The Art of Manliness - #180： Establishing a Modern Day Homestead and Unschooling

00:00:00.000 we're at mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so

00:00:18.620 i know there's probably several of you out there who are listening who homeschool their kids

00:00:22.200 keep your kids out from public or private schools but you follow a curriculum at home

00:00:27.320 that you bought online or maybe you developed yourself well there's another type of at-home

00:00:31.860 schooling that has no curriculum it's called unschooling completely fascinated by this

00:00:36.500 concept basically uh you keep your kids home and you put themselves put them in situations where

00:00:41.060 they have to learn math in order to complete the task and surprisingly they learn math well my guest

00:00:46.700 today he's homeschooled or unschooled his two boys his name's ben hewitt he's a writer lives in

00:00:51.880 northern vermont and today on the show we're going to discuss his experience unschooling his

00:00:57.620 two boys and letting them run wild in the wilderness of vermont and the things they've learned because

00:01:03.060 of that but we also talk about ben's decision when him and his wife decided to build a homestead

00:01:08.620 in vermont a house they built together from scratch on their own how they did that why they did that

00:01:16.280 uh why they decided to very live a very simple lifestyle and then we'll get into the book that

00:01:21.580 ben wrote about his uh unschooling his two boys called homegrown a really fascinating discussion

00:01:26.760 uh made after i after i did the interview made me want to run off to vermont sell everything and

00:01:32.200 unschool my my two kids and let them run wild in vermont uh but i'm still here in tulsa so without

00:01:38.340 further ado we've got ben hewitt and we're gonna talk about unschooling and homegrown

00:01:42.860 ben hewitt welcome to the show thanks for having me uh so i don't know how i came across i think i

00:01:57.000 read an article that you may have you know published and i saw it online um but i had to have you on

00:02:03.140 because you live in vermont and you have a you live like the the quintessential like vermont life

00:02:09.020 i think what like every american imagines like that that's the it's like a it's a postcard like

00:02:14.200 i mean we that's you live on a farm with your family a postcard with black flies right postcard

00:02:18.900 with black flies maybe we could talk about some of uncovered you know take off the cover of the

00:02:23.180 romanticism of of rural living a bit um but you you published this book and it was really great it's

00:02:29.080 called homegrown adventures and parenting off the beaten path unschooling and reconnecting with the

00:02:33.880 natural world and it's about the uh the conscious decision you and your wife have made to uh not put

00:02:39.600 your sons uh in public schooling you don't even homeschool him and we're gonna talk a little bit

00:02:44.180 about that in a in a bit uh because it's interesting but before let's talk about um how you got to where

00:02:50.560 you are today you um started off you and your wife uh you live on a homestead in a in a home you

00:02:58.160 built yourself uh how did and you you live you you farm and you write uh to supplement your income

00:03:04.960 but you you primarily farm how did you make that decision i mean was that something when you were

00:03:09.320 13 years old uh you decided that's what i'm gonna do like i'm gonna go live on a farm i'm gonna

00:03:14.220 grow my own food yeah when i was 13 i think i was gonna be um a speed metal guitarist

00:03:21.480 um so it definitely and uh and and i would say there never was sort of that inflection point

00:03:30.500 where i was just like this is what i'm going to do with my life um the so the growth or the the

00:03:37.180 evolution i guess of of our homestead and the way we inhabit it um has been sort of it's been much

00:03:44.020 more uh of a process over a long period of time um i think the only thing the only aspect of what

00:03:51.460 i do and how i feel my days now that that really did have perhaps a little more foresight to it was

00:03:56.380 that i did realize at some point um quite some time ago now that i wanted to write for um and

00:04:03.560 hopefully for a living so there that there was definitely a point where there was a light bulb

00:04:07.880 moment with with my writing for sure where i was like wow i could actually like make a living writing

00:04:14.000 um and as anyone who has you know frustratingly in some cases written uh for free or tried to find

00:04:20.980 the time to write uh under any circumstances you know that's that's the realization of that has

00:04:26.500 been has been a real blessing and something that i'm i'm i'm really try to remain grateful for um

00:04:33.080 yeah i like most people i'm i'm uh susceptible to becoming rather jaded um with my circumstances

00:04:40.040 but i try to really be grateful about that and so that was something i did i did really think a lot

00:04:44.160 about and plan definitely not as early as 13 but but a little bit later in my life and so the

00:04:49.200 were a lot of the decisions you made afterwards about basically you've just you know at a very

00:04:55.480 early age i mean when you were 16 you dropped out of public school dropped out of high school

00:04:58.980 um i did and i mean was that a part of you was there like an underlying ethos you just you didn't

00:05:04.060 want to go that conventional path i mean what did you find in the conventional path that didn't

00:05:07.440 appeal to you was it like the the constraints the lack of freedom what was going on there

00:05:11.180 yeah i think i felt very um i mean i was very bored uh as a student and i think a lot of uh

00:05:18.140 probably most of your listeners are are out of their high school years but i'm sure a lot of

00:05:21.800 them can can relate to that um and so i felt i felt very very bored it felt tedious to me i felt

00:05:28.720 i remember really strongly this feeling of um a lack of respect for my time as a as an individual

00:05:36.640 and uh and it just wasn't a great fit for me i i'm really keen to point out that you know i was not

00:05:42.780 um it's not like i dropped out of school so i could pursue like a self-designed study in

00:05:48.160 you know uh nuclear thermodynamics or something like that i mean i was i was i was not a great

00:05:54.620 student and i was a little bit of a hoodlum i guess at that point in my life not in the sense of

00:06:00.220 like actually doing harm to others but i was definitely you know partying too much and just

00:06:04.500 sort of being a general uh you know teenage ne'er-do-well i guess in a lot of ways um which

00:06:10.860 you know in and of itself i think was a reflection of that boredom that i was feeling and that that

00:06:14.680 sort of level of disrespecting and trying to find my own way in the world particularly when it was

