[00:00:00] Jen Myers: It was actually a year ago having this conversation with her, and sharing about how I’m going to homeschool my granddaughter, and couldn’t find the curriculum, started going to homeschool conventions, looking and being very overwhelmed, because you walk down the aisle, and after a while, everything looks the same. Every vendor says, “My stuff is easy to use and fun for the kids, easy for the parents.” I’m like, “If I read that one more time, and everything’s open and going.” I’m like, “I don’t understand.” Everything starts to look the same.

[music]

[00:00:35] Gretchen Roe: Welcome, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show. I am so excited to welcome Jen Myers today from Homeschool Foundry. We found each other back in March, and through the auspices of a dear friend named Karim Morato. Karim said, “You two should know each other.” She wasn’t kidding, because I think this is an amazing thing that Jen has done here.

I’m going to let her tell you all about it. I want you all to know that, for 25 years, homeschoolers network better than anybody else. I’ve seen it in action for 25 years. Knowing that Jen has taken the power of the internet and made that multipliable, is really exciting to me. I’m going to let her introduce herself, and then we’ll get into the meat of this conversation. Jen, welcome.

[00:01:27] Jen: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Gretchen. I’m so excited to meet everybody, and to be here. We started Homeschool Foundry, my co-founder and I, back in February of this year. Actually, when we met, we had just launched. Now, in the last four months, we have been able to really rally the community of homeschoolers are really around the world.

We help parents really make individualized and confident curriculum decisions for their kids, and help them find the best fit curriculum for each and every one of their learners through a couple of different ways. The secret sauce really is the parent reviews. It’s not just the vendors telling us what the product is, but it’s the parents sharing their experience on how it actually works.

You get to match up with what you’re looking for, what matters to you, and then get to read through what did this math curriculum really look like for a child with ADHD sitting at the kitchen table, or hanging off the tree while you were trying to teach them, or whatever that looks like. Being able to really understand that experience, then helps parents to really make that informed and confident decision to move forward with the curriculum.

[00:02:35] Gretchen: I am grateful for a trampoline. I think all six of my ADHD kids learned, every state they knew, every country, every math fact on a trampoline, so.

[laughs]

[00:02:48] Jen: Back in the day, we had, for one of my children who just required movement in order to learn, her body had to be moving in order for her brain to be comprehending what was going on. We used a treadmill. She walked and learned math facts. Back then, we didn’t have the internet. We didn’t have Facebook to help us in the community. We had to get creative. I was like, “Hey, we have a treadmill. Let’s walk and learn.” That’s what we did.

[00:03:15] Gretchen: That is one of the hallmarks of being a homeschool parent. You just figure it out. When you and I were homeschooling our kids, we had to figure it out all by ourselves, or we had the blessings of a local community to be able to help you. I mean, I became a homeschool mom overnight in the middle of a calendar year. I literally called a friend and said, “What are you using? I’m going to use it too.” It was that quick.

Then, when things weren’t quite working the way I wanted them to, I had to go back to that community and say, “Hey, what are you using? How did this work? What can I change?” Those kinds of things. The virtue of the internet now, that changes that whole experience. Tell me a little bit about your personal homeschool journey, and then what got you to here, because you’ve told me this story, but I think it’s compelling. I think it’s something that parents should know.

[00:04:14] Jen: All right. Well, we always talk about people laugh, because I tell them I was literally the most reluctant homeschooler. Never thought I was going to homeschool. In fact, at the time that we started homeschooling, we had a second-grader, a kindergartner, and a preschool. Preschooler was in private school. The older two were in public school.

I had just been accepted to get my PhD in social psychology. Life was going according to plan. We were going to parent-teacher conferences that spring. The second-grade teacher sat us down and she said, “Your daughter is really behind.” This is my bonus daughter that I’ve had since she’s been five. We’re raising her. She said she’s really behind. Back then, they didn’t do testing for learning differences like they do today.

All we knew is that she was really behind. Later, we’d find out she was dyslexic. At the time, they had no idea. She said, “Have you considered homeschooling? I think she would really thrive with one-on-one teaching, and one-on-one instruction.” This was a public school teacher. I don’t know if they would do that today. Back then, in the early 2000s, she was like, “We cannot meet the need of this child. I think this would be a suggestion.” I was like, “No, no, no. Do I look like a homeschooler? I am not a homeschooler.”

Then, the next week, we went to a parent-teacher conference for our preschooler at the time. This was a private preschool teacher. She said to us, she said, “You guys cannot send him to kindergarten.” I said, “Why not? He’s been phenomenal. He’s been reading since he’s been three years old. He’s super smart. Why? He’s thriving.” She said, “Well, because he’s at about a first, second-grade level in everything. He’s going to be bored out of his mind.” She said, “School is not working for him.” Later, we’d find out he’s autistic, and super, super smart. I said, “Well, what should we do with him? How do I support this child?” She said, “Have you considered homeschooling?”

[00:06:13] Gretchen: [laughs] I’m only laughing, because you’re getting pasted into a corner here. [laughs]

[00:06:17] Jen: I know. I’m like, “What is this? Is everybody conspiring against me? No, I am not homeschooling.” In fact, I had my acceptance letter to go get my PhD. I was ready that next fall, everybody would be in school full-time. Everything was planned out. One week later, I sat on our bed after I dropped all the kids off at school, and I was bawling my eyes out.

My husband said, “What’s wrong, honey?” I said, “I don’t know. I think I’m pregnant.” He said, “There’s no way. I just got a vasectomy four weeks ago.” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m telling you. I just don’t know.” He’s like, “There’s no way.” I went and got a test. As you can see where this is going, I was pregnant. Our bonus baby was conceived three days before my husband’s vasectomy.

