“I think the biggest why is love really. That’s at the end of the day… I love my children. I love children in general. It’s what got me into education in the first place.” – Keri Mae

What if personalized education wasn’t just for stay-at-home parents? In this eye-opening episode, former public school teacher and single mom Keri Mae shares how she crafts individualized learning experiences for her three boys while working full-time (at OpenEd).

From navigating Montessori to homeschooling, Keri Mae challenges the notion that alternative education requires a traditional two-parent, stay-at-home setup. She reveals practical strategies for balancing work and education, advocating for your children’s needs, and creating rich learning experiences even with time and resource constraints. Learn why she implemented a strict no-homework policy for her elementary-aged children, and how this decision created more time for family connection and real-world learning.

Learn:

• How to personalize education while working full-time, including creative scheduling and resource management
• Why homework policies should be questioned and how to advocate for your child’s after-school time
• The power of practical skills and hands-on learning versus traditional worksheets
• How to blend different educational approaches (Montessori, homeschool, etc.) based on each child’s needs
• Real-world strategies for staying involved in your children’s education as a working parent
• Why age 12 can be the perfect transition point for homeschooling

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:15 Starting the Journey: Public School Experience
01:45 Challenges with Public Schooling
02:49 Transition to Homeschooling
03:14 Current Educational Setup
04:49 Pandemic and Homeschooling Realizations
09:08 Daily Homeschool Routine
11:48 Balancing Work and Homeschooling
12:37 Personalizing Education for Each Child
15:36 Values and Family Activities
16:36 Challenges and Adjustments in Homeschooling
19:48 Monitoring and Accountability
21:29 Staying Involved with Montessori
22:52 Engaging with Your Child’s Education
24:20 The No Homework Policy
26:54 Alternative Learning Methods
30:57 The Importance of Context in Learning
36:31 Fostering Independence and Practical Skills
38:14 The Motivation Behind Open Education
40:36 Rapid Fire Questions and Reflections

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Transcript

Ela Richmond (00:01.075) Welcome back to the Open Ed podcast. I’m your sometimes host Ela Richmond and today I’m joined by Keri Mae. Thank you for being here. How are you?

Keri Mae (00:09.942) You’re so welcome. I’m fantastic because we’re doing this.

Ela Richmond (00:14.075) Yeah. Okay, so let’s just jump right in. You were kind of sharing your story a little bit. You have three kids. You do open education, but interestingly, you do it as a single parent. And you kind of wanted to talk about how there’s still such an amazing opportunity to personalize your kid’s education, even when you have constraints, even when, you’re a single parent or even when you have to work. Can you tell me a little bit of first your children’s educational story? Like, where did they start? Where are they now?

Keri Mae (00:44.077) Yeah, so I have three boys. They’re six, 10, and 12. We started off, I was actually a public school educator for quite a while, taught kindergarten. I got my degree in early childhood development, so that was really important to me. I knew that I wanted an education that was congruent with the research of what kids need to thrive and develop. And so I really looked for that when my kids came of age to start school.

Ela Richmond (01:03.9) Hmm.

Keri Mae (01:11.765) And I interviewed tons of public school educators. I shopped around to find the right public school. And I found one that worked well for my oldest. My oldest is like a really neurotypical kid, high achiever, checks all the boxes, know, just that really kind of, I think typical student. I wouldn’t say that the education system is made for, but that can do well in the education system despite its flaws.

And so they started off, my kids started off in a traditional public school, just a local school. And my oldest did okay. My middle child though is autistic. And so he started off in public school and we quickly realized that there were some challenges that he was facing. So he has like auditory processing issues. So the bell, like the really jarring sound of the bell scared him.

Ela Richmond (01:41.769) Mm

Keri Mae (02:10.917) bits. Like he started having night terrors at home and wedding the bell once he went back to school and it was always about the bell. He would wake up and he’d be like, it’s too loud, it’s too loud and he’d like be covering his ears and just crying. And so we talked, I talked to the principal, talked to the teacher about that to try and figure out what our accommodations and and everything that we came up with just didn’t really work. It was like, well he can wear noise canceling headphones. Well,

Ela Richmond (02:14.323) Wow.

Keri Mae (02:37.524) then he can’t tell when it’s time to come in from recess. So he was being left out at recess with older students because he didn’t realize it was time to come in because they use a whistle, right? Or things like that. it just was, it was such a struggle that eventually the admin said, well, you know, maybe public school is just not right for him. Maybe you need to homeschool him instead. And which was hard for me as a parent and as a teacher, right? Where I thought, I have this vision of what his school was going to be like.

So to kind of give up that dream of like, he’s not going to get to do class parties and field trips and all these things that I loved about being a teacher, you know. So that was that was kind of the beginning of the end of traditional schooling for our family. But they’re in different places now. So right now I homeschool like in the traditional sense, my 12 year old and

Ela Richmond (03:24.585) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (03:34.217) My 10 year old and six year old both attend a Montessori charter school. So that’s where we ended up. I love the Montessori method. It’s near and to my heart as an early childhood educator, that and Waldorf. And so I searched high and low and I found this charter school. It’s a public charter school. So it’s free, right? Because as a single mom, there’s financial constraints. And it’s been phenomenal. They don’t have bells actually. So it’s like, it’s a very gentle approach to education.

And it just wasn’t even an issue. I came to that principal and I was just ready to advocate for my son. As anyone who has kids with special needs understands, you do often have to be ready to really advocate hard for your kids. And I came to the principal when we first were looking into the school and just said, hey, here’s the things I’m concerned about. What can you do to accommodate them? Do we need a 504 or an IEP? And she’s like, actually, all of these things on your list won’t even be an issue because we

Ela Richmond (04:32.455) Wow.

