When Jamie Lesko – a former special education teacher, first started homeschooling, she did what many teachers-turned-homeschoolers do: she recreated school at home. Desks. Rigid schedules. Planners. Her son regularly melted down on the floor.

Then one day, she found all three kids doing schoolwork atop a closet loft.

Her first instinct? Worry. But then she had an epiphany: “Why do they have to learn at a desk?”

Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs come when we stop trying to replicate what we know and start building what works.

In this episode, Jamie Lesko takes us through her family’s unexpected journey into homeschooling, and how the pandemic led her to a more personalized approach for her three children.

We explore:

• Why traditional teaching credentials aren’t always the most important qualification
• How to transition from “bringing school home” to true homeschooling
• The power of letting children choose when and where they learn
• Creating an “educational cocktail” unique to each child
• Managing full-time work while homeschooling
• Building independence and problem-solving skills

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to OpenEd Podcast

00:35 Jamie’s Family Educational Journey

01:45 Transition to Homeschooling

03:55 Homeschooling Challenges and Discoveries

05:24 Charter School Experience

08:29 Homeschooling Realizations and Community Support

11:29 Adapting to Homeschooling

16:33 Balancing Homeschooling and Family Life

16:59 Flexibility and Autonomy in Homeschooling

18:27 Choosing the Right Curriculum

20:40 Adapting to Individual Learning Styles

24:35 Teaching Problem-Solving Skills

27:13 Parental Roles in Homeschooling

34:10 Rapid Fire Questions and Insights

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Transcript

Ela Richmond (00:01.174) Welcome back to the Open Ed podcast. I’m your sometimes host Ella and I’m here with Jamie Lesko. Welcome to the podcast.

Jamie Lesko (00:08.771) Thank you so much.

Ela Richmond (00:10.52) So Jamie is a mom of three to a 17 -year -old senior, to a junior, and to an eighth grader. And we’re going to talk about her family’s journey through education, through open education, her background as a special ed teacher, and also kind of what she does inside of open ed, but primarily just centering ourselves on how she’s made decisions as a parent and her family’s educational journey. So to kick us off.

Can you give us a little background? What was the experience of your family’s educational journey? Did you all start in a public school or where did you all start?

Jamie Lesko (00:46.947) That was a great question. So our family started in a charter school right off. had a neighborhood charter school that many neighbors went to and highly recommended. So when my oldest was in kindergarten, we applied and got into an amazing charter school and really enjoyed it. And then each child successively started joining that charter school. then

Once my youngest was in kindergarten, I took the opportunity to go back to work and sought out to see if they needed any support at that charter school. Turns out they did. They had a shortage of special education teachers. And so I was able to work there part time and from there was able to be with my kids at the same charter school for the first, man, eight years. We were there for about eight years.

And then.

And then when the pandemic hit in 2020, children, all of us, know, obviously everybody went back home and that provided us an opportunity to explore homeschooling, learning from home and exploring that. We didn’t particularly love having to do packets of work. That was not a format that was conducive to my children’s learning style. They definitely missed their friends. did.

I missed the hands -on learning and all the experiences that came with their wonderful charter school experience. But when an opportunity came for me to apply for a job with OpenEd, back then it was my tech high, but I had a neighbor that said, you should really look into this. They homeschooled and I think it was just their secret effort to try and get us to homeschool.

Jamie Lesko (02:47.083) so that we could be in the same neighborhood and learn together. And, you know, we had such a great education. I wasn’t going to break anything. You know, I wasn’t going to fix anything that wasn’t broken, I guess is what I meant to say. And, however, when really the push came to shove and we thought about all that learning from home gave to us, the opportunities that it gave to us, the flexibility that it was giving to us.

