#69: Embracing Waldorf Education and a Holistic Lifestyle with Lindsay from Kentucky

What if the traditional education system isn't the best option for your child? Join us as Lindsay from Kentucky shares her transformative experience transitioning from a career in the health and medical field to homeschooling her three children in a one-bedroom cabin, using the Waldorf education approach. Lindsay’s concerns about the health, development, and safety issues in conventional schools, including the stress of active shooter drills, motivated her to seek out this alternative education method, which emphasizes a slower, play-based learning style. Through her personal story, Lindsay provides an intimate look at the challenges and triumphs of homeschooling and how it aligns with her family's holistic values.

Curious about Waldorf education? We explore its principles and developmental stages, from early childhood to adolescence, with insights from Lindsay. From identifying cocoons to the trade-offs of a one-income household, Lindsay sheds light on the sacrifices and rewards of rural living. Additionally, we tackle important health freedom issues, such as water fluoridation mandates, and the role of community activism in challenging such regulations. 
 
(Book) Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers:  The essential guide to Waldorf-inspired homeschooling 

Right to Refuse.Org
Stand for Health Freedom
Fluoride Action Network

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling, how do you do it, how does it differ from region to region, and should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome, and with us today I have Lindsay from Kentucky. Welcome, lindsay, thank you for being here.

Speaker 2: 0:38

Thank you for having me, thank you for doing this podcast. I think it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 0:44

I think it's awesome. Oh, I'm so glad you like it and you got a little bit of the behind the scenes with me trying to like get here on time and chaos going on in the background and then trying to change the time on you but not quite doing that. Well, because I gave you like two minutes. That's okay, but if anybody knows how that is, it is the homeschool mom.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Nothing goes as planned.

Speaker 2: 1:04

Never.

Speaker 1: 1:04

So you are in Kentucky and you were just telling me that you live in a one bedroom cabin. Why don't you start out by telling us how many kids you have and how you ended up in this one bedroom cabin, sure.

Speaker 2: 1:17

It is a roundabout, and I have three kids. They are ages, let me think, 10, 8, and 7. And we actually are. The town that we're in now is where I was born and then I grew up in Georgia, outside of Atlanta, met my husband, we went to college. I did the whole college thing, had a career college. I did the whole college thing, had a career and quickly realized that I wanted to be with my daughter. So I was a working mom and then I became a stay-at-home mom and then I had my second child and then my third. We had actually moved to a city in Kentucky and just to be closer to my parents who had moved back to my hometown for their retirement and they have a farm, and when we were in the city we Okay. So I guess my path into homeschooling was really from me experiencing everything in the health and medical field.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Interesting.

Speaker 2: 2:29

Yes. So I think what I quickly learned is that my children were sick and the interventions and the medicines that they were getting were making them worse, and then I just stopped using it. Making them worse, and then I just stopped using it. And then I became really interested and studied some natural health things and how to be healthy at home. And it was working. Everyone was becoming healthier, we were thriving.

Speaker 2: 2:58

And that leaving that system is what caused me to start questioning the educational system. All of it, all of it and. But it is sort of like a slow progress. You know, it's not all at once for sure. So when my oldest was old enough to she, we had her in like a little pre-K, you know two days a week kind of thing. So I thought that's what you did, yeah, and just like you. And then you know she was like, well, we need to start getting her prepared for kindergarten. So next year she'll, you should put her in three or maybe even five days a week. And you know I'm like she's four. Why this seems kind of ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 3:43

But what was, I think, more alarming to me was I would lose control. All this work that I've done to help heal them would be undone quickly by other people stressed we wouldn't have time to really focus in and be healthy Sleep. You know we wouldn't be getting enough sleep. All the things, not enough sunshine in the day and the fact that she would have to ask to go to the bathroom and she had to pee a lot. I mean, when they're four they're not perfectly potty trained, I mean they're still. They're still not independent. So I mean I just didn't want her to have an accident or the teacher not let her go, and I don't think that would happen. But that was bothering me. Active shooter drills bothered me, everything was bothering me, that not enough time to eat, not enough time to play, not enough sunshine, all that bothered me. And so I put her in a cottage school for homeschool kids and it was two days a week and I thought, well, this is two days a week, we'll do this.

Speaker 2: 4:52

And then I met homeschoolers and then the next thing I know I'm teaching at the cottage school and in the meantime I'm teaching. I've got my, my two girls, in the pre-k kindergarten class and I'm wearing my baby and I've got this first grade kindergarten slash class that I'm teaching and I'm learning all about child development, trying my best to be a great educator, and so it was trial by fire, but I loved it and I did. I did really great and I thought this is wonderful. So I kept learning more and more about childhood education and looked at all the different developmental pedagogies and styles Montessori, reggio Emilia, I mean Waldorf. Waldorf was the one that I really liked because it was slower and play based, and you know acknowledge the fact that the child had a soul. You know, acknowledge the fact that the child had a soul, anyway. So that's how long story short. I ended up homeschooling and it had everything to do with the medical establishment.

