Tag: homeschool

Categories
Features

From Hunting to Growing a Family’s Supply of Produce, Stacy Lyn Harris Can Do—and Cook—It All

All of the vegetables Harris and her family eat are harvested from their property’s expansive garden. (James Acomb)

About an hour outside Montgomery, Alabama, there are seven acres of green fields, carefully grafted fruit trees, a garden, and natural woodland. Here, deer, elk, squirrels, rabbits, quail, ducks, wild turkeys, and doves live and forage, eating the acorns dropped by the oaks, grazing freely in the fields, and enjoying the fruit from the trees. This woodland, these fields and trees, are especially for them. The people who own this land deliberately cultivate it so that the wild animals can live healthy lives here, as they firmly believe that “we all can share.”

Stacy Lyn Harris and her family steward this land. They live about 45 minutes away, on an acre of land 10 minutes outside Montgomery, and they visit their wildlife sanctuary every weekend. All the meat they eat comes from their own hunting and fishing on their property, and all their vegetables come from their gardens grown near their house. They also raise chickens, and for a while they kept bees.

For Harris, her husband, Scott, and their seven children, “our sustainable lifestyle is about stewardship,” she said. Guided by her faith, her goal is to live in harmony with nature and without fear, she said, because she knows “we could survive.”

Now, Harris is an expert in her field, speaking about her approach to living off the land at homesteading conferences and on podcasts and interviews, as well as hosting “The Sporting Chef” show on the Sportsman Channel, which she has appeared on for the last 10 years. She’s written best-selling books on sustainable living and cookbooks on how to make venison delicious; her latest is a book about homeschooling, set to be published this year. In all, she estimates she has reached more than half a million people through her books and blog, and more through the show.

At the beginning of her journey, however, “it was kind of an accidental sustainable lifestyle,” Harris recalled. Her husband’s passion for hunting was the unlikely gateway.

Stacy Lyn Harris prepares to carry a rack of ribs from a wild pig into her smokehouse, at her family home outside of Montgomery, Ala.(Graylyn Harris)

An Unexpected Path

Harris grew up in Montgomery with her mom and step-dad, and they “went to the store for everything,” she said. She had something of an antagonistic relationship with hunting when she was younger: “My dad lived in the country and he hunted and fished, but I didn’t spend a ton of time with him. He was never there when I went to visit, and I had this aversion to hunting.”

During college, however, she met Scott. “I married this guy who is the biggest hunter you ever met in your life,” Harris said. “When we were dating, he would go out every single day of the hunting season, and he would do that now if he could.” In their early marriage, they struggled because “I felt in competition with the hunting,” she said. Eventually, “I felt a tug in my heart going, ‘You know what, you can choose to be happy here and get on board, or not.’” So, Harris said, “I did.”

She quickly discovered “why women weren’t involved in this at all.” It was because, she said, “they didn’t like the meat. They didn’t know how to cook it, and there weren’t any beautiful cookbooks.” Overcooked wild game, she noted, tastes horrible.

Harris gave herself three months to learn how to cook the meat well. “If I’m going to eat something, it has to be really good,” she explained. She went to antique cookbooks and recipes from times when people “had to deal with their old roosters, their hens who weren’t laying anymore, tough wild turkeys, grass-fed beef.” She learned the old techniques for handling meat that doesn’t have a lot of fat—such as braising, which cooks tough meat long and slow, allowing the fibers to relax—and marveled at how good it could taste. Eager to share her knowledge, she wrote her first cookbook, “Tracking the Outdoors In,” published in 2012.

From there, their path forward seemed to naturally unfold. “Scott hunted and we had all this great meat. Then we said, ‘Why don’t we start a garden and have vegetables, too?’” Next, they added chickens to the plan. “We didn’t talk about it a whole lot,” she said. “I thought Scott was just doing projects with the kids, building chicken tractors,” perhaps as part of their homeschooling, but one morning at 6 a.m., she got a call from the post office, and “They had chirping birds for me!”

And so it went. They now have about 50 chickens—when they aren’t being raided by coyotes—“and then we started bees, and we made a bigger garden, and we started grafting fruit trees, and we saved our seeds,” Harris said. The family has a well for water, hunts from their land, fishes from their ponds, and gathers vegetables from their gardens.

