Homeschooling Children with Special Needs

“I had a friend who was homeschooling, and she was joking with me and saying, ‘You’re homeschooling, you’re a homeschooler. Just wait and see, you’re going to homeschool.’ And I said, ‘No, no, no.’ I didn’t want to homeschool. That wasn’t on my radar at all. But God just really started working in my heart too, that I wanted to be the one to disciple my children and raise them up in the Lord.”- Faith Berens

Faith Berens is a special needs education consultant with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). As a special needs consultant for HSLDA, Faith helps families find educational solutions for their children’s learning challenges and disabilities. She has worked as a classroom teacher, in both public and private schools, a Reading Recovery® teacher, an NILD educational therapist, and as a private tutor. Faith specializes in child literacy and has a master’s degree in reading from Shenandoah University. She draws on her extensive experience with learning difficulties including her own struggle with dyscalculia and homeschooling her own children with unique learning challenges to help homeschool students facing their own learning struggles. Her areas of expertise are early childhood literacy, reading assessment, and the identification and remediation of reading difficulties and disabilities.

Yvette Hampton:           For those of you who are not familiar with HSLDA, maybe you’re just jumping onto this whole homeschooling train and you’re trying to figure out what it is, HSLDA is the Home School Legal Defense Association. They are a fantastic organization that really protects our rights as homeschoolers. They’ve been around for quite some time now, about 30 years, right, Faith?

Faith Berens:                35 actually.

Yvette:                         35 years! I knew that there was just an anniversary last year and I couldn’t remember if it was 30 or 35. For the past 35 years they have been fighting for the rights for us to be able to homeschool our children. Faith is one of their special needs consultants, and I’m excited to have her on the show. So welcome to the show.

Listen to Faith on The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast (8/27/2019 episode)

Faith:                            Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be a part of this ministry and what you’re doing. It’s really awesome to be your guest today.

Yvette:                         Yeah. Thank you so much. Tell us about you and your family and your background.

Faith:                            Sure. I’m a homeschooling mom of two. I have a 16-year-old daughter. She’ll be 17 soon, and she has her learner’s permit. She’ll be getting her driver’s license soon, so everybody can pray for me. And then my son is nine, so we have two, and my mom lives with us, so she helps with our homeschooling and we live here in northern Virginia in Fauquier County, and have been homeschooling for 12 plus years.

Yvette:                         Wow. I Love Northern Virginia. It’s one of my favorite parts of the country. We went several years ago, and I remember driving through the Shenandoah Valley. It’s so beautiful. I felt like we were driving through a picture. I think it was October and it was just breathtaking. You live in a very, very beautiful part of the country. I’m from the desert in California, so it’s quite different than what I grew up with.

So, we want to talk today about special needs. Several months ago we talked a little bit about special needs on The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast, so I wanted to have you on because I know that this is a huge concern for a lot of moms, especially for moms who are just starting to think about homeschooling or maybe they are feeling like God is prompting them towards homeschooling, but they think, “I’ve got a special needs student,” and I know that we’ll talk about kind of the whole range of what special needs is, but they think “I’ve got a special needs student and so I can’t.” Oftentimes I think that’s because their doctor or their school counselor or their child’s preschool teacher or kindergarten teacher says, “Oh, well, they need to be in this specific program.” And so as parents we think, “Well, we want what’s best for our kids. And, of course, this is what’s best for them. So, we must put them in this special program.” So, I would love for you to, first, tell your story. Tell us about how you got involved with special needs and homeschooling.

“I always had a heart for my students that were struggling.”

Faith:                            Sure. Well, it’s kind of a long and winding story, but God doesn’t waste anything. So, I was always a struggling student myself and I have what’s called dyscalculia, which is the math learning disability. And I usually tell parents they can think of that as the math version of dyslexia. So I struggled all through school, but with the help of my mom and getting tutors and accommodations in place, I did fine with that kind of support. I’m a product of public school unfortunately, but went off to college and that’s really where I got the official diagnosis of dyscalculia, and again with accommodations and support was able to do really well, and then went on to get a master’s degree. So I mean, God doesn’t waste anything.

This transcript is generously provided by MakeCrate. MakeCrate provides your homeschooler with the STEM skills they need for the future! Fun, hands-on electronics kits paired with an online learning platform teach your middle or high schooler engineering and coding fundamentals right at home! No technical expertise is required. Order your MakeCrate today at MakeCrate.Club/SR.    

I always had a heart for my students that were struggling. I ended up majoring in education and then became a reading specialist, and it felt like God put me in public school and private school. That was my ministry. But then when my own children came along, I sent my daughter off to kindergarten half-day, and I was the reading specialist at the school where she was. And she was very high in reading and had a lot of struggles in math as well. She had some attention, focus issues, and some low frustration tolerance, things going on. And naturally in the afternoon I was working with her and supplementing what she was getting at school and loving being home with her. God laid it on my heart to want to be home and to have another child, and I wanted to be my kids’ teacher.

And so, I had a friend who was homeschooling, and she was joking with me and saying, “You’re homeschooling, you’re a homeschooler. Just wait and see, you’re going to homeschool. And I said, “No, no, no.” I didn’t want to homeschool. That wasn’t on my radar at all. But God just really started working in my heart too, that I wanted to be the one to disciple my children and raise them up in the Lord. And that education was about a lot more than just academics. So naturally we made the shift. I left public school and my husband said, “Well, if you can find a job working in your field and making x amount of money part time and work from home,” I still needed to work part-time. And we started praying and I just felt, “What am I going to do?

I’m a trained teacher. What else am I going to do?” How am I going to find a work from job part-time in my niche, which is reading specialist in dyslexia, but serving homeschoolers or private school students and get out of public school. And I just started praying, God, get me out of Egypt and random laundry list. And within six months, God worked it out. There was a job at HSLDA. I didn’t even seek it. It fell in my lap. He opened so many doors. He’s so faithful. So I like to share that story with other parents that think, “How am I going to homeschool? First of all, I don’t know what to do” or I don’t have any training, I don’t have any background” or “I don’t think I’m going to have support. I don’t even know where to start.”