[00:07:07] Gretchen: Oh, my goodness gracious. [chuckles]

[00:07:09] Jen: He says to me, he goes, “What are we going to do?” I said, “Well, I guess we’re going to try out homeschooling for one year.” That was 2003. We never looked back. I paused graduate school, stayed home, and built multiple businesses that have been really successful. I’ve always worked while I homeschooled. It just became this incredible, beautiful life of freedom and flexibility.

Over the years, we’ve changed curriculum. We’ve tried different things. We’ve done dual enrollment. We’ve literally tried every single thing that’s been out there. Now, the most reluctant homeschooler on the planet Earth, is now getting ready to homeschool the grandchildren, because we have eight of them. My son came back and said, “Mom, will you please homeschool Amelia?” I was like, “Absolutely, I would love to do that,” but it looks different now than it did 22, 23 years ago. That was part of why we decided to start Homeschool Foundry, because 23 years ago, we had five options, and you made them work. Now, we have over 3,000 options. I was like, “There’s got to–” [crosstalk]

[00:08:12] Gretchen: 25 years ago, we didn’t have these. I’m grateful [chuckles] that I didn’t– I’m attention deficit enough that, if I had that in my life when I began my homeschooling journey, I would have been more distracted, not less distracted. I learned in the crucible of home education how to focus my attentions. I’m sure that you have learned that as well, because now here you are ready to homeschool the next generation. That would be really cool.

[00:08:50] Jen: It’s really special. It is. They’ll help. Her mom will help homeschool as well, but I will be the primary teacher for her. I’m really excited as I’ve gone to homeschool conferences over the last two years, and as I’ve gotten to really set up Homeschool Foundry, and getting to see what’s out there, it’s become exciting instead of overwhelming, because now I can narrow down that shortlist and go, “Yes, this is how she learns. This is what we’re looking for. This is what matters to our family.” Be able to confidently choose and move forward, it’s so different than when I was 25 years ago when we were just shooting in the dark going, “Well, this is what somebody else– One other family we know use this. Maybe our kids like theirs. Maybe it’s not. I don’t know, but it is what it is, and we tried our best.”

[00:09:37] Gretchen: Sure. I remember back in the day, I became a homeschool parent in very similar circumstances to yours. My eldest daughter came home from school midway through the year and said, “I don’t have to memorize my multiplication tables.” I said, “Wait a fat minute.” [laughs] Long story short, when the school said, “Oh, don’t worry about it, Mrs. Roe, she’s a cute little girl. She’ll get by.” I had to become a homeschool mom or go to jail. Here I was, but I had no intention of homeschooling long-term.

My son’s kindergarten teacher said, “You’re going to have to homeschool him.” I said, “Marianne, I don’t want to do this.” She said, “Yes,” but she said, “Anybody who can read The Chronicles of Narnia as a kindergartner, and explain the allegorical references to me, shouldn’t be in a public classroom. He’s going to be labeled a problem child.” We had very similar situations, and I truly believe, where God wants you to go, He’s going to drag you [laughs] whether you want to go there or not.

[00:10:39] Jen: Absolutely. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I even look back, and we serve such a good God. I had a vision for my life, and every day I get to live that. I always talk about it being like a patchwork quilt. It was all these little sections that didn’t seem like they made sense, and now, 25 years later, with Homeschool Foundry, I can see every single thing that I dreamed about, even as a little girl, happening in my life today. I’m just blown away all the time. It’s such an honor to serve the homeschool community.

[00:11:12] Gretchen: Now, tell me the genesis of Homeschool Foundry, because I know that this was the brainchild, an accidental brainchild, a little bit of where would you go to find this information? When you couldn’t find it, you decided to create it.

[00:11:28] Jen: That’s exactly what happened. It’s twofold, I always want to give credit where credit is due. When you were sharing about Karim connecting us, it was actually a year ago having this conversation with her, and sharing about how I’m going to homeschool my granddaughter, and couldn’t find the curriculum, started going to homeschool conventions looking, and being very overwhelmed, because you walk down the aisle, and after a while, everything looks the same. Every vendor says, “My stuff is easy to use and fun for the kids, easy for the parents.” I’m like, “If I read that one more time and everything’s open and going,” I’m like, “I don’t understand.” It starts to look the same.

[00:12:06] Gretchen: It does. It is like drinking from a fire hose. [laughs]

[00:12:09] Jen: It is. I love conferences, and I want families to go to conferences. I just want to curate it for them. That’s a story for another day. I want to be able to be like, “Hey, before you go in, here’s your top 15 or 20 people you probably want to go check out. Then, the other people also look at them, but let’s get you curated a little bit.” I was so frustrated, and I was looking for curriculum going, “What is best?”

As parents, and for me now being a grandparent, we only get one shot with these kids. We can pivot, but there’s no greater decision you’re going to make than what you’re putting into your child’s life. It’s such a big deal. I don’t know about you, Gretchen, but I didn’t want to fail. I didn’t want to fail a little. I wanted to do right by her. I wanted to give her the best opportunity to reach her full potential. I looked, and I was like, “There’s got to be a better way.” I was talking with Karim, and she says, “Jen, you need to become the curriculum reviewer for this generation. Something different, not the old way. We need something new, Jen. We need something new for these families.”

[00:13:16] Gretchen: I can almost hear her voice in that too. [laughs]

[00:13:19] Jen: She’s like, “Jen, you got to do it.” We’re sitting at breakfast, and I was like, “Karim, I don’t.” She said, “I think you should be the next homeschool reviewer.” I said, “I don’t know if I’m meant to do that.” I don’t know if I want to review curriculum, because I felt inadequate because I haven’t used every single curriculum out there. Just because it’s not a good fit for my family, doesn’t mean it’s not a good fit for somebody else’s family.

I sat there and I listened to what she was saying. I said, “Well, you know what? Let me think on that.” I fly home actually one year from this last week. It was actually Ontario, California where it happened. I flew home, and the next morning I was getting ready, and I thought, “Wait a minute, what if I’m not the one that reviews the curriculum?” Then, I started thinking, “Gretchen, how do we make purchases?” When we go to Amazon, we read other people’s reviews.

