We don't know because it didn't happen that way, but being exposed to other kids that then exposed me to alcohol and things like that, when my brain was developing and I was going through hard things, it definitely affected me negatively in a mental, emotional and a social way, I will say.
Speaker 2:As far as academically, I did great in high school. I enjoyed going to classes. In some ways I think I it's funny because now I'm an advocate for freedom and kids learning as they please. But I did do well in the classroom setting of being assigned work and then you have to do the work and you need to study and then take a test, like I actually did really well and I graduated with above a 4.0 GPA when I graduated high school.
Speaker 1:And I was in our CP classes. Do you think that that had something to do with the kind of the comparison between you were only performing for your mom versus now you're up against all these other students and you have to kind of show this teacher that you have intelligence and that you know you need to get it done. Do you think that there was a driver there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably.
Speaker 1:Of competition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if not competition, the desire to fit in, maybe because you're all in the classroom, and I think it motivated me in a way of oh, I got to focus on this because we're all doing it, we're all you know, we all need to take notes and we all, like I was externally motivated, I think I had struggles with homeschooling being internally motivated.
Speaker 1:Self-motivation. You have to be extremely self-motivated to be successful in structured homeschooling.
Speaker 2:Right, exactly, and that I really struggled with. So I should say then that, academically, public school was not all bad and I did enjoy things and I did really well. It was just, it was the kids, it was all of the social aspects. That is really awful, like I don't have a lot of positive things to say other than I've made. I did make some lifelong friends, you know, but I have lifelong friends from homeschooling too. So yeah, yeah, and you know, that's not the only way that people make friends is at school.
Speaker 1:I think that's one of the things that's interesting about homeschooling is that people often say well, like how are you going to get socialized? And then now, look at that, were you going to get socialized?
Speaker 2:And then now look at the socialization aspect of this and this is the thing that I have a perspective of both ways is with homeschooling.
Speaker 2:As the parent you can curate who your child is socialized with At school, especially public school. You know, a private school might be different because you are kind of automatically curating who your child is socialized with. Because who would spend thousands of dollars to send their kid to a Christian school if they didn't want them to be around other getting a Christian education, be around other Christian kids? But a public school it's a melting pot and most of these kids have no moral compass and it's just kind of like a free-for-all. And this is the interesting thing about parenting is for the first, let's say, 10 to 11 years, the parent is the main influence on the child. A child looks up to their parent and wants to please them, wants to impress them and even though it doesn't seem like they want to listen, you know the parent is their guiding force From 12 years on and this is socially normal, this is the way that God made us.
Speaker 2:But from 12 years on it's more typical that your peers become your center of influence exactly who you want to impress, who you seek guidance and advice from and who you look up to. So when you're surrounded by a bunch of debaucherous teenagers, that's going to be, you know, for eight hours a day. Those are going to be your center of influence, and teenagers don't most of them don't have great judgment.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and I know you mentioned Christian schools or private schools. I can't even tell you how many people I know that went to Christian and or Catholic schools and it was the same issues drinking and drugs and partying and all the other stuff same stuff was going on at those schools than at public schools. Yeah, you know kids were getting kicked out of school for selling drugs to each other, so it's not like this is isolated to just public school. This is the world, yeah it's.
Speaker 2:this is the world. It's a sin problem. It is, it is.
Speaker 1:And when kids are influencing each other.
Speaker 2:I've heard people say before that as believers they want their children to be the light and to influence other kids at school positively, and I think that that is a great desire to have. But the more that I've come to learn and in my own experience since I was raised in the church and then thrown to the wolves in ninth grade I'm just kidding, I wasn't thrown to the wolves, I chose. I ran to the wolves. Children nowhere in the Bible does it say that children are supposed to be evangelists. It's not the job of children At age seven in the public school system.