Keri Mae (04:33.35) We don’t run our school that way, so he’s not going to run into those challenges. They have special slippers that they wear at school, so if he wants to be barefoot, he’s allowed to. And they don’t have any belts at all. It’s just the teachers are out there and gently reminding them, and they come gather them in at the same time. And it’s just a different flow to the school day that all of the problems we had previously were just gone because of the way they ran their school.

Ela Richmond (05:01.577) Wow. So how did you decide to actually traditionally homeschool your 12 -year -old? And why did you make that decision?

Keri Mae (05:08.526) Yeah, that’s a great question. you know, during the pandemic, a lot of people pulled kids, right? I’ve been considering homeschooling for years. But because I was working full time, I just had in my head like, it’s impossible, right? There’s no way I could do it. I have to work. I had a lot of friends that did traditionally homeschool, right? So they were stay at home parents. So they have that time and availability. Because, you know, I…

I used to be, I used to be a stay at home parent and just focused on the unpaid labor, you know, but it is a different dynamic, not the ones easier or harder than the other. They both have their challenges, right, and their unique challenges. But once I had paid labor in addition to unpaid labor, it was a lot more challenging and I just thought it was out of reach for me. But then when the pandemic hit, I was kind of forced into like, well, we got to figure it out because

Now my autistic son who thrives on consistency and schedules suddenly doesn’t have any consistency. School was like, yes, you have school today. No, you don’t have school today. And we find out the morning of and we never knew what the next day was going to bring. I there’s it was really funny moment actually where they were in a Zoom class. He was in kindergarten. And they pulled up, you know, the teachers going through like B says what? And everybody’s like.

Buh -buh, bear, you know, they’re writing it on their whiteboards. And my son at the time, you know, he was in kindergarten, so he’s obviously not 10 then, but he was really academically advanced, which can happen sometimes, right? With children with autism, you might see them be really advanced in a certain area. So he’s writing full sentences on his whiteboard. And this was kind of an embarrassing moment for me as a mom, but he writes in full sentences, you are all stupid, period.

And he goes to like, hold it up because he was so frustrated with like, why are we sitting here on Zoom talking about the letters? I already know how to read. I already know how to write. I’ve got perfect punctuation and capitalization. I could just tell he was like, he was done. He was so done with school and I caught him just in time. I was like, no, I put it down. So he never held that whiteboard up. But that was the turning point for me where I was like, you know, we’re not we’re not doing this. I’m just going to pull him from school and I’ll teach him and.

Keri Mae (07:31.072) you know, this is all stuff I can handle. So we spent that year, you know, the year, big year during the pandemic of just me homeschooling. And it was really, really hard because I was working from home and trying to homeschool the kids. But it planted a seed for me to go, OK, there are actually other resources. And I started connecting with other parents at the homeschool. And I think so it was more like I was forced to do it. And so then I realized

outside of a pandemic, when the museums are, when these in -person classes can take place, there are actually options available to me that I could potentially make this work. And I’ve worked for Open Ed, you know, formerly my tech high for three years. And so I knew the programs that other parents were using. I was really connected and I was a homeroom teacher for many years. And with those parents that heard about the things they were doing.

Ela Richmond (08:02.525) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (08:27.906) And so the more I learned, the more I realized this is actually accessible to me. It’s going to take some creativity, but I can do it. And so I, for myself personally, just set the bar at 12. I was like, hey, when you’re 12 years old, you’re more self -reliant, you’re more independent. I can give you assignments and you work on them independently, and then I can check in on you.

Ela Richmond (08:52.585) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (08:53.506) And so that’s that’s why I’ve made it work with my 12 year old. And I told my other two that as well, because they just are like, when can we homeschool mom? We want to homeschool. I’m like, not two year 12. And that’s just for me personally. I imagine there are plenty of single parents out there that have made it work when their kids are younger. But I just knew like at the kindergarten level how much that required, how much interaction that required from the adult when I taught kindergarten that I was like, yeah, I don’t think I have the capacity for that.

So you’ll continue to do your alternative education at your Montessori school, because it’s a beautiful school and I love the way that they work, right? And it’s still all dead. And at 12, we can transition to this other face once you’re in middle school.

Keri Mae (09:42.272) Did I lose you, Ella?

Keri Mae (09:50.43) I think we might have lost Ella. We’ll see. You’re good.

Ela Richmond (09:56.276) Sorry about that. For some reason, the…

It died for a second, but we’re here again. OK. It saves the other part. So we’re just going to hop back into it. So OK, so you set the bar at 12 for your kids. What is a day -to -day homeschooling look like for your 12 -year -old? And how do you do that alongside also working? then, I mean, now that you’ve set the bar at 12, are you at all kind of concerned for when all of your kids are at home?

Keri Mae (10:03.264) So we’re

Keri Mae (10:09.673) Okay, sounds good.

Keri Mae (10:31.519) A little bit, but also my oldest will keep getting older too, right? So it’ll be, he’ll be 15 by the time his brother turns 12, you know, he just turned 13. So he’ll be 15 when his brother turns 12 and can homeschool and then he’ll be 17. You know, it’s just like kind of taper. So I fully anticipate that they will be helping each other when they’re all at home together, especially the oldest one. He is like the stereotypical oldest child that’s like

really responsible and does exactly what they’re told and all the, you know, the overachiever. So I do plan on him contributing to his brother’s schooling. But as far as the day to day, right now, he and I sat down together and we planned out what was important to him, right? There were certain things that were important to me where I’m like, I want you to learn an instrument, like learn to play the guitar. And he’s like, I’d rather learn a language. And so we negotiated that, okay, you can focus on a language then I won’t push the guitar on you.

or an instrument. So he has like his language study that he does every day. He has an online math program that he uses. Then he has a hybrid language arts program that he uses online and then he’ll send it to me and I grade things for him with language arts. So like just yesterday he was writing me a persuasive essay on why we should get a 3D printer and which 3D printer we should get if we’re going to buy one. Like what are the pros and cons to each of them. So he had to go do his research and all that.