Last week when I wanted to go to a new restaurant in Ontario, California, you know what I did? I read the Google reviews. I realized there’s nothing like that in the homeschool community. There’s nothing. I started to look and I thought, “This is crazy. Why do we not have something that is so powerful? Where is that curated experience for the next homeschool mom?”

I thought, “I have so much wisdom to give after 25 years of homeschooling.” Going, “I can share about curriculum that I’ve used. I know friends that have used 10, 15, 20 curriculum.” How many of us have a curriculum graveyard and go, “Yes, we can say what works, and we can say what didn’t work for us.” Right?

[00:15:01] Gretchen: Yes. [chuckles] Curriculum graveyard. Oh, yes, I drove a Cadillac off a cliff when I finished my homeschooling journey, because I had so much stuff on my shelves being a curriculum junkie, that I had stuff that I’d use with one child that didn’t work with the next child, but I loved it, so I didn’t want to get rid of it. [laughs] My husband was like, “I’m not moving all of that to North Carolina.” [laughs]

[00:15:25] Jen: Well, Gretchen, as homeschool moms that are veteran moms that have homeschooled 5, 10, 15, 20 years, we have so much wisdom to share, and experience. It’s just all going into the abyss, like, nobody’s sharing it. I was like, “There’s got to be a better way.” I called up a good friend of mine, and I was telling her about it, and she goes, “Oh, yes, that’s exactly what I built for the wedding registry, The Knot.” I was like, “Oh, Monica.” I had separated Monica, my friend, from Monica, the world-renowned coder. She goes, “Let’s build it together.” I said, “Great, because I am not technical at all.” [chuckles] Gretchen, we couldn’t even figure out the Zoom link.

[laughter]

[00:16:09] Gretchen: I know. Well, truth to tell, Zoom finally informed me that, that was their fault, not ours. About two minutes before we logged on, I got a message from them saying there was a coding problem in this particular webinar. At least, we solved it. Nobody wants to be in that position of trying to figure out at the last minute, “What am I doing? Why isn’t this working?” It’s a great analogy for academics as well, because nobody wants to be sitting there having opened something and say, “I bought this. Why did I buy this? What prompted me to do this?”

[00:16:52] Jen: Yes, because you’re right. We’re sitting there. We’re looking at it. We’re six weeks into the curriculum. Comes October, and we’re going, “We invested all of our homeschool budget in this big curriculum, and it’s not always the right fit for our kids.” Now, does that make it a bad curriculum? I always want to put that caveat, because it might be the perfect, the best-fit curricula for another family, but it may not be the best fit for yours.

[00:17:16] Gretchen: Yes. I had an experience that way once with my kids. I used a classic curriculum that, in the form in which I used it, is no longer available. It was an amazing experience for my kids. It ended at eighth grade. When my eldest daughter became a ninth grader, my thought was, it would be easier for me if I moved everybody into the curriculum that she was going to use in ninth grade. I did that. I moved four kids, lock, stock, and barrel into a different curriculum.

My then sixth grade son, we had the hardest year. We fought constantly all year long. It wasn’t until Easter, so early April, that I finally– The penny finally dropped. He said, “If you just let me go back to the curriculum we were using before, I would do the work.” We fought about the fact that he just resisted it every turn doing the work. My rejoinder at that point, all I could see was the dollar signs of what I had spent.

He said, “I’ll pay for it myself.” This was 2000 maybe, and 2001. It was over a $1,000 worth of curricula then. That kid threw newspapers, raked lawns, mowed lawns, did whatever he had to do to pay for that curriculum. He was ready for seventh grade in September. It was such a powerful lesson for me that, if you have the right curriculum, you can’t stop them from learning. If you have the wrong curriculum, you’re going to fight them every step of the way.

[00:19:16] Jen: Absolutely, every step of the way. Sometimes we think, “Oh, it’s homeschooling.” That’s a lot of times when it gets, like, “Homeschooling isn’t working for us.” Really, all it is, is we just have the wrong tools. We’re trying to drive a nail with a screwdriver, and it’s the wrong tool. That’s okay. That’s when we pivot. I have a similar story, Gretchen, and I’ll reverse it.

My one daughter, I thought she’s very creative. I thought, “We’re going to do this very hands-on project-based curriculum.” I paid a lot of money for it. We did it. She was so discouraged. I thought, “What is going on?” We sat down and had a conversation. She said, “Mom, I just feel like I’m not learning anything.” I’m like, “You’re learning.” I tried to explain all of the things we’re doing, and translate it into learning. She was about 11 or 12, and she said, “I just really prefer the worksheets.”

Some people say, “Oh, don’t do worksheets, don’t do worksheets.” For this child, she loved worksheets, and what she needed was that structure. She thrived on structure. To this day, as an adult, this child thrives on structure. She needed to see where she was going, she needed to be able to checkmark that box, and that is how her brain learned. Then, she would go off and do the creative stuff afterwards. She was still learning the other things, she was still doing it, but she needed that foundation, and that guidance, and that structure of a very traditional textbook and worksheets, and that’s what fit for her.

[00:20:52] Gretchen: It’s so interesting. I had the privilege of seeing a new curriculum in California this weekend. Hopefully, this lady will be a guest on the show in a couple of months. It is an art-based education curricula, but it’s based on the great masters. She has cobbled it together, so that, as you learn, you imitate, which to me is like, “Oh, this is amazing.”

Sitting there, falling in love with her curricula, and going through her materials, I realized that having the opportunity to have someone explain that, not the creator, but someone who had experienced that would be so valuable, which is why I think your concept of Homeschool Foundry is so brilliant. Now, tell us how it works. You’ve had the designer of The Knot create it, which was pretty [chuckles] awesome, man.

