This Golden Hour

108. Martin Vervloet and Homeschooling with Intention

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Martin Vervloet from Alberta. Martin is a homeschool father of 11 who preaches the gospel, works construction, and gives a lot of service. Martin shares his experiences as a father of a large family, including being a grandfather to 18 (and counting), homeschooling since the mid-1990s. He discusses the influence of faith, the importance of parental involvement, and the flexibility homeschooling provided for their large family. Some key highlights from our conversation include the following: 

  • Homeschooling is a lifestyle that prioritizes family, character, and lifelong learning.
  • Parental involvement and adaptability are crucial to success.
  • Homeschool challenges are inevitable, but so are unique opportunities for growth and connection.
  • Faith, communication, and a supportive partnership between parents make the homeschool journey sustainable and rewarding.

Tune in for an inspiring, practical, and heartfelt conversation that offers wisdom for homeschoolers, parents, and anyone interested in intentional family life.


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Martin Vervloet:

But what I think that we have to get away from is the idea that we're just filling our children with information. What we're really doing is we're teaching them to learn.

Timmy Eaton:

Hi. I am Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and Doctor of Education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years, and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out, but people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue. New homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling and homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of This Golden Hour podcast. As you exercise, drive clean or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Martin Loot from Alberta. Martin is a homeschool father of 11 who preaches the gospel works construction, and gives a lot of service. Martin shares his experiences as a father of a large family, including being a grandfather, 18 and counting and homeschooling since the mid 1990s. He discusses the influence of faith, the importance of parental involvement, and the flexibility homeschooling provided for their large family. Some key highlights from our conversation include the following. Homeschooling is a lifestyle that prioritizes family, character, and lifelong learning. Parental involvement and adaptability are crucial to success. Homeschool challenges are inevitable, but so are unique opportunities for growth and connection. And finally, faith communication and a supportive partnership between parents make the homeschool journey sustainable and rewarding. Tune in for an inspiring, practical and heartfelt conversation that offers wisdom for homeschoolers parents and anyone else interested in intentional family life. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast. Today we are very privileged to have with us Martin Verve Loot from Alberta. Thanks for being with us.

Martin Vervloet:

You're welcome.

Timmy Eaton:

Good to be with you. Martin and I met a couple of months ago at a homeschool conference in Red Deer, Alberta, and he is the homeschooling father of 11 children. And we had such good conversations there and I thought, man, he'd be a perfect candidate to be on the podcast. So again, thanks for being with us. Anything else you wanna add to your bio, maybe even grandchildren or anything you can tell us?

Martin Vervloet:

Our 18th grandchild is on the way. We have five married children. One of them has six kids and another five. Number 18 is expected sometime in January. So

Timmy Eaton:

And only five of the 11 are married. And you already have 18 grandkids.

Martin Vervloet:

That's correct.

Timmy Eaton:

So I guess the projections are gonna be somewhere near 50.

Martin Vervloet:

I don't know. I don't pressure my kids. No, I know we, we've had a lot of children, but that was our choice. That's what God led us to do. Yes. I don't necessarily say that's what they have to do. They've gotta between them and the Lord and we leave it at that, so

Timmy Eaton:

That's awesome, man I thought it there, but I'm like, man you just look like you're way too young to have that many kids and grandkids. But I, you're spry.

Martin Vervloet:

Every time I get my hair cut. And when I get out of the chair and I look at the floor, I said, they must have had an old guy here before me. Good. Look at all this. So

Timmy Eaton:

I know you think of yourself one way, and then you look in the mirror and you're like, reminded. Oh yeah. I'm like old guy now.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, exactly.

Timmy Eaton:

Tell us right off the bat how did homeschooling come into your life?

Martin Vervloet:

At the time when my wife and I got married, I was the pastor of a tiny little church out west of here. And suddenly the big questions of life we were married two years when our first daughter was born. And so soon you have that kid, you gotta realize what are we gonna do with this little bundle. Yes. And so we had started a little school in the basement of the church and so we were thinking that probably our children, if we stayed there, I'm sure they would have just kept going, know, gone into that school and been a part of that. It was a very small a CE school. And it was a good little school. And so that was our thought. But then the Lord removed us from that ministry. We moved to three hills and then eventually to the acreage where we are at now. But the situation was such when our daughter was five. My wife has a very young brother. He was about two years old when we were married. Wow. And they had started homeschooling their child. All of the other children were grown, her brother was basically a, an only child'cause all the other siblings had already moved out. Yeah. So we saw what was going on and we just partnered with that and got involved and and we saw the need for raising our children. I'm not gonna fault the public system or the alternate school is, the other organizations. But we just felt at the time that was the best thing. So we started homeschooling her. She was born in 1990 and we started homeschooling her in 95, 96. So 30 years ago.

Timmy Eaton:

Crazy man. So definitely among many of the pioneers. And and that was, that's when it was just getting a little bit more acceptable and a little bit more common. But, the real pioneers started in the seventies but still early. You guys didn't have, especially without the internet and other things, nearly the resources that people have today and the networking.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, there was homeschooling organizations out there, and we were connected to some of those. And we were really getting our our go-to was my wife's parents because they were teaching her younger brother. And so we saw what they were doing and we just copycatted that. And as more resources came available, we tapped into those, whether they were physical textbooks or online stuff. We did some of that. It depended because, i'm better at math, but I was busy. My wife was not really good at math, so we did that through whatever means we, we could and and we didn't always use the same program for each child. It was just whatever worked for that kid we'd adapt and we'd alter the situation and make it work.