00:06:20.040 really obvious that i didn't really fit very well within the prescribed circumstances of the public

00:06:27.460 education system so um i was super fortunate that i had a really supportive parents like that was that

00:06:33.940 was a real saving grace for me um and they were they were super supportive they um really facilitated

00:06:40.540 my leaving school when it became really obvious that it wasn't the right thing for me um and they

00:06:46.500 offered you know unconditional love and support even though i was you know taking a path that i'm sure

00:06:51.780 was was terrifying to them at the time um but you know i really look back at that as as that that

00:06:59.840 decision as uh really it was a blessing in disguise in a lot of ways i think um in a lot of ways my

00:07:06.640 the life that i've created now um may not have happened um or would have been more difficult to

00:07:14.520 make happen i think if i had gone a more conventional route uh i came from a family of a lot of that that

00:07:20.260 had a lot of higher education in its background my both of my parents went to school my dad had

00:07:24.700 masters uh ironically enough when i left high school my dad worked for the vermont department of

00:07:30.680 education believe it or not um so i think there was there was this presumption that i would probably

00:07:36.340 be you know follow that path um and um because we were a family of modest means it would have meant

00:07:42.640 accruing a not insignificant amount of debt and so sometimes i wonder and you know of course there's

00:07:47.300 no way to know i mean it's like um um i can't i can't back up and do it all over again a different

00:07:52.420 version of it but i do wonder that if i had gone on to school uh and by school i mean college

00:07:57.660 university um if i would have just had the financial um independence since i would have had

00:08:03.900 to assume a lot of um a lot of loans uh to pursue writing as a career path i mean who knows you know

00:08:09.720 it also occurs to me that just as likely that i would have gone on to school and i would have loved

00:08:13.460 it and i would have ended up ended up in some amazing job that would have been dependent on

00:08:17.820 that education so i can't you know i'm not here to say that i i know for certain but um

00:08:23.000 whatever the case may be i i have no regrets about making that choice and i think um that for me it

00:08:30.060 was at the time um the right choice to make and and i still feel that way and so what did you do

00:08:35.800 uh after you dropped out i mean did you so yeah it sounds like you didn't set yourself some sort of

00:08:41.220 like curriculum but i'm sure there was something you learned like there was you went through like

00:08:46.020 the school of heart like you learned you probably learned something during this period where

00:08:49.460 immediately after yeah right so that's a great that's a great way to phrase it i mean i think

00:08:54.860 i think um i learned what i didn't want to do which was to continue sort of down that path of you know

00:09:01.680 smoking too much pot and drinking too much beer and just not really um you know doing much productive

00:09:07.320 with my life because i had a lot of i was sort of hanging out with a crowd that did a lot of that

00:09:10.780 and um that didn't last that long for me actually um and then um i also was at the time

00:09:17.880 uh i picked up some jobs on construction crews and you know interestingly enough you know here's

00:09:23.520 another sort of aspect of this atypical education that i had and and when i say education i i mean

00:09:29.100 i really feel strongly that my education um did not end when i left school and in many ways only

00:09:34.600 sort of just began when i left school um but um you know i was i was i had the luxury i guess during

00:09:41.500 that period of my life to learn a lot of skills uh or at least the basis for a lot of skills that

00:09:46.820 i've been able to rely on and do rely on to this day and so um you know when people sort of

00:09:52.960 uh wonder you know how we do the things some of the things we do um nowadays which is you know uh

00:09:59.260 build our own house um and and utilize a lot of these skills i mean i feel really blessed to have

00:10:05.000 had that opportunity to develop some of those so a lot of those skills i think actually um liberated me

00:10:10.020 later in life right but the thing is you probably didn't know at the time that this was going to come

00:10:14.720 in handy later on right no it was not a plant right yeah right right right i was not i would

00:10:19.920 absolutely not i mean i think i i i had a friend at the time one of my best friends was um himself

00:10:27.600 having a rather atypical teenage um upbringing um and he was actually homeschooled um and he was

00:10:36.620 building his own place at the age of 17 on his parents land um and that actually had a real

00:10:41.540 influence on me so um i think watching that the progress of that place and and seeing that you

00:10:49.500 know this was something that was like possible for a young person to do um you know i i'm sure that

00:10:55.520 that got tucked away somewhere perhaps unconsciously you know but i was i was but but yeah i wasn't

00:11:02.040 thinking to myself okay i'm gonna go learn the trade so that you know you know 15 or 20 or 30 years

00:11:07.480 from now um i can build my own house that wasn't that wasn't the thought process right and i love

00:11:12.360 that because i mean i get i get a lot of emails and letters from young men right they're like 18

00:11:17.020 20s and like there's a lot of anxiety they feel like they have to have a plan they have everything

00:11:21.160 planned out till like they're 50 right or till they retire and uh they you know they tell me like

00:11:26.720 well here's the options i could do and i just tell them like just do something right you never you're

00:11:31.620 going to pick up stuff along the way you don't know at the time is going to be useful later on but

00:11:36.040 like just get started with life and move in some direction and then new directions will open up

00:11:40.980 and you can follow that because you've acquired skills along the way that are useful for that

00:11:44.840 new direction yes so i mean one of the things i've noticed in my life now we're now we're sort of

00:11:50.120 i'm going to back up and take sort of more like the 30,000 foot view but um i really believe strongly

00:11:55.460 that if you structure your life in such a way that you can leave yourself open to serendipity

00:12:00.460 um you will in the long run be be better off and and things will open up for you and happen for you

00:12:06.980 that you might never have imagined so for me you know a lot of the things that have been

00:12:10.940 uh most meaningful and impactful in my life are things that you couldn't you know i could never

00:12:15.520 have planned for um and so i think your advice actually is is really really sound um yeah i think

00:12:21.660 culturally we place way too much emphasis on creating this sort of roadmap for our lives um