But you know, God orchestrates things and He doesn’t waste any of our experiences and He will provide a way and the resources, and His timing is perfect.

Yvette:                         Yes, I love that. Talk about some of the special needs that parents face today, and then talk about some of the benefits that there are to homeschooling those kids.

Faith:                            Sure. We see a huge gamut, anywhere from gifted students, to gifted with learning disabilities, though they’re referred to as twice exceptional. So they might have a learning disability or a processing problem on top of being gifted. Dyslexia is huge. I mean about one in five people, it depends on what stat you read, it can be one in five to one in 10 people, are impacted with dyslexia. And then of course autism has skyrocketed. And so those are the big groups. More and more families are pulling kids out of school to homeschool because of special needs, specifically autism and dyslexia.

“We always tell parents that homeschooling really is an individualized education program. And that’s what it is, due to its very nature. So parents are uniquely gifted. They know their children better than anybody. They love them more than anyone else. They want to see them succeed. You’re going to have much lower teacher-to-student ratios in the home setting. When you compare that with even the very best special needs resource room, with a trained teacher, their case loads are one and 15.”

We get a lot of phone calls and a lot of emails for those two subgroups, but it can be anywhere from anything, from just attention to processing problems to anxiety. We’re seeing a lot more children that are struggling with mental health issues, bullying. And so sometimes parents will call and say, “I don’t know if I’m really, if my child’s really special needs or not.” And I mean, I just kind of say, “You know, we all have special meetings, we’re all unique, we’re all special, and we all have specific needs.” So whether it’s just a slight struggle or attention issues or severe medical needs anywhere, it’s just a huge spectrum.

Yvette:                         So then talk about the benefits of bringing those children home or keeping them home if you’ve not yet started school with them.

“I mean, in our public schools, kids are falling through the cracks.”

Faith:                            Right. Well, we always tell parents that homeschooling really is an individualized education program. And that’s what it is, due to its very nature. So parents are uniquely gifted. They know their children better than anybody. They love them more than anyone else. They want to see them succeed. You’re going to have much lower teacher-to-student ratios in the home setting. When you compare that with even the very best special needs resource room, with a trained teacher, their case loads are one and 15. It’s individualized. You’ve got a low teacher-student ratio. You’re able to customize instruction for them, gear your pacing, student needs, frequent breaks, you can schedule around their sleep needs, medication needs, therapy. And it’s just truly a better scenario than what they’re going to get in a school setting because the schools can only do so much. They’re understaffed. And even though we’ve thrown billions of dollars at education and special education, the national report card for rating progress is terrible.

I mean, in our public schools, kids are falling through the cracks, and I’m not slamming public school teachers. I have friends that are believers that are there and they’re serving and they’re doing the best they can. But oftentimes their hands are tied and they’re understaffed and don’t have the resources they need. So parents are uniquely able to do this. They don’t need special training. They need to just love and encourage their kids and meet them where they are. And that’s the other beauty of homeschooling is we can truly meet our kids where they are developmentally. Reading develops on a continuum. So does math skills, and we can meet them where they are right in that zone of proximal development where it’s not too hard and it’s not too easy. And sometimes kids are reading at one level and math is on a different level. So it’s really a beautiful thing and it works really well. And there’s research to show that it’s working well for students with special needs. So parents don’t need to fear and they don’t need to cave into those when the questions come.

Yvette:                         Probably the biggest reason that parents who have children with special needs choose not to homeschool is out of fear. And you said something earlier that I think is so important to remember is that we know our kids better than anyone and we love them more than anyone. We talk a lot about that on the podcast. There are some excellent teachers out there, but they don’t know your children the way that you know them. They don’t know their … you talked about their sleep patterns and their medications and their different therapies that they may have to go to, and their teachers in a classroom, they cannot cater to those things like mom and dad can. And so it’s such a beautiful opportunity for mom to be able to come alongside her child and really help them develop in the way that God has created them because God’s made your child the way that they are for a purpose.

And it’s not my mistake that you are their mom or that you are their dad. And so for those parents who are very fearful of keeping their kids at home to homeschool, then because again, like we said in the beginning, they’ve been told by their doctors and everyone else that they need to be in these special programs. How would you encourage those parents to get started? What do they do to get started with helping their children?

Faith:                            So, I mean obviously one of the first things I would encourage them, it would be to join HSLDA because oftentimes families will encounter some difficulties and pushbacks when there’s a child with special needs, typically from a well-meaning medical provider or a psychologist or a neighbor or something.

Yvette:                         Right. And that can be scary.

Faith:                            Yeah, it can be. But a lot of times people will question and oftentimes, quite frankly due to ignorance, they don’t understand homeschooling, they don’t understand the homeschooling law or just misinformation. So I would tell them to join, and I would also help arm them with resources. If you’re just getting started schooling a child with special needs, or let’s say you’re pulling out of public school and closing an IEP, then navigate that process well. We help them to do that, how do they withdraw and close the IEP.

Yvette:                         Now explain what an IEP is.

“A lot of times parents are fearful because they think “I’m not trained,” or “I don’t have any special background.”, but they are the expert when it comes to their child, so we’re arming them with some good resources. If you have a child with dyslexia, then we’re going to point you to resources and books and services for dyslexia or autism because knowledge is power and we battle fear by prayer and trusting in God…”

Faith:                            So, an IEP is drafted by schools. It’s an individualized education plan. Sometimes students will have what’s called a 504 accommodation plan, but basically it’s just a contract between the school and the parent, and it lays out this is the instruction we’re going to provide or the intervention services or therapies, the frequency of those services where they will occur. Is it in a regular classroom? Is it in a resource room? Is it in a therapy room? Something like that.

And then they’ll have goals. They’ll have long-term goals and short term goals for the student to meet. Most often those are academic. Sometimes they’re social goals, social skills and goals on there as well, or fine motor and gross motor. But typically they’re mostly academicals. But if parents have had their child in public school and they’ve had an IEP, we’ll help them navigate how to close that. Should they close it? Do they maybe want to homeschool, but then also get some services through the school district. That’s a parental option and a choice. HSLDA’s stances is private services are best if at all possible.

