Episode 1: Educational Origin Stories

Weirdschooling

Season 1 Episode 1: Educational Origin Stories

Originally Released August 23, 2023

Intro: <Original bright piano sea shanty music rising in the background with school bell sound.> 

Sarah: Welcome to Weirdschooling. I’m Sarah.

Jennie: And I’m Jennie. We’re parents, friends, lifelong learners and self-proclaimed weirdos.

Sarah: We’ve found that some of the best educational methods have emerged when we let go of conformity and explore the unconventional and unique

Jennie: Because no one’s brain operates the same way and that’s exciting. And what works today may not work tomorrow, and we can adapt.

Sarah: We’re all in this weird and wonderful world together.

Jennie:  So let’s learn outside the box! <Original cheerful, organ and piano sea shanty music fading out in the background.>

Jennie: We are recording this at the beginning of the school year, everyone is getting their list of school supplies. You walk into the store and there's all the printouts, or maybe you're getting an email and trying to sort through apps.

Who knows how you've gotten your school supply list, but you have your supply list. And if you look at that list in your mind's eye, imagine: which school supply are you most excited about getting? 

Sarah: What better way to learn about your hosts than learn about what kind of school supplies they would be and why? I would be a planner because there are so many different types of planners. There are, you know, the weekly ones, the monthly ones, the academic ones, the corporate official-looking ones. And it's really fun to pick the one that you need for your life. And I feel like I like to be adaptable. And also I just get really excited about like the overall aesthetic of them, like picking the cute ones.

They're just, I really enjoy planners (laughs) and I actually, I won't say that I use them as much as I would like. I probably use the three or four that I purchased throughout the year and then discard them and then, Use a different one. So that's, that's definitely speaks to my personality, I think. So Jennie, what school supply are you gonna be?

Jennie: First, I'll have to say, Sarah, I think that that is the perfect school supply for you because you're also so intellectual and in your head, and I like that you picked a supply that is basically paper unless you apply your own thoughts to it. Like it, it requires thinking in order to actually be a thing. And I love that. I think that's definitely a good introduction for listeners about how you're gonna be approaching Weirdschooling. Definitely thoughtful, definitely planful. I have to say the school supply that I would most likely be, is a really exciting, amazing, school box, like supply box.

I would get so into the ones that had extra little compartments, the little pencil boxes. I don't know if you remember, maybe they still have these, but the pencil boxes that had hidden compartments. Maybe there's a hidden pencil sharpener. Maybe there's a secret place to put your pencils. Maybe it even has a key.

Who knows? And I think that that speaks to my personality because I like kind of the physical world and like things you can, you know, hide unexpected little nuggets of truth in.

I definitely think that some parts of my personality could be surprising. I think I might have unexpected interests and maybe it looks like a Lisa Frank, you know, pencil box, but maybe there's something kind of crazy hidden inside. Who knows? So I'm gonna go with. Really ornate secret compartment pencil box 

Sarah: That fits you to a “t” because when I think of you, I think of even though you're kind of a dreamer, you're also somebody who's very practical.

You're very good at solving things and having the skills to. Do things that people actually need. So I think that I could see that, in your approach to school and education, and kind of life, so I feel like that's perfect.

Jennie: So this is our very first icebreaker of weird schooling and furthermore, this is our first episode of a podcast that just needed to be in the world, and I think you'll notice that we use the word “weird” a lot, but we don't use it disparagingly.

So Sarah, let's talk a little bit about what we mean whenever we say “weird.”

Sarah: You're right, the word “weird” does and can have some negative connotations. What we really love, in our conversations is the ability to find an out-of-the-box solution for something that has been difficult. And I think that what we've found when we've just been talking about our lives or our struggles with very specific educational things is that sometimes when the common approaches don't work, you really do have to think of something that's different, strange or even weird. 

It just felt like a very natural way to approach this podcast. And I think that we just decided not to be afraid of the word weird. And we really love encouraging other people to think of those non-conformist, different ways to solve a problem.

And I think that finding the common weirdness in all of us is the best way to really approach some of these difficult things.  

Jennie: I absolutely love that, and I think the idea that there's something weird in everyone speaks to the fact that it is a universal trait that we all have.