00:12:28.460 and um in a way that roadmap becomes and in some ways i think it becomes its own prison

00:12:34.440 yeah i agree because you get like uh goal goal focus right it's like only it's only focus or

00:12:40.540 goal blindness i guess what you call behind right yeah that's a great term yeah actually comes from uh

00:12:46.080 like the military air force pilots or fighter pilots aren't supposed to like focus on one target

00:12:50.960 because it closes their perception to other possible threats right yeah yeah okay um okay so

00:12:58.020 uh so you dropped out of high school you did construction work did all sorts of different

00:13:01.940 types of odd jobs over a few years then you met your your future wife or now wife uh you guys were

00:13:08.240 dating uh boyfriend girlfriend uh and then you the two of you decide to buy 40 acres in northern vermont

00:13:17.420 um and and build a homestead and i think when a lot of people hear that they think oh boy that must be

00:13:22.640 really nice it's like the the quintessential courier and ive's dream i would do that if i had the money

00:13:28.720 sure but you and your wife didn't have much money so can you talk about the process of how you

00:13:35.300 made this happen for you for you too yeah absolutely absolutely and and you know i think it is important

00:13:41.460 to acknowledge that it is true that we didn't have a lot of money and we we didn't come from what

00:13:46.060 most of us would consider money in this day and age we're both from you know middle-class families

00:13:50.380 um so that you know it was us sort of making our way in the world but of course we were benefiting

00:13:55.900 from all sorts of other sort of entrenched privileges so i think that's that there is you know we'd that

00:14:01.700 is important to acknowledge that um but um yeah at the same time you know we definitely um it was it

00:14:08.420 was a struggle uh i was at the time you know uh flipping between construction and um working in a

00:14:16.880 bike and ski shop i was a really avid backcountry skier and cyclist um and so that was kind of my

00:14:22.640 my uh off-season job if there if if i did or whenever it got things got slow in the construction

00:14:28.760 and the trades and she was um actually working on a vegetable farm of all things so i think between

00:14:34.240 two of us we made like 20 bucks an hour you know it was it was these were not it's not a king's

00:14:39.740 ransom at all um and so the way we did it basically was inhabit a series of um pretty deplorable little

00:14:48.640 hovels uh um that we were able to rent either for you know i think the most there was a period there

00:14:54.440 of like two or three years when we were pretty intensely saving um and i think during that entire

00:14:59.800 period we never paid more than like 150 a month for rent um and then during one long period in the

00:15:05.680 sort of final push to saving money um we actually lived in a tent on our friend's land um into

00:15:11.720 december in vermont and and i do i remember you know very very clearly uh living in the tent or

00:15:18.540 sleeping in the tent and we had this stick that we had propped up next to this mattress and the

00:15:22.940 stick was so that we could push the snow off the roof of the tent without getting out so the tent

00:15:27.080 didn't collapse on us you know um so there was a long period of living in what most people these

00:15:33.620 days would consider really substandard conditions um and we were able uh i don't do you want the

00:15:39.200 whole like people ask this question a lot and i think it's a great question because um and i'm happy

00:15:44.080 to talk about the finances because because i think too often this stuff gets glossed over um and i don't

00:15:48.640 want to talk about money and all this stuff and and i'm i'm totally fine no let's go i'll give you

00:15:53.060 the whole like financial yeah i mean like i mean you also mentioned like you like you guys bathed

00:15:56.820 in a river right yeah oh yeah yeah yeah we still do that quite a bit i mean the other benefit of all

00:16:03.900 this you know it's like it set our standards and expectations to a point where that later in our

00:16:09.240 lives it's been it's been really easy to sort of satisfy our material needs if that makes any sense

00:16:15.380 right so it's always easier you know it's easier if you if you're standard living and your material

00:16:22.480 expectations are set um high it's it's difficult to walk those back down if you know what i'm saying

00:16:27.580 so uh it's loss aversion yeah a lot thank you that's the term i was looking for um so um anyway

00:16:35.180 we managed to say we could say $15,000 um on this sort of you know uh olympic level frugality uh measures

00:16:44.140 um and with that we were able to get a loan from the bank um for another $15,000 uh and we bought

00:16:52.720 a piece of land that cost $30,000 the banks at least around here they'll if you want to buy bear

00:16:57.580 land you've got to have um 50 so our budget was with $30,000 and we actually found a piece of land

00:17:03.440 that we really liked after a year of relatively fruitless searching we found the piece of land that

00:17:08.060 we bought uh for $30,000 so once we once we bought that um we borrowed $10,000 from a friend uh who

00:17:17.880 had some resources and we built what i call sort of the prototypical hippie shack um which was just

00:17:23.640 like a two-room cabin you know up on piers um and really really simple little wood stove uh and we

00:17:30.860 built that and we lived there until we had paid off and this is sort of this for me is sort of a key

00:17:36.500 point um we're really debt averse um and sometimes i i joke that there you know the really the the

00:17:43.400 real reason we live this way is essentially because uh i'm lazy which is to say i don't really ever

00:17:48.880 i i really hope to never be in a spot in my life where i have to take a job i don't want or like

00:17:59.080 simply because i'm trying to serve as debt um so a lot of my you know life choices um are really

00:18:05.960 sort of structured around the idea that not having debt um affords me a level of autonomy that a more

00:18:15.060 indebted lifestyle does not um so we all the way along even though we did take debt from time to

00:18:20.000 time we were really really careful to pay it down before we took on more debt or and we were also

00:18:25.320 really certain that it never became something that we couldn't handle pretty easily um so anyway we

00:18:30.760 built this little cabin we paid back our friend we paid back the bank and then we did actually take

00:18:34.840 another loan from the bank a construction loan we added on and built um what most people consider

00:18:40.760 a more appropriate uh uh sized and and um a more commodious uh house in 21st century america so that

00:18:50.040 was kind of the progression um we've actually since sold that actually just last year we sold that