But some parents will choose to keep therapeutic or what’s called “related services”, so we’ll help them to transition then to what’s called a service plan. If they opt to do that. But many, many parents by and large just choose to homeschool and not get those services and not have an official IEP drafted by the school because again, homeschooling is an individualized educational plan.

A lot of times parents are fearful because they think “I’m not trained,” or “I don’t have any special background.”, but they are the expert when it comes to their child, so we’re arming them with some good resources. If you have a child with dyslexia, then we’re going to point you to resources and books and services for dyslexia or autism because knowledge is power and we battle fear by prayer and trusting in God and learning, and “what does God say about me and about my child?” A lot of times in my work with HSLDA, I’ll get the privilege to get to pray with parents and help them to press through their fear and overcome the obstacles that are in their way, that’s causing the fear. And sometimes it’s funding. “Hey, my child needs therapy and we’re broke.” Homeschooling is a financial sacrifice anyway, and when you throw special needs on top of it and medications or therapy or we need this adaptive equipment assistive technology, then we’ll help them with funding sources, too.

Yvette:                         Which is great because I know that that’s really enticing for a lot of families that maybe they do want to bring their kids home and they want to school them at home, but they can’t afford the resources that are out there provided by the government. But once you give them over to the government to be able to provide those resources, you’re giving up control. You’re saying, “Okay, now they’re yours. You control what they do, what they’re learning and how they’re progressing,” and again, I mean I know that there are some fantastic teachers out there and therapists and those people who are helping these special needs children, but you’re still giving them control to those people.

You mentioned resources. Can you talk specifically about that? What are some of the resources, maybe some books and different resources that you can suggest to parents?

Faith:                            Sure. One of my favorites is Homeschooling Children with Special Needs, by Sharon Hensley. It’s an oldie but a goodie, and I always tell parents if you’re going to be homeschooling a child with special needs you, this is one book you have to have. It’s very encouraging but very practical, and chock full of resources.

Yvette:                         Okay.

Listen to Zan Tyler on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast

Faith:                            That would be first. I also really encourage families to get Zan Tyler’s book The Seven Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential.

Faith:                            It’s also really encouraging and practical. And then Cheryl Swope, if you’re familiar with her, with Memoria Press, she has a book called A Beautiful Education for Any Childand Cheryl has homeschooled her daughter who’s on the autism spectrum, but also Sharon Hensley’s daughter is on the autism spectrum. They’re both homeschooling moms. So those would be some practical resources to help and for encouragement.

Yvette:                         Okay. What else is there? Because I know for myself, and especially if we’re talking to a mom who is, maybe she’s got several kids and one or more of her children have special needs and she’s exhausted, and the thought of picking up three big books that are going to be fantastic for her to read through and dig into is just a little bit overwhelming. I know that you’re there and that’s part of your job at HSLDA is to, like you said before, come alongside those parents and encourage them and help walk them through, and that’s what you do in your position, correct? And let me ask you this. As a member of HSLDA, if someone’s a member, do they have access to you to be able to do that at any time or is that an extra service that they have to pay for? How does that work?

Faith:                            Right, so HSLDA has a small membership fee. It’s annual and that gives people access 24/7 to the attorneys. But it also gives them access to any of the educational consultants. We have toddlers to tweens, consultants for early years and high school, and then the special needs ladies. And so people can email or call. It’s not an extra fee, it’s included.

Yvette:                         Great.

Faith:                            Some of the other services they get are free transcript review or in our department, the special needs consultants … let’s say a family gets their child assessed. They get diagnostic testing done by a psychologist or diagnosing professional, and they get this lovely report and a label or a diagnosis and scores, but oftentimes, it’s not practical in terms of now what do I do, what curriculum do I use, how do I teach this child? And so that’s another thing that we’ll do is review reports for families and help to make recommendations and curricula suggestions that’s specific to their child.

Yvette:                         Which is fantastic because how many other places can you go and get that and have people be able to help you figure out what specifically you need for your child?

Faith:                            And they’d have to pay, you’d have to pay a private educational consultant to help with that. And then we do have a database of private homeschool-friendly professionals from across the nation. They’ve all come recommended to us by other homeschooling families and they’ve all been vetted and screened, and so members can access that. So let’s say they need to find somebody that does ABA therapy for a child with autism. They can search the database by their ZIP code and know what type of professional or service that they’re looking for. Or maybe it’s just a math tutor, so that continues to grow. We’ve built that over the last 20 years and it continues to grow.

So that’s another thing that we offer, ways to support families, but you know there are more and more organizations, and their state homeschool associations usually have somebody on staff that’s the special needs point person. More and more state organizations are having support groups specifically for special needs or special conferences. Florida does one, FPEA, they do a special needs conference. Midwest Parent Home Educators, they do one.

Yvette:                         Okay.

Faith:                            So, more and more state orgs are starting those. And then you may not be familiar with Peggy Ployhar.

Yvette:                         I am, yes. Yeah, we actually interviewed her for The Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. It’s been several months, but It was a great show. She does SPED Homeschool.

Faith:                            Yes, SPED Homeschool. And so that’s great. You know parents can find online support, be it a Facebook support group like homeschooling with dyslexia or homeschooling kids with Down’s syndrome. So your online support groups are great, but obviously it’s best if you can have somebody that, “Let’s have coffee or should I come over and help me?”

And we can talk to people on the phone and help by email. But I always tell parents if you can definitely count on us, but there’s nothing like having somebody there face-to-face close by to walk the journey with you. That’s why it’s just so important for there to be support groups for parents who are homeschooling and specifically for special needs.

Yvette:                         Yes, I know that it can be a very lonely place to be, especially if you … a lot of people are parts of different communities and co-ops and things like that with homeschooling, and if you have a child who has, especially if you have one that has very severe special needs, it can be very difficult to find your place in those different groups and co-ops and, and so I know that it’s so important, and I know Peggy Player talks about this, about finding your tribe. Find other people who you can connect with, and hopefully someone like you said that you can and have coffee with in a coffee shop or be able to just meet up with in person.