Speaker 2:And that's just not their job. Now, are we to raise up our children in the way that they should go? Should they grow up knowing God, having a relationship with Him, knowing what our Messiah and Savior has done, and knowing about right and wrong and sin? Of course, but I do not believe that it is a child's responsibility to evangelize other children.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how they could. I mean, have you ever been in a room with middle schoolers before? Because I have. I'll share a fun fact for y'all. So I mentioned I started college early, so I was graduating with my bachelor's degree at like 19. So I started my master's program immediately, so at 19 or 20. And my degree was in English education and I actually I got a backup. So in between that time, before I went from a master's program, I got my substitute teaching certification because I thought that I might want to be a teacher. Kind of silly, right. Someone who had never been to school before in the system. It is actually kind of funny to think about. I thought that I could teach.
Speaker 2:And I think the truth is is that I knew I could teach.
Speaker 1:I just couldn't teach my own kids, not groups of students, right. So, yeah, this was actually I want. I was about I think it was 18. I was 18 years old. I got my substitute teaching certification and I kept getting assigned to the middle school. That was actually next to where you went to high school, okay, and it was horrific those kids were I don't want to use mean language to say that they were like psychopaths or anything like that because they were children, but I have never seen anything like it. It was like a game, that because I wasn't the regular teacher and I was just a substitute that they were like, oh, we're just going to watch a movie, right, and then I would spend the entire time having people come to remove kids from the class that were being totally inappropriate, disruptive, cursing, saying just like totally profane things. I only substitute taught for a couple of times because I was like this is crazy.
Speaker 2:I do not understand. It's crazy that you also were probably only like four or five years older than them. I know.
Speaker 1:Every time that I taught I was always super, about the same age as whoever I was teaching. So it was a little bit weird. I never taught at the high school. I never even signed up to teach to substitute at the high school because I knew I could never make it. Those kids would eat me alive. And I was too young because I was about the same age, right.
Speaker 1:And then when I went to grad school, I taught college writing and so I'm like 20. These kids are 18, 19. I'm teaching college 1101 and some were older students and I had a lot of the same issues. There was a lot of behavioral, just kind of like disrespectful and stuff like that. But I learned by that point to really to have a voice. And every semester I got better and better and tougher and tougher. And it's funny because people think that or students would think that because I was young, I was like pushover easy, but I was so strict On day one I would be like listen, if you're looking for a class where you're going to not show up and not do your work and you're going to pass this, this, ain't it, Drop my class and go go to this teacher or go to that one Go pick anybody else, Don't pick me.
Speaker 1:And I used to keep a a roll sheet of like when kids would come in late, because it used to drive me crazy. It was a half hour class and they come after 20 minutes. I'm like so you're gonna be here for 10 minutes, you think that you're getting attendance? No way, I didn't get here where I am today because of skipping out, so anyway, I got here off homeschooling.
Speaker 1:I got here off homeschooling Just kind of a funny aside, and going through that experience made me realize I could never teach a group of children in a public school setting because it was just too. It was too much behavior, there were too many behavior issues and that did not feel good to me. I enjoyed the adult students. I loved having people that were coming back to school that were a little older. They were my favorite and I really enjoyed that and that was kind of one of the catalysts that led me out of education and, in a way, what I do for my job now is a lot of teaching and education.
Speaker 1:I teach people about different business aspects and social media and sales and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And I'm talking to professionals, I'm talking to adults that are taking life seriously, not kids who think everything's a joke, so it's just it's a different application, who think everything's a joke, so it's just it's a different application. But it's just kind of funny to think back on that right that I thought for five seconds that I could do that. But let's talk a little bit about kind of the challenges that a lot of moms, if you're homeschooling, you know you might face coming up against advanced subject matter like algebra or certain science classes or things like that. It can be tough for parents to navigate and I know that I feel like our mom did a good job with this because she knew where she was strong and where she wasn't and she tried to fill those gaps with people that were. I think we mentioned this in the first episode on homeschooling that we had a math tutor, tony Tony Carponi, who did our math and like some science classes, and I had a hard time with him. He always made me cry because he made me feel like an idiot.
Speaker 2:Oh, I loved him, you loved him. He got me on the mathletes, a math club, but I love I we talked about it last time, last time that I love, always loved math from the beginning.
