Johna Lawrence: 00:00:00.000
So if you have just a couple of families, pick your house, pick a park. You could probably go to McDonald’s and in the middle of the day and sit in the booths and meet. So those are all free options for you. Library usually has a community room you can use.

Gretchen Roe: 00:00:21.895
Good afternoon, everyone. This is Gretchen Roe. Welcome to The Demme Learning Show. It is my very great pleasure today to welcome my dear friend and colleague, Johna Lawrence. And today we’re going to talk about getting a homeschool group started. We have talked from the perspective of what it’s like to run a group, what it’s like to be in a group, what it’s like to found a group and create longevity. And today, Johna is going to talk to me about what it’s like when Demme Learning comes alongside you and supports you in that process. She’s got a wealth of experience. So I’m going to let her introduce herself and then we’ll get to the meat of the matter.

Johna Lawrence: 00:01:02.826
Hi, I’m Johna, as she said. I am the homeschool group contact for Demme Learning. And I have come along with Demme Learning because I have a passion for homeschool groups. It’s been you can ask friends of mine from years, 20 years ago, I would say you need to be in a group because a group is what makes our homeschool families stay solid and stay motivated and keep us going forward when we hit those dole drums and we just are ready to be done. It’s a group that makes us keep going. And I love it. I love working for Demme. I love the products and I love being able to talk with the leaders and find ways that we can come alongside them, ways that I can help them offer classes within their group and how to administer it. And that is my job. I get to talk about the things I love.

Gretchen Roe: 00:01:57.986
Well, I think that’s pretty terrific. It’s wonderful when you get to do what you love, and you get paid to do it as well. So you sit in a unique sphere, however, having run not one, but two homeschool groups. So I want to talk a little bit about your personal experience in running homeschool groups, because I think it’s going to help parents understand the depth and breadth of your experience.

Johna Lawrence: 00:02:26.798
Right. So I have 25 years of being involved in homeschool groups. Of those 25 years, probably 19 of them, I was a director of a group. So we had my last group, I guess the longest I was in a group, it was a very academic. Every once a week, we had nursery all the way through senior year, academic classes, enrichment classes, you name the class. We probably offered it at one time. And the one prior to that was an every other week, still academic, but we did unit studies, and it was a fun. Again, I just think co-ops are fun or groups are fun. So I will always tell you it’s fun, whether it’s hard work or not, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:03:14.052
And you had how many kids that you took into these experiences along with you?

Johna Lawrence: 00:03:20.947
Oh, my personal kids. I have four children, two boys, two girls. The boys are in my bookends. So they say boys are a little bit harder sometimes when it comes to school. I had very outgoing, energetic boys. And my girls gave me a ride for my life as well. So they had me do everything from Color Guard. I taught Color Guard at one point. I’ve done robotics. I’ve taught calculus. I’ve taught an English class, history. If we needed it, I taught it, and I learned how to do it just the day before sometimes. So it was great.

Gretchen Roe: 00:04:01.245
So did you think a group experience was always where you wanted to be? Or what was your first exposure to a group experience that made you come back for more?

Johna Lawrence: 00:04:10.566
When I first started homeschooling, I didn’t want to be homeschooling, and I had no idea what I was doing, and I was scared I was doing it wrong. So let’s go back to the ’90s, the very end of the ’90s, and I’m homeschooling, and I’m afraid I’m doing something illegal. I found the group local to me and I went when my oldest was in kindergarten. And I had ladies that came alongside me in that kindergarten class and said, “You don’t need to be here yet, but we’re glad you’re here.” And I said, “I’m here for me, not for my kids. I’m here to learn from you guys.” And so they’re the ones that took me under their wings and taught me, “You’re going to be okay. You do one day at a time, and you’re going to survive this and let’s watch together.” And one of those ladies, she and I still talk to this day. I mean, it’s once every few months sometimes because we live far away, but she’s still my encourager. “You’ve got this and things are going great.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:05:16.413
That’s awesome. That’s really terrific. And so it started with a kindergartener, but then what made you in– our early conversations a month ago, we talked with groups that were just sort of collaborative, creative groups. And then we talked with academic groups. Why did you gravitate toward a more academic experience?

