Today, we’re diving into our first-ever Q&A session. Matt Bowman and Isaac tackle some of the most pressing questions from our amazing community of parents and educators.

Remember, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer in education. We’re all figuring this out together.

Share your questions as comments on the video.

Check out the new Q&A playlist with clips from these episodes and share them with your fellow parents in need!

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Disclaimer

02:00 Is obsession with one subject okay?

05:00 How to balance freedom and future prep?

08:00 Is it normal to feel like I’m winging it?

10:00 How to assess learning without grades?

14:00 How should we approach screen time?

19:00 How to encourage reluctant readers?

26:00 How can kids discover their passions?

32:00 Assignments or self-directed projects?

40:00 Can homeschoolers go to college?

44:00 What if I don’t feel qualified to teach?

48:00 Closing Remarks and Call for Questions

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Transcript

Introduction and Disclaimer [00:00]

Isaac Morehouse: Welcome back to the Open Ed podcast. I’m excited for our first Q&A episode, something I’ve been looking forward to. Matt, who’s joining me today, has also been eager for this.

Matt Bowman: I’m glad to be here, Isaac. I love getting questions from parents and sharing ideas with you.

Isaac: I want to preface this by emphasizing something you all know: when it comes to your child’s education, nobody has all the answers. We’re all trying to figure this out together. That’s hopefully what we’re doing on this episode—learning out loud, trying to figure it out together.

We don’t have all the answers. Luckily, Matt Bowman does have almost all the answers.

Matt: No, no. I think we might want our producer to put a disclaimer at the bottom of the podcast that says: “Every child is unique, every family situation is different. Take these ideas with a grain of salt.”

Isaac: I’ll tell you what, Matt. I’ve been talking about ideas and education for about 15 years, and my oldest child is now 19. Each year since I started, my confidence in what I’m saying gets less, not more.

I have four kids now, and they’re all so different. Kids will humble you too. So…

Matt: Well, that’s interesting. I would say now that all five of our children are in their twenties—one has actually just turned 30—seeing how they’ve adopted some of these things in their adult life is actually super interesting to me. So the curve might go down as they’re 18, 19, 20, and then 23, 24, 25, it starts to come back up.

Isaac: That’s actually a great point. I wouldn’t be surprised if that is an actual pattern. I think about my mom homeschooling us and all she ever did was feel like she was doing everything wrong. But as we got older and had our own kids, we all started to realize, “Oh, I didn’t even realize these things I took for granted that are not normal, that I appreciate so much and want to instill in my own kids.” I think my mom now is like, “Hey, I actually did an okay job.”

Is Obsession with One Subject Okay? [02:00]

Isaac: Let’s dive right in. We’ve got a whole bunch of questions from various sources—Facebook, email, Slack. We appreciate everybody’s input. Just to put it out there, we want more of these questions. We keep a running list, and we’d love to address them in future episodes.

So, here’s the first one that multiple parents echoed: “My kid is obsessed with just one subject. Is that cool? Or should I be worried?” Matt?

Matt: My short answer is: feed the interest. I don’t think it’s a worry; I think it’s an opportunity. Gather all the resources you can and feed that interest. It’ll eventually change and shift, but feed it for now. What do you think?

Isaac: I always like to say, when somebody is obsessing over one thing and diving really deep into it and mastering it, take something that feels unrelated to your typical academic disciplines, like piano. If a child does nothing but piano for months at a time and just obsesses over it and masters it, at the end of that time, what have they learned? It’s not just piano. They’ve learned piano too, but they’ve learned how to master something. They’ve learned how to learn, how to be obsessed, how to go deep on something.

I think that often gets missed when you get into the world of work, of value creation. The ability to say, “Here’s a problem, and I need to obsess over it and go deep and solve it.” That’s really hard for people who have always just sort of been tracked on 50-minute segment fits.

So don’t worry so much about what the subject is. I remember reading some stories from the Sudbury Valley School, which is like a very unschooled school. It’s been around for a long time. One kid spent an entire year doing nothing but fishing and just learning how to fish, doing everything, obsessing over different lures. That’s all he cared about, and they just let him do it. Then one day he got interested in math and he learned math really quickly because he applied that same obsessive deep-dive mentality to it. So they’re learning how to learn as well.

