This Golden Hour

110. Vanessa Braun and Building a Village

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Vanessa Braun from Medicine Hat, Alberta. Vanessa is a passionate homeschooling mom of four, a teacher, and a community organizer. Vanessa describes her journey from a traditional public school background and earning a master’s degree in math education to embracing homeschooling for her young children. Listeners will hear about Vanessa’s approach to learning—emphasizing outdoor experiences, family involvement, and a “better late than early” philosophy inspired by Raymond and Dorothy Moore. She offers practical advice for new homeschoolers, encouraging them to avoid recreating school at home, slow down, and focus on building relationships and a love of learning. Tune in for an insightful, heartfelt conversation that celebrates the diversity and richness of the homeschooling lifestyle.


Books and Resources

Hold Onto Your Kids 

Better Late Than Early

Gather Round

Yoto


This Golden Hour

Vanessa Braunn:

education is alive in your home, regardless of what you do on paper. I think that we can get so wrapped up in I need to recreate school at home. And any seasoned homeschooler will be like, absolutely not. You Don't have to start in social studies, go outside, get your kids outside. Occasionally open a book and read to them, and that's all you have to do.

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 are listening to this Golden Hour podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Vanessa Braun from Medicine Hat Alberta. Vanessa is a passionate homeschooling mom of four, a teacher and a community organizer. Vanessa describes her journey from a traditional public school background and earning a master's degree in math education to embracing homeschooling for her young children listeners will hear about Vanessa's approach to learning, emphasizing outdoor experiences, family involvement, and a better late than early philosophy. Inspired by Raymond and Dorothy Moore, she offers practical advice for new homeschoolers, encouraging them to avoid recreating school at home, slow down and focus on building relationships and a love of learning. Tune in for an insightful, heartfelt conversation that celebrates the diversity and richness of the homeschooling lifestyle. Welcome back to this Golden Hour podcast Today we're very excited to have with us Vanessa Braun from Medicine Hat Alberta. Vanessa, thank you for taking time.

Vanessa Braunn:

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah and we're sad that her husband couldn't be with us, but he's tending to more important matters and being with the children while Vanessa does this. It's 8:45 PM Alberta time. So thanks for sacrificing to do this.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. I'm just super excited to share our journey so far.

Timmy Eaton:

Thank you. Why don't you start by just doing any other part of the bio you tell about your children, whatever you wanna do, and then maybe like we were just talking before the interview started about what they're doing in Medicine Hat. So maybe just talk a little bit about that.

Vanessa Braunn:

So I am in medicine at Alberta with my husband. I am a stay-at-home mom and ho homeschooling mom to four kiddos. Their three girls are the oldest, seven, five, and three. And then I have a 1-year-old son. He came and finished up the caboose on the train as at work busy. Yeah. And my husband's an engineer. He works in the city. Thankfully he's home every night, so that's really nice. And I have my master's in math education. And my husband, he's geotechnical engineer, so we were both fully like we went through public school. My husband's from Texas. He went to school there. And we met up here in, at the University of Regina and then found our way to Medicine Hat. Cool. And we love it here. We're super outdoorsy. We love to be outside as much as we can, and Medicine Hat really gives us the ability to do that. For those of you not familiar, there's a whole system of Cooley in Medicine Hat, so a lot of space that can't be built on. So they're just like paths and trees and forests. You have to be okay aware of snakes, as long as you're cool with occasionally seeing one. Yeah, we just love to be out. I

Timmy Eaton:

have heard that and I in Medicine hat for whatever reason gets hotter than like the rest of the province, doesn't it?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. Isn't it known for, it's like the old people oasis of the prairies, like all the, as you like age, like people come, it's the population of medicine hat has been stagnant for like years and it's not because people haven't come in, but because the people coming in equal, the people dying and that actually adds something to it too because we love elderly people just hold a dear place in my heart. Like even from a community service point of view and what I wanna do with my kids in terms of the senior homes around here. So it's just really cool that we have Yeah, that kind of community here as well. Yeah, we

Timmy Eaton:

have a bit of that too in this area. I'm near Cardston and it's like that too. And anytime I've been to Medicine Hat I've liked it, but I did want to spend some more time there, that sounds good. And tell us about the homeschooling vibe there. What's going on with homeschooling and what's your involvement in Medicine Hat? And tell us about what you organized recently in that conference.