Timmy Eaton:

And who would you say was like more of the researcher for that type of stuff? Curriculum and just activities and extracurricular. Were you and your wife together on that or was that more something your wife handled or did it depend on the subject or the activity?

Martin Vervloet:

We were part of a homeschool organization and we had the supervisors like the from the government. We were with a homeschool board here, and we had a fellow who we had known even before we started homeschooling. And so we had him as our facilitator for several years. He was always a good go-to guy. He would help us out. And I, I admit that, teaching the subjects when the kids are in elementary school age it's pretty basic and pretty simple. It's not rocket science. It's the ABCs, the one, two threes and it's not until you get into, the sciences in El Junior high and high school that it gets a little more complicated. That would've been six to eight years later. So now we're in the middle of the 2000, 2004, 2005. Yeah. And so basically by then the resources were even that much more available for us. And so we just picked and chose what we thought would work, and we tried this. And one thing I realized too was when I was in high school, junior high school, the teachers taught us a lot of stuff and that it was good stuff. But even though the internet didn't come around until a little bit later and all the resources that we have today the videos that were available at the time were great. Like we taught a lot of our science to our children. And it was the stuff that I remembered learning when I was in junior high, whether it was chemistry or biology, or physics, not so much physics. That's a little bit further. Yeah. But, the weather patterns the sun, the moon, the stars, the solar system, all of those different science subjects that I took as a kid in high school or junior high school. The videos were there and the, kids would watch'em. It was interesting because one of our premier students was I think she, she would've been the fourth child. And so she was so little. Mel was not actually really including her, but it was amazing'cause she would sit there and she would, yeah, she would absorb it. She absorb all that information and stuff. And so when it came down, like she was probably one of our best students'cause she could read and write and do all of this stuff way sooner. And it was just because she was just immersed in that culture of homeschooling. And so that was cool. So

Timmy Eaton:

I love that point. I don't know if you made it to any of the presentations that I did at the a HA conference, but the one of them was I talked about like how the first three, we were so intentional about helping them to read. And the second three, we have six kids. And the second three, I have no clue how they learned how to read. I mean I do since then, and it was basically siblings. But more than anything, I think it was just being read to and just being read to constantly. And then they just know how to read. Like I, and I know that sounds, people are like, yeah, that's not, but it is. It's just there's absorb, they absorb it, like you said. And I, there's probably, a number of young mothers listening to this episode that we're gonna publish me and you, and they're going, man, 11 kids. So what do you tell parents that are, like, how did you do that? How did Melody do that? And did your kids homeschool all the way through All of them?

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah. We homeschooled all of them all the way through, and we're not done. Our youngest is 13, so we still have a few years before she's done. But the thing is that I I have a few daughter-in-laws that, a couple of daughter in-laws, there's two sisters, married, two brothers. My two boys.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, cool.

Martin Vervloet:

And and. They have a rough time. I'm gonna be quite honest With children. Yeah. Having children, not so much afterwards. They're wonderful mothers. There's no question about that. But having these children, it's just in my mind, how brutal can it be? But when my wife, I'm not sure whether it was the first or second child, the doctor looked at her after the delivery and said, ma'am, you know how to do this? And so she was just a natural. She and I remember one episode, I, it was our one of our daughters, I think it was number let me think here. 5, 6, 8, number eight. So we're a little ways down the road here.

Timmy Eaton:

What's your breakdown of boys and girls?

Martin Vervloet:

We have one more boy than girl. We have five girls, six boys.

Timmy Eaton:

Cool.

Martin Vervloet:

At any rate, but while she was in labor, I knew, because she told me that she. No longer experienced labor pain. And so the nurse is looking at my wife, she's on the monitor and saying, ma'am, are you having a contraction? And Mel would nod her head and say, yes. And I looked at her, she doesn't have any pain. And the nurse looked at me and said, and what do you know? And the truth is that I don't know. I just know what she tells me. Yeah. And but she, it was a little difficult. The final push was always a little bit more painful. And yet the, by the seventh or eighth baby, the contractions no longer had pain. My wife said the biggest thing she had to overcome was the fear of fear. Yeah.'Cause that would really work her up with how afraid she was to have babies.'cause she knew how much it could hurt, but when actually she overcame that, it was just the next step. And I, there's probably some ladies who could have. Who had more children than us, and it was always painful. I know that. But my wife was natural. Now, when we got married, we said we wanted five kids, and then we would wait five years and decide if we wanted more. Yeah. That's exactly what happened. After Daniel, our fifth was five years old, and at one point in time we, we had a couple and we thought we could not have anymore. My wife was just not having any more kids. And then two years later, suddenly number eight came and then we had. Three more after that. But by that time, we actually had two married daughters before our youngest was born. And a joke, my wife always says, he said, if you Google search a mother of the bride maternity dresses, you will come up with a zero. It's not there. So she wound up making her own maternity dress for her own daughter's wedding. So she's sitting in this church service. In the service and everybody's saying, that's the mom. She looks pregnant. And the truth was, she was. But, that was one where towards the end she was like literally flat on her back and for about the last four or five weeks, not in pain, but just couldn't do anything. And I said, okay. Let the girls take over. And so that was our last child and that was fine. We were content with 11 and Wow. And the reality is that's quite the brood. Yeah. The reality is it, people say don't you believe in fla family planning? And I say, we certainly do.'cause if we hadn't planned it, we would've had a lot more

Timmy Eaton:

and then like when people wonder about so how do you do that when you have kids at all stages of the homeschooling journey? Like how do you give them attention? Because some people think of it, especially people that are beginning, right? They're like they tend to replicate what happens in the school and they think that's what happens. And they so how do you handle all this subjects or all these kids? So what would your wife say? What would you say to like, how did you actually homeschool that many kids at the same time?

