258: Homeschool

Homeschool 

The term and concept of homeschool are often misunderstood. People usually worry about the socialization aspect of opting to homeschool children. But this is far from the truth.  The kids of my guest, Daniel Louzonis is doing well academically and socially, and I am thrilled to have him dive deeper into the homeschool concept.

Check out this video of Daniel's 6 year old doing algebra and his homeschooling programs!

Traditional Education

Like most people, Daniel Louzonis had a traditional education background. He grew up in an academically rigorous system in Massachusetts, graduating from high school in 1992.

Daniel Louzonis worked to get into an Ivy League school and eventually got into the University of Pennsylvania. He was the captain of the math team in college and found college math easier than high school.

Rude Awakening

After graduation, Daniel Louzonis eventually started his career trading stocks. Although he found nothing wrong with his educational path, he suddenly realized he was already 30 years old with a wife and baby, and at a crossroad dealing with a dwindling career.

Daniel Louzonis had to reinvent himself at 30 years old. He realized that apparently, his educational path wasn't sustainable. Accidentally embarking on a journey of self-education, Daniel Louzonis started blogging and refreshing his knowledge through the internet.

During his self-discovery journey, Daniel Louzonis discovered that he had vast untapped potential and that the path he was previously on was suboptimal.

Homeschooling His Kids

Daniel Louzonis decided to deviate from the traditional system by homeschooling his firstborn child, John. When John was around three and a half years old, Daniel Louzonis started doing Kumon workbooks with him.

“My son was exposed to individualized instruction at a very young age. He made leaps and bounds with his learning progress. At 18 months, he did 2,200 pages of Kumon books,” shares Daniel Louzonis.

John's progress in math was significant. He was able to finish 6th-grade math, and at five years old, he also finished phonic reading. Daniel Louzonis reveals that John started algebra, nine months before John was scheduled to start kindergarten. Now, that's amazing!

Reality of Homeschool

After deciding to put John under a homeschool program, Daniel Louzonis could see that John could never go into a school environment because he was just too advanced. He never knew that homeschool could produce such significant results in kids.

“The context was interesting. Because at 30 years old, despite having an Ivy League education and geographic mobility, I never heard the word homeschooling,” admits Daniel Louzonis. “My initial impression was that the parents were in the kitchen creating a makeshift school at home.” 

He adds, “I had no idea that homeschooling is a misnomer. And it didn't even begin to describe the educational possibility that was available to kids who were educated outside the system. Plus, I don't say homeschool. I say, educated outside the system.”

Reasons To Homeschool

Daniel Louzonis says there are five to ten core philosophies in homeschooling. And people chose to homeschool their kids for varied reasons. Some homeschool for religious reasons, do hybrid homeschool or flexi homeschool. For families who travel a lot, their kids usually do world homeschooling. Other kids opt for homeschool to devote a majority of their time to focus on sports or music. 

“Homeschooling is marked by extreme freedom. So, it defies labeling. Some people in the homeschooling system are chauvinistic, but that goes with the territory. You have to be a free thinker and confident on what you do,” advises Daniel Louzonis.

Some parents turn to homeschooling their kids because of bullying incidents in a traditional school. The reasons change over time. Bottomline, Daniel Louzonis says homeschooling is a good option because not everyone is into academics.

I believe that the parents are the executive function of the child. Once a child has the means or logic brain solidly in place, that's when parents can hand over the executive function to the child.

Things To Consider

Seriously thinking of putting your kids to homeschool? Daniel Louzonis says the first thing one should do is to be introspective. Write down your current situation and the role your environment plays in your current situation. Think long and hard about what you wrote.

“Everything that a person has today can all be traced back to their education or inputs they received along the way. If you want a substantially different outcome for your kids, we have to change inputs,” Daniel Louzonis said. “Parents who are not willing to look at their situation critically, will not have that growth mindset.”

Coaching Session

Daniel Louzonis does coaching sessions for three hours a week for 52 weeks. The program costs US$ 50,000 and the sessions are very intense.

Daniel Louzonis says most of the parents want him to work directly with their kids. And a lot of it is math. This is because math is the building block for attention span and mental discipline.

In some cases, Daniel Louzonis only works with the parents. He helps them fix their mindset or improving and maximizing the home. 

“Home is the biggest fulcrum for a child's intellectual development whether they are in school or not. TV, for example, makes books boring. With no TV, books become the most fascinating thing,” said Daniel Louzonis.

Dangers Of Technology

Daniel Louzonis affirms that his kids have zero television time. He believes it is the most important thing he ever did with his kids. Another thing parents should be wary of is video games.

According to Daniel Louzonis, video games trigger the hyperarousal of the brain.  It leads to the destruction of fine motor skills, short attention span, and short-term memory. One of the worst gadgets a kid could have are cellphones, iPads, and laptops.