Speaker 1: 5:57

Wow, what a beautiful story and I have brought this up before too the active shooter drills. Like it's one thing to send our kids to a place where there are active shooter drills because, like this is something that happens so often that we need a drill. So but we're all okay, just sending them there, and that's one side of it. But then the other side is, what is the? Even if the shooting never happens, and they'll tell you, oh well, the likelihood is very small, okay Well, if it's so small, why do we have to have the drill? But what are these drills doing to our kids?

Speaker 1: 6:23

The drill itself, and I've talked to teachers about it and you know they're like, oh well, we don't say that it's for a shooter or whatnot, but it still has to be a weird situation. And as the kids get older, they know that it's for a shooter. You know, as, maybe fourth, fifth and higher, they know that that is what we're. And so it's like kind of telling them that, like, your friend can turn on you at any time and that to fear guns and there's fear, right? So once I started thinking about even just that, I was like I don't want my kid in that setting. And then for all the other reasons that you were talking about as well. I'm not super familiar with the Waldorf. I'm sure I probably have. It just hasn't been put into those terms. But I know that that's initially why you reached out to me and you were talking about it. Can you tell us a little bit about what that style is?

Speaker 2: 7:16

Yes. So when I reached out to you it was specifically about the literature. So the literature, that the reading lists that come with the Waldorf curriculum are very much in line with classical education, I would say. But the literature is so rich and it's so wonderful and they lay it out in a way that is developmentally and age appropriate. I don't have that book with me, but there's a great resource book If anyone just wants that part of the Waldorf education. It kind of lines up with Charlotte Mason and classical.

Speaker 1: 7:42

I can attach it like in the show's description.

Speaker 2: 7:44

You can get it after it's a great little treasury of books, so that was what I wanted to share with you. But with Waldorf education it starts out developmentally. It's about breaks, the child's development into three stages mostly, even though the stages move on into adulthood. But for home education you have your birth until age seven and that is considered your, your hand space. So the child is in the imitation and play, in modeling after its environment and the adults around it and it's all play based at that moment. And a Waldorf home would probably look like.

Speaker 2: 8:25

You wake up in the morning, maybe you have a prayer or a verse or a song that you sing, you make your beds, you go outside, have a walk around, take care of the animals, whatever it is chores that you do. It's not really a circle time that they would do in a Waldorf classroom, but it is active, joyful but also purposeful activity that you do with your kids and then to bring reverence to it, you start out with a prayer or a verse or a song and then you make breakfast and then you do some school and you sort of bookend everything with openings and closings. So you would say a verse at the beginning of the lesson and the verse at the close of the lesson, openings and closings. So you would say a verse at the beginning of the lesson and the verse at the close of the lesson. And the main lessons are broken up into blocks, like unit studies almost, but everything is encompassed in a story. So everything's told in storytelling, whether it's in first grade, fairy tales, second grade, trickster tales and Old Testament stories, and then third grade you're looking more into Native American legends and mythologies and then you get into Norse mythology, greek mythology, as the grades progress into ancient history and each block you will learn grammar, language arts and math. Everything is sort of encompassed in that story. And so when you move to the age of seven that's when first grades start there are no academics before age seven.

Speaker 2: 9:48

Seven is first grade. That's when you start introducing letters, numbers, math processes, the four processes. That's considered. You're getting into the uh, the heart phase of childhood, so like the, the center of childhood, and it's feeling and it's sort of awakening up to the world around you. It's not as dreamy anymore, even though you're still play-based, but you're just kind of waking up and everything feels really big.

Speaker 2: 10:13

So the 10 year old as you move forward into the development, the 10 year old is sometimes considered someone who is very emotional, and I think our world tries to categorize that as being hormonal. But it's not. It's the same with boys and girls. It might look a little bit different, but they are really just starting to feel what it feels like to be human. They see the adults around them as being. They're a little more detached from the adults. Before they were almost inseparable from their mom and their dad. They didn't really see themselves as apart from the family. Now they're starting to see themselves as an individual and there's a lot of big feelings around that.

Speaker 2: 10:51

Oh, something I didn't mention. That's always really cool to me. Seven is this seven year change. That's called the change of teeth and that's when the child is ready for academics and that's when they're starting to lose their teeth. So that's how the body would like, would let you know, as an educator, that, okay, now it's time I can present some numbers and letters and it's time for their body and their mind and their spirit is ready to learn. I always thought that was cool.

Speaker 2: 11:17

And then, when they get into what's called the head phase and in classical education it's called the logic stage, they're around 14, puberty set in and they're ready for you know they're ready to analyze things a little bit more. You know they can get deep into subjects, analyze things, be logical, less abstract and really get down to the nitty gritty and become, you know, a researcher and kind of really delve into deep topics and issues and problems and learn persuasive writing and how to be a critical thinker. That all sort of comes to play in the adolescent phase of childhood. And again it's very similar to classical education, but I would always describe it as it's like classical education but with a lively twist. So there's storytelling, there's painting, there's handwork, clay, modeling, a lot of drama and speech, which I guess is really part of classical education as well. But it's a little deeper in that it acknowledges the spirit and the senses of the child as they develop. And it's not just straight, it's not just about the mind and the development of the mind and body, it's about the development of the mind, body and soul. So it's a more holistic, I think, approach to child development.