Educating and Empowering Others

Now very passionate about hunting, Harris explained that “hunters are such conservationists. They’re seeing how to manage the wildlife so they don’t get overpopulated or underpopulated, and they’re out there seeing the diseases so we can keep our wildlife healthy.” Hunting is also economically feasible for a family—“one deer will get you through about 40 meals,” Harris said. As part of the homesteading movement, she occasionally speaks at conferences to educate people about sustainably incorporating hunting and fishing into their lives—“and I teach them how to cook it to make it really good.”

After hunting, gardening was a natural next step in Harris’s journey into a sustainable lifestyle. (Graylyn Harris)

Harris is proudest that she and Scott have “taught our children that they can survive, they can make it, and they are able to do it, all of it—the hunting, the cooking, the gardening,” she said. By homeschooling her children, she’s been able to build education into their way of life, so that they learn for learning’s sake. “They may never need it, they may never have to be self-sustaining, but because they can be, they’re going to take bigger risks in life. They can walk through life without fear.

“That, to me, is the most important thing,” Harris said. “If you think, ‘I’m afraid I will lose everything if I do that,’ you will never live to your fullest potential.”

To others looking to become more self-reliant, Harris’s advice is to gain knowledge and experience in “fun and normal circumstances to see if you can do it—and most people can,” she said. “You need salt for curing, a water source, knowledge to build a fire, and some basic cooking tools,” she said. “That’s a skillet, seasoning, twine, a good knife, and a cooking board. You can feed the world with that.” Her long-term goal is “just to reach as many people as I can,” she said, “and to encourage them in their walks of life.”

Living a Life of Joy

Harris wakes up each day with more tasks on the agenda than she can possibly get done. But by praying every morning, she tries to follow the path that God sets before her.

Over the years, she’s realized that “sometimes you have to do the big stuff and let everything else go,” she said. She keeps a list of her priorities in order: “God, husband, kids, home, extended family, church and community, emails, notes, business.” Every day she considers what needs her attention, and her list helps keep what’s most important at the forefront. Since she keeps family first, even their interruptions come before her other tasks, and she raised her kids to know that they can go to her at any time with anything to say.

She feels grounded by how well they have turned out: “They’re seeking God, they’re doing things together, they’re movers and shakers,” she said. “I think walking in joy every day, choosing to walk in joy, helps that. [It] helps your children to want what you have.

“If I start feeling anxious or short-tempered, then I know I’m not going in the right direction, I’m not doing what I should be doing because I should be able to do it in peace,” she said. “My calm is a peace inside. If I can’t laugh, then something’s wrong.” For Harris, life is a journey that she chooses to walk in joy and in harmony with the world she shares.

From January Issue, Volume 3

Categories
A Love of Learning

No Crying in Debate

(Mark Fuller/Unsplash)

The young men and women arrived for their debate dressed in jackets, slacks, and skirts. They wanted to look the part, as a strategy for winning. This was to be their very first debate in their weekly homeschool co-op class day. The subject was a sobering one: The federal government should discontinue capital punishment.

Jane, a shy, 15-year-old student who eschewed attention of any kind, nervously organized her papers at her assigned table next to her partner Mary, who barely concealed her own apprehensions. Jane was particularly anxious about the portion of the debate known as “cross,” where her opponent could question her openly about any of her research or her position on the topic. The coin toss earlier had resulted in Jane and Mary arguing for the affirmative and against the death sentence punishment.

Teaching debate is a lost art. Today, students typically learn simply to memorize information the teacher provides and then regurgitate it on the exam. But argument is our bulwark against violence. We should be instructing children in the art of persuasion and debate as a means of discovering truth and reaching understanding. While most public schooling cements rigidity of the mind, purposely instructing young people in forensics affords them flexibility of thought such that one day they might win in the marketplace of ideas. Debate is the very means by which this country discovered itself and offered freedom and its accompanying explosion of prosperity the world had never before seen.