Martin Vervloet:

As you're teaching the material you're you don't teach to the lowest common denominator because otherwise you'd be in grade two for the rest of, for everybody's homeschooling. Yeah. So there were subjects where they had to differentiate and one would sit at the computer and work on their math or their science or their, whatever it would be. But like we had a lot of character training. One of the things we were strong on was character training. We wanted to teach'em to be honest and truthful. I think that's one thing that's perhaps largely lacking in the public system is the idea of learning to work hard. I've had to deal with some young people that came out of the school system and you just wonder, they're just totally lost it. They have no competence. They have no worth work ethic. They have no no, character that's there. So we emphasize character. Those things can be taught whatever the child age is. Yeah. And a lot of the subjects, the kids can pick up what they can at a certain age and they're not going to pick up everything. But what I think that we have to get away from is the idea that we're just filling our children with information. What we're really doing is we're teaching them to learn. Yes. See the problem with information is that there's an unlimited amount. We're never gonna teach it all to them. And we're not gonna be able to determine when they're 5, 6, 7, 8, what they're gonna do in the future. So we have the basic building blocks. Math and the language and the arts and the science of those things that we need to get into their heads. So as basic building blocks. But somewhere in their adolescence, 12, 13, you suddenly see that they're going off in this direction. This is where they like to camp out, so to speak. Yeah. And so then we okay for that child we shift it. And the thing is, if you teach two things, character and particularly a good work ethic when they get to the point where they find that they know their interests. Yeah. Suddenly it's like they know how to learn. They know how to apply themselves. They have the character to stick to it and discipline, and they'll learn it like, like even something as simple as a math equation, why do I need to know this? And that's sometimes it's hard to even if you say you just will, and they will, but it's sometimes hard to explain why they need to know this. But I took them to the workforce with me early on when they were 14, 15, 16, as much as I could. Yeah. And most of them were working almost full-time while they were 16. But in the workforce, they began to understand why they need to have these disciplines, why they need to know these things. And they had that work ethic. So they applied themselves and got themselves into it. Like I remember my one son, he, I told him he couldn't come to work with me if he needed to do his homework, he needed to do his math work, and I wasn't really paying attention. I knew that he would go upstairs to his room. I wasn't exactly sure what he was up to. But about three months later, he came and said, dad. Finished. You told me how much math I needed to learn. I've done it all. It's done. And I'm going, what? And when he came home at the end of the day, he would go upstairs and he would just and when he went to college, he did well. Like I say he went for his carpentry training. He did. Cool. I was surprised. He actually it was mind blowing. And so when they learned to apply themselves, when they learned that character, when they worked that work ethic, bang, they got it and they did it. So

Timmy Eaton:

I love the emphasis you're putting on that, like the, those two elements, right? Like work ethic and then also just like knowing how to learn. And building character. I think you're right. I interviewed, I don't know if if you're familiar with Andrew Pua IE w.com, but he does Institute for Excellence in Writing, and I, he's huge in the homeschool world. I interviewed him yesterday actually. He's in Oklahoma. And he was saying like, academics is like your last concern as a homeschool parent and as a parent in general. Yeah. Because like you said, when you're teaching those other things that matter so much more like relationships and responsibility and character than those other things, they tend to come along. And as you were talking about your son who went into college and carpentry, can you give us a little breakdown, how many of your kids are out into the world and how do you feel like homeschool prepared them for where they are? And was it hard to get into schools and careers and trades and.

Martin Vervloet:

No, because the workforce needs dedicated people who actually will apply themselves. So if you teach'em that, that at work ethic and application, they don't have any trouble at all, as far as I'm concerned. And I'm gonna be so bold. Yeah. And again, I don't have anything against the public system or the private school system.

Timmy Eaton:

No, man, be bold.

Martin Vervloet:

Be bold. Yeah, they're, no, they're there for a reason. There are young people who never get an education without those things. So I don't wanna speak against that. But what I'm gonna say is the public high school, or even the private school, high school, social construct is artificial. I remember being in Calgary in a high school, I don't remember exactly how many students, somewhere between 12, 115, a hundred students. Big high school, and. I was in my little box in my grade 10 class and I couldn't hardly speak to people that were in grade 11. Like you as a grade 11 would never demean themselves speaking to someone in grade 10 and so on and so forth. And it would be, and to fail and have to be in a class with the, with people that were in the lower grade was just humiliating in the extreme. See, when you get out into the real world, you have to deal with people of all age construct, and you have to learn to get along with them. And you can't be in this little tight little group and of your age or grade like so that social construct only exists. In high school. Or in, in school to school system. So what I found was, is that with the, we, now I'm gonna say one thing that's really important is to have a ministry mindset with your children. You have to be doing things ministerially wise, whether it's in the church or whether it's just whatever you can do. We took our kids to sing and they weren't very good, but we took them to sing at the senior's home. Most of'em are to deaf. They probably couldn't hear what we were singing and it didn't matter. But you have that ministry mindset. So they're learning to interact not with people just in their age group or in their class. Yes. They're learning too. Interact with the age old people. They're learning to act, interact with the younger kids at church. They're in learning to interact on what I call a more normal natural. This is where life is. Yeah. This is