Speaker 2: 12:29

And when I learned about Waldorf I thought, you know, this really gets deep for me and I feel like if I know as much as I can about this, I can use it to kind of carry my children through. I needed it to feel confident. And I always tell homeschoolers you know, it's not so much about the curriculum, it's about do you connect with the philosophy behind it in terms of child development? If you can study that and connect with that, then the curriculum almost doesn't matter. And so that's what has happened with me. I have let go of curriculum more and more and more because I feel confident in my ability and I feel like I understand my child as an individual. So we've sort of gotten a little bit more into unschooling now.

Speaker 1: 13:14

Yeah, and as you were talking, it was reminding me about an episode I did with Rosemary Larrabee. I'm not sure if you heard that one, but her kids are grown and she was kind of reflecting and I remember her talking about her son as he was getting into that 10 year old and adolescent phase and how the change in his demeanor and how her husband had just kind of looked at him and it was like no, you just have to let like the metamorphosis happen and he'll be fine when he comes out on the other side and how if we have the knowledge on how to help them do that, it makes the process.

Speaker 1: 13:54

It makes it so that you actually grow together doing it and not because, I mean, I'm sure budding of the heads goes on in that time. And if we understand it, then a deeper connection can result. But is Waldorf okay? And it's so funny because all I can picture is like you know, in the Little Rascals there's like the rich kid. That's all I picture. When, when I hear the Waldorf education is like that, it just sounds so like rich and you know. But it's obviously not what it comes across as. And so is it an actual curriculum? It's more of a style, right, but how do you integrate? Like, where do you get the books or the book lists, and like you talked about math and that sort of stuff, is it, is there like a website that sells this stuff, or is it really just a general idea and you piece together everything?

Speaker 2: 14:47

There are a lot of different Waldorf curriculums. Okay, I personally like Christophorus and um the lady.

Speaker 1: 14:53

There you go, another rich sounding person.

Speaker 2: 14:57

Yes, Right, it's very, it's very um Christophorus. The name comes from the St Christopher who carried the children across the water, and so I love her because her name is her. Well, her name is Donna Simmons. That's who wrote the curriculum, and she's very down to earth. She goes you know, get the block crayons. If you can afford the block groundsons, get the block crayons. Get some nice paints. But if you have to get paper from the dollar store and if you have to get yarn from Walmart, roll with it. You know, get what you can get and make it work. Waldorf at home and Waldorf school look completely different.

Speaker 1: 15:37

Okay, so there are Waldorf schools that that's probably where the rich people send their kids, right? Yes, okay, so my vision isn't that off.

Speaker 2: 15:47

Yeah, I would say that I mean, if I was wealthy and I could afford it, I would send my kid to a Waldorf school or maybe a classical school like a Latin school, okay, but there are yeah, there are tons of homeschool curriculums that you can use so that you can do it at home, and there are open and go. I think, simply, waldorf is the most open and go what I have? You get a syllabus and you follow the syllabus and everything comes out of you and you present the lesson to the kid. It's a lot more more of a self-study.

Speaker 1: 16:24

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Speaker 1: 17:28

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Speaker 1: 17:58

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Speaker 1: 18:43

So you really have to love it and you really have to connect with it, because it's not easy and what do you mean by it's not easy as far as having your child get through it?

Speaker 2: 18:49

No, the children love it. My kids have never pushed back on the lessons because they are. They are rich with the storytelling and the artistry that goes into them. A lot of the all of the copy work and things that I present to them are all done in chalkboard drawings and so they would copy that. So they love it. It fits them great. But it's a self-study for the parent. You really kind of have to know what you're doing but why you're doing it, and you have to prepare the night before. You can't just open up the curriculum and throw it at them and say this is what we're doing, cause it won't feel so.

Speaker 1: 19:28

it's like it's open and go, but there's still some sort of like you need to prep as far as why you are doing it.

Speaker 2: 19:35

Okay, yeah, you want to plan. I would say that most Waldorf professionals would say you need to memorize the story and tell it to them like a storyteller.

Speaker 2: 19:46

Oh okay, I read it to them. I cheat because I don't have the time to sit down and memorize a story. I have three kids and Waldorf can be easy with one, Although having one at home I don't think is easy at all. When you have three grades at once doing any kind of curriculum, it's going to be difficult. So you know, I cheat and cut corners and I don't finish the curriculum at all. I'll pick and choose blocks and units that I want to do and can do and I'll take a month or two to finish them.

Speaker 1: 20:24

And it just is what it is. Can you do this as a family style with all?

