[00:00:00] Karim Morato: The first part that we address is the mindset, is the decision, why I want to home-school. Once they are clear about the “why” they want to home-school, then they are able to start talking about the second part, which is like, “Okay, how I do it.” [laughs]

[music]

[00:00:25] Gretchen Roe: Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. This is Gretchen Roe for The Demme Learning Show, and I’m delighted to welcome you all today. We have been trying to get this particular event together for probably the better part of a year. I am so excited I get the opportunity to talk with families in the Hispanic community frequently, at home-school conferences that I attend, but I want you to talk to them because this is such a vital conversation and I don’t have a paradigm for being a Hispanic mom.

I know what it’s like to be a gringo mom and raise my kids and home-school them, but it’s different in different cultures, and particularly if you’re home-schooling in a culture where it’s not your first language, there are a lot of differences in nuances. Today, I want you to share with us what those might be. Let’s start by letting you introduce yourself.

[00:01:24] Karim: Oh, wow. Thank you so much, Gretchen. I am so excited about these conversations because I have seen you in action, how you somehow manage to help these parents that are looking for answers and support, and they have questions, especially in the special needs community. I know your heart is big for the special needs community and there is so much need.

I want to thank you for every time I bring a family to you; you really take the time to explain them, give them information, guide them, and encourage them, so I appreciate your work. I am Karim Morato. I am the Hispanic Outreach Coordinator for HSLDA. I am also a wife, a home-school mama of– well, I have to stop and think because I graduated two already, so I only have one left.

[laughs]

I did say a home-school mama of three, but I am so excited we just celebrated our daughter’s graduation last week. She is an engineer. I can’t believe it. Can you imagine? Now we have our son that is doing his last year of college, too, and we have a high schooler, so we are having a lot of fun and all. I have another hat, which is I am a Spanish teacher. I do that for passion.

I have been doing it for the last 25 years, and I wear different hats. I have created a curriculum because I had a problem. My own kids did not want to speak Spanish, Gretchen, so I was very nervous about that. As moms, home-school moms, we’re trying to solve our own problems, [laughs] so I ended up solving my own problem. After the pandemic, the HSLDA reached out to me and say, “We want to help the Hispanic community, and we want to break the language barrier that sometimes we have, and we want them to know about the freedom and benefits of home-schooling.”

Now, let me tell you, I say no the first time they asked me. I was like, “No, I am a super busy home-school mom.” I had my own Spanish program. It’s like, “I can help you, but I don’t want to help you,” kind of what I said, [laughs] so they kept asking for a year. It was so much need, because the pandemic opened the eyes of my community.

When I started home-schooling 18 years ago, I was the only one in my community home-schooling with those special circumstances, where Spanish was my first language, and so people will be like, “Are you what? Home-schooling? You are going to do it, but Spanish is your first language? How are you going to do it? You’re not a math teacher.” I had so many challenges presented to me just by comments, but my husband and I knew that home-schooling was the answer.

After the pandemic, the eyes were opened and parents, for the first time, realized, “Wow, education can happen at home. Education does not need to be delivered only by a government or private institution, but we parents have the power to shape the mind and the future of our children.” The pandemic was a very tragic episode in our lives, but at the same time, the pandemic brought so much understanding of what is important [laughs] to many families.

This is how I jumped into the wagon of saying, “Okay, I’m going to become a home-school ambassador in Spanish– in my communities.” This is how you and I connected, because one of the first person that mentored me– I don’t know if you know that backstory, was Steve Demme. I have so many questions, being a leader in the home-schooling movement, and Steve Demme really embraced me and gave me so much advice and so much encouragement and really connected and opened many doors for my community, so I’m very thankful to him.

[00:05:50] Gretchen: At his heart, he is a connector. He’s a connector of people, he wants people to have the best experience possible, and he doesn’t take no for an answer.

[laughter]

At that, you both are a whole lot alike. As a beekeeper, you remind me of a honeybee in a field full of flowers; you are here, you are there, you are everywhere. When I see you, you are flying from one thing to the next thing, and you are always willing to stop and listen to a family who has a question. In that, you and Steve hold the same heart.

[00:06:28] Karim: I love his heart. He’s a shepherd. He has the heart of a shepherd. A shepherd does not leave the last sheep alone. You will stop and do what it takes to find that one, and that’s how I felt about my community. A lot of people ask like, “How many want to home-school in Spanish or in the Latin world?” There was a lot of confusion when I was talking about the needs. People wanted to know numbers, and I was like, “I can’t tell you numbers, but I’m going to tell you something. It’s there. It’s there. There are families that want.” It has been something that started with a few and then people started passing along the information because there are so many situations where parents don’t have other choice but to home-school. During the pandemic, I heard so many stories about parents telling me, “I am here calling you and asking for help because my children want me to home-school them and I have no idea.” At the beginning, I felt like the kids were their own voice and said, “Home-school me,” and parents were like, “Ah, I don’t know about this,” but then they decided to do it.