Johna Lawrence: 00:05:40.855
I probably navigated at first because I had a fear of failing my kids in some way, not giving them enough. We then added on– we did add on a group that I was not in charge of that we called it Praise. But the kids were able to do band. They did sign language. They did drama. They did choir. They did art classes. So it was all the enrichment classes. We did that in addition to our other stuff. And I enjoyed that because I could go, and my kids could have their outlets, and they could find what they wanted to do. They could explore different classes and decide they like this or don’t like this. We still have artwork from their art classes and they look at that and they cry or cringe, however you want to look at that when they look at it. And I would say if you have a very strong academic home, find an enrichment co-op. Find a group of families that are going to be able to supply that extra that you need. I liked the academic just because I felt like, if nothing else, they were getting an academic somewhere else besides me.

Gretchen Roe: 00:06:53.219
And so tell me a little bit more about that. Why is there an advantage to finding someone else besides yourself to instruct?

Johna Lawrence: 00:07:01.651
Because universal, it does not matter where your kids are in life. Somebody can say the exact same thing. You [stay?] at home and all of a sudden it’s a light bulb moment for your kid. Plus, well, having your kids in a classroom teaches them, one, group learning, group work, learning from a different source than what their authority is, and being able to discern maybe sometimes the differences of the teaching, what is good and what’s bad. I liked it because it gave my kids an outlet other than me. And then we were able to discuss that and take that from wherever we needed it.

Gretchen Roe: 00:07:48.331
We did theater co-ops and we did science co-ops when my kids were younger. But when we got to high school, we got kind of intense. And my idea was the co-op was going to be my out not to have to teach high school math until my third kid was out of sequence for the co-op. And that’s what drove me to Math-U-See Did you find that you could find within the co-op structures everything you needed? Or were there things that you wanted that you then had to go figure out how to create?

Johna Lawrence: 00:08:26.140
Whereas you struggled with math, I looked at the co-op for the creative writing and the writing. I am a math brain person. So I got pulled to be that math teacher, to be the algebra two, to be the calculus, to do the robotics, because that’s where my brain sits. When there was something missing, though, when, like, I’m putting together my class and I’m trying to figure out what my kids need, and there was something missing, I then advocated to have that class taught. So I was the one pushing for it. And sometimes that meant that I ended up teaching it. And sometimes I just became the assistant for somebody and was their cheerleader. But that’s my personality, that if there’s something missing from my kids, I’m going to do what it takes to make it happen for them.

Gretchen Roe: 00:09:16.566
I certainly understand that. That’s one of the things that makes people not kindred spirits in that way. So if I was looking, if I’m sitting here and I’m watching this video, what do you think the best tips are for me if I don’t have access to a group? What are the best tips for me to start a group?

Johna Lawrence: 00:09:35.562
You’re in a new location. You’re in your hometown and there’s not a group right now. I am going to go out on a limb and say there’s probably at least two other homeschool families hiding in the woods with you, wherever you might be. And you probably know who they are. I would get with them and say, I would like to meet every other week or every week. What is something we can do? Just have that mom to mom conversation of what’s missing in your family is needed. Probably if you’re living in a place where you don’t have a group, you are already supplying all the academics that they need because you need to do that. But what they do need is something that is interacting with another kid that might be creative. We, as moms, there are places we can go where we get a canvas and we paint as a group, as a mom, and they give us instructions. They have YouTubes that don’t do that exact same thing. Why not get your adult kid or your high school kids, junior high kids, and do the same thing in somebody’s backyard or kitchen where they’re doing some art. And that just allows them to expand some of their experiences and their bonding with friends. And that’s a simple, we’re gonna do one or two things. It’s like a field trip. Your younger kids, you got elementary kids. I am sure you can go to the fire department together. You can go see police officers. You could go and call town hall and say, “Can we tour the county capital and see our legislature here in our county”? And they’re going to love it that there’s a small group. They don’t want a big group. They want a small group coming through. And that’s another way of building that kind of a group. And once you start doing something, I guarantee the moms are going to come together saying, “Oh, I wish I had somebody that could fill in the blank.” And maybe you could fill that blank for them. And you say, “Well, how about I take that on? I need somebody that– I need somebody to teach grammar to my kids because I don’t get it. Oh, I could do that. Well, then how about you teach math games with the kids afterwards”? There’s ways that you can help each other out. That’s part of the whole building a group. And then once you start that, let me tell you, if there was three of you, somebody’s going to tell somebody else, hey, we started meeting and we’re doing this,” and you’re going to start building.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:12:05.046
It’s funny. I remember well, the first drama production my kids participated in. It was about 15 kids. And the next year we had 75. The kids had had a good time. The kids had talked to their friends. It became quite an enterprise. So I think there’s a little bit of– if there’s a field trip you want to go on, then find another family to go with you because that changes the quality of the trip. Tell me a little bit about some logistics. How would you recommend that I find a meeting place within a budget?