So he does that math, language arts, his language study. He has PE every day. So we’re rock climbers in my family. So we go climbing either early in the morning before I start work or we’ll go after school once I pick up his brothers. We’ll go climbing after school. And then he’s enrolled in an academy. So it’s called 4D Learning Academy and they do science, technology and math with him. So it’s three hours.

Ela Richmond (12:08.01) That’s cool.

Keri Mae (12:30.551) and he goes in with them and gets those subjects covered. So right now they’re doing like earth sciences and space science, which has been pretty cool. So and then he has like every Monday, Wednesday, he has a personal trainer. So he actually goes and like lifts weights. And fortunately, I work remotely so I can take my computer with me while he’s lifting weights. I’m just at the table like typing away because I work for OpenEd. Right. So

So I’ve been able to make it work that way. But there were times when I was a teacher where I thought, okay, if I wanted to do this, how could I make it work? And I, at that time, was like, okay, I looked up all these different in -person classes. Like, okay, can put them in this one for this length of time, and then this one in this length of time, and I can pull resources to pick them up or ask the parents who also have kids in that class if they can drive them to the next spot, you know?

So there are ways you can make it work, but it does take a lot of creativity.

Ela Richmond (13:31.05) Yeah, I love that. I love that perspective. So you were talking about your 12 year old and you all sat down and decided exactly what was most important to him. So does it work for you because a 12 year old, 12 years old, you feel like he has a sense of what he likes and doesn’t like? Or do you feel like all of your kids have a sense of what they like and what they don’t like? And how are you like personalizing that and finding and cultivating their passions outside of even the Montessori?

Keri Mae (13:59.243) Yeah, so I think they do. They do all have a sense of what they like and don’t like. And I think the important thing to realize is like none of it’s permanent. Right. Everybody knows what they want right now. Right. Like, know what I don’t know. I ice cream right now or whatever. You know, so I think even my six year old can tell me, yes, I want I want to swim or I want to go to the jumping place. That’s what we call the trampoline gym is the jumping place. So I’m.

Ela Richmond (14:22.1) with me.

Keri Mae (14:27.278) And then I just pay attention too, right? It’s like if every day he’s like, mom, can we go to the trampoline gym? Mom, can we go to the trampoline gym? It’s like, okay, this is clearly something that you really enjoy doing, physical activity versus like the piano. My middle son loves playing the piano and he will play it for hours at a time. So I just pay attention, right? Just watch and see. And I don’t have to do a whole lot on my end. I just provide the environment, which…

Ela Richmond (14:54.474) Mm.

Keri Mae (14:54.979) which is a very much like Montessori approach. It’s like you create the space for them to learn, but then they choose for themselves where they’re going to spend their time. And so I think it’s helped that they are at a Montessori school because they already have that mentality for themselves that they are independent learners and that the adult is learning with them or is a resource to help them expand their learning, but they’re responsible for their own learning.

So when we’re at home, it’s like I provide things like music books and we use like Simply Piano, you know, as an online, you know, that’s on a tablet that my son can pull up and he’ll spend like two hours just sitting at the piano, like playing the Simply Piano stuff. So yeah, it’s just like, just provide the resources and then they take off with it. And sometimes there’s resources I provide that they’re just not really that interested in. I tried having a makerspace for them at one point and they just hardly ever touched it.

Ela Richmond (15:35.954) Wow.

Keri Mae (15:50.164) And I’m like, okay, well, now I know I’ll clear that space. Let’s make room for something else that you are really engaged with and move on. know, so just I don’t know, just paying attention, I think, is really how I’ve been able to help cultivate, like, what are they interested in? That being said, I do push them as well outside of their comfort zone. It’s not just like whatever makes you happy, do whatever you want. You know, it’s like, OK, but also.

Ela Richmond (16:12.958) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (16:15.531) Physical health is super important to me, so we’re gonna learn about nutrition. We are gonna have some kind of physical activity that we do as a family, which is why we climb. And they don’t always love that, but it is an expectation. And I’m just like, this is just what we do. We climb. We go and we lift weights and we stretch and we eat healthy and we climb. That’s what we do in our family. that, you know, so I have certain things that are important to me as a parent that I’m like, these are non -negotiables.

But I think because there’s so many other areas where they do have a say and they do get to like pursue their passions, there’s not a whole lot of kickback or resistance when it’s like, I know you don’t really want to go climbing today, but we’re going to go anyways because this is what we do. And they’re like, OK, fine. You know. Yeah.

Ela Richmond (16:58.45) Yeah. I think that’s an important point. Just the fact that as families, you have the opportunity to communicate and share your values with your children. So if your values are, we eat healthy and we work out because it’s good for our bodies, then sharing that with your kids and not just sharing it, but also instilling those habits in them.

That’s something I’ve always been so grateful for, for my parents is they built my, my taste for those things. So like over time, you know, whenever I went off to college or like whenever I grew up and like, left, there were periods whenever I didn’t, you know, eat well, or there were periods when I didn’t exercise a ton, but a part of me craved it just because it was a part of who I was. It was a part of, you know, the things that I had gotten so used to.