But that’s not always possible. And so having other online groups and people that you can actually connect with, even if they don’t live close by, is just as important. But I will say also, and this goes for everything, even with co-ops, oftentimes people will say, “Well, there is nothing in my area that offers assistance or companionship for somebody who’s in my situation.” Well, start one, maybe. Maybe God is calling you to start that for your area because I can almost guarantee there’s someone else out there in your area who’s in the same boat as you, and you just need to be introduced to one another.

And so sometimes it’s just putting yourself out there and saying, “Hey, I have a special needs child. Does anyone else out here have one? Let’s talk. Let’s get together. Let’s get our kids together.” And that can form such beautiful relationships between parents, and I think that that’s really important. We have just a couple of more minutes left, and so I want to do two last things really quickly. Can you talk very quickly about how to accommodate special needs students at home? And then I would love for you to just give an encouragement to parents. So how would, how can you best accommodate them?

Faith:                            Sure. I mean, you can do things like frequent breaks and let them move while they’re learning. Learning doesn’t have to be in a table. I always tell parents, for kids with dysgraphia, they can do oral narration or dictation and you can act as scribe, or you can use assistive of technology like Dragon Dictate or Co-Writer. We have lists of assistive technology and software tools that we’ll share with parents. Sometimes it’s as simple as, rather than having the child work in the workbook, we’re just going to pull out a few problems. We’re not going to do the whole worksheet or I’m going to cut the worksheet in half. We’re going to do it on a white board or taking a big notebook and turning it sideways and giving them the paper or the page that they’re writing on. So it’s more of a slant board surface. Don’t be afraid to cut up your workbooks. Make them into something else. Flip books or sorting the pictures in the workbook instead of phonics workbook page, for instance, where the child looks at the picture and has to write the first sound or the middle sound or the end sound. And if writing’s hard, then cut out the pictures and have them sort them on a mat by the sound and glue them down or something like that.

So, we can modify materials, we can modify the expectations, the pace of the lesson, and give them assistive technology. Audio books is a great way to help students take in content and also help them be independent so mom and dad aren’t reading everything to them. Those are some, or having them circle answers or indicate answers and then the parent can bubble in if it’s a bubble sheet for standardized testing.

Yvette:                         So many great ideas! It sounds like you have a whole bucket full of ways that you can help parents figure out how to bring their kids home and school them. What would be your one last encouragement to parents who have children with special needs?

Faith:                            Well, don’t go it alone. Like you said, try to find support. Tap into national charitable organizations, and like you said, put yourself out there. Know that you’re not alone. You might feel alone, but I just want to encourage you that you’re not. All of us as homeschool moms, we all have bad days and we all struggle. And there are days where there’s tears, whether it’s our kids or it’s us, right? Now we have, we have great days, too. And that homeschooling really truly is an individualized plan of education. And it can really be an excellent line. So you may feel alone, but you’re not. And we’re here to help you. And I would love to help.

Yvette:                         That is fantastic. And like we say all the time on the podcast, God will give you everything that you need to accomplish what He’s called you to. So, if He’s calling you to keep your kids at home, He’s going to equip you with everything that you need in order to do it well. So where can people find out more about you?

Faith:                            They can go to HSLDA’s websiteand we have a quick navigation tab. It’s teaching my kids and if they click on that, they’ll see high school, early years, then a struggling learner page. So HSLDA.org, Teaching My Kids tab, or they can go to our Facebook page, HSLDA’s Educational Consultants. If you want to find me personally on Facebook, you can find me at Faith-Filled Homeschooling. SPED Homeschool, too, because now I’m serving on the board with Peggy.

Yvette:                         That is so great. That’s such a beautiful organization, and I love that so many of you are coming together and just linking arms to help parents across the world with special needs children. So thank you so much, Faith, for what you do. Thank you for your dedication to encouraging parents and to helping them just stay the course of homeschooling because it’s such an important and beautiful thing. So we appreciate all that you do and we appreciate all that HSLDA does. So, thank you for your time today and for speaking with me.

Ready to take your children back? Stream Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution for free tonight and learn how. After you have watched the movie, download the Free Homeschool Survival Kit. This free 70+ page resource will give you the encouragement and tools you need to start strong and finish well.

Recommended Resources:

Homeschooling Children with Special Needs, by Sharon Hensley

7 Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential, by Zan Tyler

A Beautiful Education for any Child, by Cheryl Swope

Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner, by Kathy Kuhl

Encouraging your Child, by Kathy Kuhl

HSLDA membership

SPED Homeschool

Listen to more on this topic from Peggy Ployhar of SPED Homeschool

Connect with Faith:

HSDLA Education Consultants Facebook Page

Faith Filled homeschooling

Photo by Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash

Photo by Samuel Zeller on Unsplash

The Fight for Homeschool Freedom

“We have got to educate people, as to what freedom and liberty is all about, what the constitution is all about, parental rights, and who our kids belong to. That’s very elementary. Socialism and Marxism would have us believe our kids belong to the government.” – Zan Tyler

While we were at the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center, in Vancouver, Washington to finish filming interviews for Schoolhouse Rocked, homeschool pioneer, Zan Tyler stopped by for a surprise visit. Zan was instrumental in the fight to make homeschooling legal in South Carolina, in the early 1980s. She was in Oregon to speak at the Oregon Christian Home Education Association Network (OCEANetwork) homeschool conference, in Albany, Oregon and wanted to visit Heidi St. John and get a tour of the homeschool resource center. Because her story of the legal battles and persecution that she endured to pave the way for homeschooling families in her state provided such important historical perspective and cautionary advice, we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to interview her for the movie and for the podcast.

Zan Tyler (right), Heidi St. John (center, and Yvette Hampton at the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center

Following her dramatic battle for the right to homeschool her children, Zan went on to teach them through graduation and all three of them attended college on a variety of scholarships. Gaining resolve during her battle, she went on to fight for other homeschooling families in South Carolina and across the United States, founding the South Carolina Association of Independent Home Schools in 1990, Speaking at homeschool conventions around the world, and writing several books, including Seven Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential and the forward for Heidi St. John’s Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight: Managing Your Days Through the Homeschool Years. She has also worked to develop Bible-bases homeschool resources as the director of Apologia Press. Here is her story.