[00:21:51] Jen: When a family comes in to Homeschool Foundry, it is completely free for families. We’re not selling anything to you. We don’t have affiliate links on the site. You get to come in and choose what is most important to you. One thing when I’m talking to curriculum vendors, actually the one that you just shared, I know who that is, they’re on the site. Here’s the thing, they’re not super well-known yet. Nobody is out Googling for that curricula.

[00:22:16] Gretchen: Because you wouldn’t know what to Google for.

[00:22:18] Jen: You wouldn’t know what to Google for. You can ask in a Facebook group, but you might get a hundred different responses. Next week when you ask, you might get a hundred different responses. Just depends who sees it that day, or if anybody, right? When someone, a family comes on, they get to basically share a little bit about their family, what’s important to them. We follow the FIT model.

F for family first. We talk about what’s important to your family. How much time do you have to dedicate to homeschooling? Do you want child-led learning? Do you want parent-led instruction? Do you want to do it together? What does that look like? Then, the next thing we’re going to talk about is instruction. What is important to you? Do you know what your philosophy is? Do you prefer, like, we were talking about– Do you want classical education? Do you want hands-on? Do you want unit studies? Do you want more of a traditional textbook approach? What does that look like?

Then, finally, we look at the traits. What is important for your child? Earlier, we were talking about some children have to be moving in order to learn. If you’ve got a mover, you know it. They haven’t stopped moving since they came out of your– Since they’re itty-bitty babies. Since the very beginning, they move. You might also have a child who struggles with reading, so you need low-density reading, or you might have a child that is a voracious reader and loves to read, so you might want high reading.

You might want something really rigorous. You might want something that’s more adaptive or flexible. You might want looking at what are the supports? We were talking earlier before we got on here, the scaffolding. Do you need a parent guide that’s in a different language? Do you need additional live, or prerecorded video instruction to help support that parent in teaching, so that the parent isn’t the only one teaching that child? You get to choose from the traits. Once you create that learner profile, and you can do that for each of your children, because we all know, if you have more than one child, you know what works for one, probably is not going to work for the other.

[00:24:21] Gretchen: God has an infinite sense of humor in that capacity. I can’t wait to sit at His feet and say, “Why? Why did you do this?” I have six firstborn children. [laughs] Every one of them is wildly different in how they learn, what motivates them, what energizes them. I often think the best thing we can do is become students of our children, but when I say that to parents, sometimes they’re surprised.

[00:24:52] Jen: Interesting. Yes, I agree with you. They’re so wildly different. That is why being able to look for curriculum in one place, because I don’t believe you should have to have 27 Google tabs open in order to find the best curricula for your child. One place, you have learner profiles for each child, and then you can go and choose your curriculum from there. Once you put everything in, we have a match score. We call it a FIT score.

Rather than saying, “This is your perfect curriculum,” we will give you a variety of curriculum, and it’ll say, “This is a 100% match based on what you said.” You can also type in, maybe you have a third-grade child with ADHD struggles with reading. It will not only pull from what vendors have shared about their curriculum, but here’s the special part. It pulls from the reviews that other parents, just like you, have left. It will create a FIT score and say, “Based on what you said, this is a 90% match. This is an 80% match.” We recommend, look at the ones above 50%.

You can compare them, because maybe you have one that fits all three of your children, if you have three different kids. You’re like, “Oh, here’s one. I never even thought about this one.” Here’s one that could fit everybody, possibly, in different ways, because maybe that one offers the different supports, and different traits that you need for that all different children.

Once you have that opportunity to see what the FIT scores are, and look, you can view the snapshot of the curriculum. You can see how long it takes for an average lesson. Budget, because some of our budgets are different. We can talk about– It’ll give you a snapshot on what it includes, what the features are, what the benefits, and what the parents are saying. Then, you can simply click over and go to the vendor’s website in order to learn more, or to purchase. Super easy, but we really are creating that middle trusted decision layer to help each family choose the best curriculum for their child.

[00:26:51] Gretchen: I think that’s something that has been heretofore missing in the homeschool space. We’ve been doing it, but we’ve been doing it mano a mano, if you will, one-to-one, or maybe through a Facebook post, which, like you said, may land or may not land. Being able to have a singular site where I can create an analysis, so that I really understand my learner, that’s enormous as well.

I bet that is changing parents’ perspectives, as far as how their children learn. I know my two youngest boys had a very different academic experience than their four older siblings, because the more kids I had, the smarter I got as far as learning how they learned. I think that it’s helpful to be in that position to go, “Oh, I don’t know everything about my children. What else can I?”

[00:27:52] Jen: What else is out there that can help them really reach their whole potential? We don’t know as parents what we don’t know. The collective wisdom of the homeschool community, the more I learn, the more I read other parent reviews, it’s so rich, the breadth of it, just understanding their experience. Like you said, the more experience we get, the wiser we get, and the more that we can share with that next generation.

It’s not just about the parents who are coming in looking for that curriculum, it’s also about the parents who have graduated their kids. Looking back and being able to plant that seed of wisdom that’s going to help the next family down the line, that they’re not going to have to make the same $1,000 mistake that you made. They’re not going to have to use their hard-earned money to invest in a curriculum that’s not a right fit, only to find out by October going, “Yes, this is not going to work. We have to pivot,” because we’re helping each other. You see that in co-ops and in Facebook communities. As a community, homeschoolers, like you said, there’s no better networking. There’s no better community to support each other.

[00:29:00] Gretchen: I know that because I have the privilege of teaching a Getting Started Homeschooling workshop at many of the conventions across the US, what I’ll often say to parents is, “There’s several questions you need to ask before you make a purchase. What is your support after the purchase? Do you have a money-back guarantee? How long have you been in business? How many people have used your curriculum? Can I talk to somebody who’s used your curriculum?” Those are all, to me, really valuable questions that parents should be thinking about. Is there support for me after I purchase your curriculum, if there’s something I don’t understand? That’s a huge one as well.