Keri Mae (17:51.114) Yeah.

Ela Richmond (17:54.154) And if you can do that where you like align your kids to what is good, I think that’s a really, really important thing for parents and families to do. Out of curiosity, did you have challenges with your 12 year old? Like was he wanting to stay at home and has he faced any challenges in this like transitionary period where he’s, you know, going from public school to then COVID school to then homeschool and now doing a lot on his own?

Keri Mae (18:22.282) Right, yes, absolutely. the school he was at before, right, was that Montessori school and I absolutely loved it. And once they transitioned to middle school, it becomes a baccalaureate program, which is wonderful. He wasn’t interested in it.

And so was actually his choice to homeschool. I’ve always been really open to like, I appreciate alternative education in any form, right? Whatever, to personalize education. And so it wasn’t actually me saying, I wanna homeschool you, this is what we’re gonna do. It was him saying, mom, I’m kind of bored at school. Like I’m always just waiting around, cause he’s advanced in math and there were just other things where he was just like, I just am not like.

Ela Richmond (18:46.142) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (19:04.914) He just wasn’t feeling challenged at school and it’s a liberal arts school. So they don’t have any program. And that’s important to him. Like he is really into fitness and sports. And so the more we talked about it, the more he just kept asking like, could we homeschool? Could we homeschool? You I really want to do this. And so that’s when I was like, OK, let’s find a way to make it work. I work remotely. Like there’s these other resources I’m aware of because of my job that like.

Ela Richmond (19:09.47) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (19:33.829) It’s amazing to be able to work for Openhead because I have access to so many parents that I’m just like, there’s another one. There’s another one. I have a whole Google Doc of just all these resources that I’ve learned from parents. But yeah, so challenges, though, like him transitioning, even though it was his decision, I think it being his decision was critical in as we face these challenges. Right. Because when we do butt heads, I remind him of that, of like, honey, this was your choice.

Ela Richmond (19:54.644) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (20:02.874) So you need to put in the time. Because sometimes he’ll just be like, ugh, do I have to do that? And like, yes, yes you do. Like, your brothers are at school, you also are at school. This isn’t just a free for all. And there’s been times where, you know, I’ve been working, I’ll go check in on him and he’s playing Minecraft, right? When he’s supposed to, I’m like, have you finished your Spanish work? And he’s like, sorry, no, I forgot. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t think you forgot. I think you’re trying to sneak one past me, you know?

So it’s like, I do have to check in on him and make sure that like he’s on task. It doesn’t happen all the time, but occasionally, right? Or he just doesn’t want to go. There’s been times he hasn’t wanted to go to personal training, you know, and I just talked to him about like, we’ve already set this time aside. She’s put it in her schedule, your trainer has, and she’s showing up. And so you need to show up as well. Like you need to put in that effort as well. It’s just common decency, respect, you know, respect somebody else’s time.

Ela Richmond (20:36.286) Mm

Keri Mae (21:00.849) So even when you don’t feel like it, you still got to show up. And so it’s been good in a lot of ways because it’s not just that he’s learning personal training. He’s learning life skills, right? Of like, when I commit to something, I have to show up whether I want to or not. And that’s reason that I honor my commitments, you know? And yeah, so.

Ela Richmond (21:15.134) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (21:20.242) Yeah, that makes so much sense. You were mentioning the whole idea of him playing Minecraft behind your back. How do you deal with the idea between guardrails and freedom, right? So as a parent that’s working, you don’t have every single second to be over his back and checking everything. mean, even some parents that have, say, three, four, five kids, you don’t have time to sit there and just monitor what every single kid is doing. How do you make sure that you

have enough insight into what he’s doing that you can make sure that he’s actually learning as opposed to not.

Keri Mae (21:54.416) Yeah, I think I don’t have a perfect system in place yet, but some things that have helped is the programs that I do use. I get like weekly check ins and so we’ll have this accountability at the end of the week where I’m like, you said you did your Spanish work, but here it says you only spent 30 minutes all week on it and you’re supposed to spend 30 minutes a day, you know? And so it’s like then a reflection of like, OK, so I think this next week we’re to have to just say no Minecraft like for the whole week.

Like you’ve got to show me, need to see that accountability piece come in my email showing me that like you hit all your language goals for the week and that you hit all your language arts, right? And your math, like, so I do get those email updates letting me know how much time he’s spending on each of those. And that helps, right? And having those consequences too, where he’s like, I can’t just get away with it because mom is watching. Like mom does get a report. It might not be in real time, but eventually

Ela Richmond (22:35.828) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (22:45.332) Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Keri Mae (22:53.486) the pipers, you know, gonna be paid. So I might as well be on task and then I can have my Minecraft time afterwards once I’ve done everything that I need to do. So.

Ela Richmond (22:56.521) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (23:05.236) I love that. And then how do you stay involved with the Montessori? So like, you know, back to the whole idea of a working mom, but not just working mom, you’re also a single parent, which makes it harder. And you also have three kids and not just three kids, you have three boys, which is a lot. So it’s like, you have a lot of things that are going on at once. How do you make sure that you stay involved enough with your Montessori that you know what they’re learning, that you are enough aware of like the gaps?

Keri Mae (23:19.95) Yeah

Ela Richmond (23:33.994) And then where do you go initially like when you’re when you identify a gap? What is it? What is your process to solve that?

Keri Mae (23:43.028) Yeah, that’s a really great question. think it helped, at least for me, because what I’d run into with a lot of parents in general is they feel like they can’t ask questions or they can’t, I wouldn’t say make demands, but it’s like they can’t advocate, right? They’re like afraid of ruffling feathers. And so I think coming from an education background, being a public educator, I never struggled with that. I was just like, I know what goes on behind those closed doors. I’m not afraid to advocate for what I think is best.