Johna Lawrence: 00:12:41.901
I know we talked about this on a live on Instagram this past week, but a meeting place, depending on your sites. So if you have just a couple of families, pick your house, pick a park. You could probably go to McDonald’s in the middle of the day and sit in the booths and meet. So those are all free options for you. Library usually has a community room you can use. As your group grows, those are places where you only need one room. But as your group grows, you need more spaces because you’re going to have different classes or you’re going to have different age levels you need to address. And so I would talk to the families that you’re meeting with. If one of them has a church that they’re involved in, see if that church is willing to let you meet at their location. And a lot of times they’ll be okay with you coming in for free or a nominal fee to help pay for the electric while you’re there. Those are the quick options that I can think of. But community centers usually have extra rooms as well. Our local place, there’s two or three different places besides a church in our local area that we could meet if you wanted to put a group together.

Gretchen Roe: 00:13:56.527
What, in your opinion, is the most effective way? You’ve decided, okay, you’ve got two or three friends and you’re going to start a group, but now you want to kind of expand that. Help me figure out which is the chicken and which is the egg. Should we as a group sit down and decide what do we want this to look like and kind of write it down? Or should we go find the others and get them to all come along and then do it from a larger context?

Johna Lawrence: 00:14:23.332
Having run groups that grow large, I would write it down. I would get the core people together and write down your goal, what you desire for your group to look like because it will explode on you and be out of control. But when it’s written down, it’s very easy to stay in the guidelines. And when you start with just a couple of people saying, “We want an academic class with– or we want an academic group that has half electives, or we want to only do electives and only do maybe–” you kind of put your vision down on paper. And when the vision goes down on paper, it becomes your mission statement. When it becomes your mission statement, it gives purpose for your group. And therefore, you can go forward.

Gretchen Roe: 00:15:12.382
It’s funny. As you were saying that, I’m remembering back to a friend who said, “Does anybody want to teach their kids how to sew?” And there were several of us who immediately raised our hands. And I think she ended up with about eight kids. And she took a whole semester, but she had said, “Okay, this is what I want to teach them first. This is what I want to teach them second.” And what they finally ended up doing is they each made a little two by two quilt that was just really cool. And it’s funny because I was digging around in the basement looking for something else yesterday and I found one of those quilts. So you don’t realize what kind of legacy you’re or sewing into kids later on. I taught a cooking class. I had a friend who said, my kids are never going to learn to cook because I hate to cook. And I said, well, I love to cook. So how about your kids come over to my house one afternoon a week? We’ll do a two-hour cooking class. And then she took my kids to a play date and then I got two hours without my kids.

Johna Lawrence: 00:16:27.310
Oh, I love cooking. It’s one of my go-to places that I can do, I can be creative in it. I am not an artist, but I can cook. And so I taught that first year. And actually, one of the moms that was at our group, she had been part of our group, and one of her boys was in our class, and she finally says, “You know what? I have my culinary degree from when I was in the Air Force. Do you mind if I teach this next semester?” And I’m like, “Please, take it on and I’ll be your sous chef. This will be great.” And we had a ball. So that became a co-op class. And because I had already willing to step in, someone with the expertise came in and said, “I can do you better.” And it’s great. We worked well. I was glad to hand it over, but we started it. We did the kind of like a cook challenge at the end of each semester where we put together a bunch of ingredients, we gave it to teams of kids, and we sat back and said, “Go T, go cook. You have to make these kind of dishes. We’re going to sit and eat.” And they literally had an hour because that’s all the class period was. And they had to present us. And it was great. And those kids still, 15 years later, talk about having done that class with us.

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:47.958
And I think that’s one of the things inadvertently that is a rich part of the group experience that maybe we sometimes don’t realize. Some of my kids best memories are the things they did in a group situation. I was standing outside last night in the dark looking at this giant moon that’s starting to wane. And we were watching clouds come across the moon. And the child I was standing there with years and years ago was in a semester co-op class that was taught by a meteorologist. So she taught us how to read clouds. And here I am with a kid who’s now 25 and he remembers at the age of eight going, “Oh, that’s a–” I don’t even remember what kind of cloud it was, but he remembered that. And I think sometimes those rich environments are not necessarily created when it’s just you and your child across the table. And I’m not denigrating the school experience in a one-on-one capacity, but it changes the flavor when you have a variety of kids who are there to participate.