[00:29:45] Jen: You know what else I tell parents to ask that nobody else talks about, is I ask vendors, “Who is this not a good fit for?”

[00:29:53] Gretchen: Oh, that’s a great question.

[00:29:57] Jen: If the vendor can’t answer that, if they say, “Oh, it’s a fit for everyone?” I would argue it’s probably not, and that’s okay. Let’s normalize. Not everything is the right fit. I always tell a story. There’s a curriculum very, very well known. I started back in, I think, 1990. Early 2000s, it was all the rage. Multiple families I knew used it, and I got it, and it was all project-based. I’m not going to use the name, because it’s not the same format today. They are still around, but it’s very different.

I could not write a review on it in today’s format, because I used it 20 years ago. Gretchen, it required so much hands-on prep, I kid you not, five to seven hours of prep every week, and I’m like, “I cannot do this. With four kids under eight, and I’m running a business, there is absolutely no way.” It’s things like that. For them, it was a phenomenal program, but if I was telling somebody back then who is this not for, it is not for somebody who needs open and go.

It is not for somebody who prefers that they can just open a book and keep going. It’s very hands-on with the parent from the beginning to the end, and I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do 20 hours a week worth of prep and then projects. It just wasn’t going to work for teaching four kids the core curriculum on top of that.

[00:31:15] Gretchen: Right. I love that question of who is it not a good fit for, because it forces the people with whom you are talking to think about who is not successful with our materials. That’s a question that I entertain not as often as I would like to, but I will be very honest with parents. If you’re looking for a hands-off approach, then Demme Learning products probably aren’t the product for you, because we’re anticipating parental involvement.

I want to circle back to something you said because I think this is really important, because I think there’s more and more of you in the space. I too was a working mom when I was homeschooling my children, and I worked from home in an age where working from home was an oddity, not a normalcy. I looked for materials that I could prepare in advance, and be ready for a whole week. What were the things that you looked for in materials to be able to continue to have a business thrive, and have your children thrive too?

[00:32:30] Jen: Oh, such a good question, because I think you’re right. I work with so many families now that are either working, or they have a business. You have a dual income. Single parents is another huge growing population in the homeschool world. They’re working and homeschooling. What I looked for is something that I could adapt over multiple ages, so I could teach some of the subjects together. Things like math and reading and writing, those things I needed to teach individually, because I had four kids ranging from zero to–

[00:33:01] Gretchen: Thank you so much for saying that, because the funny part about math is, we think, “Oh, it’s easy, we can teach them together,” but invariably, kids’ skills aren’t at the same level. Another one that I want to ask the Heavenly Father is, why is the younger kid’s skill above their older sibling mathematically so often? We don’t really think about wanting to protect our children’s self-esteem, but we have to.

[00:33:33] Jen: Oh, I had to because my oldest child is severely dyslexic, and then number three is on the autism spectrum, and he is genius level, as far as book smart. We have other challenges, but book smart, and he would exceed everything that she did. I had to separate the core. I could not teach the same, but what I could teach the same is with history. I looked for things that I could adapt it for different levels, because I needed to be able to be as succinct as possible, so that I could spend time one-on-one for the things that had to be taught individually, but the things that could go together, I was able to do that.

The other thing that I looked for are things that set levels instead of grades, because I had kids that struggled at different things, so that was just from– Like you were talking about self-esteem, I think that’s something that when you have a child that may not be at “grade level,” having A, B, C, or different levels instead of fourth, fifth, sixth grade helps a lot.

Then, the other thing that I looked for is anything, like you said, prepare ahead, that was a big thing. Now, what I tell people to look for are things like, is it open and go? How much is required of the parent? It doesn’t mean we’re not hands on, or we’re hands off, or any of that necessarily, but just what is the requirement? Is this going to require six hours a day of you, or is it going to require six hours a week of you as the parent, and as the teacher, or are there other opportunities for the child to be independent for some of it?

How much can they do on their own? Because when you’re working, the reality is, you have to have some independent work. Otherwise, they’re just going to end up on– You’re going to look at– They’re going to be on screens, or getting into trouble and doing things, you’re fighting with each other. Who knows what they do? Those are the kind of things that I would look for, because that’s what enabled me to be successful working, but also homeschooling.

Then, lastly, for me, I needed to be able to do some of the things in pockets of time, and be able to start and stop. If the lessons required 45 minutes of focus work, that was usually a no-go for our family. With four children of varying ages, and a business where I would sometimes have to stop, I would be able to be like, “Okay, I can do 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and then I would have to switch to something else.” Does that make sense? I needed to make sure it was really flexible with the timing.

[00:35:57] Gretchen: Sure. Some curricula that were developed in a classroom, and then adapted to a home academic experience come with more material than you really need to accomplish that, but how do you interpret that? Particularly, if you’re like me, the good German, if I bought some material, I’m going to do all the pages. Giving yourself permission to know what you can adapt is another place where being able to hear from other homeschool parents how they have adapted successfully is enormous.

[00:36:34] Jen: Yes. I think that’s a huge thing. In fact, we were just discussing having a initiative, or a review-a-thon, and encouraging parents specifically to talk about how different products have been adapted, and how they’ve used it, because I think there’s a lot of freedom in giving ourselves permission in order to adjust. There was one math program that we used that had a lot of problems on the page, and it was very overwhelming for my child.

Back then, we didn’t have a lot of options. Understanding, he just did every fourth problem, and it was okay, and he learned, and he felt like he was in control. He was a happy camper, I was a happy camper, everybody was good. Thinking about how families adapted, and the flexibility in that is so powerful.