Matt: Yes, and I think, you know, again, we’re—our children are probably going to be tired of us always citing examples from our own families—but one of my sons got into diamonds one time and just wanted to learn everything about diamonds and study the history of why they’re so valuable, the markets, and how to analyze the colors and shapes and values of diamonds. He did that for a couple of weeks, and that was super interesting. He learned more about that and, to your point, he then learned if I’m interested in another topic, here are some steps I can take to dive deep and do it quickly.

How to Balance Freedom and Future Prep? [05:00]

Isaac: Love it. Okay, here’s another one that got multiple upvotes: “How do I give my child freedom without totally winging their future?”

Matt: You start with that one.

Isaac: Alright, I’ll start on this one. Just at a general level—and I don’t want this to sound too general, but without more specifics of this person’s situation, this is the level that makes sense to me—focus on principles and foundations, things that will always be true.

If you’re worried about them having freedom, that means you think they’re not properly getting prepared for the future. That kind of implies that you are able to predict what that future holds. And you probably aren’t. Maybe within some boundaries you can say things that are likely somewhat, but it’s pretty hard. Especially if you’re talking about careers—things that your kids will be doing in 20 years probably don’t exist yet.

So what can you focus on? Things that will always be true: principles, their character, their ability to learn, their resiliency, their ability to handle failure and not let it beat them and get back up, their curiosity. Those things that you know will be valuable no matter what they do. If the freedom you’re giving them is putting them in an environment where you feel like those are being cultivated, don’t worry too much about the specifics.

Matt: Yeah, I think it actually adds onto some of the things that were said in the first question around if they want to dive deep or that kind of thing. So I think, to your point, igniting curiosity is something that we always need to have throughout our life. Being a curious person allows that foundation to pursue interests, whatever it is, when we’re 10 or 20 or 100. Curiosity is something I think we can develop in all children and adults. And that’s the greatest gift we can give young people.

Isaac: I might even—not to contradict you, but I almost feel like it’s not even that curiosity needs to be developed. It’s natural. We need to make sure that it’s not lost, because that’s not just things that parents do, but just sort of the world in general. There’s this pressure as you grow and move through life to sort of dampen that curiosity and kind of shut it down eventually. The more you can try to remove the things that do that and realize you’re working with something—you’re working with an instinct that’s already in there to a degree—you don’t have to start from scratch.

Matt: No, that’s a good point that it’s naturally in us. We just, society blocks it from us sometimes.

Is It Normal to Feel Like I’m Winging It? [08:00]

Isaac: Okay, I love this one. “I feel like I’m making this up as I go. Is that normal?”

Matt: Yes. That’s Parenting 101. None of us were given a handbook when we had our first child. So winging it as parents is very applicable to helping our children decide what they’re interested in, what they’re curious about, what they need. All those things are day-to-day. Just do your best. All of us are doing that.

Isaac: There has never been a human in the history of the world that is exactly like your child. So nobody knows what it’s like to help your child learn. There are principles and things, and you can commiserate with others for sure. But it’s like the imposter syndrome, right? The idea that “I don’t think I know what I’m doing and everybody else does.” The cure for imposter syndrome is not finally feeling like you know what you’re doing. It’s realizing that no one else knows what they’re doing either.

Matt: Yeah, and there’s social media and influencers that might sound like they know what they’re doing. That’s why we started with our disclaimer—we really don’t know what we’re doing. We’re just sharing ideas and thoughts that hopefully trigger and adapt to your family’s situation. But just know that every person’s different, every family’s different. We’re all just trying to do our best.

How to Assess Learning Without Grades? [10:00]

Isaac: Okay, Matt, I know you’re going to love this one in particular. You’re probably one of the best people in the world to answer this question: “Without grades and report cards, how do I know if we’re actually learning anything?”

Matt: Yeah, that’s a heavy question because it challenges a very core belief that we think standardized testing can assess learning. That’s one that I really wrestle with—if that’s true or not. We often don’t measure compassion, love, empathy. We really don’t measure curiosity or creativity. What if we can’t really measure a child’s learning?

So that’s kind of an extreme point of view to start with. If you wrestle with that, maybe standardized testing isn’t an indicator of what we might have thought it is. Put standardized testing in its place as a tool, but not the end-all be-all.

Then apply the concept that every child is not only unique in their personalities and learning styles but in their child development schedule. Not every child at 3rd grade and 2 months reads at the state testing expectation. We have children that are older, children that are younger, everywhere in between. We really can’t get too caught up in “Does my child meet the average state standard of the 3rd grade, 2-month scale?” when they’ve learned to walk at their own time, talk at their own time, crawl at their own time, ride a bike at different times. We don’t worry about that. We just move forward and feed them with resources to help them succeed.