Ela Richmond (23:59.453) Hmm.

Keri Mae (24:12.062) in a polite, considerate way. So I don’t know, I just, take time to volunteer, not every week, right? It’s not on a regular basis, but if there’s a random party coming up, I’ll just request a couple hours off of work or a longer lunch break so I can just pop in for an hour and help in the classroom. That’s really important to me because I think that’s where you’ll get the best sense of what’s really going on in the classroom. Because kids…

Ela Richmond (24:37.951) Mm.

Keri Mae (24:38.857) either forget or dramatize or minimize. You know, they’re just all over the place in their retellings. And so for me, that was really helpful to just be in the classroom when I can, to see that teacher in action, feel the energy in the classroom, to attend all the parent teacher conferences that are taking place. But also, like conversations with my kids. That’s really important, right? We just have a dialogue every single day. We do like Rosebud and Thorn. So it’s like, what was your favorite thing in the day?

What are you looking forward to tomorrow? So the rose is favorite, is tomorrow and thorn is what was your least favorite part of your day. And we just talk about those three things every day. So that gives them an opportunity to share something that they’re struggling with something at school or, you know, things are going well, just helps me keep a pulse, you know? But I think to like volunteering, giving donations helps for me to build rapport with the teachers too. And I try and do it like right out the gate at the beginning of the year.

Ela Richmond (25:25.481) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (25:37.358) so that if there are issues or concerns, there’s already a connection there that we’re collaborators and we’re not enemies. We’re working together for the same goal, right, which is the kids. And so when their issues do arise, the first person I go to is the teacher, right, and have a conversation with them to see like, these are my concerns. Can we resolve this? A big one that came up, I’m a very strict no homework policy.

Ela Richmond (25:45.64) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (26:06.954) person, just the research out there for elementary school is really clear that like homework is not beneficial in elementary grades. It can be detrimental to their learning because they’re already spending so much mental energy at school and then they come home and they have even more school. And so that was something that was really important to me, right? Was like not in elementary grades when they get older. Yes, the research shifts and it’s beneficial in high school. But so when I put my kids in school and they were expected to do an hour of homework every day,

That was something I went to the teacher about. And I just shared, here’s my perspective, right? And I shared the research too, to just say, this is where I’m coming from. Is this something that you would be willing to accommodate? And I think approaching it that way with like, humility, not demanding, but just saying, this is my perspective, what can we do to meet these needs? They were more than willing, right?

Ela Richmond (26:53.918) Hmm.

Keri Mae (27:04.088) I had one that kind of pushed back and said, well, they have to be ready for middle school or they’re just going to be thrown in and they’re going to have all this homework in middle school and they won’t know how to handle it because they didn’t have it in elementary school. And for that, I just said, well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But for now, I’d like to hold on to this. And she was like, OK. And she was respectful of that. And the other one I’d run into was just like, well, as long as academically they’re performing, they’re staying up, keeping up with the class, then I’m OK to accommodate that. And so

You know, which worked, you know, I got the answer that I needed. I think if my child had started to backslide, I would have had to have a different conversation, right? So I kind of got out on that one because, you know, even then if they’re struggling, they may be a better approach than just assigning more homework, right? It might be like, maybe we need some one -on -one tutoring during the school day. But it was important for me to protect that time that we had together because I was working.

Ela Richmond (27:41.833) Mm.

Ela Richmond (27:52.265) Yeah.

Keri Mae (28:01.804) and I didn’t see them all day and then they’d come home and it was like, but I want to go climbing with you. We have chores to do, you know, around our home, these other life skills that I’m trying to teach you and we want to read books together. And I have my kids help me cook dinner every night. Like it’s a collaborative team event whenever we make dinner. And so there are just things that I’m like, yeah, no, when they come home from school, school’s done. We’re we’ve got other things that they need to learn. So, yeah, just kind of advocating for.

for what was important to me or is, you I still have to do that each year with the new teacher. I have to have that conversation of we’re a no homework family.

Ela Richmond (28:41.48) Love that. Can you explain to me, like, what do schools argue is the point of homework?

Keri Mae (28:49.48) I think a lot of teachers think it’s just like practice makes perfect, right? Like the more practice, the better. And, and so we’ll just practice each other to death kind of a thing, right? It’s like, if they’re struggling, then just give them more practice and that will solve the struggle or that will make them more proficient. And obviously practice does help people improve in certain skills, but moderation in all things and our brains do need breaks.

Ela Richmond (29:03.348) Mmm.

Keri Mae (29:18.844) They, you know, if you have an eight hour work day and then you’re going home and doing a lot of unpaid work on top of that, you know, it wears on you. And little kids, they need to move their bodies and they need to decompress and have unstructured playtime and all these other things that, yeah, I don’t know. It’s just not something that I’ve ever really agreed with, even as a teacher.

Ela Richmond (29:27.658) Thank you.

Keri Mae (29:43.622) I had like a strict no homework policy. Like read, read with your kids. There’s great research that shows reading with your children is beneficial, but outside of that, the…

Ela Richmond (29:51.764) What got you started feeling like that or believing that?