Timmy Eaton:

life, man.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, exactly. In that sense, I'm gonna say socially they were better adjusted than than I would've been coming outta high school.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. They're prepared for the real world and how it works. Exactly. You're right. It is like this facade that they go through. And then the sad thing about that is that there are some identities that are formed in those formative years that are dangerous and they really are when the parents are not. When it's so peer or peer oriented, and parents and a lot of people hear stuff like that and they're like, oh man, that sounds so sheltered or old school. And I go, are you kidding me? These are transcendent principles where if peers are raising peers, then the outcome is absolutely less desirable than when loving parents are providing character development. So amen to everything you just said.

Martin Vervloet:

Now, one, one thing at the HEA convention every Thursday night, we always have a new homeschooler session. And I get up and I'm not a parrot, I don't pair it the same thing, but essentially what I say is the same. Yeah. And that is, is that what the value of homeschool is? Is that. No one knows your kids better than you do. And no one cares more for your kids than you do. And it's just a limitation of a public system where a teacher, my high school the teacher might have anywhere between five to eight different groups of children, of young people every week. And their teach. And then, and they would be dealing with each one of these, and each class had up to 30 kids, young people. And so you're looking at somewhere like 200 young people that they're trying to deal with all of the issues and all of the problems trying to teach, whether it's social studies or language arts, or even some of the optional classes. But the problem is that they're gonna spend a lot of time just figuring out where each young person is so that they can take'em to the next level. And out of simple. A numerical advantage you can take that to the next level.'cause when you leave and see, the other thing is that these teachers, next year, they're gonna get a whole new batch. And there might be a little bit of overlap, but most of the students are gonna be brand new to them and they gotta figure it out all over. After summer, you can start your child when you take, you might take that summer break, but in September you're gonna start them back where you left off and you know your kids. And often with

Timmy Eaton:

those same groups and there's not that variety. Andrew Pua and I yesterday were talking about how yeah, like it's not that the teachers are doing something wrong, it's that you don't have the capacity, like Exactly. Exactly. Whereas a parent, even a parent of 11 children, you can give very focused attention to each one of those kids in their and customize the learning to each of them.

Martin Vervloet:

Yep. I'm gonna give the example of one of our. Sons, like he is a terrible reader and he's now 16 years old and he's still very bad at reading. And we were trying to figure out what is wrong.'cause we would read the simplest books and he would struggle. He was just a constant battle, constant struggle. It put him in the public system. He's gonna be labeled as an idiot. He'll never exceed and never excel. And he's gonna get into that dumpy, I can't do anything attitude. He's gonna be left behind his peers. He's gonna be ridiculed and ostracized by his own classmates. And yet we in the, in our home could say what is wrong. And so we're, we spent time, and it was actually at the homeschool convention in Red Deer two years ago, I think it was. So he was 14. And my wife came across a booth and she started talking with the lady there. And we realized. Ah, this might be what's wrong. And sure enough there's an ailment that some children have. It's common enough that it's understood and it's called Erlin syndrome. And what it means is that not that he's dyslexic, we thought he was dyslexic. That wasn't the case. We knew that he was brilliant in science and brilliant in, in doing things electronically, like we couldn't believe. And we just couldn't figure out why can't you read? And we realized that for him, because of the, how his eyes and his brain interpret things, there was a something wrong. And what amounts to is that he can't read black letters on white paper. And so we took him to this lady and she right away said, oh man, he has it bad. And so what has to happen is he has special filters.'cause let's face it, every book you read, it's white paper with black letters. And he could never read more than three letters at a time.

Timmy Eaton:

Like, how common is this syndrome?

Martin Vervloet:

I found out that my son-in-law has it too, but not as extreme. So it's not uncommon, but it's just, it's something that's just not talked about. And a lot of these kids just are considered stupid. But we knew that wasn't the case. So when we figured it out, we took him. It cost us like. Over a thousand dollars for these examinations and finally to get the glasses and stuff like that. But he has special filters and he hates using them. But he says, yeah, it means he can read. I, I, I kind of laughed because after his first appointment and the lady said he's got it terrible. It's, he's got a really bad case. He brought home all of these different color transparencies, you see those folders that Yeah. Have the color trans, he had a bunch of one and he had this paper with a paragraph written on it. And and there was a blue sheet. He had one of the blue transparencies on it. And I'm looking at that paper and I'm going, what is wrong with this?'cause I could not read that paragraph through that. So not

Timmy Eaton:

You could empathize.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, I could empathize because my eyes don't like the blue and I could not read through that blueprint. Transparency.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. That's fascinating. And he

Martin Vervloet:

has the same problem. If it's just white on black or black on white, sorry. Yeah. And so I've known for a long time that certain blue light, the other does bother me. And so obviously I'm never gonna look at anything through a blue transparency, but his glasses helping. Yeah. And so now he is able to read, but like I say, he's way behind obviously. Again, he's still got his whole life ahead of him. I went through public high school and when I got to college, they told me I was functionally illiterate. And then to make it worse, they proved it.