Speaker 1:you didn't, so I was more on the art side. I liked writing, reading creative things, and it makes sense because that's what I ended up doing in my work too, as I love creative stuff and creating websites and things like that.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make sense for me because I'm like terrible at math today. Well, think about Chris laughs at me because I can't even do basic math.
Speaker 1:Think about what you are teaching Everett about starting his own business and the conversation about inflation from the last time. Don't sell yourself short.
Speaker 2:No, we can all be intelligent at certain things, or broadly Like for me. I think I have a strength in thinking deeply and critically about things, so I can understand a lot of things really well, yeah, and that can kind of, as a homeschool parent, be an overarching. You know, what I'm not very good at is words. Right now, I keep forgetting words.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that the whole point that we're trying to make right now is that you don't have to know everything. Yeah, exactly, there's a lot of fear that comes.
Speaker 2:Yes, like what you were brought up with our mom, knowing the things that she had strengths in and what were weaknesses as far as teaching, and then you hire out help for those things.
Speaker 1:So that's the thing you get a tutor or you use an online course or a co-op.
Speaker 2:A big thing with homeschoolers is to be in a homeschool group or homeschool co-op, and then you have the strength in numbers with other homeschool families that you come together and you find a space to meet at. For us we met at our church and all of the moms in our homeschool group hired tutors for things like higher math it was algebra one and up, and then we had classes twice a week at the church and he would teach classes of maybe 10 homeschool kids and we also had our mom taught biology class because she really loved science. I remember multiple times them hiring art teachers and we got to have different art classes.
Speaker 1:So mom also did a writing lab that I really liked she also did a speech class she did public speaking and, yeah, I loved those also. People might not realize this is that you can still do things like plays because we're in a homeschool group. We always were involved in doing kind of an annual play.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know theater like a musical and we did multiple of those I don't know if it's where I live right now, but I have not found a homeschool group that is anything like what we grew up with and part of me also wonders it could be where I live. It's very possible and it's just we don't have access to that here. But part of me does wonder if it's our new social media age that the whole you know I'm in Facebook groups for homeschool groups and they'll meet at a park and stuff like that or to do different activities. But it is nothing like we had when we were kids, where we were like remember those theater productions we had of like 50 kids?
Speaker 1:Oh, there was like a hundred kids and we were in two separate groups. Actually, one was when we lived up North and one was when we lived in Florida.
Speaker 2:I haven't found any high school group that big.
Speaker 1:It does make me wonder if the moms of that generation were much better at coordination and getting together. Because that's what it sounds like. Maybe you just haven't found the right a group that needs to be based out of a church, because you need somewhere that they have the space to do that kind of thing, because you're not going to be practicing for a play at the swing set, you know. Yeah, you need to be in a physical building that has a stage. So maybe look for a homeschool group that's at like a mega church or something and that might have that particular piece of extracurricular that could be kind of fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I do utilize co-ops. My kids are in a co-op at a church which is actually a drop-off program. They call it going to school once a week.
Speaker 1:The kids, not the teachers. My kids call it going to school once a week and the kids, not the teachers.
Speaker 2:My kids call it going to school and they get the extracurriculars like they learned Spanish, art, music, things that I kind of similar to our mom, that I realized that are not my strengths, like I don't know where to even start teaching them anything about music. So, and art, I could do well with that.
Speaker 1:but I have an artist background and, to be honest, that makes it a thousand times harder to teach my kids art because it's like I was watching a video recently where this mom asks her kids and I swear, these kids look like they were four and six years old and she was like red and blue makes, and they like shouted out, and I'm like how do these kids remember this at this young? I, what am I doing? I can barely even remember this and I'm in. I've been in artistic, in makeup artistry, and had to make colors and use color theory, and even I still can't shout it out. But you know, everybody has their own skills.