Speaker 2: 20:26

three kids in different grades. You can, and there isn't a curriculum that helps you with that, so you kind of have to work with it yourself. Well, Donna Simmons had a a little bit of a call, kind of like a a webinar, and I asked her I go, do you have any? Do you have any ideas for me? I have three kids and I am really struggling to get a main lesson for my first grader and my second grader and my fourth grader all at once and get it done. And get it done, you know, in a timeframe that makes sense so that they can actually retain the information. And she goes.

Speaker 2: 20:57

Well, you could take one lesson and you could have, you know, your first grader draw a picture about it in a few letters. You can have your second grader work on a couple of sentences as a summary and you can have your fourth grader write something longer, a paragraph maybe. So, yeah, you can, and I was thankful for that because I really think, because it's so developmentally designed, I didn't know how I could combine three grades at once, but you can. I think you can do that a lot with any of them.

Speaker 1: 21:26

So would the story be the same that you're telling each of them? It's just that the work that you're expecting of them after would be a little bit different.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Some of the stories would work across grades. Some of them wouldn't be age appropriate for some of the younger ones, but it is nice for the older ones to hear the stories for the younger ones. Okay, for instance, I was trying to read King Arthur to my three kids. This wasn't a block, but this is a great example. It was too violent for my younger children. There's too many beheadings, and I was like, well, this one's not going to work, so you just have to be heading.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:06

Does it always work though?

Speaker 1: 22:08

Yeah, and I had asked, uh, a guest of mine a couple of um episodes ago about you know they, they use the word literature a lot and I said to her you know, could you really like break down for me what is literature versus like just any old book I take out of the library and I'm interested to hear your response to that because it literature again. It sounds so rich and like, like am I, are my kids reading literature when we go to the library? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 22:36

I think. So I don't know that there's a difference. I think the difference comes with, and then it's um, if it's classical, if it's like a classical piece of literature, and that would be, you know, pretty much anything written before, like the 1970s I don't know how to define it.

Speaker 1: 22:51

Okay, um, yeah, because one of the book lists that we had done a while ago was like the original Winnie the Pooh.

Speaker 1: 22:59

And you know, I read that with my son and I'm like this is just so good, this is so, so good. And then last night I happened to I like broke down and bought Disney plus for the month. I'll like every now and then I'll be like I really want this one movie from when I was a kid. So I'm like, ah, give Disney our money for a month. And Winnie the Pooh was on there and they had it looked like they had remade the 1977 movie. But so we watched both.

Speaker 1: 23:27

But both of them could have been made in the same timeframe and they were both stories from the original book and it was just again so well done. And my, my five-year-old loved it. And you know, there's music in it and just the way the characters interact and they fall down a hole and the owls down in the hole. So you know, as an adult, I'm like why doesn't he just fly out? And they had a part where he actually does fly out to tell Piglet you can do it, be brave and go get help for us, and then he flies back down into the hole.

Speaker 1: 24:00

And it's just like so cute and and then everyone's looking at him with their mouth dropped and you think they're going to say you can fly this whole time. You could fly. But they're like that was a great speech. Oh my gosh. I'm like this is just brilliant work that you don't yeah, you don't see a lot of that. So like in my head, that's, that's literature.

Speaker 2: 24:25

It is because there's so much depth to Winnie the Pooh. Have you gotten to the end of the book?

Speaker 1: 24:31

Yeah, we read that one, but it was probably nine months to a year ago, so I should take it back out and redo it Every time I get to the end of the adventures of Winnie the Pooh?

Speaker 2: 24:42

I think it's. Is it the complete adventures of Winnie the Pooh? But I'm forgetting what the second part is. But whenever Christopher Robin's leaving to go to school.

Speaker 1: 24:51

No, I didn't even know. I guess that there were more books, because there's so many books within, like the one book, or I guess maybe they're just different chapters.

Speaker 2: 24:59

Oh, very final book in the whole series will make you cry and you, your child, won't know or understand what it means, but you'll know.

Speaker 1: 25:11

Yeah, all right.

Speaker 2: 25:12

Well, now I have to, I guess, dig a little deeper, and maybe that's what makes literature when it's, when it's deep like that, when there's so many symbols of meaning and it's layered in there and the kid doesn't quite understand but loves it, Doesn't know why, but then you can look at it and understand. Yeah, Christopher Robin, I won't spoil it for you, but basically he's, it's good and I've read it twice now and I don't think my kids are. I think my kids are too old to appreciate it now. If I tried to read it, Probably not.

Speaker 1: 25:45

If you appreciate it if you appreciate it as an adult, then they're going to appreciate it more than when they were little. You know cause they'll pick up on little things that they didn't before. There was a really good book, um, cause I did a, a connected Christmas from treehouse schoolhouse over um last December and this one book that she had in there was called the Christmas tapestry, I think it was, or something about a tapestry, and boy, they just wove those stories in and brought in like about you know the Holocaust and what it was you know that was, and it just made one of those books that just there's so much woven in, like I guess you're right, that is what would be literature, versus just any old book that we pick up.

Speaker 2: 26:32

Right, maybe it's the depth of meaning that's layered into it that makes it literature, but I mean, I feel like most books that you could get, do that.