Timmy Eaton:

What I love about the anecdote you just gave is that had he been in the system, like again, bless their hearts, but a teacher wouldn't be able to diagnose it like that. And a parent, if they don't have the time, a parent can give that. And it's not like it has to be a homeschool parent that identifies those types of challenges or problems, but that, that, like you're constantly focused on that and you could see that. One thing I was wondering about, like just your situation because now you like what's your range of children from what age? 13 To what?

Martin Vervloet:

Okay. The youngest is 13 and the oldest is 35.

Timmy Eaton:

So you've seen like a couple of decades in that timeframe. So like how have you handled technology as it's changed and like, how have you and Melody navigated that over the years to the present? Like what we're at now with phones and internet and music and whatever. How do you guys navigate that?

Martin Vervloet:

I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't think that we're going to avoid it. I don't think that we're just gonna say, Nope, we're not gonna do that. I have seen parents say that, and the kids, as soon as they get out of the home, they're doing it anyway and it doesn't matter. So you have to basically teach them to control that.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. Some type of inoculation.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah. It's there. And so they've got a few video games and we're constantly on their case about not wanting, you have to be careful because you don't want to cut them off. We had one son who actually moved out at a very young age, about 16. And that hurt us because we weren't ready to release him into the world. But we decided, it's not like we're gonna stop him. So we said we're gonna work on that relationship. So in other words, with our children and the technology, we want them to know not all technology is bad after all. You're doing this podcast Yes. Hoping to get information out to people. So that's obviously not bad. Yeah. But but basically for them to be able to recognize, okay, there are certain things that are gonna be very detrimental to your life, to your future, to your, future marriage prospects. You wanna avoid the the porn sites you wanna, and when that comes up, you gotta deal with it. You gotta basically you have to use the it as a learning tool. And it continually express your concerns and deal with it as it comes up.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. I think

Martin Vervloet:

that the point is you're gonna have to be vigilant. You're not gonna be able to fall asleep on this one.

Timmy Eaton:

No. Yeah. Great answer. I really appreciate that because it is, and it's hard and I think just to any parents listening, it's not fun really. And it's not that easy. But I like what you said to, to focus on the positive and the good purposes, and then with your spouse and your children to come up with a way to really, to use it as a tool that can be beneficial. And then to be honest and open and have some communication about the, potential danger with it. So that's a really good response. So like, when you think back to like, when you guys started homeschooling and your main reasons for starting, how would you say those motivations evolved over time? Like at first you might say, oh, we love the time together. And then after you've done it for a while, you go, no, man, it's so good. Because not only do you get to spend time together, but you don't waste time at school and you eat healthy meals and, you're able to do service, like you said, as a family. What do you see as like some main benefits that you discovered?

Martin Vervloet:

I think biblically we are more or less whether we sent, we are responsible for the education of our children, period. And that doesn't mean that everybody's gonna be able to do homeschooling, but everybody has to be responsible. I'll be frank and honest. I have seen some homeschool disasters. I have seen some private school disasters, and obviously there are public school disasters. But as a rule, I would say the success or failure of a family is directly relational to the involvement of the. Parents with their children. I've seen public school kids turn out really great and go on into ministry and to fruitful lives because their parents were involved with them. In that they were there literally like they they weren't homeschooling, but they were at the school.

Timmy Eaton:

The same principles were being applied. Yeah.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah. They were still at the school they always have helpers and people don't know

Timmy Eaton:

PPA and whatever.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, exactly. When parents are involved, the kids are gonna be that much better. Now the reality is that by the very nature of it, a homeschool parent is probably going to be more involved, not necessarily always. And I, like I say, I've seen some homeschool disasters and the facts are that we're dealing with. You and individuals with their own free will, and they at some point in time are gonna have to make that decision for themselves, what they're gonna do with their lives, whether they're gonna follow the Lord, whether they're gonna serve the Lord. And unfortunately for even the best parents sometimes have kids that just say, no, I don't want this. And I always point out to the fact that okay, people say, oh, if you do everything right then your kids will turn out. I say, try to tell that to God,

Timmy Eaton:

even in a very practical sense, like you're saying, just because you, the involvement of homeschool parents, just practically speaking, if you've got six or seven hours more than a public school parent does, obviously that involvement is gonna be much greater.

Martin Vervloet:

Yes, exactly. Not a guarantee, but. Certainly higher percentages, I think. Yeah,

Timmy Eaton:

more likely. More likely, for sure. Yeah. And then what would you say, what were some of the biggest challenges that you guys faced? What was hard for your family in particular that you remember? Or even now?

Martin Vervloet:

The, I would say the hardest thing is when there is a, like a learning disability of some sort. Trying to sort that out. It's always great. Like I, we had that one daughter who just was flourished in whatever she did. She absorbed education no matter what we said. It was just sucked in. And she be, she's a very accomplished pianist today. And she once told my wife that she say if I practice a piano eight hours a day, can I not do my homework? And she was really good. We were happy that she was so good at it. But we said, how about you? Do your homework and then we let you practice as much as you want. Wow. And so the, we used the piano, which was her love and passion to encourage her to do her homework, which she yeah. Didn't like to do. So there's always those options. But like I say, the great students, the good students, the ones that really get it, oh yeah but. We have some children. Our one daughter is mildly dyslexic. And so she struggles again. She's a worker. She's almost 19. And she works with us in the factory where we do building. And she's a, everybody says Wow for 18, 19-year-old gal. She's just a workhorse. And she gets it, and she knows what she's doing. She's this is actually her last day at work because tomorrow she's heading up to camp. She's gonna do camp ministry. And in September, she's heading off to YWAM to do a discipleship training school in Costa Rica for five months. She's got the lingo and she's learning. But see, that's the thing. Suddenly there's motivation. Yes. And she's disciplined. So that motivation, that discipline, that work ethic, she'll do it. She'll learn. She's already, we're all doing it too. We've got a, the program to learn Spanish and all of us are doing it, and she's just flying way ahead of us. I, we're plan we went there in February as a family mission trip and at the end of her. Training, which is end of January. We're hoping to come out for a week and spend it there and help out at the base and do what we did last February and then come home with her in in February. So Oh,