Now, the power of modeling and mentoring those young families are coming and saying, “I don’t know if I want to send my kids to public school. What options I have?” You have a lot of young families coming because they saw me home-schooling my own kids, and now they’re coming and saying, “Hey, we saw you and we see the results. Can you help us? What do we need to do?” So, my husband and I spend a lot of our time also talking to young couples about home-schooling because they want to do it.

[00:08:25] Gretchen: Sure, absolutely. When you started home-schooling 18 years ago– it’s been longer than that, but we don’t have to go into those historical details for me, but the number of resources that are available to us, even in the last 18 years, has become profoundly greater than what was available to us before, but it’s harder to sort good resources from excellent resources.

You’ve given me some great things for our show notes, and I’m excited about that, but when a family comes to you and says, “Okay, Karim, I want to do this,” what do you tell them to do first if it’s a little bit different than what I would tell a family to do first? Because they’re going to have to filter it through, perhaps, a language barrier.

[00:09:17] Karim: Yes. I think that I have different scenarios. It could be a family that Spanish is the first language, like me. Spanish is my first language, and I want to home-school, but also, it could be a family that Spanish is their second language. They speak English and they’re bilingual, but they want to home-school, the need is the same.

The first step is they need to make the decision. Just like anybody else, they need to overcome the fear of, “What are people going to say? We’re going to destroy our kids’ future. I am not a math person. What about the curriculum?” They have the same questions and fears that some parents that don’t have a language barrier may have. The first part that we address is the mindset, is the decision, why I want to home-school. Once they are clear about the “why” they want to home-school, then they are able to start talking about the second part, which is like, “Okay, how I do it.”

[laughs]

The “why” is such an important question to address, I think, no matter what culture you are, because if you don’t have a strong conviction of why you’re doing this, let me tell you, when things get hard, you’re going to quit. [laughs]

[00:10:45] Gretchen: Right. I talk to families all the time about couching that “why” in affirmative terms. It’s easy for us to find reasons that we have to home-school because maybe the needs aren’t being met for a child who learns differently, but that’s a negative reason. “You’re not meeting my kids’ needs, so I’m going to home-school,” but we have to figure out how to frame that positively.

[00:11:10] Karim: I’m glad that you mentioned that because my husband and decided to home-school before we had our kids. [crosstalk]

[00:11:17] Gretchen: Wait, I didn’t know that.

[00:11:19] Karim: Yes, we didn’t have a negative reason to do it. I remember, we were newlyweds and we were talking about the future of our kids, and then we were like, “You remember I’m a teacher and an educator,” and I told him, “When we have kids, I’m going to make sure that our kids have the best education, and we’re going to find the best private school.” Then he looks at me and say, “Well, I have an idea,” and I said like, “Sure.”

I was doing most of the talking, like, “Sure, I’ll let you give me one idea. What is your idea?” He’s like, “Why we don’t home-school?” I was like, “What is that?” He’s from Bolivia, I’m from Guatemala. In Guatemala, home-schooling– actually, right now, it’s changing a little bit, but in Guatemala, if you don’t send your kids to a private school, it’s like your kids have no future. When he tells me, “We are in an amazing country. We left our countries for a better future, and you’re telling me to home-school and to teach them at home?” I was so confused.

Then he says something that makes sense to me because he always knows that he has to give me the reason behind. He’s like, “Well, in Bolivia, we have missionaries that come from the United States. They never send their kids to school. They keep them at home. They teach them. The kids are learning well and they’re learning Spanish, too. They’re pretty good.” Then he’s like, “All right, let me go and check it out,” so I went to my first home-school conference just to be a detective and find the flaws of that system because I wanted to know, “What in the world’s happening here? This has to be a cult.”

I was so scared about everything, I’m telling you. I went there just to make sure I can prove my husband that that was a crazy idea, and I left the conference like, “Wow, this is amazing.” Even with all my flaws, your kids are going to have a personalized education. I spoke to the experts, the curricular creators, because, at that time, a lot of experts were writing their curriculums. They were creating a lot of stuff. I was able to talk to them, and I was so touched by the family environment, which we Latinos already have that in our blood, and we’re like, “Okay, this actually can work because our kids can–”

We started going through the benefits. It’s like, “Wow, we can finish school really early in the morning? We can take our kids to activities, and they can do music, and they can do all these things and they’re not going to be confused and waste time because they don’t have to be there 8 to 10 hours.”