00:18:56.500 property um and we we had so much fun spending 20 years creating our perfect homestead that we decided

00:19:02.840 we wanted to do it again so um i'm speaking to you right now from um the inside of a house that's

00:19:10.340 about 90 percent finished that we've been building over the last six months or so wow that's great and

00:19:14.680 i imagine was the first go around was it like pretty rough like i know you had you had construction

00:19:19.400 experience but uh building an entire house i mean that just seems like daunting i'm sure there's a lot of

00:19:24.360 i mean i i should point out that we've had we have help have had help along the way so it wasn't like we

00:19:30.040 did you know a hundred percent of the work but we were definitely the primary the primary labor force

00:19:35.900 um so this is a good example of communitarianism right yeah exactly exactly and we're really

00:19:42.120 fortunate to have a lot of friends um in the trades uh you know have skills that we can rely on and when

00:19:48.380 we get when we sort of you know run into uh the the um upper end of our own experience knowledge and

00:19:55.700 skill level um which which happens more frequently than i really care to admit on your show but um

00:20:00.720 uh yeah so so it didn't you know the second go around um uh you know we did have a lot more

00:20:08.000 experience building this place we also had a much better sense of what we wanted um and having lived

00:20:14.020 in a place for 20 years having seen our sort of lives evolve um and you know we had it was sort of

00:20:19.440 like felt like this opportunity to do this amazing thing and like wow we can we could do this

00:20:23.600 it uh over again and make all these little tweaks that we've always talked about making so

00:20:27.580 um you know here we are and um it's yeah it's been it's been actually just an amazing process really

00:20:34.440 really i've just had a ton of fun that's awesome i think all of us have actually yeah well i'm curious

00:20:40.020 i mean what was it that was driving you during those like when you were you know using the stick to

00:20:46.780 push snow off the tent and right there was you know you had a battle you know big black flies uh

00:20:52.940 little what was it that was like okay this i'm we're doing it for this reason what was the underlying

00:20:57.520 ethos behind this madness oh that's such a great question i and because i haven't i i don't i've never

00:21:04.280 really sat down and like thought about it and and i don't know that there was an underlying ethos

00:21:10.800 um or or a singular underlying ethos um you know i think we both i know we both felt really compelled

00:21:18.440 to inhabit a piece of land where we could do a lot of the things we do now which is you know we

00:21:24.340 we raise animals we have cows we have pigs we have chickens um we do a lot of foraging uh we have

00:21:31.760 gardens um we have an orchard i mean these are all things that were really important to us even going

00:21:38.580 back as far as you know our early 20s when we first met so there was definitely this sort of

00:21:42.740 shared vision we had it was a little hazy we didn't know exactly what it was going to look like but

00:21:47.320 um you know from not long after my then girlfriend now wife penny and i met there was this sort of

00:21:54.780 shared vision that we were going to have this small farmstead homestead farm whatever you want

00:22:00.540 to call it so that that was definitely a motivating factor there was no sort of at that point anyway

00:22:05.680 sort of more like you know larger larger picture philosophical underpinnings um no thorough s type

00:22:13.360 yeah exactly right right that wasn't what it was about it was like this is what we want to do and

00:22:17.320 i would say that that's somewhat true even to this day i don't you know i don't wake up in the morning

00:22:23.060 you know thinking about um you know how i'm going to do my little part to change the world although

00:22:30.260 i think it's important that we all reflect on that in some period point in our lives but mostly

00:22:35.200 i wake up in the morning you know genuinely pretty excited about the opportunity to do the things that

00:22:40.580 we are able to do around here every day so you know i actually enjoy getting up in the morning and

00:22:45.200 having chores to do it uh it gives me a feeling of purpose and i like you know i really um um uh

00:22:53.260 grateful for the relationships with our animals and with the land um i like the physical labor that's

00:22:58.660 involved in this life um i think we really have come to a place where we shortchange uh the the

00:23:06.120 benefits and the enjoyment that comes of manual labor in this culture um and and so a lot of it is

00:23:13.940 is you know a little bit of just sort of like this is what our version of a fulfilling life is and

00:23:20.300 and i totally understand that it's not everyone's version i get that 100 but for us this is you know

00:23:26.140 this is what feels meaningful to um to have these have this work to do on a day-in day-out basis

00:23:33.140 it seems like also like a sense of place is really important to you and your wife that's what i got

00:23:38.720 from the book like you wanted to be really connected to a physical place and all that's involved with

00:23:44.280 that it's totally true although it feels weird saying that now having just sort of made this move

00:23:49.580 right um you know we probably didn't move that far right no we didn't we didn't and uh but but

00:23:55.500 you're you're totally right and and um a sense of place and having that you know feeling embedded

00:24:01.460 and actually where we move to is essentially in uh on the periphery of the same community so

00:24:06.940 community-wise it's really actually hardly different at all um but being embedded in a community having

00:24:12.580 an awareness of place and region um is really really important to us um and and also having our

00:24:20.060 you know the ways that your lives become shaped um by your by community and region i mean really we

00:24:26.260 inhabit a very transient um society at this point and as any uh first world society is in the 21st century

00:24:35.400 and there's some amazing benefits that go along with that but um there is i think uh of a wider

00:24:43.100 spread sort of sense of placelessness that comes of that um and i think a lot of people feel that and

00:24:49.760 and uh feel that a loss of of having that connection uh whether it's to a particular piece of land or to a

00:24:57.280 community or even just to a region um and that is one thing that is really really important to us and

00:25:03.800 um and really um you know this life is all about trade-offs you know it's like i i think um it is

00:25:11.240 really easy to sort of look at it uh from the outside looking in and it seems really idyllic um and there

00:25:17.380 are aspects of it of course that are really idyllic um but there are trade-offs i mean we don't really

00:25:21.760 get to travel we don't have that luxury um in part for finances um in part because we have animals