Speaker 1: 26:40

Probably yeah Now. So how does math work and science and history work into all of it? Is it all in that one story or are you doing separate lessons for those subjects?

Speaker 2: 26:56

Well, in the early years, in the elementary grades, the science is pretty much a nature study and so there would be sort of in between blocks. Let's say you move from a math block and then, before you get to the math block, you're going to do or math block and you're going to jump to Norse myths or Norse mythology, but then a week in between you'll do science. It's typically natural science. So anything that's happening around you, whether it's weather or the changing of the seasons, or you're gardening or you're you know, you know you farming with animals, and we live on a farm. So I actually don't do any science. We live very. I mean, every day is science for us? Whether it's what.

Speaker 2: 27:41

My kids have a creek they go and play in and they will just bring me stuff and say, mom, what is this? And sometimes I think, oh, I wonder, and we'll just leave it. Or sometimes, with my older one, we'll go figure it out and she'll study it for a little while. Make a, you know a, and she'll study it for a little while, make a terrarium for it. So we have two cocoons that we're waiting for them to hatch. Now I think they're moths, but we're not really sure. But for science that day. We wanted to know is this a cocoon, is it a chrysalis or what is it? And then we learned the difference between both of those and a pupa all three different kinds of things. So that was our science. So I don't worry about science, not now anyway, maybe when they're older.

Speaker 1: 28:27

And so, now that you've done that, have you read the Hungry Caterpillar from Eric Carlyle?

Speaker 2: 28:33

Does that?

Speaker 1: 28:33

bother you that he makes the wrong reference. I believe that's the book where they call it a cocoon at the end for the butterfly, but I didn't know.

Speaker 2: 28:43

Really, I never paid attention to that.

Speaker 1: 28:45

Well now I'm going to have to double check myself, but because I'm not from the country and but I was corrected by a first grader one time when I said, oh, I wonder if you know this caterpillar is going to make a cocoon, and the first grader was like it's actually a chrysalis and the moth makes the cocoon. And I'm like, wow, I was just schooled. Yeah, Okay, and well, I just learned that, just a couple of weeks ago. So yes, when I read the Hungry Caterpillar I was like uh-uh, for that first grade.

Speaker 2: 29:26

And she's older now.

Speaker 1: 29:27

She's probably in high school now, but I was like nope, she told me, eric Carlyle, you got it wrong. So if anyone listening made that point, please message me so I know I'm not alone or crazy.

Speaker 2: 29:33

I don't remember this. I mean I love the story, though, but I mean I didn't know back then when I was reading it.

Speaker 1: 29:38

Yeah, um so, and it is that season now, so actually I last year got one of the butterfly things, so I have to go out. Did you just find the cocoon somewhere outside and put it in the ground? Oh, that's so cool, so maybe we can go on a little scavenger hunt this. Well, I think we're getting snow here. Actually, it is April 3rd.

Speaker 2: 30:01

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:01

And we are getting snow this week in New York, but maybe after that we'll go out and look for cocoons or yeah, just look under leaves, that's where they are.

Speaker 2: 30:11

They look like leaves too, like little balled up leaves, and if you shake them you'll hear like a rat, something will rattle on the inside, and that's the, and that's the, I guess, the pupa on the inside of the cocoon.

Speaker 1: 30:24

Oh, that's cool. So you were living like in literally this, like a city area, and now you live in a one room cottage. Tell us how that transpired.

Speaker 2: 30:36

Well, I mean, it was kind of a, I think, covid really. So you know, my husband was working for home during COVID and he was very productive. So his work was like, yeah, you can work from home full time now. And my parents had this property, they had the cabin, and I thought, well, we can live in that cabin. And so we just sold our house and moved into it. Does he regret this decision at all? No, but we have listen, we have ups and downs. I mean we don't have a lot of comforts anymore. I mean when you're homeschooling and you're working on, you're living on one income, you have to make a lot of sacrifices. So we have, we have two very old cars that we have to work on all the time and um, but that's a homeschool lesson right there, right.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Yes, we don't work on them.

Speaker 2: 31:31

We don't have a mechanic, but, um, but we have learned a lot about maintaining a vehicle and we know way, know way more now than we ever did before, had we had two incomes and could, just, you know, have a new car and a car payment and all those things. So when you homeschool, you do sort of, you make those kinds of sacrifices. You, you don't have the comfort like everyone else, but you don't value them anymore and your life is so much. Your life is richer in so many ways, but you don't value them anymore and your life is so much, your life is richer in so many ways, that you don't care. So we're always together. My husband works from home and I'm here with the kids, and we have chickens and we've raised a cow, we raised the pig. We've done all these things that we never would have done or experienced. We've learned so many things, and it's all because we were brave enough just to let it all go.

Speaker 1: 32:23

Yeah, and it's hard because the indoctrination, or, you know, just to put it in an easier term, the training that we've received over so many decades and through so many different avenues, like the social media, the TV, through schooling at our jobs, tell us that working is the most important thing and that's like the goal. You go to school to get a job and you know, once you're there, you're kind of like oh, this is it. Like you know, you're always it's a bit patronizing. Strive for more, but more what? More money for what?