The original usage of the word “weird” can actually refer to something that has to do with personal destiny. It can be something that has to do with fate. It can have something that has to do with fortune. And I think that that's something that if you allow yourself to look at your specificity, if you look at your children's specific traits and the things that they need to grow and learn, and you don't get too mired down and well, that's not what everyone does, you get closer to allowing yourself and those you love and those you're helping learn, reach their own destiny, reach their own fate. 

And so that's what we're working for here. It's to open up those boundaries to embrace the word “weird” and adopt it as a term that means specific, unique, and able to help someone reach their potential. So when we say, “Weirdschooling,” we mean any learning modality that helps a specific person in a specific way and we didn't hear a podcast that was specifically like that, that was really lifting up these unique ways of learning. And so that's why we made weird schooling. And today we're gonna dig in a little bit to our origin stories as learners because one thing that helps me as a parent is an awareness that the way I learn and my history as someone who has been learning since I was born affect how I teach my children and how I interact with the world. 

And also, I just want you to know, listeners, what's my experience? Where am I coming from? What knowledge do I have through direct experience? And then what things do I not know that I'm hopefully gonna learn more about? Because this is an exploration for Sarah and I to learn things we don't know and experience and explore other people's brand of weird. 

Sarah: Not only do we want to sort of introduce who we are, what we're about, where we came from, and thus where the show came from, but we also, are not hiding the fact that we, do not have all of the letters after our names to say that we are specific experts in any one particular thing, which could have some pros, could have some cons. But I like to think of it as, “we are not married to one particular way or approach.” And that is something that, again, that we really wanted to talk about. So Jennie, I'm really dying to actually hear more about your journey. I've heard a lot of the stories just sort of offline, but I'd love for you to share what is your own educational journey and experience with education as a human person.

Jennie: I think we'll take it all the way back to the rural suburban town of Nixa, Missouri, where I grew up. So there weren't a lot of educational choices where I grew up. So that's one thing that I definitely think was a theme. There was the one elementary school, there was probably one, maybe two, preschools or day cares.

I started off in day cares attached to my mom's hospital. She was a nurse and so day care into public school and then into a private college/university, which, paying for college myself. I couldn't afford that. (laughs) I also found a better fit at the local state school and I went to the state school and I studied art history and got my degree super fast 'cause I was just ready to get out there.

I had planned on being in academia and wanting to be a professor of art history, but then I did an internship and worked for a while at a fine arts museum, and I learned that I love art, I love history, but I wanted more one-on-one hands-on activity with the public and with people, and with, like you said, hands-on creation of physical things.

And it wasn't enough for me to create those educational panels that sit next to pieces of artwork. I wanted to get out there and know people, so, I went through alternative certification and became a preschool teacher at a Head Start center, and I taught three- and four-year-olds.

And as an only child, that was hard 'cause I literally did not even know the nursery rhymes or songs to sing to kids (laughter from both) 'cause I was always like going to antique stores with my parents and nice restaurants and doing a bunch of only child stuff.

And then after I did that, I found my educational fit that was a little better and I taught middle school, history and art history classes. And that was a dream at a fine arts charter school in the city limits. And I got to take kids to art galleries and to the woods, and I got to have them make artwork outside and I got to learn about their struggles and their triumphs.

And it was really, really cool and I loved it. But then I had my first child, and I realized that this kind of 80-hour work week that I was doing wasn't gonna fly with a newborn child. And so I chose to stay home with him, and then I realized I was lonely. And so I created my own educational community where I planned educational events at parks for moms who had park aged kids. 

And so from there, I just worked hard to help teach my kids. And then I had my second son, Patrick, and they went to private preschool and then a public school, and then a co-op in when we homeschooled. And then, you know, pandemic after public school. They did virtual school at public, and then we pulled out and we, we did homeschool. And we have kind of a patchwork of different homeschool classes from rock climbing to, hybrid model schools. And every year we reassess, we see where they're at, what's their brand of weird this year, and we let them know that we commit to things, but if something doesn't work, we find a way.

Sarah: I love hearing about, where you've come, both in your personal and professional experience, as an educator and then also as a parent. Um, and mine, I want to say I feel like it's very different. I wish that mine had had sort of like the internal drive that yours did of sort of trying to find that place. It really seems like you, you had this drive to find out where you could take your skills and your interests and sort of share them with other people. Mine was sort of on the side of like, what's going on wrong? What's wrong? Like, how can I fix it? 