We really discovered a lot about all the opportunities that are out there regarding education and, you know, having that control and being able to dictate what we learned, how we learned, and when we learned. I can tell you a little bit more about that, that experience. But it just really opened up our eyes to maybe there is a different way. Maybe there is more that we can provide our students here. And

So I took the opportunity to work from home. We gave our kids the chance. Did they want to return back to the charter school or did they want to continue learning from home? They all opted to give homeschool a go. And so we went that route for a little, or we started on that. We launched right into that. And we discovered a lot of things. A few things that we discovered is that I have

a child who really likes to do math at 10 30 at night. And if we were in the charter school, that would have been completely irresponsible for me to let her do that. We had to get up early in the morning every day. We had to start school or start our day at seven o ‘clock in the morning. Because like I said, I was a teacher at that school, so I had to be there before students arrived. And as a special education teacher, my meetings were after school, so we were there.

relatively late as well. And that meant that my kids were in tow. They left when I left, they arrived when I arrived, and they had to stay, you know, afterwards. And even though I encouraged them to do their homework while we were in the school setting, they always tended to keep their homework for when we got home. So coming home late meant dinner activities, homework, lessons, practices, everything happened.

Jamie Lesko (05:11.875) between 5 p and hopefully before 10 p so that we could actually get to bed at a decent time. so, you know, allowing my child to do homework, math homework at 1030 at night was not something we would have been able to allow with a schedule like that. So that was definitely really eye -opening for our family and something that we meant.

Ela Richmond (05:32.961) Mm -hmm.

Jamie Lesko (05:40.951) that we decided was worth exploring more.

Ela Richmond (05:44.468) Yeah, that all sounds incredible. I want to take us back to your charter school experience because you said a lot of great things about it, right? You said that it was a neighborhood charter school. What did they learn there? Like what were the unique things that they got from the charter school that they loved? And what was it also like for you, know, inside on the admin side and on the teaching side of this charter school?

Jamie Lesko (06:08.323) Yeah, so it was a smaller charter school. Maybe, man, we probably had maybe 150 students between K to ninth grade. It was a really small charter school. Maybe there was 200. I don’t know. There just wasn’t very many students, felt like. It was a classical traditional education. So a great writing program.

Excellent scaffolding teaching methodologies for math and social studies. Just a lot of really rich text and literature. So really great things that I felt like my kids were very much engaged in. They learned a lot. They had a wonderful foundation in their education. As a teacher there, there was some struggles that

have that were happening within the organization of things and the communication was not always awesome between administration and teachers and parents. On the special education side, we had some compliance issues because we were small and our resources were minimal. We did our very best to try and make sure that we were compliant, but there was definitely lacking and a severe area of lacking in that particular school setting.

was there was no technology. Students had one opportunity to utilize a computer lab to learn those technology skills. It was just a very old fashioned thinking. And while I support the desire to shelter our children from, you know, minimal technology, it’s unfortunately the world that we live in where they’re going, they need that exposure. And, you know, that was definitely an area that I was like, well, this is interesting.

you know, it, don’t think it put my kids back and they definitely are engaged in technology. It just like any other teenagers are these days. but it was something that, you know, that was interesting, an interesting, philosophy to avoid, you know, the technology and not utilize it as much, even as teachers, we did not have very much in technology. I mean, you can imagine we had those really old fashioned,

Ela Richmond (08:17.783) Mm -hmm.

Jamie Lesko (08:26.339) Do you remember like the overhead projectors? I had to use that to teach writing and math well before 20 or just barely early or late 2019s and stuff like that. anyway, it was very interesting, just valuable philosophies and character, trying to teach character. Like I said, I feel like my kids had a wonderful foundation in their education and we

Ela Richmond (08:51.906) Mm -hmm.

Jamie Lesko (08:55.895) definitely utilize that as a launching point to help us in homeschool.

Ela Richmond (09:02.284) So you create this foundation at this charter school and then COVID happens and you get the opportunity to start thinking about and talking to more people about homeschool, right? And you’re telling me this a little bit before, but like without that as the, you know, jumping off point or as the inflection point where you were kind of forced to ask, okay, is this the best way for my kids to learn, right? Packets of just work to do as opposed to actual learning.

What was that experience like for you learning about homeschool initially and trying to figure out, you know, what is the best way for me to help my kids learn in this, you know, difficult period?