The cramped office in the church where they all met hosted both debate tables, the speaker’s podium, and several chairs for visiting parents and other students. It would have been standing room only if there had been any room left to stand in.

Suddenly, Jane looked sternly at her mother, rose from her table, and walked briskly outside the constricted space. The hallway was vacant, and Jane’s mother came up behind her. “What’s going on, Jane?”

Jane turned to face her mother, her face streaked with tears, her lips trembling. “I… can’t… do… this.”

“Yes, you can,” her mom told her sternly. Her own mind was reeling. There’s no crying in debate! If she gave in to Jane’s panic, then the loss might be permanent. No, she thought to herself. She has to get through this somehow. But how? Jane was melting down before her eyes. “Mom, look at me. I can’t stop crying. I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing… what to say!”

“Jane, we’ve gone through this. You have your papers. You’ve prepared for this. Everything is written down.” “Not for cross!” Jane hissed vehemently. “I have no idea what he’ll ask me!” “You will simply answer to the best of your ability, Jane. You can do this. You march in there, and go through with it. They’re counting on you. We all are. And you’ve done the work.” Jane’s mother sounded more convicted than she felt, but fundamentally she understood that giving in was worse than standing firm.

Through alternate hounding and cajoling, Mom managed to get the young woman to walk back into the room. She was to begin the debate, presenting the affirmative’s side. She turned twice more from the podium to attempt to gather her composure before beginning. Then, tears continually flowing down her cheeks, Jane sobbed through reading her well-prepared pages. She even withstood cross-examination, and by the end of the debate, she had proven to herself that she was stronger than she had previously believed.

A first debate is always a struggle. We’re naturally intimidated by new experiences, especially growing ones. Debate stretches the debater if they want to win. We need to teach our children how to win in the realm of thought.

Which brings us to the second debate, where the debaters discover opportunities to correct previous mistakes and test further strategies. This time Jane knew she would be on the negative side, and she organized her approach based on her initial experience.

The day arrived, and Jane felt less than half as nervous as the previous week. She had battled many demons that day and conquered the bigger ones. “Is killing wrong?” Jane asked the tall, dark-haired young man she was crossing. “Yes,” he answered quickly and decisively. “All the time?” “Well, yes, of course!” As a Christian homeschooler, the young man knew the commandment not to kill.

“What about in war?” Jane asked, nervous, but committed to her strategy and convinced of its efficacy. “Well,” the young man looked up off to the left, considering. He obviously understood there was a trap, but he couldn’t see avoiding it. He believed that some killing was righteous, especially in wartime, and so, he answered honestly. “In war, the killing is justified.”

“Thank you. No further questions.” Jane smiled to herself. Another demon defeated. When Jane took the podium to argue her rebuttal, she offered that the state views serial killers as warring against the public. Her specific case was a particularly heinous tale of a murderer who had been freed, who then committed eight more monstrous murders before being put to death.

Jane won her case. But more than that, she won her battle with fear. Studying and engaging in debate paves a path to freedom. Failing or avoiding teaching young people this skill shackles them.

Unfortunately, most public schools these days don’t tolerate argument or encourage independent thought, seeking uniformity and coerced agreement, instead. Kids in public schools should be crying over their inability to debate.

Sam Sorbo is an actress, talk radio hostess, and author of “They’re Your Kids: An Inspirational Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate.”

Categories
A Love of Learning Reading

Reading, the Gateway to Empathy

“It’s all so sad,” said Emma, reflecting on the death of Hector as seen through the eyes of his grieving parents. “Especially because last week during class, I was happy about Achilles getting his revenge. We were excited as he put his armor on and went out to fight with Hector. We’ve been waiting for this moment ever since Hector killed Patroclus. But now, I hate it.”

Welcome to my homeschool literature class where we’re diving deep into the “Iliad.”

The narrative’s changing point of view has Emma and her classmates on a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Where once they cheered Achilles on as he prepared for battle, now the kids are face-to-face with the high price of war. They’ve seen the grief of Hector’s parents, who watched as their son was cut down on the battlefield in front of them.