Johna Lawrence: 00:19:01.071
But that’s that voice of the outsider. I mean, and think back to our great– when we were in grade school, we remember our field trips. We remember the special assembly days, right? And those other moms are those special moments, which make it stay in their brain better, I think, than when it’s just me. They learned from me. We did fine, but we enriched it by having somebody else join us in that education process.

Gretchen Roe: 00:19:34.154
So you mentioned something in our planning that I think is really important that I’d like to talk about, and that is overcoming a fear of failure. A lot of us don’t start the idea of creating a co-op because we’re fearful that we won’t do it right. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Johna Lawrence: 00:19:52.535
Well, in our planning, you inspired me. Don’t speak the failure into your planning. So plan because because you know it’s going to work. Let’s start there. If you start with a small group, you know how it’s going to work. You already know your friends. You know how that’s going to work. And you stay consistent. So when you start feeling like it’s not doing, you can always stop and reassess that group and make it change. But that’s not failure. That’s modification. That’s improving upon what’s already been there. And ask your kids, after you’ve had a meeting, just say, “Hey, how do you think that went? Do you think we could have done something better?” Include them in that whole thought process because you’re doing it for them. You should keep them in the loop. And that’s sometimes that’s hard as a mom. Like, we’re in charge. We know what’s best to then say, “All right, so I did it.” Well, I also taught drama. And I remember the first few times, I’m like, I would come to my older kids and say, “Do you think I did okay on that? Should I have done that differently?” And my oldest daughter often would tell me, “I think you should have separated out the group.” She would tell me how to teach the drama. And I would get so mad at her, but then I would have to step back and go, “Oh, that’s actually a really good idea.” But she became part of my sounding board of how to teach that class.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:22.665
And I think what you’re talking about here, more than anything, is making memories with your kids, being able to have those memories.

Johna Lawrence: 00:21:31.343
And that’s, it is. It is all about– I mean, when you stop and you go, “I’m going to do a group.” And I think we talked about somebody that was on one of the previous Demme Learning shows, Mindy, and she talked about she’s still going to be involved after her kids are gone because she loves it. I was involved for a couple of years after my kids were gone, and I loved it, but I felt– I was at the point that I needed to walk away because I couldn’t do the justice of the group.

Gretchen Roe: 00:21:59.809
You’ve been here at Demme now less than a year, but you’ve created some wonderful group relationships with some people. So tell me a little bit the things you’ve learned as you visited groups. How are parents using Demme’s products successfully?

Johna Lawrence: 00:22:15.631
All of our products, I have now talked or worked with a group that is using them successfully. And part of what I do is get to talk to them on how they’re using it. And sometimes giving them permission that they don’t have to use every single page of all the books. And that’s the fun part when they go, “I don’t have to do all 10 lessons.” I’m like, “No, you could just do nine. It’d be fine.” And they’re like, “Oh, that’s great.” And I was like, “And you and I sat there together and we helped the lady that we were talking with how to modify so she could get the best out of using Write Shop.” And that was the aha moment of, oh, and then she took it, remember? And she was like, “I could do this instead. Would that work?” And it was just, it was part of giving that permission. The leaders know what they’re doing. I’m the sounding board. Or I have one, we talked to that lady, and I remember her giving us the example of her schedule and how she schedules things. I then the next week was talking with a group that was going to use Write Shop. And I said, “Have you thought about scheduling it like this one?” I am taking those notes and putting it in my resources and saying, I heard of this group did it this way. Have you thought of it this way? And I’m the resource. I am your call me and see if we can make this work. We have that group in Arizona that’s using spelling you see. We met with them and talked to them about how to make it work in a group. I think they’re twice a week instead of once a week, but just the sounding boards of so you would stop and pause here. We would use the board here and they’re like, “Oh, I never thought about that part.” And that’s my job. Getting to say, “Here are the fun things about using Demme Learning.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:24:16.777
I think I have just re-envisioned what really you’re doing for these groups as you come alongside them. There was a chemical company called BASF, and they had a wonderful slogan that said, “We don’t make it. We just make it better.” And I think that’s what your role here is in this enterprise. You’re not creating the group, but you’re helping the group get the most out of what they have created. And I think that makes a tremendous amount of difference.