Timmy Eaton:

good for you guys. So I wanted to transition a little bit one of the things that I focus on a lot, and you and I talked about this at the conferences I focus on homeschool dads and the principal parent is the mom in most cases very few exceptions to that are the dad as the principal so what did you see, especially as a father of 11 children who are homeschooled all the way through what would you say was like, how would you describe your role and like how would you describe, like what was your job as a support to your spouse and.

Martin Vervloet:

Like I say, this is not gonna happen if mom is not on board. That's just the facts in our home. And if she said let's send them to a Christian school. At the time, I probably said, yeah, let you know. But no she saw what her parents were doing with her brother and she said, no, I want to do this. So my job became support her troubleshoot, I think we had the idea that she's the teacher, I'm the principal of disciplinary issues. Come up I come home and she says. So and so needs to be talked to. Oh, yeah. That's a real let down. You, we wanna have a better day than that. That's gonna happen, by the way, whether you're homeschooling or public school. Yeah, of course. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter anyway. But but basically, so I was just the support and we made sure that we were both on the same page as far as what we were doing and when things went awry and we had to solve the problem, we normally, we do a, we live out in the country about 45 minutes from Red Deer, as you said, as you pointed out. So we do most of our shopping in that direction, and that's a 45 minute drive. We'd say kids are old enough, leave them at home and let them solve their own world. We hear about it when we get home, but Yeah. But basically just for her and I to talk and connect. And so communication between my wife and I is a must and it has to happen. And there's been times when we've gone up to Red Deer and she has sat there and I just had to listen and yeah. When she's done talking and she's said, oh, I feel so much better. And I'm going, phew, I'm glad that's the case.'cause I'm not sure what to say. But but just to be a listening ear sometimes, and sometimes to have some input and just to encourage and support her in what she's doing. And and then of course in 2021, I think it was I joined the homeschool board there in aia. Yeah. And so that's what like, we're actively involved in helping others figure this out.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. And thank you for that. Like you, you mentioned that you did stuff to make sure you were on the same page. Do you remember specifically, how did you do that? To me, that is the essence of what I am trying to target with homeschool dads is that what I find is that typically the dad doesn't know a ton and the mom's kind of all in, but the dad's busy providing in a lot of cases. And so he's, he's there to say, good job guys and whatever, but he's not really intentionally involved. Not that he has to be overly involved, but intentionally involved. How did you guys, how did you get buy-in and and get on the same page with what you guys were doing?

Martin Vervloet:

There has been a lot of times when you come to wit's end and you really don't have a clue what the next step is. And I'm gonna say that even with all of our kids, there have been moments in time where we've just had to say, I don't know what I'm doing here. This is crazy. What do we think we're trying to pull off? And yet we know we're doing the right thing. We just don't know. And it's cool because, I don't know how you would accomplish homeschooling without a solid Christian faith and ethic because, there are times when we've just had to more or less cry out to the Lord saying, Lord, what do we do next? This issue, this conflict, this trial, whatever it might be. How do we deal with this? But that's the unique thing about our relationship with the Lord is. He's there. And I have come to rely upon the fact that when I'm at wit's end, he's not. And so I'd say, okay, Lord. And there have been times when we have had amazing direct answers to prayer. One of the things that happened, I'll just give an illustration of this, is that the one time we were, because of the way things have worked out here in 2017, we were looking for a church fellowship. We had been attending a long ways away and we knew that we couldn't really be involved. And it was frustrating. And because you really do need to be involved. And so we were on one of our shopping trips and we knew that our children needed to be. Actively involved in a fellowship. It says, forsake not the assembly of yourselves. Together. We knew they needed that. We needed it. They needed it. So we thought my, we were talking about what are we gonna do? How are we gonna solve this issue? And my wife says why don't we just pray? And said what do we pray for? He said, pray that someone would phone and invite us to church. We, at that time, we had lived in this location for 17 years. And had never received a phone call from any church inviting us. So I said, that's crazy. But she said God knows. That's crazy. And so she prayed and I was driving so I couldn't close my eyes. So I'm driving down the highway. Dear Lord, I'm not. Sincerity. Faith wasn't real strong at that moment, I'll be honest. But the next morning at about 10 o'clock, I was at work and I received a phone call. Not only did the pastor invite us to church, but he asked me to preach. So he said, and it was three weeks away, I'll give you, come in three weeks and I'll preach. I said, we'll be there Sunday. He said, what? And I said, we'll be there Sunday. Wow. And I phoned up Mel and said, guess what? Pastor Mark phoned and he invited us and to come and he wants me to preach. She says that was simple, wasn't it? And so like I say, the Lord is able to do stuff when we are just at the end of our rope. And I'm gonna be quite honest, sometimes he pushes us to the end of our rope where the cliffs Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Allow, allows some struggle.