Jamie Lesko (09:43.213) Yeah, I was definitely very resistant to homeschooling. Mostly because I just didn’t feel like I was qualified. I’m a teacher. I have that education. I have that background. But I felt like I was not going to be able to meet my children’s needs. They all had amazing teachers at this charter school. And I was like, there’s no way I can match all of these incredible teachers who specialize in these specific categories. How am I going to

encompass all that and be the teacher for all the subjects. And so that was very daunting to do that. And so, you know, I definitely was picking a lot of brains in our homeschool community and like, how do you guys do this? And, you know, they, they were all just amazingly knowledgeable homeschool parents, very kind and compassionate and telling me, you know, there’s just so much more to learning than

what the core standards dictate. There’s so much more about life than what their textbooks are gonna tell them. And that really opened up my eyes a little bit. It’s hard to come out of this box, right? When you’re like, no, my children must do it this way because this is the way I did it. I want them to experience all the same things. But really when I had those opportunities to really sit down and explore, man, your eyes get open to

just so many curriculums, so many opportunities. When you think outside the normal seven to 3 p this is when learning has to happen window, you realize just all that’s available to you within your community, within your own neighbors and families. It allowed us to be able to.

Not only was I able to teach some things, but we could utilize the expertise of our neighbors next door on the things that they know. My own husband was able to take opportunities to grab an open and go curriculum and engage in the learning of our kids. And it was just really amazing to see it all just come about, come together and to watch.

Jamie Lesko (12:08.043) my children actually start enjoy learning and to take a little bit more responsibility for that. You know, being partners in their education and not so much, you know, having this dictator role of like, you will learn this being able to sit down with them and say, what do you want to learn? And how do you want to learn it? And when really, really changed their perspective on education and has allowed them to really grow and thrive.

Ela Richmond (12:38.53) How were you learning about homeschool initially? So were you involved in, I don’t know, like Facebook groups or you mentioned that you had a neighbor that was a homeschooler. How are you first starting to change your mind about like these massive things? You know, what does it actually mean for my kid to learn or when does learning actually happen?

Jamie Lesko (12:58.135) Yeah. So I had two wonderful, wonderful neighbors who were very persistent in saying you should homeschool your kids. If anytime I was ever complaining about my schedule, I’m so tired. I had to wake up at seven or I had, you know, we had to get, I had to drag the kids out of the house at this time and we had to.

I was at, I was at school last night until, you know, 5 30 PM. then we have, anytime I complained about my schedule, it was almost like they were smirking at me. They just were like, well, you know, it could, it could be something different, you know? And I’m like, I know I should just homeschool my kids. can’t tell you how many times I did that. I would just throw my hands in the, I know you’re telling me I should just homeschool my kids, but I don’t think I can do that. And I would give them all the excuses. And I think they just, they were very wise actually to just be very patient and just kind of let me come to that.

Ela Richmond (13:34.424) you

Jamie Lesko (13:47.647) knowledge myself. I think that that was really valuable for me. I can be a fairly stubborn person. I feel like I know what I need to do and I’m going to do it the way that I need to in order to do it right. And it really did just take a moment for for them to just be like, it could look different. You could do these things. It doesn’t have to be this way. And you know, and their kids were

were amazing. all had amazing children that were thriving and they were passionate. I think that’s really what got me is just how passionate a lot of their kids were in the things that they were learning. I’ll give an example. One of their sons is a phenomenal piano player and has been from a very young age, just exceptional.

You know, and my own children were taking piano at the same time, but they were not able to dedicate as much time and effort into learning their instruments because they had all these other things that they had to take care of and time was just our enemy. And so it was just, was, it took me a minute, but once

Once the pandemic pushed me into it, man, I’m so, you I don’t know your hill, very many people say they’re grateful for the pandemic and I’m certainly not grateful for it, but there’s definitely a lot of silver lining that came out of it for our family that allowed us to think of the things a little bit differently and changed our perspective on a lot of stuff.