00:25:28.920 that depend on our care um in part you know in the winter we rely only on wood for heating so there's

00:25:35.380 there's a lot of aspects that make you know that that really do ensure that we don't really um have

00:25:41.180 those opportunities we do we can't just sort of you know close the door behind us um and be gone so

00:25:46.980 um but for us you know and and there are times absolutely when we wish we we could do that more

00:25:53.620 readily uh but the opportunity to sort of really embed ourselves here is more important to us than

00:25:59.920 than that flexibility so you can't have it all you can't have it all right but who can who can

00:26:06.820 no one i don't know i guess donald trump i mean maybe donald trump can have it so

00:26:10.380 maybe donald will buy a piece of property next to you yeah i don't even want to go there all right

00:26:17.540 let's talk about this so you you and wife established your little homestead 0.95

00:26:22.120 and then uh you'll have your first son right in the home that was pretty cool like you actually

00:26:28.420 like your son that's right right on our living room floor right both our boys were right and you

00:26:33.640 describe how you were able to point in the specific spots like where they were born yeah

00:26:37.340 yeah it's totally true and that's that's really cool um but uh so it was the came into the i'm sure

00:26:44.180 they reached an age where you were all like any parent you start thinking about their schooling

00:26:48.500 right i remember when my wife and i had started having these conversations probably two years ago

00:26:53.620 like my son was getting to be about three it's like hey what are we gonna do about school you all

00:26:58.480 decided instead of going uh through public schools and not even traditional homeschooling you decided

00:27:03.840 to keep them home and do what's called unschooling i know you don't like that word um you talk about

00:27:08.920 that in the book but uh can you describe what unschooling is and how it's different from

00:27:13.100 traditional homeschooling yeah i mean so the simplest way um to put it maybe which still

00:27:21.360 doesn't really explain anything but to help to understand that the that there are there is a

00:27:24.560 difference there um which is that all unschooling is homeschooling but not all homeschooling is

00:27:29.580 unschooling um so a lot of a lot of homeschool in fact the majority of families that choose to

00:27:35.080 homeschool generally follow um a pretty set standardized curriculum um and that is not what we do um and

00:27:44.540 so the other way i like to talk about it and that that's relatively concise because i think

00:27:50.480 you know one of the things about our style of education and the way our kids learn is that it is

00:27:56.500 it is really hard to sort of talk about in in really bite-sized pieces it becomes um it's a really

00:28:02.380 sort of nuanced big picture thing but um the other the other the other term i've come to really like

00:28:08.600 like that i that i think begins to sort of express what um some of our philosophy that um while the

00:28:16.400 public education system is standardized curriculum-based education um tries to make learning happen

00:28:22.460 our style is to try to make room for learning to happen um and so by that what i mean is that like

00:28:29.640 you know we try to ensure um and we do i think um ensure that our kids have uh a lot of uh flexibility

00:28:38.100 um and freedom in their day in day out schedules so that they are able to follow those pursuits that

00:28:46.240 are of most interest to them um so yeah and i did it's true that i don't really love the term

00:28:52.360 unschooling it's kind of the one that's that's um caught on in in the national consciousness to the

00:28:58.280 extent that any of them have um and i guess that you know the problem i see with it is that it sort

00:29:02.940 of describes what we don't do it doesn't really describe what we do do um and uh and also you

00:29:10.360 know it's like a lot of my kids need to be unschooled they've never been to school if anyone needs to be

00:29:14.760 unschooled it's it's me you know it's my wife right we are the ones who who sort of you know myself

00:29:21.460 less than her because i i left the public education system at a pretty young age but we're the ones who

00:29:27.200 went went to school and had that you know sort of in some case in some ways suffered for that

00:29:31.140 experience and and really need to sort of try to undo it um i think in some in some regards so is

00:29:36.320 that must be hard though because you you two had this experience of what education's like so is there

00:29:40.740 that temptation or that tendency to be like sit down with your sons and like make every moment a

00:29:45.660 learning moment right like son you know you're making this bow here um you know this no i'd say i mean

00:29:51.720 we don't do a lot of that um i i mean it it happens for sure i mean look you know this this

00:29:58.900 summer we spent the summer building a barn in the house with them and there's there's almost no way

00:30:04.020 for that not to be a learning moment whether you're actually you know sitting down and and explaining

00:30:09.700 you know the particulars of roof pitches and how you arrive at a particular roof angle or whatever

00:30:15.740 the case is um it just it it's it's much more sort of happening by osmosis than than really sitting

00:30:22.440 down we did you know i don't i should say that we there is a certain amount of and this has been

00:30:27.440 particularly true we found with math which is one of those things that we at least um have had a hard

00:30:33.480 time incorporating without actually sitting down so we do spend a little bit of time sitting down

00:30:38.520 um so that they at least have the benefit of learning um some some basic and even mid-level mathematics

00:30:45.220 uh because it's just really i think essential to their ability to to thrive in the world that

00:30:51.180 they have those skills um and i i know having talked to other parents who are on a similar

00:30:55.640 educational trajectory you know so much does have to do with the particular child and their temperament

00:31:01.060 um and and their proclivities and some kids you know they love math and you know that that's not

00:31:06.720 necessary we have found that it is necessary for us um and that's actually another point that i would

00:31:11.240 you know i'd like to make when i talk about this is that you know the public education system and a

00:31:16.340 standardized curriculum in general um is basically one thing to a million different families um what

00:31:22.680 we're what this is is a million different things to a million different families you know it can be

00:31:27.320 whatever you want it to be um and that's another reason i think it's so hard to really define in any

00:31:32.720 kind of concise way um it just means different things to different people yeah and i think a lot of

00:31:37.740 people are listening to this or hear that you know they hear this concept of unschooling uh they

00:31:42.780 think well how how do you how do your kids learn to read or like how do they learn to write but it

00:31:47.280 sounds like yeah they they've done that right oh yeah yeah yeah i mean i think a lot of that