Another scene shift and now they see Hector’s wife, Andromache, weaving at her loom, getting a hot bath ready for Hector, oblivious to the fact her husband has just been killed. “I think Homer’s a stinker,” said Lauren. “He makes us want Achilles to succeed with his revenge, but as soon as it happens, I’m sad for Hector’s wife and family. Especially since the whole time he’s describing Andromache, we know what’s happened, so we’re here waiting for the other shoe to drop for her. Reading that was awful.”

“I wish life could be more fair,” said Emma.

More than watching movies or television shows, more than listening to audiobooks or playing games, reading serves as a magic doorway to empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people. Unfortunately in today’s world, feeling empathy for others is quickly becoming something of a lost art. But it doesn’t have to be. Particularly when you start early. Award-winning children’s book creator Julia Cook, author of nearly 100 books for children, including “The Judgmental Flower” and the forthcoming “Will You Be the I in KIND?,” says, “You cannot teach empathy to children, you can only offer them experiences that allow them to develop it from within. Reading is a great way to do that!”

As a longtime classroom teacher, I agree. I regularly remind my students that none of us has the time to meet all the people, live through all the situations, visit all the places, and make all the mistakes, so reading is our next best option. Be they fiction or nonfiction, poetry or prose or plays; books and the characters who live in their pages help readers view the world firsthand from someone else’s perspective. A character’s point of view becomes the lens through which readers see the action and interactions of the story. Readers sneak inside someone else’s head and share that person’s emotions. As readers, we have the opportunity to experience more of the world than we ever could on our own.

As a former school counselor, Cook quickly realized that in order to help children, she needed to enter their view of the world, to empathize with them as they tried to figure out how the world worked. Reading books makes it easier for children to understand emotions and people’s reactions to extreme situations when they aren’t immediately involved in those situations. Plus, reading (or being read to) gives kids the opportunity to see the world from a point of view other than their own.

Maybe that new perspective comes from Hank the Cowdog’s point of view, maybe it comes from Big Dog and Little Dog, maybe from a classic such as Lassie or Old Yeller. The important thing is for children to learn that the world doesn’t look the same to everyone. Different people experience things in different ways. Little Dog’s encounter with a too-long bed is different than Big Dog’s encounter with a too-short bed.

As an only child, I never longed for siblings of my own, but I was curious about how having a brother or sister worked. That curiosity was satisfied by Charlie and Sally Brown and Lucy and Linus Van Pelt as I read about their sibling antics in the Peanuts comic strips. As I grew older, I joined the Ingalls family in the Little House books and later, the Bennet family of “Pride and Prejudice.” I gained an understanding of how tumultuous and intense the relationship between siblings can be.

Before I experienced the death of a loved one in real life, I was as powerless as Meg, Jo, and Amy to save dear, sweet Beth March in Little Women. While the March family grieved their loss, I sobbed along in my bedroom, because as a reader, I had lost someone important to me too.

I began to understand what grief felt like. I also learned how much it could hurt to be told “Ah, what’s the big deal, it’s only a book; it’s not like anybody actually died.” And by extension, I realized I didn’t want to be the one to say, “Ah, what’s the big deal, it’s ‘just’ a —” to someone else who experienced a loss. That’s empathy.

That’s what Atticus Finch is talking about when he tells Scout (and everyone who reads “To Kill a Mockingbird”) “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Atticus doesn’t add a caveat of “but only walk around in the skin of people you like or people who are like you.” It’s important to extend empathy to everyone. Later in the novel, Atticus once again reminds Scout, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”

What if that became a summertime goal? It’s as easy as searching out a book that sounds interesting. Then just turn the page, slip into someone else’s shoes, and open the gateway to empathy.

Gina Prosch is a writer, home educator, life coach, and parent located in mid-Missouri. She is the author of “This Day’s Joy” and “Finding This Day’s Joy,” both of which are available at Amazon. Find her online at GinaProsch.com or TheHomeschoolWay.com. She also co-hosts The OnlySchoolers Podcast (OnlySchoolers.com). 

Categories
A Love of Learning

Teaching Virtue

Mother and daughter holding hands on picnic table in park (Shutterstock)

When our daughter turned 4, my husband and I began to think about our choices for her education. At that time, I was part of a small mothers’ co-op in the San Francisco Bay Area with women who were friends and shared my values. It was a safe environment in which we were free to guide the children spiritually and teach them principles of good behavior.