Isaac: I have nothing to add to that answer. I love that.

How Should We Approach Screen Time? [14:00]

Isaac: Screen time: friend, foe, or frenemy? I’m gonna quickly say frenemy. I think it’s easy to treat anything that’s fairly new like it’s utterly unlike anything that’s come before. And there are elements of that that are true. In some sense, the internet is utterly unlike things that have come before. But in other senses, the patterns hold.

Any new technology, any new thing that sort of disrupts the norms of human behavior and societal behavior—they’re always hard. They always bring challenges, and they always bring opportunities and risks. Screen time absolutely can have negative effects. I have seen it with my own kids. We started out way too loosey-goosey about screen time. We’re like, “Ah, he’s playing Minecraft. He’s learning. It’s all good.” And then we’re like, “Wow, why is he acting so rude and impatient and like a zombie?” Oh, the screen time thing needs limits, needs parameters. We had to figure that out and wrestle with it.

My first three kids all got the experiment, and my fourth kid, we got it dialed down now. But I think you have to recognize you can’t just—I mean, you can, but I would not recommend—just saying, “Hey, it’s all good. Technology is our friend. Let them learn technology” and just no-holds-barred go for it. You’ve got to watch each individual kid. That’s too much for some kids. They can’t, they’re not ready to regulate it themselves, and it’s a dopamine hit. It might be overwhelming.

On the other hand, you don’t want to just be like, “I’m throwing it all in the garbage. We’re moving out to the woods. We’re going off the grid.” I have been tempted to do that at times. But I think recognizing that we have to be strong enough as humans to handle the kind of technologies and things that the world introduces and master them and not let them master us. I think that’s possible. It’s always a process of give and take. But technology can be such a powerful tool for your kid learning. If you’re listening to this, there you go, right? You’re listening to this because of screens. So figuring out that balance is hard, but there is a balance.

Matt: Yes, I agree. I would just add that we need to be balanced in all things. There’s this principle of human behavior: any behavior taken to extremes is not healthy. Even if it’s a really good thing, you can take it too far. So it’s really trying to achieve a balanced lifestyle.

I think it’s important to have conversations about how to incorporate devices as tools into your lifestyle. That’s one area. The other area I would say is, we sometimes just forget the value of helping kids get exhausted physically. There’s so much structure in our children’s days with everything structured that there’s lots of research reports out there around unstructured playtime being what’s missing from today’s children. I really believe that.

There are studies that say young boys can’t learn math well if they’re not physically exhausted, so they should have an hour-long recess, not recess cut in half because they need more math study. It’s the opposite. Give a kid 60 minutes of recess, and he’ll learn 20 minutes of math faster than if you skip the recess. So just those principles—we’ve got to exhaust our young people physically to help them be prepared to learn. Isn’t that crazy?

How to Encourage Reluctant Readers? [19:00]

Isaac: This is related to the grades one, but I think it’s actually slightly different. “How do I encourage a love of reading if my kids hate books?” I will quickly answer. It can change and totally surprise you. I hated books until I was 16. I didn’t like reading. I didn’t care about it. I read really slow. Somehow when I turned 16, I think it’s because I had a girlfriend and we broke up and then I was depressed. So I started picking up books and I didn’t stop. I just love reading. I have all these books behind me. I got really into philosophy and all this stuff. You never would have expected that about me. I was into sports and Legos and fighter pilots as a kid. I didn’t care about reading.

So that’s just a little bit of encouragement that it can be really surprising when that could change. The only other thought, and I know Matt you probably have a lot of good thoughts on this, but if your kids hate books, trying to model it like reading aloud, even as they’re older—my mom read aloud to us kids all the time. We actually really enjoyed it. And even though it took me a long time to read on my own, audio books for my older kids, sometimes I’ll just buy them an audio book and be like, “Here, listen to this when you’re going out on a walk or whatever.” Or they will on their own. It can be a good way to get them going.

But Matt, I’m curious if you have thoughts, cause this actually, uh, interesting anecdote that I heard from our team, our teachers that help people in the Open Ed program, that the number of kids who have said they hate reading is like twice as high as it was a couple years ago, just in our program. So that’s anecdotal, but that’s a really interesting thing. And maybe screens have something to do with that, but I’m curious your take on that.

Matt: Oh yeah, it’s worthy of a long conversation. So let me just shorten some of the thoughts. Definitely think that audiobooks is a great answer for many kids. Play it in the background while they’re playing with Legos. Just get them used to stories. So that could be one solution or one idea.