Vanessa Braunn:

So that's actually how you and I got in touch with each other. I started a homeschool conference the first one ran this past June, so it, it's called Roots and Wings Homeschool Gathering. And we had it in, we kinda had two parts to it. So I had a room that was dedicated to vendors and school boards. So all like the homeschool boards came and they set up a table, like the most popular ones in this area. They came and they set up a table. We had any companies that wanted to set up, so like we have a karate academy and they came and set up because they offer classes to homeschool kids during the day, like during the weekday. They actually have specific classes. Yeah, we offered tables to all those people. We also tried to start a book swap that wasn't as successful as I want it to be, but I think that it will get bigger especially as like the homeschool conference up in Red Deer. They started one I think this year as well. And apparently it got really good feedback. So

Timmy Eaton:

I was there with for that one and I saw it and that was like bees on honey

Vanessa Braunn:

yes. Ours has that same, it'll take off as it goes. So there was that part to where it was like a come and go. If you couldn't commit to like the conference side of our gathering you could just wander through there for an hour and then leave. And then we also had a conference and this year I had all close friends yeah, close homeschool moms of mine. They all spoke I did it on like this living narrative piece. So like what is homeschooling like for you? I really let people choose what they talked about. And it was really beautiful. And it really covered a whole range of topics from a friend of mine who went through like a deschooling process with her daughter after like second or third grade pulled her outta public school and then had to deschool. So she talked about that. And then there was another friend of mine who's really nature-based, and she has a day home. So she got to talk about the importance of nature and how she incorporates it into her day home and homeschooling life. And we just had so many different people. We had great food, we had great conversation. It was really exciting. Cool. We just, it was a really cool day. I wish it was longer.

Timmy Eaton:

I'm sad I wasn't there, man. I, next year I'd like to

Vanessa Braunn:

definitely. We'll be having you

Timmy Eaton:

next year. Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. So then basically what happened was, after that finished, I was like, okay, so what? We just have this every year which is great, but I feel like there was something missing, like I wanted to do more. And I'd been humming and hawing about this idea for so long, and I was like, do I start a book club? Where we read like the Wild and Free or like we go into books that, explore homeschooling in. Not necessarily like a philosophical specific way, but it's just like in this way that anyone can come together and pick something out of a book that would be relevant to them. Love that idea, but couldn't really quite hammer that down. So what I am doing instead is I'm running like a workshop every month. From September to December and I'm gonna run a workshop and then have a common table hour after where people are just welcome. We're gonna have coffee, tea, maybe some snacks and people can just build their community. My family. We are the only ones here, so we don't have any extended family. My family, I'm from just south of Calgary, and so about three hours away. And my husband, he, as I've mentioned, he's from Texas, so his family is very far away. So this idea of like your village. Which has come up a lot recently for me. I don't have one I don't have a FA familial one. And so it's about building this community and building this village for me and my family. That makes sense for us in, within homeschool, the homeschooling realm, which I feel like is so vital because as everyone knows who listens to these podcasts, it's, homeschooling is not just an education, it's a lifestyle.

Timmy Eaton:

It is, man. For sure. And

Vanessa Braunn:

so that's what we're doing. I'm really excited. We have one, our first one's coming up in September. I just announced kind of the details about that and I'm really curious to see what comes of it, but I'm, yeah,

Timmy Eaton:

The response but like, do you have an idea of who would come or, and how many people, that kind of thing.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, so the room that we're using is maxed out for 12, so we're using like a really cute, there's a little baby boutique in town and they have this really cute backroom and so it is maxed out for 12. So there will be like a pre-registration just to make sure that we follow like fire code and stuff. Yeah. Because I just can't let more people in. And so we're gonna start with that. So I've been speaking to, gosh,'cause you run into homeschooling people everywhere I know is just me.