Martin Vervloet:

It's just so that we will turn to him. So in your raising your children stuff goes wrong, stuff doesn't quite jive the way you would hoped it would. That's when we enlist higher support.

Timmy Eaton:

As you were saying that one of the things that I teach in the course that proactive homeschool dad course that I have is the, to trust your wife's motherly intuition. And that's something over, 17, 18 years of doing this and being married to my spouse. That that really is something unique to I think women. And so I agree with what you're saying. As a homeschool dad. Can you remember things that you did that you wish you didn't do in your role as a homeschool dad that you're like, oh man, I I don't know if you wanna say, I regret that, or just more man I could have done this better, or I, or I overstepped the bounds here, or I did. One thing that I do commonly is that I'll think I'm helping, but I'm actually adding to a problem by not communicating well with my wife and then just assuming that I need to do something. For example if she really just wants me to. Play with the kids and give them that out then, sometimes I don't need to be so focused on an academic thing or something like that. Is there anything like that, that you can recall that you're, like, your wife might have been like, I wish you would just do this and you're doing too much of that?

Martin Vervloet:

The one thing that always comes up is for some reason my relationship with the girls was really easy, really simple. My relationship with the boys. Was always a struggle, especially in what we would call the 14, 15-year-old time when they would get that, what we call the Rooster Syndrome. Oh yeah. They're stretching their wings or flapping around and they're Yes. And they're and you, if anyone has ever had a 14, 15-year-old, you know what I'm talking about, especially a young boy. I have a 13-year-old

Timmy Eaton:

boy right now. And that's pretty accurate, man. His feathers are all fluffed right now.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, exactly. My wife has always been encouraging me to be involved with the boys, do things with the boys and you see what the greatest help for her my second son Daniel when he was young. And this is humiliating for me. I'm gonna share something very humiliating to you. No,

Timmy Eaton:

I appreciate you being vulnerable,

Martin Vervloet:

but see, my, I had no problem with my oldest son, Jesse.'cause he and I thought the same way we connected, we understood. Yeah. He got it. And there was just nothing, Daniel, he was so different on every issue. It was like bang. There was like two rams on the hillside just smacking each other. And you're just wondering, this is getting nowhere fast. And I could have labeled him as being rebellious, but I always shied away from that. And I could say something to that too. But I didn't want to do that. And but my oldest son, Jesse, and he would've been 18, 19 at this time, so he's not wisdom incarnate or anything like that. But he said, dad, you are not wrong. Daniel's not wrong.

Timmy Eaton:

You're different.

Martin Vervloet:

You're just different. And you don't see eye to eye, he said, but you're supposed to be the mature one. You figure it out. Wow. He's 16, 17, 14, 15, 16. You have to be the one that figures that out.

Timmy Eaton:

No, that's insightful from an 18 or 19-year-old.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, it was. It was. I had to stop and say, oh, how do I do that? And again, it was a cry to the Lord probably, and I just trusted the Lord. But one of the things that helped, I was involved in construction and I just took them to work. I just got them involved with what I was doing and they were 14, 15, 16, and whatever. I don't know exactly the ages anymore, but basically I think they had this idea that dad goes to work. Dad comes home and he talks about the coffee room top conversation and they think that I just go to work and drink coffee. And so I take'em to work and suddenly they're going, coming home. At the end of the day, dad, I'm exhausted. I'm going, thank you. You're beginning to understand my life a little better. And so there was an appreciation from them over what I was doing. For them, trying to put food on the table, working every day and make ends meet. And that helped immensely. If they can just understand what it is you're doing, it's gonna help a lot. And that's a little difficult if you have an office job or something like that. But there's gotta be some way, you've gotta let them see the real you, and then they can appreciate who you are. And, then I think that's what my wife wanted from me was to have, especially with our younger sons, is have them involved so that they understand what's going on because they come into a picture. They come into the world and they really don't know anything. And so everything is gonna have to be taught and learned and the only way they're gonna learn it is they actually see it. Yeah. So when they see dad working hard, they learn to work hard. Yeah. And then when you. Take him out fishing and doing stuff like that on the weekends. That's all connecting with him. He, she said, don't help me so much with the homeschool.'cause if you're connecting with them, they just do homeschool better.

Timmy Eaton:

And I, often say that homeschooling is a lifestyle choice and all of that is encompassed within whatever we call homeschool, and so Exactly. I, but yeah, but like as far as academics and that, what a great example. I really appreciate you sharing that because I think that is what a lot of moms want. Like we think, oh, I'm gonna help. And like you said, you're more into the math, sometimes you do help with subject matter, but a lot of times, the time doesn't permit it. And so your real role is helping provide experiences and like you said, connecting and just, forming the relationship. So I appreciate that. I just had two final questions for you. One. Especially with your experience and Melody's experience, like what would you counsel new homeschool families in 2025 homeschooling looks a lot different than it did in the mid nineties. What would you counsel new families that have tons of resources, tons of community support but they're overwhelmed. Like how do they get started? What do they do? And then secondly, what do you see as the future? What's the future of homeschool and kind of education? Two pretty big questions so you can take'em individually.