Johna Lawrence: 00:24:47.005
And I did get two weeks ago, a lady called me and she’s Midwest area. She’s like, “This is what this whole talk is about. I want to start a group. Where do I start? And how do I put Math-U-See in this?” And I think she uses WriteShop as well. But do I stay with just academics or can I do fun things? And so she and I, just like we talked, how many friends do you have? Put a cap on it to start. Write out your bylaws. Write out your rules. What’s going to happen? And put it in black and white so you can function and stick with it for a year. Don’t let it go beyond that. Stay hardcore. But now you’re going to do Wright Shop and you’re going to do a Math-U-See class and you’re going to do– I think she was going to do an art class or something. And I was like, “Those are all fun things. Do a STEM class because kids love coming in and doing an experiment.” It doesn’t matter how old or how young you are. When you put your hands on a science thing, it’s just cool.

Gretchen Roe: 00:25:50.828
One of the reasons that I looked toward a group experience, particularly at high school, is I didn’t want to dissect frogs and formaldehyde at my kitchen table. I could do it, but I didn’t want to do it. And I was blessed to have a lady in my community who was a retired biology teacher. She thought that was just amazing. She could make any lesson exciting. And I was grateful for her help in that process. And I think one of the things that’s important here is as you look to create a group, you don’t know what the talents are. Like you didn’t know that that lady who came alongside you had a culinary degree until a need arose. So sometimes it kind of becomes like field of dreams. If you build it, they will come. If you conceive of the idea, you’ll find somebody who will help you make it happen.

Johna Lawrence: 00:26:50.122
And that’s how I taught Color Guard. We were in our planning meeting, my plan to teach math. And they’re like, “Our high school girls would like to do Color Guard. Does anyone know anything about Color Guard?” And I sat there for a long time and finally I said, “I flipped flags in high school. I could probably do it again.” And next thing I know, I’m teaching Color Guard and I still have the flags up in my shed. And my kids were little. I didn’t have any that were in that class. But it was fun. And those are now moms of homeschooling moms today, and they are friends of mine on social media. And every once in a while, I’ll get a post and an attachment, “Do you remember this?” And it’ll be a picture of us on a parade.

Gretchen Roe: 00:27:36.593
I’ve learned so much about how I could fit my own kids in a frame here from you in just the stories you’ve told, which have just been remarkable. I can’t believe we’re at the top of the hour. So what closing advice would you have for our parents besides the fact that you’re a wealth of knowledge and people should reach out to you?

Johna Lawrence: 00:28:00.480
Got questions about a group. Find me on the website. You just find and book a time with me. Start small. If you’re going to start a group, start small. Because if you try to start big, it’s going to have problems because it’s like trying to– yeah, just start small and enjoy that process of it growing because when you do it small, you’re going to build it strong. And don’t hesitate to ask for help. You don’t need to know all the answers. You just have to be the willing soul to be the one that’s putting it together. And any of us, any veteran mom that’s been in a group will give you advice. All you have to do is ask. I have never found a mom that was part of a group that has not been willing to say, “When we did this, we found this as an issue,” because that’s what we like to do. We like to talk about our experiences. When it comes to using Demme product in your group, call me and I can give you all the different ways that I know of at this time. And I might ask you, “So how did that work for your group? Can you send me examples?” Because I’ll keep that for another group when they say, “Hey, we want to meet only 10 times in the semester. Can I do it? Oh, there’s this other group. I can do that for you.” So, yeah, contact us. I’m here for you. Any homeschool mom that’s been in a group is a wealth of resource. Start small. Build strong.

Gretchen Roe: 00:29:36.205
Johna, thanks so much for this time today. It’s been a wonderful conversation. I’m kind of wishing I could have been on your robotics team. It seems like that would have been extra fun. But thank you so much. You’re a wealth of knowledge, and I know that you’ll be a resource for families as they decide to begin a new adventure.

Voice-Over: 00:29:54.661
Thanks again for joining us. We’re glad to be a part of your educational community. You can help us grow our community even more by rating, reviewing, and subscribing to the show wherever you may be hearing this. Don’t forget that you can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show or on our YouTube channel. We’ll see you again next time. Until then, keep building strong foundations for lifelong learning.

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