Speaker 2: 33:02

More money so you can buy more things and pay people to do things for you. Yes, exactly, it takes all the responsibility out of you as a human being. It's patronizing, I think. But I mean that's how the system works. They want us to be dependent. They want our money, they want us dependent and because of that, I think, our health has suffered. Our IQs are going down, because everything about us has been atrophied. We're not using our minds fully, we're not using our bodies fully, and we're sick.

Speaker 1: 33:34

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:35

You know we don't have the energy to fight back.

Speaker 1: 33:37

It's interesting that you were talking about the kind of like more holistic approach, because just yesterday I was watching a doc and I had heard for a little while now that like root canals are not good for you and I happened to have a couple of them and I was like I want to research it but I don't want to research it because who needs another rabbit hole to go down?

Speaker 1: 33:57

But I watched the documentary the Root Cause and now I'm going to see a holistic dentist tomorrow to see what I can do about getting the dead teeth from my root canals taken out and it's like I was going to say that.

Speaker 2: 34:11

I said have you found a holistic or a biological dentist? They would help you, yes.

Speaker 1: 34:16

I have. I had initially called my dentist to say, like, could you take these teeth out? And they basically laughed at me like no, we don't just take teeth out. But when you watch that documentary you're like, oh my God, get out of my body. So it's interesting, though, but it's like, yeah, you're almost fearful to like research anything because it's like any stone you've turned over. You find that there's just so much bureaucratic government corruption behind it.

Speaker 2: 34:46

Yeah, but I think that's what we're supposed to do and I think that's what homeschoolers are so great at, because we we see a problem and then we take responsibility for it and we figure out a way to fix it and we educate ourself along the way and then we figure out ways to solve it. Yeah, and you're doing that by having your kids at home and taking care of them and helping to educate them, but I personally think that homeschoolers should be pretty active in local government.

Speaker 1: 35:19

Oh, that's interesting. I haven't had anyone say that before. How yes?

Speaker 2: 35:23

Yeah, so that I mean I don't know if we want to segue into that, but I am. I do advocacy work, grassroots advocacy work in the medical freedom you know field, medical freedom realm, and in in the and because I'm watching bills, watching bills. Certain bills are filed that are medical freedom bills or maybe they're anti-medical freedom bills. I will see homeschool bills come up or bills that affect homeschool rights and freedoms. I was talking to a friend of mine and I'm trying to convince her to try to know, try to run for school board. You know she's a homeschooler and I go. Well, if we want to, we have to send in our letters of attendance to the school board. So we have, we're somewhat we have to Held responsible yeah.

Speaker 2: 36:12

Yeah, yeah, held accountable.

Speaker 1: 36:14

Yeah, they hold us accountable, so we should have a voice at the table yeah they hold us accountable, so we should have a voice at the table and I love that you said I am trying to convince my friend and you're not saying I'm going to run myself.

Speaker 2: 36:27

No, she, she had mentioned it and I was like, well, why don't you, you know, run for school board? And I have tried to get on like the library board in our town Cause I thought, you know, a homeschooler would be great on the library board, because homeschoolers have needs at the library. So I've done that and I haven't been selected. But as far as medical freedom advocacy, there is an organization that I work with and we have been. You know we support different medical freedom bills and legislators that are sponsoring the bills, and we have been working really hard to get things like the fluoride mandate overturned in Kentucky so that we can get fluoride out of the water and that was a big Didn't that just happen in Florida?

Speaker 2: 37:08

It's happened in different counties and water districts throughout the United States, in states that don't have statewide mandates that force water districts to fluoridate their water. So there's a county in Florida that just decided that they weren't going to fluoridate. That Florida didn't have a statewide mandate. Same thing happened in North Carolina. There are some other states that sort of escaped my mind right now, but in Kentucky we can't do anything. So even my water district who doesn't want to put fluoride in the water and we've had great conversations about it they're legally required to by state law. So we have been trying to overturn that mandate to give freedom back to the local water districts.

Speaker 1: 37:51

And why do they say that they need the fluoride in the water To help people's teeth in?

Speaker 2: 37:56

the water to help people's teeth, specifically, uh, so our children, who are um a poor, you know socioeconomic, uh, you know lower on the socioeconomic scale, so they think that it helps poor children's teeth. But in Kentucky, uh, it doesn't make any sense because Kentucky has some of the worst dental health outcomes. I think we're number 49 in the United, in the United States, all of the United States, we're number 49. And we've been fluoridating our water across the state since the 60s. So obviously something's not working.

Speaker 1: 38:26

Yeah, and I assume you watch the High Wire, yeah, okay. So for anyone that doesn't know what the High Wire is, they talk about a lot of this stuff and health freedom and bills that are coming down the pipeline or are in front of Congress currently, and they also have a non-for-profit called informed consent action network is their nonprofit and they sue the government all the time and win. It's just you don't hear about these crazy huge life-changing lawsuits taking place that they are winning against the government for. You don't hear them on the news because it doesn't serve the government or the big pharmaceutical companies.

