Greetings!

We've all seen it, felt the pressure, and asked ourselves the same nagging question: Am I doing enough for my child?

It can be tempting to add more activities, lesson plans, and overall structure.

But in the recent open education breakthrough event, Matt & Isaac talk about how the obsession with structure can go wrong. They’re also joined by school teacher-turned-homeschool mom Janae Daniels, who shares what she learned from her disastrous first day of homeschooling.

You can watch the whole recording, or read the article version.

Let's dive in.

THOUGHT: CEO or Gardener
TREND: The Un-Scheduling Arc
TOOL: The Sticky Note Method

CEO or Gardener?

The homeschool CEO tries to manage every variable. They optimize, dictate, and control. The gardener does something different. They know you can't force a seed to grow. You just cultivate the right conditions and trust the process.

As Isaac put it, "Your kids are going to be okay. You can relax a little bit."

The foundation of a great education isn't a perfect schedule; it's a loving, engaged environment. Everything else is just fine-tuning. Don’t compare yourself to some other family you see on Instagram.

Fire the CEO. Become the gardener.

The Un-Scheduling Arc

How can you kill the schedule without creating chaos? The key is to replace rigidity with an adaptable framework that changes as your kids go through different phases.

Isaac laid out a simple roadmap for the appropriate amount of structure based on his own experience.

Early Years (0-10): Minimal structure, leaning into unschooling and play.

Middle Years (10-14): A bit more parent-led structure to guide them through the pre-teen funk.

Teen Years (14+): They build their own structure, driven by jobs, sports, or projects.

Of course, even this framework isn’t to be taken too rigidly. Janae notes that her 9-year-old daughter with a sensory processing disorder thrives with more structure, while her other kids benefit from ample unstructured time to get bored.

Even the appropriate level of structure resists one-size-fits-all structure.

Think of structure like a trellis – it's there to support growth, not confine it. Different plants need different amounts of support, and the same is true for kids.

The Sticky Note Method

Once the trellis is in place, you need to know what the kid actually wants to climb toward. Matt shared a simple tool for this: The Sticky Note Method. For one week, have your kids jot down answers to a few questions:

• What do you think about in your free time?
• What are you good at?
• What do you want to get better at?
• What do you dislike?

This makes their inner world visible. Then, the magic happens when you connect their interest to a real-world need. For example, a kid who loves baking (interest) can start a cookie business for neighbors (need).

Want the detailed version of the exercise? Download the Open Education Toolkit

Bonus Tool

Sometimes the difference between chicken scratch is perfectly-proportioned handwriting is a cartoon cat on a popsicle stick.

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