We saw the benefits, and we also said, “And we can home-school them in a bilingual way, so we can give them a bilingual education.” I always see language not as a barrier, but I see language as an asset, and my husband and I were like, “Yes, this is the best thing to do.” We had a real and clear “why” we are doing this and there was no fear in the sense of something negative. It was all positive, but it’s one of those situations where it’s different now.

You know what? After the Ohio conference that we went– remember that we just were there at the last–? The majority of the parents that I was talking there have this approach. They are doing home-schooling not because something bad is happening. Some of them have shared with me some horrible stories, but some of them were like, “No, I want to do this. We can do this.” They have babies, they have toddlers that still don’t need home-schooling, but they are preparing, so it’s amazing to see the changes that are happening in my community.

[00:15:20] Gretchen: Yes, and that is so exciting. I know that you are such a wonderful influence for your community. I do have a question. As an educator, was it a little bit harder for you to get on board knowing that this would be an equally stellar experience to a private school? You had been raised in a country where private school was the way to go, and I guess there’s a question that accompanies that. Was it difficult to convince your family?

[00:15:53] Karim: Let me tell you. Listen, I got to the point where I told my family, “I’m done. I’m done explaining.” You explain to kids, you tell adults. I am not explaining anymore. It got to the point where I said, “I’m not explaining anymore,” because it was such an energy-sucker for me to be like, “Oh, but why?” and all the conversation. I was like, “I never questioned your decision to send your children to public school or private school.”

I stopped explaining to adults, only when they would come and really wanted to learn more. Going back to the part that was difficult for me. One thing that I learned quickly is that home-schooling was not going to be about my limitations, but it was going to be about my kids’ potential, and I knew my kids had potential.

We parents advocate for our kids like no one, and I knew that if we– well, my husband was first more strong about that because there were some times where I’m going to tell you I wanted to quit, but my husband is like, “No. This is what we’re going to do, and no matter what, we know this is the best thing for our kids,” because as an educator, I know when I have to do one lesson for 30 children, and I know that that one lesson for 30 children are not going to work for the 30 children. Some kids are going to be left behind.

We went through some challenges with our kids, especially my second one, where he had a severe speech issue. At the beginning, I blamed myself. First of all, you go through seasons where something is wrong with your kids, and the first thing you think as a parent is like, “Oh my God, it’s my fault.”

[laughs]

That happened to me a lot. I was, when something was wrong, like, “Oh my goodness, he has a speech issue because I speak Spanish, and we don’t speak this English very well,” but when I spoke to the therapist, she’s like, “No, this is nothing to do with language. This is to do with processing and all this stuff,” and I was like, “Okay.” I felt better. When my daughter, the engineer one, was trying to learn math, and she stopped asking me, when she was in 3rd grade, for help and I told her, “Why you don’t ask me for help?” It’s like, “Because you don’t know the answers.”

[laughter]

“Of course, what do you do?” Instead of saying, “Okay, wow, I am so bad at math,” I would say, “Wow, she’s so good at math that we need extra help,” and we will look for resources like Math-U-See. We love Math-U-See and the spelling. We also use the spelling program. It’s even with my youngest one, she started correcting my English spelling and writing, and instead of feeling, “Oh my goodness, I’m such a horrible teacher,” or, “My English is horrible,” I would say, “Wow, she’s really good at English.”

I think that we need to have the right perspective, and the perspective– the ones doing the home-schooling and the ones that are going to join the benefits are the children more than the parents, to tell you the truth. I don’t know if I answered your question.

[laughs]

[00:19:23] Gretchen: No, you answered my question beautifully. I really loved what you said about limitations and potential because that is cross-cultural. It’s not our limitations. It’s our children’s potential that is so vital and important. As long as we keep that at the forefront, we can figure out the “how” as long as we remember what we’re trying to do. I’m so excited. In less than three weeks, I get to host you on a panel at the Richmond homeschool conference, and I’m so excited to do that.

I’m taking notes here because you’re saying things that are really, really important. When a Hispanic family comes to you and says, “Well, we want to do this, but our family is opposed,” what you said is you explain to the kids, and you tell the adults, but I’ve had parents say to me, “I don’t think I can do this because my parents are so opposed.” I trod that ground, but I’ll save that story for the next time I see you.

What kind of encouragement can you offer to a family who is trying to figure out how on earth to educate their children and their community, particularly in a Hispanic family where family is so important? I’m not saying it’s less important to people who are not Hispanic, but that generational support is profound for you all. How do you help somebody navigate that?