Keri Mae (29:55.304) I think my time in college, like university, right, I’d read the research. My degree was in child development and so it focused on prenatal up until age eight was the area that I focused my research in. And so I just saw what the research was saying about what kids need and how kids learn best. And typically homework also, this is the other side of it that’s a struggle is a lot of times it’s a worksheet.

which is one of the worst ways to learn. It’s like, you they need to be hands -on. They need to be moving. They need to be emotionally engaged, right, for it to solidify in their brains. And so it wasn’t just that it was homework taking away from our time. It was also the method of learning. And so I did share that with one of the teachers from my middle son. You know, I just said, if it comes to a point where he needs help, I totally understand.

Ela Richmond (30:41.332) Mmm.

Keri Mae (30:53.404) But I would rather do things on my end rather than this particular worksheet. You know, I have things we could do where we’re like playing fly swatter games or like writing with shaving cream on the table, you know, and things like that, rather than like sitting down and just doing pencil work the whole time. So, yeah.

Ela Richmond (31:04.723) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (31:11.146) I think that’s a really valuable point. I mean, I never questioned that whenever I went through school, the amount of homework that I had, or even something that’s really fascinating is like, you don’t question the fact that you’re at school for seven plus hours of the day. That’s not something that we ask, why is that specifically the exact amount of time that we need to be at school? And I was talking to a couple of parents who were saying that they’re able to get their schoolwork done in like four hours.

And just the idea of what else could your kids do with that time, right? Like one interesting thing, my youngest brother, so he was very much like your son where he’s ahead of a lot of things. He was incredible at math. And so he’d just sit in his classroom and he’d be bored and his teacher would give him extra problems or like assign more things to him. Cause she’s like, I don’t know what to do with you. But then afterwards, my dad ended up.

Keri Mae (32:05.212) Yeah.

Ela Richmond (32:08.02) for high school putting him into an alternative kind of a school. And so he has a lot of freedom. So now he finishes all of his work and then he goes and he learns about engineering because he’s super passionate about that. And like he builds with his 3D printer or he builds, he has his own workshop that he built by himself. And so like he builds his own stuff. The other day he was taking apart a drone and it’s like the fact that he can do all of those things.

Keri Mae (32:12.636) Mm

Keri Mae (32:28.403) wow.

Keri Mae (32:35.102) Yeah!

Ela Richmond (32:36.124) is absolutely incredible and the fact that like, I don’t know, like I’d be intrigued to see, I think there’s probably an adjustment period, like if you give kids back their time, like what do they do with it? Obviously, I don’t know, but like for holidays, whenever you give kids their time, it’s just like, I’m just gonna watch TV a lot or I’m just gonna like sit there and hang out with my friends a lot, but like if you give them the adjustment period to almost like make it out of that, to…

level out and go back to their natural state. I was talking to Isaac about that in our episode. Like the natural homeostatic state of humans is we love learning. Like we love learning, we love doing, we love taking in information and that’s just like such a fun thing for us. So the question of like what could a child do in seven plus hours of the day if it’s not mandated that you sit down, you know, and learn a specific way, which like

Keri Mae (33:17.043) Yeah.

Keri Mae (33:23.965) Mm.

Ela Richmond (33:35.08) I mean, maybe for some kids works, but I reflecting on my journey even, like I don’t recall a lot of those lessons that I was taught or like whenever it’d just be a presentation and I’d just be like writing down the exact same thing that was on the board because that’s what I was supposed to do and that’s how was supposed to memorize it. But I wasn’t actually connecting any dots. Yeah, it’s a really interesting thing.

Keri Mae (33:44.319) Yeah.

Keri Mae (34:01.011) Yeah, there are so many things like that that, I mean, I’ve got a first grader now. This is gonna make me sound so ridiculous, but he came home and he was telling me about the five oceans, right? And he’s like, mom, there’s five oceans and let me tell you the names. And we were trying to remember what the names were. And I was just like, I got Pacific and Atlantic. And then I’m like, what are the other names? You know, we’re like trying to remember. And then I’m sitting there and I’m like, this is really sad. I don’t remember this like really basic information that my first grader is learning, but there’s so many things that.

that honestly we don’t really even need to learn, right? Like I learned, calculus and never used it since taking calculus. You know, I became a kindergarten teacher, just wasn’t applicable because that’s not the trade I went into, you know, and how much is required, you know, that genuinely kids will never use again if it’s not required for their trade, you know, I think especially in high school.

Ela Richmond (34:51.498) Mm

Keri Mae (34:56.211) There is a lot of time that’s wasted checking certain boxes of like, need them to be well -rounded. But they’re not well -rounded in real life. You know, in real life, we have specialties that we’re really good at. And those are called our jobs, right? Those are our careers and we get really good at our career. And then a lot of the other stuff, we just hire out to the other people that specialize in that thing. You know, so why are we requiring our high schoolers to be so well -rounded when like, why not let them?

Ela Richmond (34:59.849) The fifth.

Ela Richmond (35:16.604) It’s good.

Keri Mae (35:24.723) go deep in engineering, right? Or whatever it is that I just, really like to, as much as possible, make it like the real world, prepare them for adulthood. And yeah.

Ela Richmond (35:37.204) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (35:41.886) I think this goes back well to your last point though, the point you made about how you like your kids to do at home things at home. So like, let’s say that you’re teaching your kids about being orderly. Like that’s a life skill. Let’s say that you’re teaching your kids about the habits that you want them to form. Let’s say you’re teaching them how to cook. Like these are all life skills, right? And what you just said there is actually really fascinating because it made me think the, what is happening is we’re well -rounded in,

in like knowledge type things, like information. Yeah. And we’re not well -rounded in life things. And that’s the problem is that like kids actually need to be well -rounded in life things. So can you do your finances? Can you keep a budget? Can you like maintain habits? You know, are you disciplined? Like, can you change a basic filter for your AC? Like basic things that for children and

Keri Mae (36:13.481) Like books. Yeah.