Speaker 1: 39:10

So, the High Wire. You can check that out at thehighwirecom or Rumble I know I watch it on there or you can listen like wherever you listen to this podcast.

Speaker 2: 39:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:20

I don't have any affiliate with them I've asked them, yeah, but they're a great educational resource. Oh my God, it's the best thing and it's such a good. This is like a great thing to listen to with your homeschoolers, especially the teenagers. I mean where to get news, and then they email you the following week with all of the articles that they use so that you can go and reference check what they're talking about with the actual studies.

Speaker 2: 39:44

It is just such a phenomenal way to do news and should be how every news agency does news, yeah it's wonderful and I just heard I think Catherine Austin Fitz was just on and she said you have to combat the great poisoning because if we're sick, what we can't fight back, or we if we're not, if we're poorly educated, we don't have the information to do anything about it. So I think if you're, you're fighting the great poisoning and you're educating yourself and your children and then you're activating yourself, you know within your community and you're talking to your state reps and your mayor and you know you're getting involved and you're helping other people get involved and you're coordinating co-ops and all kinds of things. That's how we, I think, slowly, little by little. I think what is it? The 100th monkey effect? I think that's a little bit different. But you know, little by little.

Speaker 2: 40:35

I don't think it takes very much to make a whole lot of change. But even in a state of Kentucky, the legislation and the legislator is so captured by industries that want us to be dependent and and to not have any sort of responsibility of ourselves so that we buy what they're selling. You know, they're the ones that are affecting policy on the state and local level and if citizens aren't exercising their citizenship and talking to their senators and their representatives and their mayor and trying to get on these school boards and stuff and affect policy that you want to see, then you know the big corporations that make money off of us. They're going to win. But if we're getting involved and we're checking that and checking those bills, the more of us that are doing that work helps everybody.

Speaker 1: 41:25

Are you trying to pick a curriculum but feel a little overwhelmed at the variety of options? Me too. I mean, how do you pick a curriculum when you don't know what each one has to offer? That's been my biggest problem. Well, I am here to help. I just launched a premium content series, Psst. That means it's $3 a month, which will just help cover the cost of running the podcast.

Speaker 1: 41:45

In my curriculum series, I interview homeschooling students and parents and curriculum creators about specific curriculum each week so that you can take the guesswork out of your curriculum choices. I'll be asking questions like what does the day-to-day look like with this curriculum? What does it cover from a bird's eye view? How long does one lesson take to complete? How many lessons does the curriculum contain and what does it cost? Did you have to order the book or could you download them and print them somewhere like your library?

Speaker 1: 42:12

Does this curriculum have a lot of games, writing or crafts, and did your child enjoy this curriculum? Can you do it with more than one child at a time? And if I did this curriculum with my child, would I need to add any sort of supplements to it? These are all questions I've had while I search for the perfect curriculum to suit my son's personality and my expectations. Let's face it there is no one curriculum out there that will work best for every child and adult, so I invite you to join me in my search to find out what every curriculum has to offer, so that you can feel confident in your curriculum choices and enjoy your homeschooling journey that much more. Right where you find all of the homeschool how-to podcast episodes, you'll see my curriculum series and you can subscribe today.

Speaker 2: 42:57

And I think medical freedom and homeschooling and privacy those kinds of bills are the ones that we really should be watching for and and helping make sure that they are passing in our favor yeah, and go figure, my school never taught me how to look up those bills or how to read them.

Speaker 1: 43:16

So what is your recommendation on where we even go for that information? Like, where do I go to see what bill, what I don't even know the process of, like does somebody present it or write it right up the bill. Like, where would I even jump in to say yay or nay to this and how do I get that information?

Speaker 2: 43:37

Find a grassroots group that does that work. That is like the watchdogs for legislation. So in my state the organization that I volunteer for is called Kentucky Medical Freedom Coalition, and then we also run and operate Kentucky for Floride Choice. And then on the homeschool side there is Christian homeschooling education in Kentucky and it's called CHECK. So all those organizations are watching legislation. So they're tracking bills as the legislator files them, whoever they are, and they're watching if they pass committee, if they pass the House, if they pass the Senate, and then are they going to the governor. So that's typically about. That's how they move through the different branches and the different chambers of government.

Speaker 2: 44:26

But to find those organizations are going to be your best bet. I mean, you can certainly try and start yourself from scratch, but every state has these kinds of organizations. If you go to Stand for Health Freedom, they're going to be able to connect you with their partner in each state. Okay, I'll link that in the show's description have been filed that we want to either support or not support, and then you could just simply email or call your Senator and your house of your representative for the house, and say, hey, I want you to vote yes, I want you to vote no and why.