The other thing that is interesting is, again, it goes back to how do you figure out their interests and passions? Something that they’re interested in might have something written about it, right? Whether it’s in a newspaper or a magazine or that kind of thing. Or even I was thinking, to answer this question, most YouTube videos now have a transcript capability where you can actually read the transcript of it. So it might be an interesting idea to have them look at the transcript of their favorite Mr. Beast video or Mark Rober video, whatever it is, and just read the transcript and compare it to the audio. Cause sometimes it’s off cause it was AI generated or something.

This concept of reading isn’t just pick up a book and go sit down and read it. Reading is all around us, from transcripts to audio books, to videos. Even like, one idea could be watch your favorite movie. Our kids love Shrek growing up. Write the trans—like transcribe the whole movie and then read it, or have your brother or sister transcribe a different movie and you swap. That’s reading, right? And it’s interesting just to start reading things that aren’t just normally a book.

And then the other thought is maybe they do have a little bit of nervousness about it. Like your son did, start them at a kindergarten book, right? And let them feel really confident. Have it be funny or a nursery rhyme or rhythmic or something and have them just start small. And then just add up instead of saying you’re at third grade or fourth grade, you need to be reading this level. Here’s a book, read it. That’s not how to excite kids about reading.

Isaac: It’s funny. My youngest, he’s seven now, but he got really into baseball cards recently. We have been working with him on reading and he could, you know, kind of mostly read sort of, but he’s really not interested in it at all. But with the baseball cards, he wants to read all the stats. He wants to read the other teams they’ve been on. So with his cards, I’m like, he’s just telling me all this stuff about all these players. I’m like, where’d you learn that? “Oh, from the cards.” I’m like, oh, so you read all that. He’s like, “Yeah.” But then at night when I put him in bed, we always read to him. And I’m always like, here, do you want to read the chapter? And he’s like, “No, I can’t read it.” I’m like, yes, you can. What does it say? And he’ll tell me. Like he can read, but he, in his mind, he can’t read a book by himself. He hasn’t like decided. If he’s bored, I’m like, go read. And he’s like, “Nah, you know, I can’t read.” And then he’ll go play his baseball cards and I’ll hear him reading the baseball cards.

So like, it’ll get there. Giving that a little bit of space can be scary, but I love what you said about using things other than books to give them those tools.

Matt: Yeah, like the baseball card. Yeah.

Isaac: Yeah, totally. For some of my other kids, it was playing Roblox with their friends and they wanted to type back and forth.

Matt: You know, one other idea just to do a quick plug for an Open Ed resource. Screenplays are one of our partners that we work with and they have dozens, if not many dozens of screenplays of all the famous movies. So, Harry Potter, or Star Wars, or whatever, go read the screenplay of your favorite movie. And just see what the director’s cut says and where they show Harry Potter walking through the woods or whatever. What does the screenplay show? It’s a fascinating way to get a hook into kids’ interest into reading.

How Can Kids Discover Their Passions? [26:00]

Isaac: This one is from Stacy. I think this came through Facebook. So thank you, Stacy. Shout out. “How do I help my kids find their passions if they don’t want to try anything new?”

Matt: What have you done with your kids, Isaac?

Isaac: This is a really hard one because I have had a couple of my kids who are like, “Oh, I’ll do anything new. It all sounds fun.” And a couple of my kids were like, “Nope, don’t want to try it.” Here’s one thing that has helped. I would not say I have solved this because this is definitely something that I ponder and think about a lot.

One thing that has helped is to start doing things around them, even things that are not necessarily interesting to me that I wouldn’t otherwise do that I have a hunch they may find interesting, not telling them to do it. This weird thing happens, especially when kids get to a certain age, if you’re like, “Hey kids, you should learn about this. Oh, go learn this.” Their reaction is “No, no, that’s not—no, I don’t want to do that.”

Matt: Dad likes it, why would I?

Isaac: Totally. I remember when I was a kid, my mom would get us a Christmas present. We’d have like a present for the whole family and she’d be like, “Okay, open the family present.” And the first thing we’d ask is, “Is it educational?” Right? Cause like, if I know that you really want me to learn, I’m gonna push against that. Kids have this independent feeling.