00:31:53.200 sort of um lack uh or a lot of the um

00:31:57.740 we have lost culturally my belief um we have lost culturally uh a lot of confidence in a child's

00:32:11.060 ability to our children's ability to learn without formalized instruction so i in my experience um

00:32:20.380 and and of course there are going to be exceptions because there are children who struggle with very

00:32:26.340 specific learning challenges um but the majority majority of children you're not going to be if

00:32:32.480 you if you put them in a home where there are books uh and you give them access to books and you read to

00:32:37.620 them you're not going to be able to stop them from learning how to read um and so i know yeah you're

00:32:43.760 you're exactly right neither one of our children words was formally taught to read excuse me they

00:32:47.980 they simply learned because we we exposed them to books um almost constantly this actually brings me to

00:32:54.640 another point and that i want to make sure to make before we're through this conversation which is

00:33:00.640 that i think it would be very possible to do um some version of this of what we're doing very very

00:33:06.840 poorly right so a lot of this style of learning and i think is really really dependent on a healthy

00:33:16.200 supportive uh environment where the parents are really engaged in facilitating their children's

00:33:22.700 learning so i think when a lot of people hear unschooling they think oh it must be this like

00:33:26.680 totally hands-off things your kids just do you know whatever they want all the time um they you

00:33:33.020 know they probably are just sitting around doing nothing etc etc um that may be true in some families

00:33:39.380 who unschool or whatever you want to call it um but i can assure you that in our family um you know

00:33:46.360 the level of facilitation that we do in order you know to sort of help them find uh mentors um and

00:33:52.600 other people who can who can further their learning and their skills um it would be a heck of a lot

00:33:58.540 easier to just send our kids to school a lot easier so we are you know this is this is our choice and we

00:34:04.440 have actually structured in many ways structure our life around making sure that we are able to create

00:34:10.360 these opportunities and facilitate these opportunities for our children so you know you mentioned earlier

00:34:14.560 about trade-offs right yeah so i mean i imagine there's there's trade-offs with this i mean what

00:34:19.380 is it let's talk about we let's not talk about the negative trends like what is something that

00:34:23.120 your kids are learning that they wouldn't be able to learn if they were in public schools

00:34:27.460 well oh boy yeah so they they have a whole range i mean i don't know so i think it's hard to say you

00:34:35.920 know could they it would it be impossible for them to learn some of these skills um outside of the

00:34:41.800 public school system no it wouldn't be impossible but of course the reality is the public school

00:34:46.620 uh you know if you're if your child's in school um they're in school for somewhere around 40 hours a

00:34:53.540 week uh maybe more maybe a little less depending on their commute and whatnot um then of course there's

00:34:58.880 homework and then of course there's the fact that you know the average uh teen in this day and age is

00:35:03.500 in front of a screen more than 50 hours a week um so you end up with a situation where there simply

00:35:08.480 isn't any time to learn anything but what that curriculum lays out for you so you know um

00:35:15.140 if you're talking about sort of like hard tangible things that my children have learned i mean they're

00:35:20.420 both um really really proficient with with hand tools they're both um extremely proficient in the

00:35:28.240 wild um they spend a lot of time out in the woods they do a lot of uh hunting and foraging

00:35:34.300 um either one of them called a shelter um they are proficient with most domestic tasks either one

00:35:43.020 if they if they uh if there's a tear in their pants either one of them can sew it up themselves

00:35:47.760 um you know they're they're proficient in most of the skills that you actually need in order to make

00:35:54.840 your way in the world outside of the sort of moneyed economic system um now i realize that this

00:36:01.940 starts to sound a little bit like we're just raising like a couple of survivalists and that's

00:36:05.420 the only goal and that's not the case at all uh... it the other thing so it would bring me to my of my

00:36:10.760 other point which is that uh... it's not so much that these are the skills that we think that our

00:36:16.360 children have to have these are skills that are outgrowth of their interests and their environment for

00:36:22.080 sure uh... it's much more that we feel really strongly that um... they are learning a base level of

00:36:31.400 resourcefulness uh... and sort of self reliance and ability uh... to learn outside a structured

00:36:39.340 system without that curriculum uh... that we believe are going to serve them well no matter what it is

00:36:45.240 they decide to learn right so if they decide it's possible it's entirely possible that one of them

00:36:50.580 or both of them are going to decide they want to go to college and they want to do something that

00:36:54.620 you know it looks a lot more like uh... what many people would consider a traditional

00:36:59.160 uh... sort of you know first world career path that may still happen um... and

00:37:05.480 uh... it's our belief that the resourcefulness that they're learning and the self reliance that they're

00:37:10.440 learning in the context of the skills they're learning um... are going to carry them through that path

00:37:15.120 also and confidence you know a tremendous i i really what i see and what i feel

00:37:20.880 uh... and what i think it's somewhat inherent to the the you know our cultural assumptions

00:37:26.700 that children can't learn unless they're put into this specific environment

00:37:31.960 uh... is a lack of confidence and i think it's our own schooling as adults that has eroded that confidence

00:37:39.180 you know but if you're told that this is how you learn and this is how you have to learn

00:37:44.760 uh... you start start to believe that that's the only way you learn

00:37:49.420 uh... so some people you know they use the term life learning to describe what we're doing

00:37:53.100 that's that's a pretty good term i mean you know so it's like

00:37:55.560 you know we forget i think

00:37:57.120 that all of us are learning all the time

00:37:59.340 uh... and we forget i think as parents that our children

00:38:03.140 you know are watching and learning from us all the time

00:38:06.540 um... and i think one of the way the reasons and maybe the primary reason we

00:38:10.740 we have forgotten these things is because we've come to understand and we've come to associate

00:38:15.940 learning with a very particular style of standardized instruction

00:38:22.780 i think this uh... segues nicely to this another point you make in your book

00:38:27.060 about how um... you talk about how we we want children to be responsible