Speaker 2: 45:14

And then we have to do that more and more because what I have learned the more conversations I've had with my representatives and with my senator, is that they want to hear from you and they usually are pretty cool about having great conversations about it and not as many people. More people are lobbying from the corporations and the professional association side of things than actual citizens and their constituents and the people that they represent. So they they're there to help you. They want to hear from you and I think a lot of people. We haven't been taught to do that Right, so it's not comfortable. It can feel really uncomfortable to call and leave a message, to call their office, to email them, but I think you know the more people do that, the less these policies will will will come into place that restrict our freedoms.

Speaker 1: 46:05

Yeah, cause they're banking on that we're not paying attention. And it's true, we're not. And part of. It's our fault, like my fault, for not getting into it, but also, you don't know where to look if you don't know that there is somewhere to look. You know, I know, I was never even taught in school that we can call you know a legend or what a legislature is.

Speaker 1: 46:27

I mean, in the grand scheme of it all. You're kind of taught like this big government, you know in DC, congressmen in the Senate and the House, but yeah, you're not really even taught about that being in your own local area and like what, these local elections, what do those people do? The judge and you know sheriffs and this and that, like there's so much that we're not taught and it's totally by design and you know, I'm kind of like the dunce that fell for it but I can change it for my kids.

Speaker 2: 46:58

I was interested in corruption so I got a. I got a journalism degree and I learned about all these things in school that most people don't.

Speaker 1: 47:06

Then you learn that journalists can't report on any of it if they want to be on the mainstream.

Speaker 2: 47:11

Listen, everybody in my graduating class was concentrating their journalism degree in public relations because that's where the money was. Public relations is just advertising that looks like news. Everything in the mainstream is public relations. None of it is actual, real news. It's all advertising. And it sounds like news because they use fear or events or whatever. But everything is advertising for some corporation or some industry of some kind to sell, to get us to buy things or to get us to buy ideas.

Speaker 1: 47:41

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 47:42

It. You know, it's interesting that I mean, I had a bit of an insider look into it. But yeah, they teach us how they teach us about checks and balances, that they don't teach us how to participate in the checks and balances.

Speaker 1: 47:53

I love that. That's so true. And so then, what makes us different from like having our dog as a pet in our house? Right, like we're the same. It is crazy.

Speaker 2: 48:06

Yeah, we have to activate. You can't just be educated, you have to know what to do with the education.

Speaker 1: 48:12

Yeah, and it's a good point that you, because a lot of people would say, well, I'm just not comfortable doing that it's, it's like yup, okay. Well, you have to get uncomfortable if you want change, because it'll be a whole lot uncomfortable, a whole lot more uncomfortable if we let it play out what is playing out right now, because it's only going to keep going down this direction. The rich people that are benefiting off of our slave labor are not going to say, gee, let's give these people a break, let's give them all the money back that they pay in taxes and make laws that are good for them. That's not going to happen. We do have to wake up to that, myself included. So teaching my kids by example is the best way, really. So that is awesome advice. As we kind of close up on the show, was there anything else that you kind of wanted to like make sure that you touched base on? We talked about quite a bit of really important and deep stuff.

Speaker 2: 49:07

I know we went all over the place and that's what I was thinking about too.

Speaker 2: 49:11

I was like I don't know how to even pinpoint what I would want to talk about. But the advocacy thing, I think, is probably the most important. Figure out how you can get involved with your state and local policymakers, your lawmakers. Find an organization that is watching the bills and start one thing at a time. Pick up the phone and leave a message for your senator or your representative.

Speaker 2: 49:36

In Kentucky, our session is pretty much coming to a close, so all the lawmaking is done for the year. It's different in each state, I don't know. You would have to figure that out. But yeah, just you know we want to, we want to heal ourselves, we want to, we want to fight the great poisoning so that we're healthy, and we want to fight what I would say is the, the, the reduction in IQ, so we want to educate ourselves, and would say is the reduction in IQ, so we want to educate ourselves and our kids. But then what? Then? What do we do? Well, then we have to go and fix the problems and we create the systems ourselves or we try to fix the systems from within, but it doesn't matter, as long as you're activating yourself in some way as a citizen.

Speaker 1: 50:16

So true, Lindsay. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today and for juggling around my hectic schedule of the day.

Speaker 2: 50:25

No, thank you so much. I appreciate what you do. This is a wonderful podcast. You're asking all the right questions and you're asking so many people and it's enlightening.

Speaker 1: 50:34

Oh, that's so nice. And my poor husband, when I'm always like, well, can you watch the kids so I can have a conversation with another adult please, and I don't know, he's always supportive, but I don't know the back of his mind he's like, oh my gosh, this hobby is really taking up a lot of time. But you got to start somewhere and I have just learned so much. In every conversation You'd think like, okay, once you interviewed like 10 homeschoolers, you got it all right. But no, it's been over a year now with probably close to 80 or a hundred interviews and each one I'm like, wow, I never thought about that before.

Speaker 1: 51:06

So I'm so honored that you said that and, you know, gives me the push to keep going. Yeah, keep going. Thank you so much. You're welcome, thank you. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of the homeschool how to. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or, if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.