Speaker 1:I think another kind of issue that comes up a lot and I know was an issue for you was time management and organization can be a big one, and I think that when it comes to kids kind of building that structure can help for those that are not self-motivated. I guess you could say, I think us using an online curriculum, or I guess it wasn't online, it was just a computer program back when we were in school, cause we didn't. We didn't have the pleasure of the internet at our fingertips every second, which actually was a good thing. We had CDs. We had CDs. We used a curriculum called Switched On Schoolhouse or SOS, which still exists today, and when we were younger we used a Becca, which still exists today, and oh yeah, becca is very popular today.
Speaker 2:And saxon math I remember doing I bought saxon math first grade curriculum for every which, by the way, you can have it because I hated it, but that's the thing we're going to get into curriculum more probably in a second right, um, or actually no, we already talked about a little bit.
Speaker 2:But the thing with all, some people will say, oh, this one worked great for us, and then you get it and then you don't like it and it's like you become like addicted to buying curriculums.
Speaker 2:And then for me, the first like two years, I didn't like any of them and every, and they were all the ones that people recommended to me, and so you really kind of just have to find not just works best for your kids, because that's the thing, some of the curriculums, like math, for example, the way that they teach it, could not speak well to your child, and so you have to try a different one that uses a different method. But there's also taking into consideration, as us as parents, is is this curriculum working for me? Some of them are very demanding of the parents, like you having to sit down for an hour and you know, sit there and work on it with your kids, and that might be some parent's style and that's what they want to do, and then other parents like me, do not want to do that, and so we need to find a different method. So, yeah, that's kind of my brief little rant about curriculum, and the older that they get, the more complicated that curriculum can be as well.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I kind of felt like us doing that computer curriculum helped with the time management organization side, because it was like all right, do it at your own pace. And if it takes you the entire year to do this, rachel, then that's what it takes. Or if you want to finish your whole year in like three months, rebecca, then that's what it takes, whatever, Just figure it out.
Speaker 2:I find it interesting that the two ADD kids in our house, me and Nate, were just constantly getting behind on work because we sat at the computer doing nothing. Well, you just focused and got your work done. So that is kind of how it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's talk a little bit about, I mean, socialization and extracurricular activities we mentioned a little bit ago. In that, a lot of times, middle school and high school age kids can seek those deeper social connections. But here's the thing If you are in any sort of church community this was where I had all my social interactions is I was really involved in our church and youth group and I was going to youth group on Wednesday nights and those were all my friends and so we were getting together and I was also homeschooled with a lot of the same people that were at our church, and so I think that together and I was also homeschooled with a lot of the same people that were at our church, and so I think that that can be very helpful for people that really want that community is, find a church that has the homeschool community that you're looking for and the you know I keep wanting to say small group, but the- youth group.
Speaker 1:the youth group group, but the youth group, the youth group and I appreciate our parents shifting churches for us based on what we were going through. They always put us first in that sense that we went to a specific church when we were like elementary school age and then we moved and went to a new church when we were kind of middle school and then into high school. That was a lot better for us in that time period and then after that, once we were a little older, it was like we moved on to something else. And because I can see that with my own situation right, like we're going to a church that I really love, but I can also see that I want to get more involved in homeschooling as we move forward. And there are people that homeschool at my church, but it's not a big community and so I don't know how the two will mesh as we move forward. But when the time comes I know that it's important for me to find groups of kids that are going to resonate with what we're doing, so co-ops and other activities.
Speaker 1:And then we mentioned sports. Last time Our brother actually played sports at the public high school. That was by us, because when you pay taxes and this was in the state of Florida. You're still paying taxes, whether you're homeschooling your kids or not. It's not like if you homeschool you get to withhold taxes from the US government that go into the school system.
Speaker 2:Did you know that some states are now passing, though what's it called? That the money for taxes will now follow the student school choice bills Really, and Florida is one of them.
Speaker 1:Oh, interesting.
Speaker 2:And it just passed or is passing in Texas, where I live.
Speaker 1:So what does that?
Speaker 2:mean so essentially for people who choose alternative school. That could be private school or homeschooling. In Florida I know you get $7,000 per kid back, so normally the taxes that fund public schools come from your property taxes. So now in the state of Florida you can get up to $7,000 per kid Interesting.