So rather than trying to say, “You should try this, you should try this,” if you can just do more things in their presence, like pull up a documentary about something that maybe you yourself aren’t even interested in, but just watch it and enjoy it and don’t even say, “Come watch this with me” or anything. Start to get out your old microscope that you had in the closet and just start looking at leaves and looking at things and don’t even say anything about it. And kids will often be like, “What are you doing?” “Oh, I’m just doing this.”

It doesn’t always work perfectly, but I think taking it on and saying, “Okay, if I want my kids to be exposed to more ideas so that they can figure out things that they may not even realize they’re passionate about, I got to put them in more environments where those things are happening.” Not just rely on sort of mandating them to explore it and to go do it on their own. So I think that can kind of help, like just taking them interesting places without even saying we’re going on an educational trip. Letting them see things rather than always telling—showing rather than telling.

Matt: Yeah, I think that’s a great suggestion. I also think it validates this model in your own life, your interest in learning. And then, you know, if you want to bring in some things that you think they might be interested in, but even just sharing with them, “Hey, I got really interested in learning how to grow a flower in our backyard. And so I’ve studied this on a YouTube channel. I’ve read a book about it. Come see the flower that I produced.” And model for them what learning looks like and they can start saying, “Oh, can I do that for soccer or can I do that for something else?” So they can start to see that adults enjoy learning. And I think modeling that is kind of a first step.

The second thing I’ll say is that it really is around this concept of a detox. Sometimes kids are so wired into compulsory learning that they don’t realize they have autonomy to choose something they’re interested in. And that detox can take some time. So if you’re struggling, seeing what your children are interested in, it actually might be good to just detox for a week and then see what they start gravitating towards. And then nudge and provide a little book on something they say they might be interested in or a documentary, but let them—they kind of have to let their brains unwind from compulsory learning and forced assignments and forced everything before their brain can even unlock curiosity and interest.

Isaac: That reminds me of a story. This is another one from the Sudbury Valley school, and I’m not recommending like, “Oh, everybody has to go do this Sudbury model,” but it was a really interesting story of a kid that joined the school. He was like 12 or 13 from a very traditional public school or maybe private, but the school background where he was just used to being told everything he had to do and learn.

And he shows up and he’s like, “All right, what do I do?” And there’s like parents around, but they basically are like mentors or something. They just kind of make sure the kids are okay. They let him do whatever they want all day basically. And they’re like, “Whatever you want.” And he’s like, “No, for real, what do I do?” And they’re like, “Whatever you want.” And he kind of doesn’t believe them. So for the first like two weeks, I think it was, he literally just sat in a chair and did nothing. And he’s kind of like waiting. He thinks he’s calling their bluff. Like “I know eventually you’re going to make me do something.” Finally, he gets up and goes and starts like playing and interacting with the other kids and doing a few things. And then like a week later, he’s just in the library reading books all day by himself. At first he was like, “You’re not going to make me learn anything,” you know? And they’re like, “Nope, we’re not.” And eventually he got bored and started teaching himself.

Matt: Right? No, the power of boredom is a real thing. And, you know, even my daughter, who’s now 22, recently got married and she and her husband both work and come home from work and she said, “Dad, I think for the first time in my life, I understand what you’re talking about with boredom because we both now have our evenings free where we sit, we have dinner and they’re like, now what?”

Isaac: Yep.

Matt: And she said, “For the first time in my life, I’m starting to realize I can start to learn about stuff I’m interested in. I have mental time, physical, not exhausted, and it’s been fascinating to see what she’s now focused on learning.” It may change in a few weeks or whatever, but the power of boredom is powerful because, and getting enough sleep, right? Those were two things that we talked to her about forever. She’s always felt exhausted, you know, just with a busy schedule and everything going on. And now she feels rested and ready to learn. And I think those are some powerful things to remember how important those things are.

Isaac: And by the way, as a parent, it’s not like these things just happen immediately and you don’t have to kind of go through a little pain and suffering and worry for a little while. If you cut—like with the power of boredom, your kid’s bored. “What do I do?” And you’re like, “Don’t ask me. You figure it out. You got to figure out something for the next two hours. I’m busy.” It can be really hard to watch them look around. They don’t know what to do. They’re asking. You just feel like “I got to solve it for them. I got to give them something.” It’s not easy, but it sometimes takes time. Maybe it takes several instances of this, but eventually I’ve seen it with my own kids. They’ll start to find and get into things that you never expected they would.

Assignments or Self-Directed Projects? [32:00]

Isaac: Should I be giving my kids assignments or is it okay to let them come up with their own projects and just be there to offer support and encouragement? My answer will be very short. Yes. Matt?