Socialization Skills

One of the greatest fear of any parent is the fear of their kids being left out or bullied in school. In reality, every one of us who have been on the school path, we've all felt left out at some point. Daniel Louzonis says that whole fear is a legacy of our schooling.

“My kids don't know what's it like to be picked on. Kids do not need to be put in a hostile, toxic, hyper-conformist peer environment to know how to get along with others,” said Daniel Louzonis.

History Of School

I have previously looked into the Trivium Education, where the program focuses on general grammar, formal logic and classical rhetoric. There are just so many healthy alternatives out there to educate our children. And it's our responsibility as parents to choose the right school or learning method for them.

Speaking of school, Daniel Louzonis shares an interesting trivia on how schools came to be. Schools were invented back in 1850 in Massachusetts. It started as an experiment yet had a poor track record and short history.

Initially, the idea was that children had always gone to age-graded classrooms to learn. And everyone assumed it's the best way for kids to learn. But, according to Daniel Louzonis, there was no basis for that.

“The powers that be wanted to control people. They saw education as a way to get people to stop thinking for themselves,” said Daniel Louzonis. “They didn't want labor unrest. But that doesn't change that fact that mass government compulsory education is about population and mind control.”

Fast forward to the 1950s and 1960s; Daniel Louzonis says the schools had a couple of subsidies that don't exist today and won't ever exist again. Number one was the chauvinism subsidy, wherein the smartest women in America became teachers. They were not engaged in any other profession nor were they running large companies.

Daniel Louzonis says the second subsidy was family. The family was always together. Parents were married, not like today where many couples are divorced. In the 1950s, grandparents even lived nearby. Now we don't have extended family living in one neighborhood anymore.

“But on the contrary, because of the internet, the opportunity to travel, and the flexibility for parents to work from home, there are more opportunities to hyper-accelerate kids,” Daniel Louzonis said.

Learning Progress

Daniel Louzonis says staying all day in a traditional school isn't always productive for kids. He says not much happens within the six hours that the kids are in school.

Furthermore, Daniel Louzonis says that if schools were teaching kids from 9 am to 3 pm, why do they come home with 3 hours of homework. Whereas in homeschooling, kids are done by noontime.

Don't Fear Math

Daniel Louzonis assures that math isn't painful. It's a tool. On the contrary, he says the school is painful. Studying for tests is painful.

But why do we teach kids math? Daniel Louzonis says it's because kids need to learn to think in logical sequences. On this note, he recommends the Khan Academy as a great online tool to teach kids math at different levels.

“I teach it totally different compared to schools. And my kids do even better. It's a very heavy emphasis on computation,” said Daniel Louzonis. “But the big thing is, don't take time off on weekends. Do it like a half hour or 45 minutes on weekends. Eventually, parents learn to love it, too.”

In doing this, Daniel Louzonis attests that you will never slide back. Plus, your child will feel very confident. It would still be hard, but kids wouldn't have this math phobia that they will carry with them their whole life. Having a math phobia which pushes people into making bad financial decisions.

As for testing your kids, Daniel Louzonis says some people avoid testing because they don't want to know what grade their kid is at math. But for Daniel Louzonis, he likes tests as a diagnostic tool. He says schools mainly do testing, and it just stresses kids out. But that doesn't mean we throw out testing altogether.

Einstein Blueprint

The Einstein Blueprint is Daniel Louzonis' curriculum on how to hyper-accelerate your kids. He has a whole section called Teach To Learn. Under the curriculum, it encourages the concept that one of the things your kid should be doing is teaching something to somebody else.

“It is broken down into different sections. One of them is strictly about the brain and all the things we need to do ideally to our kid's brain,” Daniel Louzonis said.

Home School Legal Defense Association

The HSLDA is a Christian organization, and there are legal advocates globally. According to Daniel Louzonis, the organization is behind the reason why homeschooling is recognized by law in all 50 states. People pay to raise money for getting advocates from all over the world who work to ensure the right to homeschool.

“I think that school is so bad that it's addition by subtraction. A lot of people fail at homeschooling because they weren't rigorous enough, or because the parents don't read books to their kids. The way I do homeschooling, it should be getting easier every year,” said Daniel Louzonis. 

He adds, “There are also limiting beliefs that if you homeschool, you have to have a PH.D. degree but you don't. Beyond that is ideally, you want your kids to be on the path of self-education. It's about creating a natural curiosity and raising life-long learners.”

Bio

Daniel Louzonis is an NYC-based child acceleration specialist. He's a homeschooling coach and a “math genius” teacher. While Ivy League-educated himself – at the University of Pennsylvania – he's a major advocate and practitioner of “education outside the system.”

Get Connected With Daniel Louzonis!

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Recommended Reading by Daniel Louzonis

The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

 

Recommended Links

Khan Academy

Trivium Education

HSLDA

Free Your Anxiety

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Homeschool – Daniel Louzonis & Ashley James – #258

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