Speaker 1:Well then, maybe they will or won't be able to go play team sports, and if they do or they don't, I mean that's going to be up to the parent, but-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know if that'll change things and I do know that there is actually a debate amongst homeschoolers on even wanting school choice bills passing, because for right now there's not really strings attached. But I know because I've talked to our mom about this and she has.
Speaker 2:You know, she's been in the homeschool realm since it was legalized in Florida and that a concern with these school choice bills is government involvement Is, if the government is going to give you money for your education is then what are they going to require of you? Are they going to require that you prove through standardized testings that, like public school requires standardized testing, which is always a huge waste of time. Every time I did it and it was so annoying. So, and some states already require standardized tests.
Speaker 1:Well, that already is a requirement. When we were homeschooled, we had to go do standardized testing at the end of every year.
Speaker 2:In Florida, but for places like Texas right now, that is having the school choice bill pass. Currently there is no requirements whatsoever for homeschooling in Texas. I don't have to do standardized testing with the kids. I don't even have to keep any record of the curriculum that our kids are using with their learning Interesting.
Speaker 1:The government is completely uninvolved here. I'm in Tennessee and it's very different. You have to register your child with an umbrella school from once they start kindergarten and you have to keep records of your teaching and what you're teaching your kids. And this kind of actually rolls into our next topic, which is preparing for college and testing and transcripts and records and all that stuff, cause it can be very confusing as a homeschooler. It depends on your state. So you're going to have to look up homeschooling laws and requirements in your state and I definitely recommend joining homeschool groups for moms in your local area to learn about this, because there's people that have already done this and you don't have to do the research because every state is different and when you go from one state to the next state it changes too. So it's important to kind of keep a record of whatever it is that you're doing. But yeah, in the state of Florida I remember taking tests at the end of the year, and now they weren't at a school necessarily. They were at. Like, the church that we went to had a homeschool day where homeschoolers would come and take these tests. But when I took the SAT, for example, I did have to go to a public school to take the SAT and obviously I still had to take either the SAT or the ACT to get into college. Now the way that it works for high school diploma again different by state, but a lot of people will choose to get a GED because they don't know. Maybe the parents didn't know whatever rules in their state, but you have to in the state of Florida anyway. I'll give them as an example because I'm just most familiar with it. You had to use an umbrella school where you were sending your work and your tests and things of that nature and they were essentially acting as a private school on your behalf that were saying this student did their work and all that, and at the end of your high school education you would get a high school diploma from that umbrella school was essentially how it worked. If you did not have one and I don't know how this works in all states then you would have had to go to take your GED to get your GED. Would have had to go to take your GED to get your GED.
Speaker 1:But let's talk a little bit about the college side of things too, because I wanted to start college early, and in the state of Florida you can start at the age of 16. So I turned 16 in October and I wanted, so I wanted to start in January semester rather than wait a whole year. I started taking the SAT when I was 14. If you think about that, that's kind of crazy, because you want to take it a year before you start, right. And so I was like would have been 15, but then a little bit earlier to kind of get started. And in the state of Florida they have this scholarship program called Bright Futures. And in the state of Florida they have this scholarship program called Bright Futures where you can earn either a 75% or 100% scholarship based on your test results. On the SAT. You have to have basically almost a perfect score to get 100% and you have to also have what is it called Like hours Community services, isn't it or no, community?
Speaker 1:service yes service. Yes, yeah, yeah, community service you also have to have kind of community service hours and things like that. So anyway, I took the sat when I was 14 and I didn't get to the 75 scholarship amount, so I just took it again until I got to that point and then I took it.
Speaker 2:You know, I took it the SAT five times. I didn't know that every time I was 10 points under getting 100 scholarship and it was like my English score was 10 points too low and then the next time I would take it my math English score got better but my math score was 10 points and I kept taking cause. I'm like I'm so close and this is what is the SAT Like a four hour test.