[00:37:23] Gretchen: I love the fact that you could see how much was enough for him. Maybe it’s a different generation, but I think parents today are struggling more to know how much is enough. Maybe because in their academic experiences, more was pushed at them at earlier ages than was pushed at us when we were in school. The reason I say that is, because you have a baby, and you say, “Oh, look at this beautiful baby.” They’ll walk somewhere between 7 and 18 months, and we’re all content with that. Then, we say, “Every five-year-old should be beginning to read.” That’s not necessarily the case, but we’ve adapted that culturally to believe that to be the truth. Sometimes I think that sets parents up for struggle and strife.

[00:38:22] Jen: I feel like that’s where community really comes in, and being around people who can say, “Oh, this is normal, or it’s not.” My youngest son, profoundly dyslexic, did not read a single word. Not one word, not cat, not dog, nothing until he was 10 years old.

[00:38:40] Gretchen: You and I have two similar boys. I had one who was more than nine years old before he could read. He couldn’t even recognize all 26 letters of the alphabet at the age of eight, so.

[00:38:51] Jen: Same. You know what he did, Gretchen? At 10, he learned to read, because we got the right curriculum for him. This is another reason I have such– I’m like, “Oh God, the curriculum worked for the other kids.” I was like, “It didn’t work for him though. ” We finally got the right fit curriculum, and he started reading. At 16, he walked through my door and said, “Mom, I’ve decided I’m done homeschooling. I applied to the local community college. I got a full-ride scholarship. I start next month.”

I’m like, “I’m sorry, what?” This was my child, that six years ago, six years, Gretchen, could not read a single word. Applied and got into college on his own behind my back. Now, how did they let a 16-year-old apply? I had no idea. I did have to go in and sign the final paperwork. That fall, he started community college, got his associate in automotive mechanics. He is now 23 years old. He is a phenomenal mechanic. He’s getting ready to buy out the shop that he works for. He is thriving.

[00:39:54] Gretchen: See, what it is there, Jen, is that intrinsic value that so many new homeschool parents don’t yet know is you taught him how to teach himself. That is something that a lot of kids don’t get in a public, private, parochial environment. They don’t learn how they learn best. That’s so exciting. I have goosebumps with that story here. I’m sitting, oh, my goodness, that’s amazing.

[00:40:23] Jen: Yes, he could have been my biggest failure or my biggest success. We only had two options with that one. I remember sitting and just bawling my eyes out. I told my husband at the time, I said, if he had been my first, he would have been my last. I would have quit homeschooling. I am like, “I know, I was able to homeschool the other three at this stage. This one is different.” He’s dyslexic. It just took a lot longer. I’m so proud of him today. He’s incredible.

He’s the biggest advocate for homeschooling because he knows if he had gone through traditional schooling, he would have been labeled. He would have gotten thrown into the mix with everybody else. We were able to customize that and go at his pace, and like you said, he learned how to learn. To this day, he can teach himself anything. He’s learning AI right now on his own, in his spare time. He understands how to learn. A lot of that, it comes back to, again, it is not our job to teach them every single thing in the world as parents. It is our job to teach them how to learn and to put the right tools in their toolbox when they’re younger, so that they have the tools to build the house when they get older.

[00:41:30] Gretchen: Right. Education is the lighting of a fire and then the fanning of that flame. My dyslexic son, when he was diagnosed formally at eight and a half, the diagnosticians said in front of him, “Don’t bother to send him to college. He’s not college material,” which just annoyed me. He has a degree in computer science. He’s a network systems engineer. He started his own business six months ago in conjunction with the company for which he works, because he said, “Hey, you’ve got this population that you’re not serving.” His company said, “Well, you serve that population, and then we’ll create this symbiotic relationship.”

There’s not a lot of 27-year-olds that would be able to come up with that idea and execute on it, and the fact that he’s doing that. He, like your son, said to us after his freshman year of high school, he said, “I don’t want to be homeschooled anymore. I want the experience of going to public school.” I don’t know how you felt, but I needed a 12-step program to walk that back because I was afraid the school was going to eat him for lunch. It didn’t. I learned in that process that God is faithful, that if you have sown into them, He will be faithful to walk them through to the end successfully.

[00:43:03] Jen: Yes, I love it, because they would have said the same thing about Brandon, that he wasn’t college material, and he proved them all wrong. He learned how to advocate for himself. Now, did he have to have extra time taking tests? Absolutely. He learned to advocate for himself, to go in and ask for the accommodations.

I go back to that particular curriculum that I used, and I thought, “What if I hadn’t found that curriculum? What if I was still stuck in the other four that I had tried, that nothing was working? What if he hadn’t learned to read?” He needed to learn to read to go to all these next levels. He also got to learn how to build relationships and how to have all of these connections. That has carried him further than anything else. It’s a whole ecosystem of learning and understanding and really equipping our children for success.

[00:43:55] Gretchen: It changes every year. I think that’s something that maybe new homeschool parents don’t recognize, is that the child who sits in front of you at the table this year is not the child who sat in front of you at the table last year. That is a huge thing to be able to recognize as well.

[00:44:17] Jen: Yes, absolutely. I agree.

[00:44:20] Gretchen: Now, I would like to spend just a couple of minutes looking back on your years of experience. What were the lessons that you learned that now you’re imparting to parents through Homeschool Foundry? One of them you’ve already set forth, and that is that every child is going to be different. Don’t be complacent in thinking you can buy one kind of material and make it work for every child. What else did you learn? What are the intrinsic lessons?

[00:44:54] Jen: The relationship is more important than anything else. In building their character before a curriculum, if I could go back and just tell myself 20 years ago, the things that I thought were going to matter, like we have to get every worksheet done at the beginning, building that relationship is so much more important. I’m proud of the relationship I have with all four of my children. I picked up a couple of bonus ones along the way that we adopted in. That is number one, that character before curriculum, who they are, matters so much more than what they know, and the relationship.