So, as a kiddo, I definitely had the rural education experience. There was the one school I went to, it, it was fine. We moved, quite a bit And so, I did you know, the public school system in a larger community. And that was also fine. And in many ways taught me a lot of things that I do like about education. I did go to a fine arts high school, which was kind of different. It was a public magnet school and, that in of itself, I think informed a lot more than I think about how I approach education, with my own children.

And then I, kind of took a weird gap year, to kind of help my family with a, a transition that they had. And then I went to a giant state college. And I studied psychology and criminology. And then, later on, because I'm just a complete weirdo as an adult, after my second was born, I went to go get another degree, from a smaller state school, where I was planning to study speech language pathology.

 In terms of working, I worked, in applied behavioral analysis as an assistant, for kids with autism for a long time. I worked in a, sort of in a direct care position for kids who've been abused and neglected who were at least temporary or maybe permanent wards of the state for years and years.

That was interesting. That sort of started a trajectory for my career where I really was focused on kids in crisis and what do you do when you have a kid in crisis? What do you do when there's a family in crisis to maintain not only just some semblance of normalcy, but also some semblance of stability. And you can see that through the desire to help keep their educational goals on track. And it's extremely hard when there's not housing, when there's not food, when there's not safety. So that was something that I really focused on for quite a bit in my, in my career. 

When I was working with, again, kids who were, going through a really difficult time because of, dependency or neglect cases, we started a program, to focus specifically on the school aspect of why are kids not going to school? That was a major issue. And so that was a really interesting experience for me because it helped to cement in my brain, the idea that going to school is not simple. Even when you are in that school, whatever that setting might be, that experience is also not simple. And so I think now that I'm sort of reflectively looking back on things, that experience, at the crisis center, at the state run homes and, working these cases really helped me to be open-minded about finding dfferent, new, weird solutions to problems because people are individuals. I saw that time and time again, like maybe we would have 50 kids that aren't going to school. But there might be 50 different reasons and you can't apply a universal solution to individuals, it does not work. 

And so as I had kids, done a lot of other things. I've served on boards of directors, I've worked in PTAs. All of those sorts of like parent roles that you do, those administrative parent leadership roles, when you are wanting to have a say in your kids' education and how that plays out. But as a parent, things have been interesting and strange too.

When I think about it, we've not done just one thing just like you. And I think that's something that we've really bonded on, is our ability to try different things with our own families and kids. I've got the two kiddos, and with both kids, they've had very strange journeys. My oldest has been in private schools. He's been in public charter schools, he's been in regular public school. We've done public magnet programs. We've done online learning because of the wonderful pandemic that has cursed us all. Or if you wanna put a positive spin on it has allowed us to be problem solvers and creative thinkers.

We have done homeschool and co-ops and all of the fun homeschooling things that, is a, is a very different world. It's a very broad and diverse world. You can't just say homeschool and know what that means. Where I do think that if I hear the word “public school,” I know basically what that means.

So here we are, talking together about school, about interesting approaches, and I'm still learning. I know what is working for my family, for me today. But I'm interested to learn from other people about what works for them and who knows whatever issues or challenges might pop up. 

Like I know that I need to be ready to adapt and be willing to embrace something new and I am so excited to just talk to you, and also to welcome guests because that is something special that we are going to be offering on Weirdschooling is just the voices of other people who are going to share their own experiences, their own stories directly, because who better to do it than the person who's experienced it or created it or thought of it or dreamed it?

What are you excited about with this show?

Jennie: First, I'm excited to hear your origin story and I think that it highlights something that's really important as adults to remember, and it's that not all learning happens inside of a traditional classroom.

It can happen afterwards. It sounds like a lot of the experience that you gained in your professional life shaped, you know, who you are today. And it isn't just those college, high school, elementary school things that shape you. 

And you, you kind of reference the fact that you are chasing where is their need. That can be one of the reasons for learning, right? It's just, is there something that needs to be done and in order to do it well, I need to learn. I see you do that all the time, and I think that that's a super valuable skill to name is that being adaptable, being responsive and being thoughtful is a way to learn and to be in the world.

And so here at Weird Schooling, that's what we're gonna be doing and I'm glad that we got to share a little bit about our background. Hopefully some of it resonates with listeners. Maybe they've had the same experience, maybe it's been different.

But I will ask. So Sarah, how have your experiences helped shape your ability to facilitate your kids' education? 