Speaker 1:It's long yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and finally, after the fourth, it was either four or five times. After the fourth or fifth time, mom was like, rachel, the 75% scholarship is great, like we should just accept that, and I'm like, but I'm so close, like all I had to do was oh, you were trying to take it.
Speaker 1:You were trying to take it to get to a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was trying to get a hundred percent scholarship, yeah, oh I got to 75 and I was done.
Speaker 1:I was like that's good enough for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, mom accepted that as well, so that's so funny yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's. That is a cool thing. So let me talk about that for a second Cause. I put some notes here that homeschoolers can go to college early, and there are lots of States that have programs for this. Where it depends on the state, some of them offer what's called early admission or early college. Some states it's called dual enrollment. In Florida I think it was dual enrollment for your junior year and early enrollment for your senior year, something like that. They're all called something a little bit different, but you can basically earn college credits while you're also finishing out high school, and so what I was doing from 16 to 18 was getting my associate's degree while also finishing my high school diploma, because the things that I was doing crossed over. So I know it says here, california, texas, new York, north Carolina, georgia, florida, washington, colorado, minnesota, ohio, massachusetts and Indiana all have programs that are like this, where you can start early. So certainly look into those because there's lots of options there.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing that I want to mention since we were talking about dual enrollment or not dual enrollment, um Bright Futures scholarship is that there are also a lot of states that offer either free college or reduced costs or are giving opportunities based on merit or financial need or residency. You know, state residency, things like that. That's the other thing about Bright Futures is you also had to be a Florida resident for a certain period of time, but of course the United States military, we all know you could go there and they'll basically pay you to go to school there. But some tuition-free colleges that were of note the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, bureau College in Kentucky, deep Springs College in California, and then some schools have some state programs.
Speaker 1:New York has the Excelsior Scholarship that offers free tuition to what they call SUNY State University of New York and CUNY I don't know how they pronounce it City University of New York schools for students whose families earn less than 125K,000 per year. I don't know how you could live in that state and make less than $500 million. So you have to meet certain residency and post-grad requirements. Tennessee also has free tuition for two years of community college for recent high school graduates. California has a grant program, oregon has the promise program and there's a bunch of other stuff out there. So there's scholarships. So definitely look into those options, for you know your children if college is something you're considering, I mean.
Speaker 2:I kind of personally now think that college is a scam. But that's just a whole other podcast episode. But if you're going to be scammed, at least try to do it for free.
Speaker 1:If you're going to be scammed, don't pay for it, don't.
Speaker 2:Because here's the thing is now you're loans.
Speaker 1:We just spent all this time talking about protecting your kids and now it's like, all right, send them off to these like indoctrination camps and get $50,000 of student loans at 18 years old?
Speaker 2:Yeah To be indoctrinated.
Speaker 1:by you mean $500,000 or $100,000? It's crazy these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the greatest gift that our parents ever gave I mean just speaking for myself is that they made sure I didn't have any student loans, especially because I'm not using my college degree Like how brutal would that be to be a stay-at-home mom?
Speaker 2:not using my college degree I guess I am like in some sense but not using it to make an income to pay for student loans, like if I had student loan payments and I'm not even making income with that degree. That, and a lot of people are experiencing that and that's brutal. So man.
Speaker 1:I wish I remembered that guy's name, that I saw his videos about college and how it really all works. If I find it between now and when I edit this episode, I will put it in the show notes. But there is this guy that I watched his videos years ago on college and about how it all works and how all of the sponsors are the ones that control the schools, and it was eye-opening and very interesting in my kind of investigation of colleges. But the workforce in the world is changing. A lot of companies are now trying to get kids to bypass going to college.
Speaker 1:I know it's a big thing with Google and even with Facebook that they are saying don't go to college, just come work here and we're going to train you and we're going to put you through educational and training classes because they're trying to teach them quicker.
Speaker 1:They're like don't waste your time doing this.