Ela Richmond (15:27.498) Wow, what was that experience for your kids? So like you’re expanding your perspective, you know, they’re they’re going through COVID. Obviously, they’re not loving their education. But what if you could speak for them? What were they going through? And then how did you start to introduce more homeschool ideals?

Jamie Lesko (15:46.055) man, my son would be on the floor regularly melting down. He was not, he was not enjoying all the expectations, but you have to understand I was, I was a teacher. I was, you know, trained to be a teacher and you know, so I, I did what a lot of homeschool families will actually caution against, which was I was bringing school home. So I had a schedule. had a dedicated space. You know, we

I had desks for each of my kids and they had schedules and planners and they had all these things that I felt like this is what they needed. Because I was trying to bring them the school experience back home and make it as much what a similar to what they have already experienced in their life as possible. And it was not going well. It did not start out well.

sure there would be moments that were amazing. I have a picture, it’s one of my very favorite pictures of, we had a little space above our closet in our house because we had vaulted ceilings. you know sometimes they they jut out the closet and there’s like a lofty thing there. And I have a picture of all three of my kids doing their schoolwork sitting on top of this closet loft. It’s not

You know, it’s not normal space. They did not want to sit at desks. That’s where they chose to sit and they chose to work together. And that was probably one of the first times that I came to the realization of like, why do they have to learn at a desk? Why not allow them to sit here? And I think even my husband was like, are we okay that the kids are sitting there doing their schoolwork? I’m like, as long as they’re doing their schoolwork and the sun is not melting down, like it’s fine. And that’s really one of the most

You know, that was just the beginning of some of the realizations that we were having that’s like, this is okay. This is okay that this is not normal. And for them, it was hard. It was really tricky for them at first. But I think the more they discovered that freedom and the flexibility, being able to sit wherever they wanted to sit, being able to dictate when they did their different subjects, how much time they spent on each subject. Like I said, I had a

Jamie Lesko (18:04.483) I had a child who, you know, opted to do math at 1030 night. And the reason why she did that was because that was when her brain was on and the house was quiet. Having the distractions of everything else, everyone else working like was not engaging for her. She had a difficult time focusing on her work when everybody else was bustling about doing different things. So I think from their perspective, it started out a little bit.

more difficult, but they probably learned within a year. I think it took that first year to kind of realize this is what we’re doing. And the more my husband and I really pointed out to them, like, you know, we would not be able to do this if you were in a traditional school right now. You know, we would take vacations off breaks when everyone else was in school, but we could go take a

We could go take a trip to, we actually took a trip to Texas over Halloween. You don’t have a long break for Halloween, but we went and visited family in Texas during that time and we took school with us. And, you know, it was really amazing for our kids to see like, we would not have this opportunity if we, you know, unless we had a more open, you know, more open and flexible schedule.

to make this happen. So they came around and every year, every year I give them the opportunity. I’m like, okay, anybody ready to go back to school? And we are on our fourth year of homeschooling. Like I said, I’ve got someone who’s got a senior this year. And I keep asking, I’m like, are you sure you don’t want to do your senior year at the local school? And she’s like, no, I am good. I am, she has goals in mind. She’s got like the next three years of her life planned and.

Ela Richmond (19:34.058) I love that.

Jamie Lesko (20:01.291) And I just, don’t think that it would have been served better than us.

Ela Richmond (20:07.116) That’s so interesting. What curriculum did you start with and how are those first conversations with your kids about, hey, you get to have a say in this, or you were saying that it took them about a year to get used to the autonomy and the flexibility. And I bet you can see that over time where they’re starting to figure out what works for them and they’re starting to request things and they’re starting to recognize that they actually do have a say. And it’s not just a, OK,

We’re going to create a schedule and you’re just going to slot in yourself. It is open for your ability to create your own schedule. The one size fits all idea doesn’t work as well whenever you have the flexibility and you recognize that. But it is an aha moment. It’s like, okay, wait, I can actually do this or wait, I can actually sit down on a couch and do my work. No way.