Sarah: One of the most important things that I've learned is I think simply the ability and willingness to be flexible. I think that I do have a tendency to really push, push, push for continuity and for consistency. That whole stick-to-itiveness, grit, blah, blah, blah. And I believe in all of that, but I think seeing different scenarios play out for different families that I've worked with or different organizations, both you know, on a macro and a micro scale. I think finally I just am at a place where I am able and willing and interested to pivot. 

And I think that that's something that, my family and I are really good at this point is being able to pivot from one modality to another, and then research the heck out of it to identify whether it's gonna work or not. But also, as you were saying, just to continue to listen, continue to watch and be observant of the current sort of status of things.

I think it's sort of all of the above, but I think without, without really embracing the fact that there is not one answer, I think that I don't think that I would be where I am right now. What about you? 

Jennie: I, I think exactly the same, very similar kind of approach of being flexible and I think also the willingness to follow, wonder where it goes. If someone's super interested in something in my household, we'll go down that path and loop it back in as best we can.

I, I feel really fortunate that I had the experience as a curriculum designer so that I can kind of hold standards and learning objectives in my mind while having an organic experience with a kid. 

And so I think passion, flexibility, and awareness are probably the three things that have been most important to me for my kids and that's why I'm excited to learn from you, to learn from listeners, to learn from guests as we move into Weirdschooling. 

Sarah: And one last thing that I was thinking that would be really important to share with our listeners is that both Jennie and I are huge proponents of listening to other opinions, even if those opinions might be different than our own or their experiences and solutions to problems that we may have faced are very different than the choices that we've made.

And so we are really excited to be, inviting folks to talk about their experiences that, might have different opinions than we do. And that's great. I think that that is something that, is sort of missing from, a lot of conversations is, that difference of opinion, that different perspective, those different solutions.

And so we're not really here to sort of sell you on any particular way or method or curriculum or approach to anything. We are here to simply share. We wanna have a great discussion, both together with our guests and, by extension with you, our listeners, so that everybody feels included. Everybody might be learning something. 

And I think it's just so important for us to be able to sort of keep that in the back of our minds that like, hey, even if I'm listening to a talk about something that I don't think that I agree with or don't think will work for me, let me just listen to this short, 30 minute show and see if there is something that I could glean from it, because I bet there might be. 

Jennie: Yes. I absolutely love that you named that. And I, I actually wanna take the opportunity to just list a few of the things that we might be talking about this season. And in the coming seasons we have a list that we've created of over 40 different topics that kind of run the gamut of different weird schooling ask type of things. And they include things from public school to faith-based learning to business schooling, farm schooling, hybrid model schools, classical model. 

So just because your kid may be in public school or private school or homeschool or unschooling, doesn't mean that there isn't something to learn because in any setting, there can be a specific way of reaching a child or even learning yourself that maybe you'll learn here. Maybe we'll explore that together and we're, we are excited to have, expert guests on to give as much knowledge and information is possible so that you can understand others and understand your own needs as well as you can.

Sarah: Exactly. If I could add just one more thing, it would be that, listen, we are all people and I think Jennie said something really nice at the beginning of the show where, she's been learning since birth and we all have been learning since birth. And I think it's really easy, especially if you are parents to think that you're focused on education. Once you're done with your own personal, like, I got X diploma, X degree, X, whatever, that your education is done, and now your job is solely to educate your kiddo. Yes, that is absolutely a humongous responsibility and a humongous focus in any parent's life.

But guess what? We as parents are people too. We are still learning. So what we also are going to hopefully be able to do is shine a light on some topics that would be related to adult learners, or even people who don't have kids. So, if you don't have your own children in your life, this is still a show for you. This is a place for you. Because we are, again, all human beings with brains and hopes and dreams, and we are all acquiring knowledge every single day of our lives. We just wanna invite everybody and make sure that everybody knows that you are welcome here.

Jennie: I love that. That is a good segue to our last segment of our first Weirdschooling episode. And that's our Weird of the Week. And that's where we each get a chance to share something weird, unique, special that we've learned.

Maybe a rabbit hole we've gone down, maybe experience we've had learning ourselves or learning with, other children or learners. Sarah, what is your Weird of the Week? What's something that you have learned this week as a lifelong learner?