Matt: A little bit of both.

Isaac: Right. Yes.

Matt: Yeah. I think there’s a principle we always—my wife and I often talk about is love, limits and latitude. So you need a little bit of everything. You need a whole lot of love, but you need some limits. And then with those limits, you need some flexibility. So yes, yes to both. It’s okay to, as an adult, step in and say, “These are responsibilities we have in our house. I’d like us all to participate in X, Y, and Z.” And then here’s some free time that we all can do self-directed learning projects and that’s just great.

Isaac: I’ve gone too far in both directions and hopefully I’m at a good balancing spot right now. So yeah, I love that.

Can Homeschoolers Go to College? [40:00]

Isaac: Will my child be limited in their future because of homeschooling? Can my student go to college without a high school diploma? Matt, you’ve got a lot of stuff on this as well, but I’ll tell you that…

Matt: You have a personal story.

Isaac: I don’t have a high school diploma. I never took the ACT or SAT, but I have an associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degree. So the short answer is no, they will not be limited in their future. And yes, they can absolutely go to college without a high school diploma.

Often, like in my case, I went to the community college, which didn’t care about that because I was doing it during high school. I was dual enrolled. Then I just took my credits from there and transferred those to the four-year college. And they didn’t ask about a diploma because I already had college credits from a community college. I think I already had an associate’s.

So you can do it without a diploma. You can also make your own high school diploma. College admissions, generally speaking, are very homeschool-friendly. Homeschoolers tend to do very well in college. They tend to like them in college. At the end of the day, if you’re paying tuition, they don’t care that much. So there is no limitation in terms of college.

Then there’s a broader question of is college the right thing for many people? I don’t think it is. And homeschoolers have an advantage where they’re used to thinking differently and thinking for themselves and are potentially better at assessing whether or not college is the right next best step.

Matt: Yeah, it’s a decision to be made, not a default decision that everyone has to do for sure. And I’ll just echo, I remember in—so, you know, Harvard is the brand that everyone always says, “Well, whatever Harvard does, that’s the highest level of academia,” right? And in 2015, they published an article, “New Path to Harvard: Homeschooling” because they saw the value of self-directed learners on their campus versus kids who just waited to be told what to do that the whole system generates.

And so ever since then, so that’s now almost 10 years old, every college has made sure they have a homeschool pathway for applications or entrance or acceptance. And it’s just so open that if you choose that college is the right path, which again, it’s not for most, then it really gives you that opportunity to be very flexible in your applications.

What If I Don’t Feel Qualified to Teach? [44:00]

Isaac: Final question. It’s sort of more of a comment, but I think there’s something interesting here we can talk about. This is from Erica on the Open Ed team, and Erica says that she’s been a part of the open education, alternative education world for almost 35 years and one of the most common things that she comes across is lack of confidence by parents—lack of confidence in their abilities, more so as the kids get older and they feel like they need to learn things that the parent doesn’t know. But even from a very young age, they feel like they are not qualified or equipped to teach their child. What is your response to that general sentiment or fear?

Matt: I would say there are unlimited amounts of resources that can help children learn, especially in today’s world with so many resources available. So the parent doesn’t have to be the expert, and lecturing on a topic that you are an expert in might not be the best education environment anyway. So tap into resources that are all over—from online to book-based and community-based. It’s almost endless, the opportunities you have to supplement what you do as a parent.

Again, the parent, in my view, creates the environment of opportunities, resources, example, support, love, limits, latitude that then creates that environment where students can thrive. It’s not what the parent has in his or her brain to impart. It’s about creating the environment that allows learning to flourish.

Isaac: That is exactly what I was going to say. It goes back to what we were talking about. Curiosity—that relax. They don’t have to learn from you. They’re learning because they’re human. And that’s what humans do. And you don’t—your job is not to impart everything that they need to know from your brain into theirs. It’s just to use that environment, put them in an environment where they can do what comes naturally to humans, which is to learn, remove the impediments, put them in front of the resources, remove the roadblocks and let that learning that they already want to do because they’re humans with goals—let that be the driving force.

You’re more of a curator, protector, sort of what you said, the three L’s. Were they again?

Matt: Love, limits and latitude.

Isaac: Love, limits and latitude. Bingo. That’s your role. It’s really just an extension of all the other parts of parenthood. Helping your kids learn is not really any different from helping them grow as a human being in general, which is what parents do. It’s just some specific areas of that. If you’re used to outsourcing those to someone else, it’s not that different.