Yvette Hampton:           Hey everyone, this is Yvette, and we are back with the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. This is a really fun one, because we are actually on the set filming for Schoolhouse Rocked the movie. It’s so neat to see how the Lord provides just different guests and people for the movie and for the podcast as well.

You are going to love my guest today, her name is Zan Tyler. She is just a sweet, sweet homeschool mom whose kids are grown now. She has an amazing story and I know you are going to be so encouraged by what God has done in her family and through her family, for the homeschool world.

Listen to Zan Tyler on the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast (7-30-2019 episode)

So Zan, welcome. I am really excited to talk to you today!

Zan:                              Oh, thank you, Yvette. It’s great to be here.

Yvette:                         Thank you. Tell us a little bit about you and your family.

Zan:                              Well, we have three grown kids, six grandchildren, and we homeschooled for 21 years, from 1984 to 2005, and homeschooled each of the kids from kindergarten through high school.

Yvette:                         So that was back in the day.

Zan:                              That was back in the day for sure.

Yvette:                         You are truly considered, in the homeschool world, one of the pioneers, who really got homeschooling kind of off the ground, and you are very instrumental in homeschooling becoming legal. Not just your state of South Carolina, but in many states, in addition to that. So, let’s talk about that, because there’s so much to tell in your story. Tell us, kind of from the beginning, how this whole story unfolded for you.

“When she said the word homeschool, I just felt like the walls of her little home at Columbia Bible College were closing in on me. I thought, ‘Lord, if you will just get me out of here, I never want to hear the word homeschool again.’ I just thought it was the strangest thing I had ever heard. Our family was extroverts, and I just couldn’t imagine.”

Zan:                              Well, it was 1984, which I just always think is so George Orwellian, and my oldest son was in kindergarten. He was very bright and gifted, but not reading. He was the only one in this little kindergarten of eight that wasn’t reading. So I was looking for answers, because I had no educational background. I wasn’t sure if it was a problem, or what he was going through.

A friend of mine recommended that we hold him back a year. That was normal for boys, they needed a little more time to mature. But another friend of mine, she and her husband were getting their masters degrees at Columbia Bible College, getting ready to go to the mission field said, “Zan, I taught in the public schools for many years before I had Nat and I’m going to homeschool, and I think you should homeschool Ty.”

This transcript is generously provided by MakeCrate. MakeCrate provides your homeschooler with the STEM skills they need for the future! Fun, hands-on electronics kits paired with an online learning platform teach your middle or high schooler engineering and coding fundamentals right at home! No technical expertise is required. Order your MakeCrate today at MakeCrate.Club/SR. 

You know the scene from Star Wars, where the walls – it’s really a trash compactor – and they start closing in? When she said the word homeschool, I just felt like the walls of her little home at Columbia Bible College were closing in on me. I thought, “Lord, if you will just get me out of here, I never want to hear the word homeschool again.” I just thought it was the strangest thing I had ever heard. Our family was extroverts, and I just couldn’t imagine.

But she gave me a book, Homegrown Kids by Dr. Moore. I took home that book, and all the way home I’m telling the Lord, “Well, I’m never going to homeschool.” I get home and I start reading that book, more as a courtesy from my friend than anything else, and it was like the Holy Spirit was just wooing me, and softening my heart, and showing me what a glorious way to educate homeschooling really is.

Watch Zan Tyler’s full interview for Schoolhouse Rocked at our Backstage Pass members website.

The only problem was, this was 1984, and we didn’t know one person in the world who homeschooled. There were no organizations, no HSLDA. I think it had actually started on the West Coast, but we certainly didn’t know of them on the East Coast. No state organizations, no support groups, no, nobody. So I really had nobody to turn to.

I used to walk in the morning early and pray and listen to the Bible on my Walkman, and I really just felt like the Lord was saying, “Okay, I really want you to homeschool your boys.” I just remember saying, “No, I just can’t do this.” So I ran inside. We went to the public school district in our area, I showed them the testing that Ty should be held back a year, even though he was six, and they said, “Okay.” That was that, and I thought that was the end of the story.

Until others, people in the school district, were getting their orientation packets for kindergarten and I didn’t get one. I called the school superintendent, he said, “You can’t put your first grader in our kindergarten program. We’ve put him in first grade.” I said, “Well, private schools are filled at this point, I have no choice.” He said, “Well, I’m sorry, you cannot do this.”

So, I called my old high school principal, who is now associate superintendent of instruction in the district, and just asked him to write a note to hold Ty back. He said, “Well, Zan, I just can’t do that.” Which, they did those kinds of things all the time. I said, “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to homeschool Ty.” It was a threat, it was my trump card. He said, “Oh, the school district’s gotten so lenient with that kind of thing.”

Later I found out they had approved one person in the history of the district, and she was a certified teacher. I had been an economics major in college. I had planned to go to law school, until Joe proposed and we got married and had children instead. I mean, I did not have the educational background they were looking for. So we had to hire an attorney just to find out what the law was. The local school district, nor the State Department of Education, would give us the law. There’s no internet, no Google, no organizations, no other way to find it out.

So, we hired him, we submitted our application. It’s about, oh, I mean, it was about five inches thick, everything they wanted from me at that point, and they denied my application. So we had to call our attorney again. He said, “Oh, now you appeal to the state board. They will deny you, they will uphold whatever the local school board did.” I said, “What then?” He said, “You’ll end up in family court.” I said, “What then?” He said, “Well, I don’t know, honey.”

“He looked at me and he said, ‘Well, if you continue down this path, Zan, I’ll have you put in jail for truancy.’ So, that was sort of the watershed moment for me. I said, ‘Well, then you’ll just have to put me in jail.'”

Zan Tyler, a homeschooling pioneer

So, I’m telling the Lord, “I told you this was not a good idea.” So, in the middle of all of this, I had a thought. The State Superintendent of Education had actually observed my mother’s classroom. She was a fourth grade teacher when he was getting his PhD. I was in the fourth grade, so I saw him every day after school for several months. I called Dr. Williams, said, “Dr. Williams, this is Zan Tyler. I’m Sybil Peter’s daughter. I have a problem, can I come see you?”