Timmy Eaton:

No it's like the same thing as you hear a word you've never heard, then you hear that word all the time that week or something. Blue car. And it's same thing. The

Vanessa Braunn:

blue car. The blue car theory or whatever.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

Someone tells you about a blue car and blue cars anywhere, everywhere. Yeah. So I just, I've been meeting so many people just like at swimming lessons and things and all these people, they always end up asking like. Either they ask me or my daughters who are very chatty, they'll say like, where do you, like, where do you go to school? Or whatever. And my oldest daughter, she'll say I'm homeschooled, and then all of a sudden it's oh. They'll come talk to me and they'll say I'm not homeschooling, but I'm pretty interested in homeschooling.

Timmy Eaton:

So common man, so I'm

Vanessa Braunn:

like come to this group. I feel like it's for those people, I feel like it's for people who are just coming in. So haven't started any schooling. So their kids are all like under five. Yeah. They're like

Timmy Eaton:

preparing for it.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes. So that that's for who it's for as well. I feel like it is for people like myself. My oldest is seven, so even though I'm a teacher, I'm new to the homeschooling world. And so it's for people like me who are like still just treading in, like slowly getting into it. And it's also for, a good friend of mine, she has 11 kids and her oldest just graduated this past year. And so she's seasoned. She's gonna be coming. Because there's a piece for her about, again I would say that the draw for her is the community side. Like just really honing in. And the draw to me to get her to come is please share all of your wisdom. Yes. Because you have so much of it.

Timmy Eaton:

We say it often in these interviews that like, everybody needs a mentor. And it's just literally through every stage of the journey, it's just so healing and comforting to know that people have gone through the same stuff you're gonna go through. So I think that's like a pretty essential principle, that idea of a seasoned homeschool mom who just is like at peace.

Vanessa Braunn:

Like in Medicine Hat, we have like pockets of different philosophical, like differences within homeschooling. I know there's a classical conversations group trying to open up here. And then depending on which school board you're with, there's like groups, if you're for like Center for Learning, which is like really like activity and event oriented. You get those, you have like wisdom, which is more like a Christian based there's a bit of like theology in there. And so you have these pockets, but what I wanna do with Roots and Wings is bring all of the people together.

Timmy Eaton:

Very cool. And I think that's what this podcast does actually.'cause I haven't totally targeted yet. Like I really do focus on homeschool dads. But so far, because I'm in the beginning years of this. I think I'm similar. I'm a conglomeration and a compilation of things rather than a target thus far. But that's cool. I'm glad you guys are doing that. How are you finding it? Like as far as, you're a busy young mom with young kids. How is it time-wise so far? Yeah. So you, you're not feeling expended by it?

Vanessa Braunn:

No.'cause I've always said it's like a totally different part of my brain, right? It's really like mothering and even homeschooling is one part of my brain and this just exercises a different part. Yeah. So it almost feels like two energy sources. And

Timmy Eaton:

does it fill your bucket when you do that? Like it energizes you?'cause it seems like people that do that are energized by that. And then some people are drained by it. And I dunno if you do Enneagram, but if you know your Enneagram, that really helps identify, yeah. Okay. This makes sense. My wife started studying that a couple years ago. A few years ago, and it just made so much sense to all of us. And so again, did some kind of healing for us and a great understanding. Yeah. And anyway, so Totally. Yes. So do you find it filling your bucket to do stuff like that?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes, and I love being a mom, but especially when they're little, I just feel like there's so much, not especially all the time, there's a lot being taken A lot, yeah. All the time. Yeah, so this definitely gives me a way to give back to the community and selfishly also give to myself.