Speaker 1:If you're just going to come work here for your job, you don't even need to go to college because we're going to have to reteach you and teach you everything you need to know about working here anyway. So I think the world is changing. By the time that our kids are getting to college, it's going to be a bit of a different world. But right now it's in a weird thing too, because you're going to college to be some of these more mainstream professions like nurses and doctors and lawyers and you know these kind of cut dry type of positions, when you know you and I know that, like a lot of that stuff is not the direction that we really want to be going. We are the medical system in America. The health care system is completely broken and so to get to go down that, if they were interested in being in medicine or being in healthcare, on midwifery or on holistic health or natural path type of health, and it's a different pathway that you're not going to go through Rockefeller's program to do.
Speaker 2:Right yeah.
Speaker 1:But we don't want to go there today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've already done episodes on that.
Speaker 1:Definitely, yeah.
Speaker 2:Go back to some of our other episodes that we have done on um pharmakia, if you think about the amount of restraint we did episodes on rockefeller's ties to the pharmaceutical industry. We have not even talked about rockefeller's dirty little fingerprints on the public school system in these episodes. So this is a lot of restraint you're welcome maybe next time, maybe next time I mean, that'll be a whole new set of notes a whole new set of notes.
Speaker 1:That's what people are here for, anyway. Right is to hear the real stuff.
Speaker 2:So conspiratorial stuff. I mean, it's not even a conspiracy theory. It's not even he literally funded the current public school system and the reason that school is, from you know, 7 30 am until 3 pm is because of him. He wanted to create a country of workers. Yeah, talk more about that.
Speaker 1:It's off topic, not really, but yeah, I know yeah, but maybe we'll talk about it next time?
Speaker 2:yeah, that, that would be a good episode too. So well.
Speaker 1:Hopefully this has been helpful to listeners. I don't know. I think it's probably scared some people. Some people are probably like oh gosh, I really don't want my kids to get into middle school. This sounds pretty like a nightmare. Hopefully it's not and that everything is great and fine. Just don't send them to public school. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 2:I think I think really the bottom line is middle school and high school years. Can that? I'll enjoy their middle school years. You know middle schoolers get a bad rap years. You know middle schoolers get a bad rap and I know I was terrible at that age but maybe I could use some of my own experience and kind of forge a different path for my own children. That's my hope, and that's the beauty of homeschooling is that you can at least try your best to create the environment that you want.
Speaker 2:Now I'm saying, try your best because we can't control our kids like robots. They are individuals with individual personalities. They start having their own interests as they get older and we kind of have to work with that.
Speaker 1:But I think what you're saying is that we have the power to create the environment that we want for our lives, for our children, for their education, for their school and to just have fun. I know that one of the things that it's funny because we, you know, you and I have talked about how you didn't always love being homeschooled. But I always think very fondly on being homeschooled because I remember a lot of going to the plays. Like we used to go during the middle of the school week.
Speaker 1:we could just go to a children's play at this play center that was close to us, this theater center that was close to us, this theater, and I loved going to that kind of stuff or just going to kind of do stuff whenever we wanted we had that flexibility, and I think that that is something that I really want to be able to do with my kids too is just to for us to be able to have fun and to be able to go, do things that we enjoy doing together and create this childhood with our kids that we want to have.
Speaker 1:And obviously not everything's going to go perfect all the time. There's going to be struggle, but, you know, I enjoy and I love my kids and I want to have this time with them and I don't want to, you know, for them to be grown and to regret the time that I didn't get to spend with my kids, you know. So, anyway, that's my own personal opinion on this. Obviously, choose, if you're listening, what is best for you and your family. But yeah, there's a lot of positives, but then I guess we're trying to say is life, is life, but at the same time, we have the choice to make at the end of the day. So, yeah, for sure All right.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you everybody for listening and if you'd like to follow along outside the podcast, join the mission on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube at the Radiant Mission. And today we are going to close with a verse that really highlights the importance of pursuing wisdom, and this is from biblical and spiritual context, of course, and that is Proverbs 16, 16. How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver. So let's encourage our kids not to chase the money but chase wisdom from the Lord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen.
Speaker 1:We're wishing you a radiant week and we'll see you next time. Bye everyone.
