A little over a year ago (by the time this post publishes) my father died. He was a buoy in an ocean of what-the-fuckery that is life for a long time. When things were going pear-shaped, I called Dad to laugh with, remind me that life is happening around me, and that I should simultaneously kick back to relax and kick it’s ass. In the year since, I’ve been floating alone, but with a shocking amount of confidence in where I’m going.

Then, it hit me. Keep doing what I’m doing with the homeschooling crowd, but scale it up.

Image from Flickr user Free Learning Life.

A lot of people get nervous around the homeschooling crowd, especially when they are atheist or a scientist (I’m both) thinking that they are some crazy, tin-foil hat wearin’, religious “nut jobs”. I will admit, I’ve come across my fair share of crazy people in the world, but not single one of them from the homeschooling community. In fact, most of the people I’ve run across were just people who didn’t think the public, private, or community schools were the right fit for them and their kids. You know, the kids that are hyperactive, so they don’t want to sit at a desk, all day, every day, becoming a slave to society? Well, the parents of these kids think that there is a different, better way to teach the skills while letting kids be…. kids.

And, yes, sometimes parents want them to have a different kind of spiritual upbringing or focus in their education. There are secular people that focus on a Waldorf method, which focuses a lot on imagination and art work. In fact, there is pretty much a different school of thought (AKA pedagogy) for nearly every philosophical concept.

While I was volunteering at Imagination Station in Lafayette while in grad school, I met several families that lamented the state of the school system. I encouraged them to give it a shot — after all, at the time I was doing pedagogy exchange programme at a middle school and loved the teacher I worked with. Sure, there were problems, but any system has knots. I had only been there for a few weeks out of my semester; I was naive.

Childrens Museum – Media Event 2006 1.Child playing at the Children’s Museum of Manhattan

After a few more weeks and several incidences later, I came to the conclusion that public school is not for everyone. People like the overachiever that school didn’t do enough. Kids like the schizophrenic kid that could be set off by many, many things, lasses like the one that couldn’t focus through any distraction — like another student shuffling their feet to get in a better position. Lads like the one that could have used a few less bullies in life just because he was being raised by his grandparents after his parents died in a car accident.

Public school is not for everyone, and not everyone can afford a private school. Charter school and homeschooling is a fine option. When I looked into working with charter schools, they did not want to pay us for our time, expertise, supplies, nor anything else. They wanted volunteers with teaching certificates. I didn’t have teaching certificates, just passion, a couple years of training, and experience teaching future teachers science and math. Kids that were too smart to stop asking, “why?!”

See? Nothing to worry about at all. Just different kids that don’t fit into the society enforced mould that would train kids for only certain types of work that involve settling into the commonly accepted 9 – 5 model.

And, frankly, no “real” job just after grad school was forthcoming. I had bills to pay. So, I started tutoring homeschoolers in science and math to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.

Fortuitous; the homeschoolers needed someone that was experienced with working with ADHD kids and making science fun. 

Not only did I provide a service that was much needed and appreciated by these homeschool families, but it also kept me from becoming homeless again. I was quite happy with that alone.

Imagine my excitement when I realised that not only was I providing a service to these kind, generous folks and their awesome kids, but also that it was a potential for something that could help my dream company — Insanitek was in it’s infancy. When you own a company and have a dream, there is nothing more freeing than finding your niche that you can serve with all your focus.

So we focus on serving homeschoolers because we can provide them with a service with pride. We enjoy breaking some norms of pedagogy in order to work with kids that might have a few learning disorders, but also to bring science back to life. We — the students, families, and teachers — get to bring joy back to exploring sciences.