00:38:32.320 but uh... we don't give them responsibility

00:38:36.120 so that they can be responsible

00:38:38.220 that's right

00:38:39.480 kind of segues nicely so i mean you

00:38:41.840 you have done things with your children

00:38:43.620 with your sons at a young age

00:38:45.180 that a lot of you know suburban american parents would be like

00:38:48.600 be aghast oh my gosh why

00:38:50.000 why would you let your sons do that

00:38:51.580 i mean talk about some of the things that

00:38:52.740 your sons have done

00:38:53.880 and

00:38:54.080 and their ability to be resourceful

00:38:56.920 and adapt and to take on those responsibilities

00:38:59.260 yeah sure i mean i i guess maybe the most obvious

00:39:02.620 uh... is that you know we got

00:39:04.860 they both they each had a belt knife

00:39:07.560 you know before they were done with their fourth year

00:39:11.120 finished with their fourth year

00:39:12.580 um... and

00:39:14.060 uh... i should say that there

00:39:15.880 you know for us it's not like

00:39:17.440 we've never really said that there

00:39:19.160 there are these arbitrary ages

00:39:21.980 which they should be granted with these responsibilities

00:39:23.800 for us it's much more

00:39:24.900 you know and this is again you know

00:39:26.900 this is one of the benefits of

00:39:28.960 having them at home

00:39:30.240 and being able

00:39:31.340 to observe

00:39:32.560 um...

00:39:33.760 which is that

00:39:34.820 you know it's really clear to us

00:39:36.780 when they're ready

00:39:37.680 for particular responsibilities

00:39:39.480 uh... whereas

00:39:40.540 it may not be so clear

00:39:42.220 if

00:39:42.600 to parents who don't

00:39:44.300 i don't have the luxury of spending as much time with their kids

00:39:46.840 um...

00:39:48.240 as we do

00:39:49.040 um...

00:39:49.740 so

00:39:50.020 anyway they

00:39:51.160 yeah they

00:39:51.700 so they started on nines

00:39:52.840 super early

00:39:53.620 um...

00:39:54.500 and that was really an outgrowth of the fact that

00:39:56.620 uh... you know penny and i always

00:39:58.580 have a knife on our belt and it's something that we use 0.98

00:40:01.180 frequently

00:40:01.860 um...

00:40:02.820 and

00:40:03.500 you know the other thing we taught them to do really early on was

00:40:06.500 how to doctor their own cuts

00:40:08.660 right

00:40:09.460 so

00:40:10.280 like you know yes they've cut themselves many many times

00:40:14.080 uh... between the two of them fortunately never seriously

00:40:17.120 um...

00:40:17.800 but

00:40:18.280 you know the majority of the time that it happens

00:40:20.560 um... we hardly know about it because they'll just sort of come into the house

00:40:23.860 and quietly go about getting themselves a bandage

00:40:25.980 uh... it actually doesn't happen that much anymore but

00:40:28.740 you know five four five years ago it wasn't uncommon uh...

00:40:32.740 and so uh... but you know one thing that's really interesting is that if you do

00:40:36.740 if you if you sort of step back

00:40:38.320 and do any reading about

00:40:39.840 uh... you know uh... more from a more anthropological basis and look at how other

00:40:44.040 uh...

00:40:44.880 other groups of people other cultures raise their children it's very very 1.00

00:40:48.740 common

00:40:49.880 um... in other cultures for children to have much greater exposure to what we

00:40:55.140 here in the u.s. would be considered would consider you know sort of heart

00:40:59.320 wrenchingly dangerous so you know it's like i i do believe that we have

00:41:04.380 um... you know we overreact uh... to the the tangible risk in our children's lives and we

00:41:11.480 generally tend to i think to not react nearly strongly enough to those risks that

00:41:16.340 aren't so tangible you know the risks of our children being sedentary the risk of

00:41:20.600 our children spending all of these incredible quantity of hours in front of

00:41:25.100 digital devices without really thinking about that impact on not just their bodies

00:41:30.100 but their intellect their psyche their spirits i mean that that's a

00:41:33.560 conversation that just doesn't happen at all and yet we worry you know we fret

00:41:37.000 endlessly about the fact that they might cut themselves with a knife right um...

00:41:41.340 or get abducted right from their front yard or something like that

00:41:44.860 yeah i mean you know these are all things that you know they they tragically do

00:41:48.960 happen in a very very very infrequently and unfortunately you know we have a media

00:41:54.800 cycle um... and we have uh... an ad based um... media that depends on on ratings in

00:42:02.560 order to to make profits and so these are the types of events that garner the most

00:42:07.960 coverage these are the type of events that we hear about um... and so uh... we fear

00:42:13.020 things that by and large don't happen um... and in the process uh... we really i think do a

00:42:19.160 lot of damage to our kids so i i believe and and and so that does my wife you know

00:42:24.620 unfortunately on the same page this would be really tough if we weren't um... you

00:42:28.040 know that it's really really critical to a child uh... a human being development

00:42:33.220 um... that they have an opportunity to take appropriate risk um... because i think

00:42:39.300 that lack of appropriate risk uh... and during the earlier stages of a child's life

00:42:44.460 um... leads to inappropriate risk taking later in life

00:42:49.220 i think you mentioned this like that opportunity to as you said you know to be

00:42:53.740 responsible to know and to feel trusted sorry go ahead

00:42:56.820 well i know i was gonna say i think you mentioned studies where they said that if

00:43:00.060 you when we make things safer like we actually make things unsafe

00:43:03.420 right right in a weird counterintuitive way

00:43:06.140 yeah i think there have been studies where it's like as soon as you plant that that

00:43:10.780 notion you know that you plant that seed that something is unsafe um that in fact is

00:43:16.300 when it becomes unsafe you know because that awareness arrives to the front um... and

00:43:21.020 actually uh... can kick and actually cause people you know through uh... just i think