So, I went up there, and just explained my predicament, all I wanted to do is hold Ty back a year. The school district said, yes, then they said no. Private schools were filled, and they denied my application to homeschool. What am I going to do? He looked at me and he said, “Well, if you continue down this path, Zan, I’ll have you put in jail for truancy.” So, that was sort of the watershed moment for me. I said, “Well, then you’ll just have to put me in jail.”

Yvette:                         Which at that point, I would say most parents would probably just say, “Okay.” They would throw their hands up, give up and say, “All right.”

Zan:                              You know, I think that was just when the Lord took over for me. There’s the verse in Acts that says, “Don’t fear when you’re brought before governors, because I’ll tell you what to say.” It was really an out of body experience, because I said, “Then Dr. Williams, you’ll have to put me in jail.” I’m thinking, “Who just said that?” It was really like an out of body experience. But I knew the Lord had been calling me, and in that moment he, I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but he confirmed that to me.

Yvette:                         It’s so neat to have just a piece of God when he asks us to do everything. We’ve talked a whole lot about this on the podcast, is that when God calls you to something, he’s going to provide everything that you need, and he is going to pave the way for you. Whether it’s homeschooling, or, you know, a new job, or a move across the country. Whatever it is, he’s going to provide the way, and he’s going to pave that road.

So I love that you were just obedient and you were willing to listen to what God was telling you, because you have, now since then, impacted so many families. So, continue on. Well, let me ask you this first. How did your husband, Joe, how did he respond to this whole idea of homeschooling? Was he all in favor of it? Was he a little resistant? What was his response?

Zan:                              Well, I’ll tell you now that Joe does a workshop called, You Want to What? Confessions of a Reluctant Homeschool Dad. So, we’ve always had a great marriage. Joe’s a great communicator, and so we could always talk. Basically what he said to me was, “I know how much you love the Lord, and I know how much you love the kids. So I totally trust you, but I think this is the craziest thing we’ve ever done.”

He finally said, “Well, if it’s numbers and colors, you can’t mess up a kid too much in kindergarten.” Then we laughed, because low and behold Ty was color blind, and we didn’t know it yet. I mean, he was very supportive of me, he just thought the idea of homeschooling was nuts.

Yvette:                         So what was his response when you started to get into a little bit of legal trouble?

Zan:                              You know, then we were just all in it together.

Yvette:                         Which is how it should be.

Zan:                              Yes, yes. So, he tons of pizza. I should say this, no man should have to eat as much pizza during those early years of homeschooling as Joe did.

Yvette:                         Yep. You are one busy mama.

Zan:                              Yeah.

Yvette:                         So, how did the rest of the story transpire from there?

Zan:                              Well, it was interesting, because being the brave noble person I was, we had decided not to tell either set of parents we were going to homeschool. Joe said, “You know, you’re going to have to tell them at some point, it’s kind of like being pregnant. People will recognize, at some point, that something is going on.” I said, “Well, when the time comes, I’ll talk about it.” I just had no more emotional bandwidth.

So, when I was threatened with jail, then that forced the conversation, because my parents were very involved in the whole fabric of Columbia. Not social life, but just community life. Dad was, in addition to his profession and being a lawyer, he was chairman of the board of the Baptist hospital system. I knew that the newspapers would not say, “P on homeschool mothers and Tyler goes to jail.” It would say, “John Peter’s daughter goes to jail.”

I knew I needed to tell them. So, I go by to tell them, and I hold it together, “Mom, dad, I’m going to homeschool Ty.” Of course, they don’t know what it is, I barely know what it is. “I’ve been threatened with jail, and my hearing is on Tuesday. I didn’t want you to read about it in the newspaper.” Then I just lost it. I was hysterical, and I left. My daddy, we’ve always been so close, he just went to be with the Lord. But he was just so mad I had been treated that way.

As God, in his very kind of providence would have it, he was speaking at a hospital function the next night with Nancy Thurman, who was the wife of Senator Strom Thurmond, who was a legend in South Carolina politics, served in the Senate for 50 or so years. I had worked for him when I was in high school. It was the first year of the 18 year old vote, and I was female to boot. So I did television commercials with him and toured the state with fundraisers with him and his team. So I knew him, and I had called his office and gotten no response.

Dad said to Mrs. Thurman that night, “Zan needs help from the Senator now.” So she called his chief of staff who said, “We’ll overnight a letter to Charlie Williams, the State Superintendent of Education, telling him to approve the program.” But the next day we got a call from his chief of staff saying that the Senator was actually going to fly down and meet personally with Charlie Williams, who was the State Superintendent of Education.

So, when Senator Thurmond, the legend, walks in and tells Dr. Williams, “Her program is legal, we’ve looked into it, you need to approve it.” Then everything changed. So, the threats of jail averted, and the State Board approved my program. We homeschooled that first year. It was still very tough, we had policemen riding up and down our streets of a very quiet neighborhood. We assumed to make sure that we were inside having school and at home, and we had threatening phone calls, and neighbors.

Yvette:                         From the school board?

Zan:                              Well, you know, at first, we didn’t know. This is before caller ID and cell phones and all of this. So BellSouth had just come out with this very expensive callback system, you could see who called you. I told Joe, I said, “I want to pay for this.” We had no money at this point, legal fees and all. He said, “Okay, you’re paranoid, but we’ll do it.” It was school districts, and it was not just my own. It was other school districts in the state calling me, wanting personal information, seeing if I answered the phone.

It was crazy. But that year, our goal was just to get Ty ready for first grade. But the things that we saw happening in our home, even with all the pressure, the legal pressure outside of the home, there was just this, not magic, that’s the wrong word, but this just incredible depth building in our home that we had never had before, even though I was a stay at home mother up until that point.

So, our vision for homeschooling began to grow a little bit, and legal threats were starting to pour in, and the State Department of Education was getting ready to promulgate very negative regulations. So, it just grew into an eight year struggle, really, or battle, where for eight years our family was, either in court or in the legislature, fighting for good homeschool laws in South Carolina.

Yvette:                         At that point you knew you weren’t just fighting for yourself; you were fighting for others who would come into homeschooling.

Zan:                              Yes, that’s right.