Martin Vervloet:

Yeah, I'll take the first one first, because I think that's the fundamental. It doesn't matter how many resources you have, it's gonna be work and you have to be committed to raising your children in a godly fashion. It doesn't happen by osmosis. They don't wake up one day and be goody two shoes when they're 18 and I'm gonna say, it doesn't matter. What you do, there are gonna be issues that you have to work through. So don't be, oh, I can't handle all of this homeschool stuff. It's too much for me. Trust me, you send them to public school, you'll have what? Too much for you. They do. And you're not gonna escape that just by what you do. But the point is that when you really consider what's best for your children and for you as a family, if you're homeschooling and suddenly grandma needs a hand she's fallen down or something. You just pick up the bag and you just take the whole family and you go help her. I remember my dad lived out on the coast and suddenly we found out that he was in the hospital and they didn't expect him to live. So boom, we just. Threw everybody in the van and took off. We didn't have to be a, we'll catch up later. We'll work in the summer if it was through schooling, if we have to. Yeah. And now we went out there, my dad did survive and he is still alive today. We brought him closer. He was living in Calgary, close to my sister's place.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, good to hear, man.

Martin Vervloet:

When an opportunity to minister something happened at their place and they say, oh, we need help. You just grab your kids and go, you just do it. And like I say, a ministry mindset, you're gonna help people. You're gonna do stuff when it's necessary through the church, through whatever, homeschool organization that might be around you, whatever you what in, in your family, whatever. You just do what's gotta be done. And that is so important it gives you that flexibility. And yes, it's gonna be hard. Yes, there's gonna be conflicts. Yes, there's gonna be problems, but get used to it. That's life.

Timmy Eaton:

One thing I was gonna say before you address, the second question is. You, I was about to say, when you said like you, you're able to just pick up and go with your dad or another circumstance. And I think I've been in the habit of saying homeschoolers don't have a corner on that. And ideally they don't. Like any family can say, we're gonna go to my dad. And many do. But then I caught myself and I was like, no, homeschoolers do because there is this institutional mentality that is has such a stronghold. That we wouldn't make common sense decisions like that because oh, they have to do their math homework or they have to make sure they hit this test or they can't miss that game, or this or that or the other. And I'm going, man, homeschooling is so refreshing because there's this element of de-schooling and de-institutionalize and that takes some intentional work for people to get out of that institutional mentality that is so strongly ingrained in our culture. And so I actually appreciate that, that example. I think it is one of the beauties of choosing the homeschool lifestyle. You just have that flexibility and that freedom to make decisions like that without thinking, oh, what are the repercussions at school? It's who cares what the repercussions are? It's your family and it's your,

Martin Vervloet:

life. Life is a learning process. And this is the other thing I tell my kids when you finish school, don't think that you're never gonna learn anything else in your life.'cause you're just starting, basically. You homeschool your grade one through 12 education, whatever you get, that's just a, that's just a skin on an orange peel. And you've got lots to go to get underneath that. And so or your,

Timmy Eaton:

or to your earlier analogy, that's like the Garden of Eden. And then you're, now you're going out into the world, man.

Martin Vervloet:

Exactly. So basically there's a lot that's gonna happen and you're gonna have to continue to learn. And that's why I think the important thing about teaching is teaching your children how to learn.'cause they're gonna be learning their whole lives. That's never gonna end. I'm almost 62. If I stop learning, I may as well. All in my grave and die. So basically we're always learning. Yeah. And we need to have that a attitude that it's not over when we finish grade 12 or finish postgraduate school or get our master's or a doctor degree. Look at any medical physician, he's spending hours every week just keeping up to date on the latest stuff that's coming out. I hope so. Oh we can only hope. There's, again, it's overwhelming and maybe they have to specialize, but you get my, the drift, totally. Yeah. But the future of homeschooling I think is good. One of the challenges is because like I say, historically speaking in Alberta the homeschooling movement has been religion based, whether it's primarily in the early days in Christianity, and but also. Lately the other faiths have chosen to, for different various reasons to, to homeschool. A lot of secular people are beginning to homeschool. Definitely, yes. The stuff that's happening. So the new challenge is and like I said, I don't know how you homeschool without faith in Christ. I guess that's outside of my purview. Somebody else is gonna have to address that aspect. But basically I think the future for homeschooling across the country is broad and powerful. And especially here in Alberta, I think we have a very solid base. Like with the different organizations different homeschool boards, we have input into our government and the decisions that are being made there. And through the organization of aia, we have been able to we have a direct access. Our government liaison gal, she's, and they're often meeting with the minister and the differences that happen when they have a change in government. But nevertheless, just to be at the table and be able to share and help guide some things. Sometimes just the way it's worded has to be tweaked because, words mean everything in our day, especially on a, some kind of legal document or something. So those are the things that, that we gotta watch for. But I think especially with the pressing situation, things are very positive and encouraging and we don't like controversy, so we don't look for it. But when it comes. Exactly. We tackle. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Said. I'll give you the last word. This has been such a great conversation, man. We gotta do this again someday. You're really good at this. I

Martin Vervloet:

don't you, you're just tapping into what's already up there, no, I know.

Timmy Eaton:

You're, you are, you're a good interview for sure. Just give you the last word, anything you wanna say in closing and then we'll wrap this up.

Martin Vervloet:

You're asking a preacher to say something. I have a couple messages on my heart, but basically we need to receive God and accept God as who he is, not as the what we want him to be. He was here before we were, and we need to really just approach him as he is and humbly receive what he has for us.

Timmy Eaton:

Beautiful. Thank you so much you guys, everybody, this is Martin Ver and it was a great interview. Appreciate you taking time.

Martin Vervloet:

Sounds good. Thanks for having me. Have

Timmy Eaton:

a great evening. That wraps up another edition of this Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps out a lot, and if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.