Jamie Lesko (20:59.297) Yes. So when we first started homeschooling, because I was so nervous about it and just wanted to just try and keep things to what I already knew and I didn’t want to throw too many changes on my kids. That’s where I started. I started with what curriculum are they using at their charter school? Because I knew that that worked. It was something my kids were accustomed to. We didn’t have to create new processes around

new curriculum, we were able to just insert and plug and play is what I is what I used to just call it. We should just be able to plug it in and go. And so I did I utilized I utilized Saxon math because that was the program, the math program that my that our charter school utilized. So it was something that my kids are really familiar with. They knew how to do it. They knew what the expectations were. And we could just plug and play.

The writing program was one that the Charter School actually designed. And so I wasn’t able to just go and purchase that curriculum. So I had to do some research. And like I said, I relied on the homeschool community that already existed around me. And I just said, what do you suggest? So they suggested The Good and the Beautiful. So I said, all right, I’m going to do some exploring there and see how we feel about it.

The Good and the Beautiful was a fantastic program that worked really well for my, for my girls. My son struggled. He struggled really badly with it. But the thing that my son struggled with the most was he is, well, he’s so competitive that he struggled with the autonomy of, I don’t have my peers to compete with. He wanted to be the best. He wanted to be the smartest. He wants to be the fastest. He wanted, you know, he was

I think in third grade at the time, he’s in third or fourth grade at the time. And, you know, he thought he needed that competitiveness. And so, you know, so in in his, in his perspective, that that was hard for him. And, you know, because it was the only thing I knew, we went with it for the year. But then the next year, it was a matter of sitting down and just saying, Okay, what do you what do you need?

Jamie Lesko (23:19.179) What you know we don’t have to do this curriculum, we can do any curriculum and there’s a ton out there. What would you like to try? You know, so then we tried an online curriculum. We’ve tried to sell us Academy that has been a great curriculum for my students in some areas, but we also found that it wasn’t the best curriculum for all my students in all the areas. And so we over the last four years we probably have changed.

you know, we’ve changed curriculums, we’ve changed the different modalities of the teaching that, you know, my kids engage in. And I think it was like about two years ago. So probably, you know, two years in, it was my son who basically was like, look, I, I like to do math on paper, you know, but I don’t necessarily like to do this online.

You know, and so we just kind of said, okay, well, let’s see what else we can find that gives you a little bit more of that mix in your life. And again, once, he bought into that a little bit more that was that responsibility or just being able to make those choices, then he was, he was in, he was on board and he was all about it. And having those moments where he’s just like, yes, I like this better. This works for me.

Then it’s like, perfect. This year is the first year we’ve taken some online classes. And that has met his need a little bit more to be engaged with a teacher that’s not his mom and to be interactive with other students. It’s been a really positive experience for him. And I think that that’s, it’s just, it’s valuable to never close your mind off to what’s out there because there’s so many and that’s growing every day.

the different options that are available and how people are utilizing, you know, micro schools and hybrid schools and charter schools and public schools. There’s just so many different avenues to take, you know, make a little cocktail of what works best for your kiddo. And it’s been really remarkable for our family at least.

Ela Richmond (25:39.956) I love that story about how, you know, I mean, even down to the different siblings, like you can see these different educational journeys shaping out. And I love how you highlight that you started with the curriculums that your kids were familiar with at first, because sometimes it’s a massive task. It’s like, OK, where do we even begin? But if you start with the question, OK, what do they know or what’s familiar or what do I not want to change?

Jamie Lesko (25:58.211) Mm

Ela Richmond (26:09.61) what are we changing and what do I not want to change? That can honestly be quite helpful because it seems as though by not changing the curriculum in the first year, you allowed them to learn the skills that would be necessary for them to become great at homeschooling later on. Whenever they start to take on these more challenging things like learning a new curriculum or figuring out how to problem solve for, this does not work for me or this learning style does not work for me.

say your son or your daughters come to you with something that doesn’t work. How do you solve that problem? Like what is your process for saying, okay, here’s what we’re gonna do about it.