Yvette:                         Through that time, did you start to meet other families who were homeschooling?

Zan:                              Yes, yes. I remember we went to the first conference in Atlanta, and I think there were seven families from South Carolina there. Which I had no idea, we were delighted to see seven. But everybody was so nervous, nobody would give out their phone numbers or their last names, because we were so afraid that there was somebody from the government there. They were scary times.

But during that first year, Joe and I began to keep a database of people who were starting to call us then from all over the country, it was kind of strange. It was think tanks and attorneys, and people looking to move to South Carolina, who may have already started homeschooling in another state where there was no threat. So, we just started collecting names of people who had heard of homeschooling. We weren’t necessarily looking for homeschoolers, just people who had heard of it.

So we started growing this database, which came in handy then, in December of 1985, a year later, when we got the information that the State Department was getting ready to promulgate the regulations that would require teaching parents, and to have a college degree, and only use state-approved tax. So that gave us a little bit of list to begin building that grassroots movement with.

Yvette:                         So how did homeschooling change your family?

Zan:                              Oh, my goodness, I feel like Shakespeare, “let me count the ways.” It just, this closeness. We were close to begin with, I can’t explain it. Just a deeper intimacy. It made the kids closer. The most dramatic change for me is I began to notice my boys’ spiritual gifts. There was no time for that kind of observation before, but even though they were young, I believe that the Lord gave me insight into things that the boys were capable of spiritually, and the way they thought.

For instance, we had been praying, just for our neighbors, that we’d have a chance to witness. One day, during our first few weeks of homeschooling, they were out playing and I called them in, they were riding their bikes in the driveway, and he didn’t come. I said, “Ty, honey, you have to obey me the first time, or homeschooling is not going to work.” He said, “Well, mom, did you see that little boy on the bicycle?” He said, “We’ve been sharing Jesus. I’d never seen him in our neighborhood. I was afraid I’d never see him again, and I just needed to tell him about Jesus.”

Yvette:                         Wow.

Zan:                              It was through instances of being together so much, that I began to see his heart to really share the Gospel, even as a young little boy. Then my other son, who is now an attorney, was always very thoughtful. When Joe and I went to our first homeschool conference, in Atlanta. Conference, I use that word very lightly, there were maybe 60 people there from 10 states or five states or something. My sister took John and Ty up to Stone Mountain, and they were six and four. We’d been learning the children’s catechism, and they found this footprint that looked like a huge footprint in the mountain, and Ty said, “John, look at this. This is so big, it must be God’s.” Four year old little John says, “Ty, God is a spirit and have not a body like man.”

Oh, my goodness! So, I began to see their spiritual depth really blossom. That has always been one of the greatest parts of homeschooling to me, is that we can prepare our kids to take their place in the world, not just academically gifted and other gifts, but their spiritual gifts. The church just needs mature believers now, people who can speak truth.

Yvette:                         Yeah, that’s right. So, kind of take us down the road of what homeschooling looked like. You say you went to these conventions, and there were about 60 people there, you know, to what it is today. Because now you go and you’ve got 6,000, 7,000 people or more at some conventions. It has changed dramatically, obviously.

It’s really interesting, because we’re going into our ninth year of homeschooling, but when we came into homeschooling nine years ago, it was very similar to what it is now. It was a very acceptable culture, it’s not awkward for us to go to the grocery store in the middle of the day. When people say, you know, “Oh, are you off of school today?” My girls say, “No, we’re homeschooled.” Then typically people will respond with, “Oh, wow, that’s great. I wish I could homeschool, or, you know, my sister homeschools, or my daughter home schools.” I mean, everybody knows somebody who homeschools.

Zan:                              Yes, that’s right.

Yvette:                         But obviously, it wasn’t that way for you.

Zan:                              That’s right.

Yvette:                         So, take us through what it was like for you in those beginning years, and other families, to what homeschooling has become today.

Zan:                              I have such a vivid memory of having homeschooled for about six months, and being in tears one morning during my quiet time, just saying, “Lord, remember me, this person you made so extroverted? I now have no friends.” There were people in the neighborhood who would no longer speak to us, people in our church who were suspicious. I mean, this was 1984, and like I said, when I said we knew nobody when we started, we knew nobody when we started. So, there was just no support and nobody for the kids to share that experience with.

Now, as the year progressed and we went into the second year, then we found friends. I mean, it wasn’t unusual for us to drive to Greenville to see another homeschool family, which was 100 miles away, or Charleston. Then we began to develop a few friends and a little bit of a community. I will say this, that the community that developed was very, very close. Then when we were threatened in 1985, with those regulations from the State Department, we started pulling the group together and sending mailings out.

Then somebody gave us an organization that had already the 501(c)(3) status they weren’t using anymore. We took that over and then formed the first homeschooling organization in South Carolina. So, it was definitely hard. It was just hard. But we knew the Lord had called us, and then to watch it grow step by step. We had the first public hearing in South Carolina in 1986, and we actually had about 400 people show up for that, which was really amazing. We had no idea. We just sent out this blind list, this list we had been mailing, and we had all these people show up. It was pretty amazing. That was a ton of people.

Yvette:                         That is a lot, because that’s before the days of even email-

Zan:                              That’s right, oh, no, email, no. That was the days before fax. It was by phone or mail. So, it was very interesting. So, it was the Lord, and then eventually we started going to the National Leadership Conference. It was people from a lot of other states who had … everybody was going through their own set of circumstances. Some people were very free, like in Georgia or North Carolina, other people were like us in South Carolina, where we were very threatened, and it was very hard. But that was our peer group, and that sort of was what the Lord gave us, just to keep us going, and that fellowship we needed to keep going.

I can remember the first time Joe and I were asked to go to Japan to speak at a conference there, and it wasn’t for expats, it was for Japanese. I sat on the plane, and all of a sudden I just started crying, because I looked at Joe and I said, “You remember when we first started homeschooling? All people wanted to do was shut me up. You know, make her be quiet, stop talking about this, go away.” The fact that somebody was paying us to fly halfway across the world to talk to them about homeschooling, it was just overwhelming.