Ela Richmond (36:39.646) just humans, successful human adults, to be well -rounded in them, it’s incredibly important, whereas all of the attention is focused on being well -rounded in calculus and in history and in math and in English. And it’s almost like the goal, so this is actually also interesting, it’s like the goal is to make us well -rounded in information. But what’s also interesting is humans don’t learn that way, not just through books, right?

So I was reading this one book, can’t remember what it was about, or what it was called, but it was about basically how they do standardized testing and how standardized tests are not as efficient, or basically standardized tests are not as efficient always because when students are answering questions, right, what helps is not the information that they’ve learned from a classroom, but context that they have.

from the world. like, let’s say that there is a section on, let’s go back to the oceans. Like, let’s say that there’s a section on the five oceans of the world. If you read it, your reading comprehension is not just what you read on that page. It is every other bit of knowledge that you’ve ever gained before and prior so that you can connect dots and make context clues and then answer the question.

Keri Mae (37:48.301) Mm -hmm

Ela Richmond (38:04.778) And so what they find is that there’s no amount of extra practice that helps a kid become more successful at standardized testing. You can get good at learning how to test kind of a thing, but what really, really helps kids accelerate in standardized tests is just context. When they have travel experience, when they are learning a lot of different things about the world with their families. And so that was really interesting to me because it was not what I expected.

Keri Mae (38:04.905) Yeah.

Keri Mae (38:35.475) Yeah, I think that makes sense because when the test questions come up, you don’t know exactly how they’re going to be phrased. And so if you have all this context and understanding of how a thing works, then it doesn’t matter which point they’re getting at, you have that holistic understanding so you can kind of figure it out. This is, I think, I and my kids, you

Ela Richmond (38:41.972) Yeah.

Ela Richmond (38:51.603) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (39:00.905) vicariously through me, right? Because it’s what I do. We’re really into primitive skills. So we’ll go to these primitive skills gatherings. It’s like a survival kind of stuff, right? And I remember the first time I was trying to learn how to start a friction fire by rubbing sticks together. And this guy was just explaining it, just using words, just explaining it. wasn’t demonstrating. He wasn’t letting us use the materials. He was just talking us through. And he’s like, okay, now I want you to go into the wild and try and find materials to start a fire with.

Ela Richmond (39:08.712) That’s cool.

Keri Mae (39:29.771) And I was so confused. was just like, I don’t get it. Like, how do I know? Like what stick is good for starting a fire with and which one isn’t? And like, I brought back stuff that I thought maybe had to do with it. And he’s just like, no, this is garbage. It’ll just crumble as you put pressure on it or whatever. Right? And I’m just like so confused. And then I went and took a class from somebody different and they let us like touch the materials. We got in there and they demonstrated and then they had us just experiment with it. Right? Just.

See what happens when you rub these things together. See what it does, how it creates a polish on there and how you got to get that off so you can have some friction. And it was just like through the experience, I suddenly was like, I understand. Now I don’t need to memorize every type of wood that’s good for starting fires. I know the principle of what kinds of woods are good for starting fires. Right. So I can look at a piece, I can look at a stock and go, yeah, that’d be good or no, that won’t work. It’s too hard or too brittle, whatever.

Ela Richmond (40:10.25) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (40:17.756) Mm -hmm.

Keri Mae (40:25.652) because I understand the concept behind it instead of just facts, instead of just pieces of… You know what I mean?

Ela Richmond (40:30.09) That’s so cool. -hmm. Yeah, this is, yes, 100%. So this is my last question for you before I hit you with some rapid fire questions. I wanted to talk a little bit about your why. Why open education? Like, why have you decided that this is important for your family? And though your kids aren’t, you know, all doing the same thing, all having the same approach, like, you’ve still made this a priority and a value in your home, why?

Keri Mae (40:41.087) Okay, off.

Keri Mae (41:00.718) that is a really good question. think the biggest why is love. Really, that’s at the end of the day. That’s what it’s about. Like, I love my children. I love children in general. It’s what got me into education in the first place. I just really, really I see these little people and they’re so ripe and ready to like absorb. They’re just little sponges, right? And they they’re excited about life and they want to take it all in. And it’s

It’s like, it’s so heartbreaking to see that squashed, right? To see it in kindergarten or first grade going, I hate school, or I can’t read or whatever. It’s like, you came in with such vibrancy and what happened? You know, how did this happen? And I wanted to provide something better and different for children in general, not just my own kids, right? It was like…

Ela Richmond (41:33.588) Thank

Keri Mae (41:52.199) I want a different kind of education for the kids that come into my classroom. I want them to leave my classroom excited and feeling competent and confident and like, they just can’t eat this information up fast enough, right? And I think that just basically comes down to love. Like I just love, I love kids. I love learning personally. I am a lifelong learner. I’m constantly like just, what can I get my hands on next? I want to know all the things. Like I have such an appetite for learning.

And it’s like whatever you love, you want to share, right? So I think that’s really the why is like that’s where it comes from is like my own internal hunger for advancement and growth and learning and understanding the world and curiosity. But then, yeah, like I love my kids and I wanted better for them. I didn’t want them to get squashed. I didn’t want them to feel any sort of way about themselves internally.

Ela Richmond (42:25.012) Thank

Keri Mae (42:51.512) as a result of a system that doesn’t work. You know what I mean? Like didn’t want them to internalize that they were the problem when it’s actually the system around them that’s the problem. I wanted to make sure that they had the opportunity to really like reach their full potential, I guess. I don’t know. But yeah, yeah, I would say love.