Jamie Lesko (26:50.643) That’s a great question. I mean, ultimately, it starts with listening. You know, if they if they’re struggling with something, it’s a matter of, you know, you got to put it put away pride, right? I can’t sit there and go, but this is what I created for you. And it should work. Because it doesn’t. That’s not how it works. So just taking a moment to listen to my kids and say, Okay, what’s not working? Why is it not working? And then sometimes even just sitting there and listening.

they will even come to the solution themselves, right? As they talk through the issue, they sometimes come back around to the solution where they’re just like, maybe if I try this, then it’s like, great, let’s try that. And it may fail. And that’s okay too. But we have to try, let’s try it and see if it works. And then we’ll adjust from there. I think my kids are probably sick of hearing me say that. I feel like I’m always saying, no, let’s just try it and we’ll adjust from there.

Because we don’t know what we don’t know. And whenever my own children have come to me and have said, you know, I don’t like this. I do require them to give it a little bit more than a day. My rule is kind of two weeks. In the special education world, you always kind of try an intervention for two weeks. And if that doesn’t work, then you switch it up and try a different intervention and see if there’s any improvement or any change.

So that’s kind of what I’ve tried to teach my own children to utilize in their life is, know, give it a go, try something for two weeks. And if it’s not working, then let’s find something new. And when it comes to, again, just solutions that maybe I run out of ideas, or maybe they don’t come up with ideas themselves. It’s just a matter of reaching out to your resources. Like I said, lots of conversations with parents who have done this before.

Even professionals, I know that I’ve had discussions with my children’s own doctors where I just am like, look, this is the struggle for them. How can I help resolve this? And there’s so many people that have so many great things and have lots to share. We just have to tap into it and put away our pride and be willing to ask questions and ask for help. Because there’s no way we can do this. There’s no way I can do what I’ve done without.

Jamie Lesko (29:17.291) you know, going to people who may know a little bit more than me. And there’s a lot of them. There’s a lot of those people.

Ela Richmond (29:21.162) I love that. yeah. yeah. So many people. And the cool thing is, that as the world becomes more interconnected, then people can find each other a lot more easily. And there are so many people I’ve been so surprised and pleasantly surprised by how many people are just so excited to help other families who get into this space. That begs the question, though, as you have gotten into this space and become a homeschool parent,

What has that meant for you and the role that you take on inside of your family? How much are you doing for your kids? How much is autonomy versus you helping to lead them and to walk with them?

Jamie Lesko (30:01.251) so it’s been really interesting, and struggle some, right? I don’t know if that’s a word, but it’s been, it’s been a trial. I jumped into working from home full time because as a teacher, I was full time. So being a full time working parent, and, and full time homeschooling my children, we definitely had to find a good balance.

of teaching, learning, working independently, dependently, especially like I said, my youngest at the time was in fourth grade and know, 10 is is older, but not necessarily old enough to be doing lots of independent work. There’s still a lot of learning that he needed to do. And so it was it was trying and but I was grateful for

you know, the flexibility that I had, not only in the workplace, but you know, in the flexibility of my own husband’s workplace, you know, that we could switch off, we could take turns, we could sit by, you know, sit by our children and navigate things. And as they, as they got more confident in their, in their individual and independent learning skills, it’s been hands off probably for the last year.

at least if not more, where my kids can, you know, have a little bit more take on that accountability. They’re a lot more responsible, they know what they need to do, they get it done. And really, what we’ve taught them is where to go to for resources when they need help, what they can do, and how they can address their concerns. So you know, there’s, there’s methods for that, you know, in a

classroom, your kids are taught that they raise their hand and if you ever had those kids that like, they’ve been raising their hand forever and they’re just like, nobody’s helping me, you know, I’ve taught my kids, you know, don’t rely on somebody else to help you go try and help yourself, go see what you can figure out on your own. And that has been really remarkable for them to be able to learn that skill because that’s what life’s all about is being able to solve those problems on their own.

Jamie Lesko (32:27.277) Did I lose you? I was going say you’re frozen on my screen, so was afraid.