The parents in our co-op started to have conversations about schools in the area, which led to an important decision. The private schools there were very expensive and the public schools had no curriculum for teaching kids how to develop good character. God had been kicked out of public schools a long time ago, so there was no spiritual presence in the classrooms.

One of our co-op parents, Dr. Mose Durst, was a professor in a local college. He became very aware of the negative results of years of secular education. Most of his students lacked a sense of vision and purpose, and consequently were careless and confused. The parents in our group believed what research shows: young children don’t naturally and automatically know how to make good choices in their social and emotional behaviors, at school, at home, and in the community. They need explicit instruction and support in order to develop into adults who can contribute to a virtuous and prosperous society.

What would it take to build our own school that emphasized the character development of its students, included core values such as respect, responsibility, and self-discipline, and provided instruction that led to outstanding academic achievement? Under the leadership of Dr. Durst, members of our co-op began building the school we envisioned. It took a great deal of commitment, sacrifice, and research to make it happen. As our core staff developed the school incrementally, adding grades each year as our children grew, we discovered many wonderful resources that helped us create a significant character education school that prospers and continues to prepare students for future success.

I’d like to share just one of these resources that became a backbone of our virtues education. It’s very simple and can be used in the home for those families who don’t have access to a school that reflects traditional family values. The Core Virtues Foundation, established by Mary Beth Klee, provides materials for schools and homeschooling families that teach principles of good behavior.

“The mission of the Core Virtues Foundation is to advance virtues-based character education for elementary school children and to marshal the resources of literature and history on behalf of that endeavor. Drawing on the American Founders’ insight that knowledge and virtue are essential to a properly functioning republic, the Core Virtues Foundation seeks to promote the intellectual, moral, and civic virtues…”

At our school, the Principled Academy, we adopted their Virtue of the Month curriculum as well as the Core Knowledge curriculum, developed by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., that provides comprehensive, content-rich learning materials in all subject areas. The Core Virtues Foundation believes that the main method of helping young children understand virtues is by telling stories. Consequently, the school day always begins with a story related to the virtue of the month, and a prayer.

What are these virtues? Each month of the school year has its own emphasis, beginning with respect and responsibility in September and ending with heroism and wisdom in June. For anyone who’s interested, their website has all the information parents need to implement this plan in the home or promote it in their child’s school.

Here’s an example of how I used this in my second-grade classroom. One of the March virtues is compassion, which is defined as being able to feel what others are feeling and trying to help them with their troubles. I read stories to my students about compassion but that was only part of the approach I used. They needed a more direct experience with the meaning of compassion, so I invited them to be pen pals for a month with a child I sponsored in the Philippines through Children International.

They learned about his life of poverty and how sponsorship helped him go to school and get health care. We talked about the difference between “needs” and “wants,” how this boy’s parents were too poor to provide him with his basic needs, such as nutritious food and shoes, which he was required to have in order to attend school. The money I sent each month provided him with needs, such as clothing, personal hygiene items, and so on. He may have wanted toys and sporting equipment, but his gifts at birthdays and other special occasions were always practical.

My students wrote letters to Mawill, asking him about life in the Philippines, and he joyfully wrote back and drew pictures of plants and animals in this tropical climate. We had class meetings to read the letters and talk about how their words and pictures may have helped him feel happy in spite of his difficult living situation. When asked how they felt about the experience, many shared how it made them feel good. The virtue of compassion was no longer just a concept for these kids.

What does it look like when the virtues learned in the classroom take root, develop and bear fruit in adult life? The knowledge and practice of these virtues are a prescription for future success in an otherwise confusing adult world. Young adults who are lucky enough to receive virtues education and lifestyle support tend to experience both outward success and inner strength and confidence, which helps improve their communities.

Poppy Richie is a freelance writer and former teacher and administrator at the Principled Academy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She co-authored a K–12 Character Education curriculum, “Discovering the Real Me” and contributed to online elementary-level science education curricula for various companies. 