Then, I think grace, just so much grace for us as parents to know that we are doing the best that we can, and that is all that we are called to do is the best that we can. We don’t have to be perfect. Our kids don’t have to be perfect. They get to learn at their own pace. It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint.

Even sharing the story about my son, I remember feeling such a failure when he was nine and not reading anything yet. Then nine and a half, and I was like, “That’s it. This kid’s going to graduate and not know how to read a single word. I don’t know what to do.” [chuckles] Looking back, going, “Man, if I could have seen the end, and knowing that the end is so much more than the beginning, and those moments in time, they feel like an eternity, but they’re not,” and just cherishing every moment.

[00:46:24] Gretchen: Sure. There’s so much wisdom in that, if you could see the end at the beginning. We don’t. We just have to take the next step. Sometimes that’s really hard because I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves, we don’t need to place there. I don’t know about you, but I find, looking back, that things that I really sweated ended up to be, as my German father would say, max mix. It didn’t matter. [laughs]

[00:46:55] Jen: 100%.

[00:46:56] Gretchen: I love that you said that the relationship is paramount. I think every parent, when they go in to build a profile, they should think about their relationship as they build that profile for their learner. Now, do they have the opportunity then the following year to come back and reorder that profile, if they will?

[00:47:20] Jen: Yes. They can save it and then go back and revisit it and adjust it as needed.

[00:47:25] Gretchen: Terrific. That’s awesome.

[00:47:27] Jen: Gretchen, I think one other thing I want to add, if I could go back and tell myself anything at the beginning, is that as parents, our teaching style is just as important as our child’s learning style. I think too often there’s so much emphasis put on how does this child learn, which is very important, but we also forget that we are the ones teaching this information and understanding that we are facilitating this and making sure that it also aligns with us.

That great example is that you don’t love reading to your child, but they like listening, maybe audiobooks are better than read-alouds all day long every day. Thinking about how can we modify it, but also taking us into account because we’re an important part of this equation as a homeschool parent.

[00:48:13] Gretchen: Right. Attitude is caught, not taught. [laughs] If you’re doing something with a bad attitude– I know for a number of years I did a lot of things, particularly related to math. [laughs] I work for Demme Learning, and I love the privilege I have of working for Demme Learning, but I’m never going to say I love math because that was never something that I learned to love as a child. I don’t have an adversarial relationship with math now, and I’m grateful for that, but that would never be my first go-to of, “Great, let me teach you something mathematically.” [laughs]

[00:48:57] Jen: That’s okay. When we’re going back to looking at best-fit curriculum, we’re looking for something that gives us extra support in that area, whether it’s video teaching or explanation. That’s what we’re looking for. We don’t want to be the core of that teaching experience for math, possibly. I think that’s so important because, you’re right, the attitude more is caught than taught. We want to be able to serve and support our family. If we’re doing it in a way that honors us and aligns with us, we’re going to be happier. Then our kids have more of a chance of being happier and enjoying it as well.

[00:49:29] Gretchen: Sure. Absolutely. Jen, in these last 10 minutes, what should I have asked you that I haven’t?

[00:49:36] Jen: I don’t know, Gretchen. This has been such a great conversation. I guess asking me what’s the– actually, I know what it is because people ask me this. How do you leave a good review as a parent? What is helpful? Sometimes we think we don’t leave reviews for a couple of reasons. A lot of times, I was sharing with you before, is that parents, we don’t necessarily love to leave reviews on vendor websites because, one, there’s sometimes this innate fear of can the vendor edit it, or delete it, or hide it? We just don’t know because some vendors do. Most vendors are really honest, but some vendors, we don’t know.

Then the other thing is us having control over it. In five years, the vendor does something wonky, and we want to take the review back, we want control of that. When people come onto the site, sometimes they’re like, “Well, is this going to take me an hour to leave a review?” I was like, “Oh, no, we have it down to 90 seconds.” Most of our reviews take 90 seconds because it’s a structured review. You’re going to get stars, not just on a 1 to 5, like, is it terrible or great? It’s how would you rate the ease of use? How would you rate the structure? There’s five questions, super easy.

Then, in a review, sharing how long you’ve used the curriculum. Did you use it for six weeks? Did you use it for three years? Makes a big difference in your review. Did you use it as the way that the vendor and the curriculum provider intended it to be used? Or, did you modify it? We want to know. Other families need to know, did you use it as is, or did you modify it? Neither answer is wrong. It just helps with transparency. Who was it a good fit for? If it was successful for your child, letting us know if there’s a characteristic. Maybe I had three kids of different ages and different levels, or maybe there’s ADHD or ASD or dysgraphia. Maybe there’s all sorts of things.

Or, maybe we have a gifted child, or speech delays, thinking about that. Then lastly, what would you tell a friend that you were sitting down for coffee about the curriculum? Or, what do you wish you would have known before you tried it? That’s it, four things. That can make such a difference for another family on whether or not they decide that that’s the best fit curriculum for their child.

[00:51:56] Gretchen: I love the way that you’ve structured it. We’re not having to sully off into the wild blue yonder of how do I make this work? I love that you’ve also said that a parent still has control over what they have reviewed. I remember we did a big refit on our home three years ago. We had a particularly wonderful experience with a metalworker, of all things. I wrote a review because it was just beyond my wildest expectations of what he was able to do for us.

He, about six months ago, called one day, just out of the clear blue sky, and he said, “I want you to know that Google review that you wrote,” he said, “we’ve gotten more business from your Google review than any other Google review we ever got.” He said, “Somebody came in today, having read your review.” He said, “I just wanted you to know, I appreciated you taking the time to do that.” I thought how lovely that was. I would never have expected a vendor to be able to do that. It was lovely to be able to know that I had helped him because I thought he had done such a phenomenal job for me. I really appreciated that.