Sarah: So my husband and I went to go see John Oliver this weekend, and I think he's fantastic. He's one of those comedians that does a really good job in researching, the, his bits and the things that he talks about. And he was sharing a bit about, British history that I didn't understand or know.

And then I also realized, I basically know nothing about, at least a lot of that, that part of British history. And he was sharing how George I was sort of put in place and how the whole British monarchy started. And I was sort of shocked, appalled, amused, in not only that this person who spoke zero English was German, was put in place as you know, the king, had 50 other people that had a more rightful claim to the throne than he did. And yet there he was. It created this whole monarchy system that we have today with this random placement of this German dude who had maybe questionable morals. And also that I was a flummoxed that I consider myself fairly educated about things, and I knew none of it. So it was kind of a, a weird experience learning all about this. 

Jennie: Wow. So you've heard it here first on Weirdschooling: Comedy-schooling is the next trend that's going to be sweeping the nation. Just take your kids to standups and they'll teach them about British history. So it's nice to have different experiences and to hear from John Oliver, that must have been a super fun experience. It was, 

Sarah: I mean, I did feel somewhat validated because he, as a British person said that he did not understand this or know all of these things until just very recently in his adult life.

So I felt a little bit validated, I guess, in my ignorance of this. But wow, knowledge is great and it gives context to everything. So what is your Weird of the Week?

Jennie: So my Weird of the Week is our Argiope aurantia, which is the fancy pants-I probably-said-it-wrong-name for the yellow garden spider. We have big woods behind our house and we have a covered patio. And a few weeks ago I looked up in the corner of our back porch and I saw a gigantic spider, like I'm saying, ball of my thumb sized body with legs that probably could touch the perimeter of my palm. She has this beautiful web up in the corner of our patio out of the way, minding her own business. And now she has two large egg sacks, which again, I'm not gonna act like this doesn't creep me out a little bit.

So I've researched more than once, making sure that she's not venomous and that she is gonna just like live her life up there, eat mosquitoes for us. I also ended up researching that, wasps can be a problem for their egg sacks. And so now we're gonna have to today go on a, an improbably weird expedition to make sure we don't have any wasps milling around because we have, and I wanna.

Help protect our good Charlotte's egg sacks so that they can do the good work of getting rid of all these darn Texas mosquitoes. So yeah, spiders, we never knew. We all learned so much more about spiders, my kids and I, after just seeing one out in the wild. 

Sarah: (laughs) I love that. I'm not sure that we, at least as of right now, have a planned episode about spider schooling. (Laughter) And actually when you think of that, that could mean a lot of different things. Are we educating the spiders? Are they educating us? Are we learning about things through the life of spiders? I'm not sure. But you never know. 

And last but not least, we invite all of our listeners to join our Facebook community.

You'll be able to find us there, in a little bit different format than just, on our regular podcast page.  We really have felt alone at times in our challenges with education and we know how that feels. So, we have created a page, for the weird schooling community so that anybody anywhere can join where we'll have great conversations, and really just be a place, a soft landing place for you to, talk about the things that, you know, you're 

challenged with, and maybe I'm guessing that you're going to find other people who are having similar challenges as well. So please make sure to look out for that- it's, Weirdschooling Community on Facebook. 

Jennie: Absolutely you can search for it. And also just remember, there's no wrong kind of question. So if you find out that you have a spider living in your backyard and you wanna ask, “Hey Weirdschooling community, do you know any great educational resources about spiders?” Or, “Hey, how can I learn more about the British monarchy?” You know, just ask, share and we'll all learn together.

If you have a great idea for an episode, share that too. We're here for it.

Outro: <Original bright, organ and piano sea shanty music rising in the background.>

Sarah: Weirdschooling is a My Kind of Weird Productions podcast and is co-created by hosts Sarah Woolverton-Mohler and Jennie Ziverk Carr with music by Brooks Milgate.

Jennie: You, your ideas and feedback MATTER, so like, subscribe and leave a review! Share your weirdschooling experiences or challenges on our social media channels at instagram, facebook, or our website at www.weirdschooling.com.

Sarah: We’re here for you– so feel free to join our engaging Weirdschooling Community Facebook group for inclusive, open-hearted idea sharing and camaraderie. 

Jennie: You’re dismissed to go be the weirdest brick in the wall of this wonderful world! 

<Original bright, organ and piano sea shanty music fading in the background with school bell sound.>