Ela Richmond (43:10.3) I love that. Okay, so let me hit you with some rapid fire questions. Question number one, what is your favorite story of your kid just like lighting up or succeeding or some highlight of your kids being able to do something cool because of and through open education?

Keri Mae (43:31.057) I would say my oldest. So he forged his own knife. I have a friend who’s a blacksmith in that primitive skills community and I got to take him. It was a Christmas gift. I got to take him and we did that together. I’d already forged my own previously so I the process. And just getting to watch him do that and be so confident. mean, like forges are so dangerous.

Right? Like they’re so hot. And if you bump it, if you grab the tool, a hot tool without the gloves, it’s like it’s a really it’s a dangerous thing that you have to be ready for. And so to watch him take that on and be like just beaming with pride of like, I did that. Like I know how to handle hot tools and how to stick them in the fire without burning myself and how to pull them out and use these like giant awkward

tongs and hammer them like a you know like Gimli or something from Lord of the Rings, know? He’s just like, yeah, like a dwarf, you know? It was such a fun experience to get to see him just take so much pride in the creation of that and feel like so capable. I think that’s another big thing in general in education. like, or not in education, but in child rearing a lot of times. And something I love about alternative education is

that children are so much more capable than we think they are. And they can do so much more than we often require of them and ask of them. And they might appreciate it in the short term, right? It’s like, thank goodness mom didn’t ask me to do the dishes because I’d much rather be sitting here right on the couch. But in the long run, they feel it. They feel incompetent, they feel incapable, and they feel unsafe in the world around them because they don’t know how to navigate.

hard things. And so to challenge my kids and be like, yeah, at 12, you can go work around a forge and like molten lava hot metal, right? Like that’s what we’re talking about here. And he’s navigating that with confidence and without. And it’s just like, yeah, you can totally do that, dude. You know, my my kids have been using knives since they were like two and three, like whittling sticks because I just teach them knife safety.

Ela Richmond (45:24.618) Mm -hmm.

Ela Richmond (45:40.467) Wow.

Keri Mae (45:52.117) And so they’re really confident with sharp objects, you know, at this point, because they grew up doing that. And I just, think that’s, in general, it just gives me so much pride to see my young children doing things that I think society has shifted and said that’s too dangerous for them to go, no, it’s not. Like, we have been doing this for millions of years as humans. Like, our children have been engaging in these activities for millions of years just fine. Let’s get back to that.

like giving them that confidence. Yeah.

Ela Richmond (46:23.356) I love that. Okay, my next question for you. What is one resource that you’ve been really loving with your family or any of your kids that you’d love to share with the open ed community?

Keri Mae (46:36.55) Ooh, I would say, I mean, I kind of already mentioned it. It’s like the primitive skills. There are so many classes. I live in Utah, so, but I know they’re across the nation, right? Because I go to these gatherings all over the country. And so I know that there are people in every country or in every state, sorry, that are teaching these skills, but that would probably be my favorite thing that we’ve done is just getting my kids around people.

who have those skills, getting them connected back to nature off the screen, especially where like in homeschooling, a lot of the academics are screen -based. And so it’s nice to take that time and be like, okay, now we’re gonna connect to nature and we’re gonna get outside and we’re gonna be touching things and manipulating things and putting things in our mouths that like grew in the wild, you know, just, I just think it does a lot for kids’ confidence to feel like they can navigate the real world too, not just the digital world.

So, yeah.

Ela Richmond (47:36.594) I love that. And my last question for you, what do you see as being a challenge next year, different from this year, with any of your kids?

Keri Mae (47:47.883) I think next year with my, you know, my middle son is getting older. He’s getting closer to 12, right? Just kind of anticipating that like, okay, we are going to, you know, I want to give him the opportunity to homeschool. He is going to be a totally different character than my oldest is. And so I’m going to have to rewrite schooling for him. I can’t just supply the same

formula that worked for my oldest to my middle son. It’s going to be something entirely new and different. so next year I’m going to be starting that process because the following year he’ll be home with me. So next year is going to be the whole, okay, let’s start thinking, let’s start finding resources. What programs do we want to use? I also think just in general, as they get older, there is more emphasis on the social and the peer group.

and wanting time with the peer group. And so I think next year, for my oldest even, it’ll be different. That like, I’m gonna need to provide more of that peer group time for him than he is getting this year. I think it’s gonna become increasingly important with each year as he gets into the teens. So, yeah.

Ela Richmond (49:04.018) I love that. No, I think that’s all really important. This has been so fun. Thank you for sharing your story and for bringing more awareness to the fact that, you know, even with constraints, even as a single parent, even if you’re not going to send all of your kids, well, if you’re not going to pull out all of your kids out into homeschool, that’s not what open education is about. Like open education is about having options. It’s about saying, what does my kid need?

whether it be public school plus five different outside activities or whether it be Montessori with extra stuff. How can I fill in the gaps for my kids to make sure that they are getting the personalized education that they deserve because truly one size cannot fit all.

Keri Mae (49:50.364) Right. Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing me on. Cause I do think it’s something that a lot of parents struggle with that like it’s either public school, traditional public school or homeschool a hundred percent. I have to be a safe home parent. Right. And, and that black and white thinking really limits like there’s, there’s just a whole rainbow available to us of options and opportunities. And I gotten stuck in that myself of thinking like it has to look a certain way and realizing it doesn’t.

Like it really doesn’t. I’m still a homeschool parent even though I’ve got two kids in the public school system, right? There’s space for all of us here. So, yeah.

Ela Richmond (50:28.392) I love that. Thank you again so much.

Keri Mae (50:31.047) Yeah, thank you.