It’s one of those moments that will just always be emblazoned in my mind. But it was like a revival movement, the Lord just kept raising people up and up and up, and it got bigger and bigger, and it was this grassroots ground swell. That was one reason you know it’s really the Holy Spirit, because there’s no other explanation for it.

Yvette:                         Yeah. So, you’ve been through the whole process of helping to make it legal. Where do you see homeschooling going in the future? Do you see that our freedoms are in jeopardy at all? Or do you think that we will be able to continue on with our freedom? And how can people make sure that our freedom stays?

Zan:                              Joe always says, “It’s not that the grass is greener on the other side, it’s the grass is greenest where you water it and fertilize it.” So we shouldn’t ever take our marriages for granted, we should never take our freedom for granted. I know what it’s like to be an innocent person who was threatened legally. I will tell you that is not fun. I never want another mother to go through what we went through. It was horrible. Wandering at night if somebody was going to take my kids, if a neighbor was going to turn us in to the Department of Social Services for something. It was extremely stressful.

So, my love for freedom is very, not guarded, but it’s in the context of knowing we can lose it, and knowing what that feels like. Ronald Reagan said, “It only takes a generation to lose our freedom.” Then there’s the quote, “All we need to lose our freedom is … for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.” So I think it’s very easy to become complacent, when it seems so easy.

But we need to remember we have enemies, whether it’s the National Education Association or the School Administrators Association. There are people out there who think that the fact that we can homeschool our children is the worst thing that has ever happened to the culture. We think it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the culture.

Yvette:                         Right, of course, but they want control over our children.

Zan:                              We were talking earlier today about this, I was speaking at a leadership forum sponsored by Clemson University in South Carolina, but this was the education segment, I was the homeschool spokesman. After it was over, this woman asked me, she said, “Don’t you feel guilty for homeschooling?” I said, “Well, I have felt a lot of emotions over homeschooling, but guilt is not one of them, why?” She said, “Because you’ve robbed the school district of all the money the state would have given them for your children, you’ve robbed the school district of kids who probably would have good test scores, because you’ve also robbed the school district of involved parents, all of these things which we need.”

So I got real quiet, and I said, “Well, who do you think my kids belong to?” Well, she had no answer. So I read her this, this shows what my life was like. I used to travel with this in my purse, I had no idea what I’m going to talk about at this day. So I read her this statement, I’m going to read it to you, just because this is where my life was.

“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize his children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state. Those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

So she looked at me like, “Where did you get that right wing Christian propaganda?” She said, “Where did you get that?” I said, “From the United States Supreme Court, Pierce vs Society of Sisters, 1925.” I remember thinking then here is the problem with our society, nobody knows anymore that children don’t belong to the state. When you have to tell an audience that the child is not the mere creature of the state, and that is news to them, we are in trouble as a culture.

So, we have got to educate people, as to what freedom and liberty is all about, what the constitution is all about, parental rights, and who our kids belong to. That’s very elementary. Socialism and Marxism would have us believe our kids belong to the government.

Yvette:                         That’s right, that’s right. We have a couple minutes left. In these last few minutes I would love for you to talk about, because I know you’ve been very involved in your state organization. How can people get involved in their own state organization, or in, you know, the United States as a whole, to keep the freedoms that we have for homeschooling? And why do these state organizations even exist?

“The state organizations have done the homeschooling community such a great service in watching each state, legislature by legislature, and knowing where the threats come up. So, I would invite and encourage every homeschooler to join their state group, and their state group will be the legislative watchdog. Then go to your state day at the capitol. Most states have that, some states don’t. Start one if you don’t. I would tell you to get to know your legislator and your state Senator, and that is not hard to do, they want to know you as a constituent.”

Zan:                              Well, the state organizations have done the homeschooling community such a great service in watching each state, legislature by legislature, and knowing where the threats come up. So, I would invite and encourage every homeschooler to join their state group, and their state group will be the legislative watchdog. Then go to your state day at the capitol. Most states have that, some states don’t. Start one if you don’t. I would tell you to get to know your legislator and your state Senator, and that is not hard to do, they want to know you as a constituent.

Homeschooled kids are the best thing we have going for us, because they’re polite and articulate, and well-educated. It’s like one representative said to me, “Zan, now that I see the artwork, I want to know the artist.” So, we need to do that, we need to take our kids with us to vote, we need to get them involved with pro-life, pro-family candidates. My boys started working campaigns with me when they were little, we would hold out signs in the rain. You know, politics is not glamorous, but it is really necessary.

Then, you know, during the presidential election, every presidential election, we would have a blank map of the states, and we would color a state red if it went to the Republican candidate, blue if it went to the Democrat, and we’d mark in the number of electoral votes. So, explain to your kids the electoral college, there’s a great movement afoot to get rid of it. It would destroy our Republican form of government. So I would just say be involved. If it’s uncomfortable, just decide you’re going to live out of your comfort zone.

Heidi’s podcast is a great podcast. She keeps us up politically with what’s going on, and your state organization will do that. Join HSLDA as well, they’ve been a great safeguard for homeschooling parents.

Yvette:                         Yeah, absolutely. Yes, you’re right. Heidi St. John, her podcast, the Heidi St. John Podcastis excellent. She often talks about just things that are going on in the culture. I get all my news from her.

Zan:                              Yeah, that’s fabulous.

Yvette:                         I listen to it every day. But, yes, people can actually go to the Schoolhouse Rockedwebsite,and there’s a dropdown that talks about state organizations, and people can easily find their own state organization on there. So you don’t even have to go anywhere else, you just go straight to the Schoolhouse Rocked website.

Zan, thank you. Thank you for everything you’ve done, everything that you and your family have sacrificed for the freedoms that we enjoy today as homeschoolers. You are a homeschool legend, and I am so excited to be sitting here with you. So thank you for your time today.

Zan:                              It has been my privilege. Thank you so much.

You can find out more about Zan Tyler at ZanTyler.com.

Read Zan’s book, Seven Tools for Cultivating Your Child’s Potential

Read Heidi St. John’s book, Busy Homeschool Mom’s Guide to Daylight: Managing Your Days Through the Homeschool Years

Photo by vivek kumar on Unsplash

Photo by Garritt Hampton