We did have a couple of questions. If my mouse will cooperate– there we go. I wanted to ask you a couple of these questions because I thought they were clever. How does a parent get access to curriculum feedback that you might not yet list? I’m looking for feedback on something that’s not yet listed on Homeschool Foundry. How do I get that feedback? Is there a forum to be able to say, “Hey, somebody tell me about this”?

[00:54:01] Jen: Absolutely. If you go into the search bar and you type the curriculum name, if you’re looking for a specific curriculum and nothing comes up, it’ll prompt you to suggest it, and then we go add it to the site for you. Then we will go find parents to help review it.

[00:54:16] Gretchen: You guys will go find the players for the team, so to speak?

[00:54:23] Jen: We do a first analysis. We look at it. We will put what we can find out as public information. We search Facebook groups. We search the vendor’s website. That’s how we come up with the public-facing information. We do that if the vendor hasn’t yet claimed their profile. Once they claim their profile, they can edit it to make sure it is completely accurate because we want them to be able to portray it in their own way. Then that is how we add it. Then, if we see parents in Facebook groups that are just commenting about that curriculum, and we can tell that they’ve used it, we will invite them to come leave a review.

[00:54:57] Gretchen: Oh, that’s really interesting. You’ll actually go find parents who are using the materials. You’re really then curating the content from both ends. You’re asking people to come and tell about their experiences, but then if somebody’s looking for information, you’ll go help them find that information. That’s amazing.

[00:55:20] Jen: I don’t personally recommend one curriculum over another. It’s literally go to Homeschool Foundry, fill out your FIT score, see what matches with you, and then read the parent experiences.

[00:55:30] Gretchen: Do you have a suggestion for newbies for scheduling the time to do what you have suggested? How long is it going to take me to create a profile for a student?

[00:55:45] Jen: Three minutes.

[00:55:47] Gretchen: Three minutes. Okay. All right. That’s really doable then.

[00:55:52] Jen: Absolutely. Our goal is from start to finish, 15 minutes. That way, you have a minute to look through the different curriculum. Three minutes to set up the profile, we match it instantly. Then you have spent about– most people spend about 15 minutes reviewing the different curriculum. You can usually make a pretty confident decision in less than 15 minutes for one curriculum. Now, we have different subjects, obviously, but they usually feel pretty confident moving forward in less than 15 minutes.

[00:56:22] Gretchen: This question I thought was interesting, and I think we have spent the last hour talking about it. What would you say is the singular greatest advantage to a parent starting their search by using Homeschool Foundry?

[00:56:43] Jen: One, because it’s customized for you. When we go to a Facebook group, and we say, “What is the best math for a third grader?” there’s no context with that. It just happens to be what somebody else used, and they just say a name. You may get 20 different answers today and 20 different answers next week if you ask the same question. One, it’s customized. Two, it’s curated. It’s all in one place that you can save it and come back to later. Three, you get to hear from other families that hopefully somebody is going to be very similar to yours, and hear from a parent perspective, not just the vendor perspective. We’ve curated all of those things in one place for you.

[00:57:23] Gretchen: I love that you have both a vendor being able to say, “Here’s what our curriculum will do for you,” but then you have families who will have the opportunity to say, “Here’s what that curriculum did for me.” You have both ends of it.

[00:57:38] Jen: Yes, we have over 1,150 parent reviews on there right now. Over half of our curriculum had more than three reviews for the curriculum.

[00:57:47] Gretchen: How have you grown this? Has it just been organic word of mouth?

[00:57:51] Jen: Absolutely, yes.

[00:57:53] Gretchen: Goodness gracious. That is pretty amazing. What is the website so that parents can go and find it?

[00:57:59] Jen: It is homeschoolfoundry.com.

[00:58:03] Gretchen: Awesome. We will, of course, put that in the show notes and a little bit of information so parents can find it. I think what is really important is, you don’t know how valuable this website is until you go check it out, because that’s going to make all the difference in the world, especially for parents who are trying to weigh different options. If you have different kinds of learners, that is so enormous. Jen, where do you see Homeschool Foundry going in the next couple of years? This is a new adventure, but boy, has it taken off like wildfire.

[00:58:42] Jen: It has. I’m so proud of it. It’s such an honor to serve our community. Right now, our main vertical is curriculum. Today, you can find your curriculum. I imagine within the next month or two, we’re going to be able to add your community. You’ll be able to find your co-ops. You’ll be able to find your– if you’re looking for some type of drop-off program to help supplement and scaffold your homeschooling.

Tutors, what that looks like, that is the future. Learning resources. We really want it to be a homeschool hub for families, but not just a place where you come and read reviews. It’s really a decision-making layer for you so that you can come and confidently choose and invest in how your homeschool experience is going to be for your family.

[00:59:23] Gretchen: I love that. You are thinking so rapidly in advance. You’re building the ship as you sail it. I think it’s really terrific that parents are trusting the information they’re receiving from you, and that is organically growing the community. That’s really terrific.

[00:59:45] Jen: That’s because it’s not just one perspective. That’s how we’re different from everyone else out there, because you’re hearing multiple perspectives and experiences.

[00:59:53] Gretchen: Well, Jen, I want to thank you so much for creating this opportunity for parents. I think this is amazing. I’ve only had the opportunity to be on the website a couple of times with my travels this summer, but I did refer several families at the last several conferences that I’ve gone to, who have been looking for some sort of vehicle to weigh all of their capacities. There is nothing else like this in the homeschool space, and that makes it very special indeed.

[01:00:27] Jen: Thank you. Yes, it’s been an honor.

[01:00:30] Gretchen: Thank you so much for joining me today. I want to thank our audience for being here with us today. We appreciate you trusting us to come into your living room and to bring you these kinds of conversations because the goal is to help make your homeschooling journey easier. Jen has certainly figured out the combination lock to do that. I hope you’ll join her on homeschoolfoundry.com. Jen, thanks again for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

[01:00:58] Jen: Thank you.