Ela Richmond (32:27.557) yeah.

Let me.

Ela Richmond (00:01.734) it got all of that but I’ll just clip it between. That yes I absolutely love the emphasis on teaching them to solve their own problems because I was asking myself the question as you were explaining your kids journey through homeschooling how it is that your kids have taken on such radical responsibility in their own education because I’ve heard.

stories of homeschool families where kids don’t care or kids, like, it becomes a free for all. And I think that’s what a lot of parents are, or at least that’s some of the parents that I’ve talked to in the past, are afraid of. Whenever they think about homeschool, it’s like, okay, well, my kid’s just gonna have unstructured education. Like, how am gonna make sure that they become capable? How am gonna make sure that, you know, if they’re not…

Jamie Lesko (00:47.324) Yes, concerned.

Ela Richmond (00:57.9) being disciplined or if somebody doesn’t hold these high standards, how am I gonna make sure that they’re learning what they need to learn and they’re gonna become the capable adults that they can become? And I think it sounds like you and your husband do a really good job of both emulating what you want your kids to have in terms of character and then also helping them to problem solve. So you’re there to walk with them and also you’re there to ask them questions like, well, have you looked at this?

Like this is pretty easy to solve. Have you done one, two, three? Or like just challenging them in ways that remind them, like, OK, I can actually do this. Like I think about this in a work setting too, where it’s like, if I go to this person with this question, they’re going to ask me if I went here, so I might as well just go here first.

Jamie Lesko (01:45.35) Yep. Yep, that’s exactly that’s exactly how it’s done. And, you know, we definitely have, you know, tried to model a lot of strategies that are not only valuable in the education world, but they’re going to be valuable for life, like time management skills, you know, and my children have learned sometimes the hard way when they, you know, run out of time, the consequences that come with that, you know, you, you didn’t prepare you procrastinated and now you’re not prepared for this.

you know, from your musical concert that’s coming, you know, that’s coming up because you you procrastinated your time away, you know, so it’s a lot of those things that are just valuable life lessons that when you know, we’ve, we’ve tried to model that so that they don’t necessarily learn that the hard way, you know, but also taking those opportunities, you know, that are kind of bigger and turning them into learning opportunities, right? It’s not, they’re still kids. So I can’t, I can’t

fault them too badly when something gets, you a ball gets dropped or they forget something here or there, because that’s on me as their parent to try and teach them those things. I obviously missed something somewhere in trying to teach them that. So, you know, we tried to take every experience as a learning experience. There’s not very many times when I’m having to, you know, yell at my kids because of something that they did or didn’t do because

It’s an off. It’s often a reflection, you know, an opportunity for me to reflect. Well, where did I? Where did I not teach them? Where? Where? Where did we miss the boat? And, you know, it leads to really great conversations, honestly, with my kids where I can, again, swallow some pride and just say, Look, this thing happened. I’d like to avoid it in the future. What do we need to do?

you know, and I can’t tell you how many alarms have been created in those after those conversations or a new Paul, new procedures in our home, you know, to help avoid that pain in the future. And really that’s what I’m, those are the kinds of things that I hope my kids learn. you know, I obviously I want them to learn math and science and history and reading and writing and all those valuable things, you know, but when it comes to, you know, life lessons, I’d rather they,

Ela Richmond (03:55.576) Mm -hmm.

Jamie Lesko (04:08.466) take the mistakes that they encounter, the faults, the falls that they come to, and I’d rather they figure out what they can do better for next time, and how to improve and how to grow and how to become just better the next time. Because that’s what learning is all about. That’s what we’re here to do is to learn from those experiences.

Ela Richmond (04:32.77) It is.

Ela Richmond (04:37.302) It is. Again, this conversation has just been me soaking up all of your wisdom. And the best part is that it’s a learned experience. Like you’ve been on the ground. You’ve experienced the challenges. You’ve walked through this with your kids. And so you have so much insight. For this last little bit of the episode, I’m going to ask you some rapid fire questions. So first thing that comes to mind when you hear these questions, it can be a short -ish, but.

