Our Journey
Five years ago, as our son approached kindergarten age, we concluded there was a better way for our kids to learn than sending them to school. We had no idea what homeschooling was going to look like, but we knew it wasn’t going to involve Mom teaching the kids math, English and history at the kitchen table for 4 hours a day.
So we started investigating and discovered concepts like self-directed education, natural learning and unschooling. We researched our local community and found co-ops, micro-schools, meet-ups and other resources around us. And we looked within to understand our family dynamics and how we could weave some education into our days.
Ultimately, we decided that defining our style of homeschooling was less important than understanding the needs of our children and adapting our methods to fit the season.
Instead, we developed guiding principles that would inform our journey, beginning with our first principle – “Teach them what matters.”
Kids are taught a lot of stuff in school, but how much do they retain when it’s out of context and doesn’t feel important to them at the time? And more importantly, how much of it actually matters in the big picture of how they develop as people?
We believe that as homeschoolers, we have a unique opportunity to focus on the relationships, meta skills and life lessons that truly matter to our family. And as our kids grow and the world changes, we can adapt and modify our approach.
Once we’ve built that foundation, if our kids develop an interest in the Ancient Babylonians, or the Periodic Table, or any number of general or specialized subjects, they will be equipped with the tools and mindset to dive in with gusto.
Why are we doing this?
On a family level, we were drawn to homeschooling by the idea of being able to prioritize freedom and flexibility, to spend more time with our kids, and to focus on the things that are important to us.
But what drives us to spread the message of alternative approaches to learning is something much deeper.
Something’s off. I know you feel it.
We’ve got more access to information, entertainment, and opportunity than ever before, and yet, as a society we’re struggling.
Our collective health is in shambles with obesity and chronic disease levels off the charts.
Economically, the average family is scraping by with little savings or even debt.
Educationally, record percentages of students are graduating without knowing the basics.
Psychologically, we’re despondent, isolated, confused and lacking purpose. And the list goes on.
There are many reasons for these issues, but we believe the root cause is that we’re not developing the knowledge, skills and emotional intelligence we need to thrive in a quickly changing world.
We’ve outsourced the most important job we can do as a parent - the raising of our children - to an outdated system that was designed to create factory workers and soldiers, not free-thinking individuals. And in doing so, we lost the collective wisdom of what it means to be fully alive.
An incredible opportunity lies before us.
We’re not suggesting that homeschooling is for everyone.
But we do believe we’re on the cusp of a revolution in education, where parents and teachers alike are beginning to question the system and demand better. And as more people join the movement, it will only get stronger.
What the new system will look like is anybody’s guess. We say, let a thousand flowers bloom— Micro schools, drop-in learning centers, online learning, apprenticeships, project based camps, and even traditional schools forced to improve through market pressure.
By exploring the possibilities and sharing our experience, we hope to play a small part in changing our educational future for the better.
Meet the Team
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April Scully
Seventeen years ago, when April walked away from her public school teaching job in Toronto and moved to San Francisco in search of a new life for herself, she never imagined this is where it would lead.
A Toronto native, April was the kind of kld who followed all the rules of public school and did everything “right”. She graduated from a top university with a degree in education, but experienced strong feelings of disillusionment long before her program was complete. Her free spirit and passion for culture and travel had her questioning how she ended up on a path that would take her back to elementary school.
Her real education began outside the classroom, when she was free to explore the world and navigate her own future. It was a long and circuitous path with adventures to more than 20 countries, including two years teaching English in South Korea.
Eventually, she took a classroom teaching job in her hometown, but quickly grew tired of the gross misalignment of priorities within the system. The health and well-being of students and teachers was nowhere on the list.
In 2008, she took that leap of faith and moved to San Francisco to reinvent herself. Her career shifted from classroom teaching to entrepreneurship education. She worked as a non-profit executive, met Mike, and took on her most rewarding challenges: being a wife and mother.
She never expected to homeschool her kids, but has learned that we’re often auditioning for roles as our script is being written.
April believes every generation has an obligation to pass on their life learning to the next; that we should collectively be getting better at life instead of fighting the same battles. And she believes the best way to do that is to lead by example. That’s why she’s here.
In her home, April aspires to raise confident, resilient risk-takers who will be unwilling to compromise in pursuit of their dreams. And with Modern Homeschoolers, she hopes to build something that will give future generations of children more choice and freedom in educating themselves.
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Mike Scully
Mike is a designer and engineer by training and a serial entrepreneur– a combo that allows him to look beyond the status quo in search of something better, and then implement systems to put those ideas into practice.
He enjoyed school as a kid, having been lucky enough to attend a great public school in suburban New Jersey, but he always felt the urge to homeschool his kids.
Perhaps that feeling grew from his contrarian nature, desire for personal freedom, or disdain for government and other bureaucracies.
But today, the desire to homeschool comes from a sense of the immense opportunities that are available to kids when they don’t spend seven hours in a classroom.
As a small business owner, Mike sees strong parallels between homeschooling and entrepreneurship. Both involve adaptability, self-directed effort, and a willingness to take responsibility for outcomes.
As a homeschool dad, he sees the opportunity to help his kids and others develop those traits and other meta skills such as critical thinking, a growth mindset, skill development and working with others. These are the skills that will be required to thrive in a fast-changing world.
He also believes that like a business, a homeschool should be guided by a mission, a vision, a plan and procedures to keep things running smoothly and focused on what matters.
He’s excited to bring his experience in business and homeschooling to help others find an approach to education that works for their family.
Get in touch.
We love hearing from the homeschool community. Send us a direct message here, or drop a comment on our social media to start a conversation with a wider audience.