[00:21:02] Karim: I think that it is important to explain, like you’re saying, the positive and say, “Hey–” I can think about what I told you about what you think in a class where there are 30 students and then you have to plan and personalize the lesson for one. Also, sharing with the parents– I remember my mom saying, “I kind of worry that Karim is not going to learn how to read,” because she was seeing what my other one could do, it’s like, “You are not teaching them a lot of stuff,” because he was struggling.

He really had a huge speech– and my mom could not understand that. I had to remind her, “Right now, we are focusing to making sure that he overcomes the speech delay, and if he overcomes the speech delay, he is going to fly later. Don’t worry, he’s going to be okay,” so I think explaining the benefits. Also saying, “There are so many, millions of family doing this,” and talk a little bit about legacy. In the United States, you have more than 40 years of legacy.

Sometimes Steve Demme tells me all about a story that I don’t know. When you tell your parents that famous actors were home-schooling, presidents were home-schooling, [laughs] when you tell them that home-schooling has more years than regular schooling, 100 years, and then when you tell them, “Hey, listen, the education of a lot establishments were created for the industrial era, but we are not an industrial era,”– I think that when you bring those positive facts– These are not things that we are lying, it’s are the facts.

When you tell them that for 40 years, home-schooling has been legal and there are so many resources– Invite them to the conference. It’s interesting that you’re saying this because, in Richmond– when you go to the Richmond convention, I want to introduce you to the Hispanic community, we’re going to do a meet and greet, and I see, when parents are introducing me, it’s like, “Oh, here’s my aunt. Here’s my grandmother,” everybody is there.

[laughs]

I think this is a good thing. The families are seeing, “Oh, wow, this is real. This is real. There are curriculums in place.” A lot of Hispanics are afraid, “Oh, can my kid go to college?” And when you tell them that there are college that are accepting and pursuing homeschoolers, they are like, “Oh, okay.” For me, I’m telling you, showing what my kids are doing, not because I want my kids to be like, “Oh my God, look at my kids.” No, it’s they are just regular people. They can converse with anyone.

I remember when we were sitting in one of my daughter’s celebrations, the dinners with some friends, and we were celebrating that she was an engineer, and I don’t know how I dropped the comment, “Oh, yes, my daughter was home-schooled.” The whole table was silent. “What? Was she?” They were like, “Sara, you didn’t tell us that you were home-schooled.” She’s like, “Yes, I was.” It’s I think that all of those things are good to be shared, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

We are also trying to make the conversation about home-schooling normal, and talking about it is important. Joining communities. I think the communities are so important because, when you join communities, you realize, “Oh, I’m not the only one home-schooling. There are more people home-schooling.” I do think that talking to your family members about the positives, it’s good, but also, at the same time, having that experience of having to convince family.

I do think that there is going to be a time where you and your spouse coming to unity, and with your children and say, “We are doing this. I know everybody’s going to understand. We’re just going to say, “Yes, we are home-schooling, and we are super happy”.”

[laughs]

[00:25:29] Gretchen: You said something that’s important about finding community. Do you advise Hispanic homeschoolers to find community amongst other Hispanic homeschoolers, or do you recommend that we broaden our horizons, and we go find groups that have a wide diversity of different family origins for that pursuit?

[00:25:59] Karim: What I tell Hispanic families is find a group. First of all, there are not that many Hispanic communities. If you’re looking for a Hispanic community, most likely you’re going to have to create one.

[laughs]

Anyone that wants to hear about this is like, “I want a Hispanic community.” Create one, or a bilingual community. I will say I was able to join different communities where I was the only Hispanic and I think that is good for– and this is maybe a good insert about leadership, if you are a leader that have a group and you want to reach other cultures, I think reach out to that one parent that is joining your community and ask them, “What can I do to help your community?” Because sometimes, all they need is maybe the opportunity to ask their questions in Spanish.

They’re not looking for you to create the whole environment in Spanish. Parents actually are looking for their kids to assimilate and connect with everybody. They want their kids to speak English, so a lot of parents, the majority of the parents, are looking for regular English-speaking communities. Now, some Hispanic parents now are saying, “Wait a minute, my kid doesn’t want to speak Spanish,” so we want to form a bilingual community where you intentionally are speaking Spanish.

Now, that’s a different need, and if you are that type of parent– I have seen some parents, very few, that have taken the initiative to be like, “Let’s create a bilingual community.” The main thing about both communities is that sometimes parents that speak Spanish as their first language want to ask their question in Spanish. They don’t want to ask the questions in a second language. I remember one time when we were walking– I always take parents to the Math-U-See and Spelling-See– What is it, Spelling–? How do you pronounce it? Is that Spelling-See? No.