Jamie Lesko (04:58.31) Okay.

Ela Richmond (05:06.36) comprehensive enough answer. So question number one. What has been the biggest success that you’ve seen through approaching your kids education through like an open education lens?

Jamie Lesko (05:19.814) I would just say the ability for my children to manage their time, to focus on the things that they’re passionate about.

Ela Richmond (05:30.23) And what’s one example of something that your kid is passionate about?

Jamie Lesko (05:33.608) So my son can practice the piano for two hours a day, happily. That’s something he’s passionate about. And he has the time to do that. And he manages that time really well. And for a 13 year old, that’s pretty extraordinary. All three of my kids do well in their instruments and they are able to focus that time and effort and they love it. And it’s something that they, it’s a talent that they are able to grow in and utilize it, you know, in their communities and

So that would probably be something that I have loved seeing and witnessing.

Ela Richmond (06:10.07) I love that. What is an example of something or a curriculum or just a resource that has really helped your family and your kids to learn something cool?

Jamie Lesko (06:21.928) Ooh, a curriculum or a resource that has really helped our family learn something cool.

Ela Richmond (06:26.926) curriculum resource, anything online, anything in person, anything that they continuously go to that you’re like, this was awesome for us to find out.

Jamie Lesko (06:37.032) Mm. That one’s a little bit trickier. man, I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ve utilized so many different things. and I’m trying to think of things that are out here. I mean, I would say probably co ops, we’ve experienced many co ops that have been really valuable. The opportunity to be able to

learn from other individuals within our community has been just awesome experiences for us. I guess one that I would shout out is, know, our co -op does has done a theater production at the end of the year. And being able to participate in that for my kids has really helped them to grow out of their introvertedness. And they’ve all they’ve all found a passion in in

the theater because of it, it’s allowed them, they love to perform. I don’t know that’s necessarily acting, but they do like, they do all enjoy performing, which is heightened their desire to be good at their instruments. They no longer just play their instruments, they perform. And so I would say that’s probably been one of the greatest resources that has helped our family just really grow in this open ed.

open educational opportunity for them.

Ela Richmond (08:05.25) That’s awesome. And the last rapid fire question, what do you anticipate or see becoming a challenge in the next year, different from this year? Either something that is a world thing where it’s affecting the way that your kids are learning or something that’s just kid specific.

Jamie Lesko (08:25.264) you know, it’s an ongoing challenge. I don’t know that in the next year, it’s going to be resolved, but an ongoing challenge that, and you’re probably so sick of hearing me talk about my children and how they they love their music. But like, my children can’t participate in like a band or an orchestra. And that’s not something that I can create at home. I mean, I have three kids, I it’s not enough for an orchestra. So, you know,

A continuous challenge that I foresee is,

Just education, departments of education really clamping down on restrictions for children to be able to learn. However that looks, I think that it’s growing and trending in a more open manner, but I also see areas where because it’s trending to be more open in some places, other places are really clamping down and making more restrictions.

And that’s what I see happening in the area that I’m in. And it’s unfortunate. I’ve already seen it happen where we are at, where we were part of an opportunity. And it got shifted this year. The Department of Education, where we live, decided to add some restrictions to what we were

used to using for the last four years. you know, it’s, and that’s, that’s disheartening to me that in some areas, people are opening it up and they’re like, yes, let’s allow kids to do this. Let’s give them those opportunities because it’s, it’s, focused on the kids. Whereas I feel like there are some areas where it’s still focused on the money, the politics, the status, whatever it is, it’s, it’s hard. And

Jamie Lesko (10:26.47) I unfortunately don’t see that changing anytime soon in my area and that’s disheartening to me.

Ela Richmond (10:32.52) I love that. That’s a fantastic note to end this conversation on. Jamie, you’re incredible. Thank you so much for sharing everything. It’s been awesome.

Jamie Lesko (10:41.49) Thank you so much.

Ela Richmond (10:44.248) Cool.