00:43:26.020 that fear of that to actually uh... attracted that outcome in some way

00:43:30.700 i have to go back and look at it it's been a long time i've read i've read those studies

00:43:33.620 it's been a long time since i've looked at what they actually found that that was

00:43:36.700 the upshot with that that that sort of expectation of something being unsafe was

00:43:40.580 actually in many ways in many times was what made it unsafe

00:43:43.940 interesting so i'm curious um have you and your wife maybe had some

00:43:49.180 parental angst about

00:43:51.220 are we doing the right thing do you ever have those conversations at night and

00:43:54.980 you're laying together like

00:43:55.940 this is this the right thing are we actually doing the right thing for our

00:43:58.900 sons or are you guys pretty like yeah no this is it we're we're there we're doing

00:44:02.820 the right thing for our sons

00:44:03.900 i think if we didn't have some doubts we probably wouldn't be very good parents

00:44:08.660 to be totally honest um and uh... so yeah i mean that's that's sort of a uh... you

00:44:14.500 know um... a short way of saying that uh... yes we do have doubts from time to

00:44:20.940 time um... i don't think we have um... we don't have like big picture doubts like we

00:44:27.900 don't we don't think to ourselves you know um... oh my god is did we make the right

00:44:33.620 choice to not send them to school that that is that we don't doubt that but

00:44:38.860 within the context of what we're doing and how we're doing it

00:44:42.260 you know we do occasionally have doubts i mean

00:44:44.260 those doubts are that are what led us to deciding that we did need to institute

00:44:48.580 some sit down math with the kids because we sort of realized that

00:44:51.980 you know as much as we like the idea that they

00:44:54.660 would just pick this stuff up

00:44:56.500 on their own that it wasn't happening um and so we realized that you know we

00:45:00.420 needed to we needed to ensure that a certain amount of that happened um i

00:45:05.020 don't worry about uh... you know sort of goes back to what we were talking about

00:45:09.640 like you know almost first first thing um it which is you know the sort of the

00:45:14.840 plan and like and like their future and i do not for an instant worry about their

00:45:21.380 ability to make their way in this world um and i'm very very confident uh...

00:45:26.420 that they'll figure out what it is is right for them and they'll figure out a

00:45:30.900 way to make it work um and a lot of my confidence in that

00:45:34.400 comes from seeing the ways in which they're able to sort of work through

00:45:38.980 you know their problems and challenges at this stage in their life so um

00:45:44.220 that i'm not worried about um but

00:45:47.760 but yeah you know specifically sometimes we think you know

00:45:50.460 and and i think i think again it's like i think any parent who doesn't

00:45:54.420 on some level stop once in a while and question you know what it is they're

00:45:58.540 doing um i i think actually you can really benefit from from questioning

00:46:02.860 the the process whether you're sending your kid to school or whether you're not

00:46:07.040 or whatever your circumstances are um so um you know we question sometimes like

00:46:13.200 have we have we given them short trip because we've decided to live

00:46:18.200 you know in a lily white state where they simply just don't have that much

00:46:22.180 exposure to other other cultures and ethnicities i mean that's that's a real

00:46:26.940 sort of trade-off that that um our kids live in um and so there's there's stuff

00:46:32.540 like that you know um and again it goes back to like well what

00:46:35.720 you know this brings me to another point i really want to make which is

00:46:39.800 i hear a lot from people like well what about all the opportunities

00:46:43.500 they're missing out on because they're not in school

00:46:45.740 um and and the only like sort of honest response to that before you know of

00:46:50.560 course they're missing out on opportunities just like every child

00:46:53.120 in school is missing out on opportunities that my children have

00:46:57.220 just like any child in any situation is missing out on opportunities we can't

00:47:03.040 you know this is the world is just like this incredibly rich and diverse place

00:47:06.560 it would be totally impossible for us to expose our children to every possible

00:47:12.860 opportunity that's out there for them

00:47:14.400 and i think in some ways um you know the irony is that in some ways by

00:47:19.160 trying to do that uh which i think a lot of parents do we get caught up in this

00:47:24.000 sort of like rat race of like trying to create as much opportunity for our kids

00:47:27.640 as possible um and in the process you know we

00:47:30.560 schedule them to the hilt to the point at which

00:47:33.580 whatever that is they're they're experiencing whatever opportunity we're

00:47:37.160 trying to expose them to they're they're really almost unable to absorb any

00:47:40.780 any of it because they're so over scheduled and over you know overworked

00:47:45.660 i mean i hear a lot from parents whose kids are in a more conventional educational

00:47:49.560 on a more conventional educational path you know how just how exhausted their

00:47:53.720 kids are all the time um and i think that's a really tragic outgrowth

00:47:57.900 of what has become i think the contemporary expectation

00:48:02.340 for our children's education which is that it's going to turn them into 0.86

00:48:06.620 productive economic units i mean that's the primary goal now of our public school

00:48:12.080 system um and i think that's a really tragic outcome

00:48:15.440 well ben this has been a great conversation uh where can people learn more about uh your

00:48:21.040 books and as well as uh your work um if they want to read more uh and learn more

00:48:27.160 they can uh check out my website which is ben hewitt.net

00:48:30.580 well ben hewitt thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure

00:48:33.760 thank you brett i appreciate it my guest today was ben hewitt he's the author of several books

00:48:37.780 but today we talked about homegrown and find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere

00:48:41.700 you can find out more information about ben's work at ben hewitt.net

00:48:45.300 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:48:52.480 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:48:55.920 the podcast i'd really appreciate if you go give us a review on itunes or stitcher

00:48:59.200 to help get the word about the show and give us some feedback on how we can improve the show

00:49:02.920 as always i appreciate the continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to

00:49:06.580 stay madly

00:49:07.620 you

The Art of Manliness - March 01, 2016

#180： Establishing a Modern Day Homestead and Unschooling

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