[00:28:15] Gretchen: Spelling You See. Yes, it’s fine. [crosstalk]

[00:28:16] Karim: Oh, okay. I always bring parents by your booth. I remember one time, I was like, “Hey, Parents, come,” because I walk the exhibition hall with them, and they still ask me, “Why you have to walk with them?” Why they maybe can’t go straight into the booth and ask the questions, because sometimes, parents are very aware of, “Oh, I don’t know what to ask,” or, “I want to ask my question in Spanish,” because they feel more confident and they don’t know how to maybe ask the question in English. I think that sometimes, leaders or whoever is trying to reach a community, just create a space where the family member can ask the question in Spanish.

[00:29:05] Gretchen: We see more and more families from the Hispanic community coming to us. In fact, we have now added a customer service representative who is bilingual so that we can provide that kind of support. I’m so excited for us to be able to do that because I think this is probably the fastest growing community in the home-schooling world, is it not?

[00:29:33] Karim: It is the Black community and the Hispanic, yes. I think that what parents need to understand is they need to understand and have the information in Spanish so they can make the decision to home-school or to use a specific curriculum or resource, and then they will bring that in English.

Now, again, if it’s a parent that wants to create a bilingual environment, they may combine Spanish resources with English resources. That is an educational methodology that a lot of parents that speak a second language are looking into because they want to keep the legacy of their second language. Do you know that language is lost by the second generation? So, if you don’t implement that intentional learning in the second language, your children will stop talking and using them.

[laughs]

[00:30:37] Gretchen: That brings to mind a question that I wanted to ask you. If parents could find the instructional resources in Spanish, could, then, the student resources remain in English and, that way, it’s a bilingual presentation?

[00:30:53] Karim: Yes. I wanted to add to this point that it’s a difference between the parents living in the United States and the parents living in the Latin world, including Puerto Rico, which we went to Puerto Rico, and we did an outreach initiative. Being in Puerto Rico, it just opened my eyes to the reality that Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and the parents speak Spanish, so they need a Spanish curriculum, but they also want their kids to speak English, the majority.

When we went to Puerto Rico and we met with hundreds of families on a Thursday– I think that they moved the event to a park because we ended up being 500 to 600 families, and let me tell you something, the kids spoke Spanish and English. They spoke English very well. Parents are looking, Puerto Rican families, are looking into Spanish resources because they speak Spanish, but also, they want English resources that they can understand how to use it.

For the Latin world, anybody– I went to Bolivia also, for a conference, and parents there want their kids to be bilingual. Growing up in Guatemala, if you send your kids to a bilingual school, which costs a lot of money, a bilingual education is a luxury. The Hispanic parents in the Latin world want their children to learn English, so they are embracing the English curriculum because they want their children to learn English and have more opportunities. When you are bilingual, you have more opportunities. It’s the reality.

[laughs]

[00:32:54] Gretchen: Karim, in closing, because I know this will be a resource for our Hispanic families as they come to us, what would you say to them in Spanish to tell them to explore further?

[00:33:10] Karim: [spanish language] Bueno, si usted es un papá que habla español y está interesado en educar en el hogar, le invitamos a que se conecte con nosotros y busque ayuda. La educación en el hogar no es un sistema basado en estándares de afuera del gobierno, es un sistema que se basa en el estándar que es el niño. Sus hijos, ellos son el estándar de cómo deben ser educados. Entonces le invitamos a que primero nos busque, puede buscar información en hslda.org español, y ahí vamos a estar para ayudarles.

Llámenos a la línea de español que vamos a dejar también. Yo voy a darle el teléfono a Gretchen para que lo pongan en las notas del episodio y contáctese y busque información. Estamos aquí para ayudarle y para que usted empiece este caminar, este legado que usted va a empezar con su familia. No lo tiene que hacer solo, no lo tiene que hacer confundido. Estamos aquí para ayudarles.

[00:34:15] Gretchen: I love it.

[laughter]

Thank you so much. Now do you all see why it was so important for me to pester Karim for more than a year to get her to come have a conversation with me today? I’ve been so excited to share this time with you, Karim. Thank you so much. I know your schedule is wildly busy. I still see you as that busy bee in a field of flowers, and I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

[00:34:39] Karim: Yes. I can’t wait to see you. Are you coming to Florida?

[00:34:42] Gretchen: I am indeed. I will be. We’ll see you in Florida there.

[00:34:46] Karim: I will see you soon then. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening and watching.

[00:34:50] Gretchen: Thank you, take care.

[00:34:51] Karim: Hasta luego.

[00:34:52] Gretchen: Bye. Hasta luego.

[music]

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