Categories
A Love of Learning

Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Offer Arizona Parents Finances, Flexibility to Home Educate

(Shutterstock)

When Michael and Jenny Clark discovered that two of their eldest children had dysgraphia and were dyslexic, they were unsuccessful in finding intensive remediation programs in their local public school, which their sons Scout and Brooks needed to learn how to read.

“I was shocked because we live in one of the best school districts in Arizona,” Ms. Clark said in an interview.

Through a variety of random encounters, the mother of five subsequently learned about the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program and promptly applied. Her two sons, ages 9 and 11, qualified, and now Clark is entrusted with $12,000, which she uses to home educate them both.

An ESA, also known as an Education Savings Account, provides parents with a portion of public funds for private school tuition, tutoring services, textbooks, specialized teachers, therapists, and other educational resources.

“My kids actually had qualified for an ESA years earlier because of their speech delays, but no one told me about it,” Clark said.

Clark’s two sons are among the 6,310 students being educated with ESAs outside of Arizona public schools, which cost some $82 million in 2021, according to media reports.

“Once we got our kids onto ESA, we were able to use those funds to buy the very specific curriculum they needed,” she said. “We were also able to get them speech therapy and to hire tutors so they could learn to read. They go to a really great therapist for a variety of different things, including their handwriting disability.”

Arizona’s $82 million is a cost that, if ESAs take hold in other states, experts allege could cumulatively cripple public schools financially nationwide over time.

“I predict less enrollment in public schools, which will have an impact because all the fixed costs of utilities, maintenance, payroll, and insurance remain in place, but you have fewer kids enrolled in public school to help foot the bill,” said Lee Jenkins, author of the book “How to Create a Perfect School.”

Currently, there are only six states that have ESA programs, according to the Education Commission of the States. They include Arizona, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

“In the beginning, it might be good for kids enrolled in public schools because there will be fewer kids per class, but in the long run, as more parents opt to home educate their kids with ESAs, it won’t be a positive, necessarily, for the public schools,” Jenkins told American Essence. “It could be a positive for education as a whole if there’s more parents who are happy with their kids’ learning through ESAs.”

K–12 public schools spend $612.7 billion, or $12,612 per pupil per year, according to Education Data statistics, with the federal government providing 7.7 percent of funding and the state and local governments providing 46.7 percent and 45.6 percent of public education funds, respectively.

“That money belongs to each student, and we would argue that the funding should follow the child, just like a backpack, but in Arizona, not all of the money allocated follows an ESA child,” Clark said in an interview. “Some of the money is left behind for the public school, and in Arizona, the per-pupil funding is more than $10,000 but ESAs only pay out around $6,000 per student.”

Without access to Arizona’s ESA funding, Kayla Svedin says there’d be no way she could afford to home educate her three children on her husband’s teacher salary.

“I pay for my younger two who are in kindergarten and preschool to attend a private in-home Montessori school, and my oldest is a 9-year-old in fourth grade who studies with another fourth-grader three days a week,” Svedin said. “Our daughters are very similar in their learning styles, and with our ESA monies, the other parent and I hired a private instructor to teach them at their house. So I drop my daughter off.”

In order to tap into ESA money, children must qualify under one of ten categories, which include adopted from foster care, having special needs, or having a learning disability. Once a parent completes the application and the child is approved, however, Svedin says the parent’s work has just begun.

“ESAs are highly audited and highly accountable,” she said. “I have to prove what I’m buying every single quarter, and I have to upload credentials, receipts, and invoices for every purchase.”

Svedin, a stay-at-home mom, co-founded a local community nonprofit with three other ESA mothers, called Empowered Arizona Families, to help others secure ESA funding for home education.

“You have to submit a Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (MET) report or an Individualized Education Program (IEP) evaluation or a 405 Education Plan to the Arizona Department of Education with your application, and don’t let any bumps in the road stop you,” she said. “If you are denied, you can appeal.”

Juliette Fairley is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Born in Chateauroux, France, and raised outside of Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Juliette is a well-adjusted military brat who now lives in Manhattan. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, TheStreet, Time magazine, the Chicago City Wire, the Austin-American Statesman, and many other publications across the country.