Timmy Eaton:

No. Yeah. No, I think it's self-care. It's not self, it's self-care. That's good. It's funny when you were saying that, I was thinking of when I was doing my dissertation on homeschooling, I was thinking the whole time, it was so weird to me that there was this gap. Like here I am at the University of Alberta doctorate degree. And it was the Department of Education and there was nothing on homeschooling, which is this crazy growing and by far the fastest growing form of education in Canada. Definitely the US And I'm going, that's irresponsible for the Department of Education not to give attention to this growing thing and asking questions. And I had this idea with that gap that I tried to address in the stuff I did, but I would, you, you have to focus when you do a dissertation. But I was like, man, what would it be like if I went to universities and went to these, obviously tons of more people are looking for alternatives. And I don't care if they choose homeschooling or not really. I definitely have biases, but like, why not know the option? And so that's all I wanted to do is just have a course. And so I sent this like proposal to the I think it was Lethbridge College at the time, it's Lethbridge Polytechnic now, but, and I was like, why don't you guys let me do like a introduction to home education for your department so that kids know that there's other options if they're, anyway, so I don't mean to be long-winded on that, but it's just, it's so like what you're doing, like you're saying people come up to you and say, oh yeah, I've thought about doing that, but I don't really know how. And so you have this place where they can learn. But what if universities were open to having an alternative education aspect? And then young people, youth, young adults are going, oh, there's other options rather than just the traditional route. Totally. Anyway and

Vanessa Braunn:

it's and that it's like a reasonable thing. We can all talk about back in the eighties and nineties, the homeschool kids were weirdos. And I use the term weirdos, like very lovingly, because same. I want my kids to be weird. Amen. I'm not interested in the status quo or like the culture that we have today. So Please, I want my kids to be kids. I want them to be 12 year olds and still playing with play, like playing with toys. Yes. I'm not interested in what's happening right now. Totally. In, especially like with girls, I just, yeah. Anyways, that's a different conversation. No, you're,

Timmy Eaton:

I'm, we're right on the same page with that.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes. Sure. So we all have this idea of like, when we were kids and we were like, oh, the homeschool kids, they were weird and strange and different. And I'm like, but first of all, it's not like that anymore.

Timmy Eaton:

And even then, it was probably more revealing of our ignorance to like these cool families that were, like, they were bucking the status quo. And Sure it was like socially, culturally different from the rest of us. But man and now that I, now, I wish I could go back and actually be cool and be like, that's true. I love what these families are doing, man. They're spending time together. They're in nature. They're learning alternatively, and they're not just, swimming with the rest of the, the crowd. But anyway, I'm with you.

Vanessa Braunn:

Oh, and I think it as our population grows, we can't stay in the shadows or they are, maybe they can't keep us in the shadows. Like when we go to swimming lessons, there are kids of all, everyone's goes to swimming lessons. And you have my kids they're homeschooled and they have no problem saying they're homeschooled. And then you have the other kids that are in school, and they have obviously have no problem saying that they're in a public school and then they converse and they chat. And sometimes, the public school kid's, like what? Like what do you mean you're in homeschool? And then we get to have an authentic conversation about it. Yeah. Like we do school at home, but mostly we don't, mostly we just have fun all of the time. Yeah. We don't have desks at home. And so I just find that it's, it's this really cool change. And so I just love talking about it and I'm hoping that like this community that I can create will become like it can get bigger and it can, tap into even those groups of people who are like, I am never homeschooling. Because I'd love to get into that.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. No, that's really cool. That's really cool. So tell us like for the beginning, like what happened? Like how did you guys look into it? You both public schooled, what was your first exposure to homeschooling? Why'd you make a decision, okay, we're gonna do this?'cause your kids are still way young is that your 7-year-old?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, it would be cool just to introduce her if she's coming in there

Vanessa Braunn:

yeah. She's Elliot. Do you wanna come here? Come here. You can come say, hi.

Timmy Eaton:

What's your name?

Vanessa Braunn:

Elliot

Timmy Eaton:

Elia. How do you spell that?

Vanessa Braunn:

ERIA.

Timmy Eaton:

Ooh, that's really pretty. So I heard that you're homeschooled. Is that true? Really? Do. Do you like it so far?

Vanessa Braunn:

Do you like it? Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

Cool. Now what are you holding?'cause that looks pretty comfortable.

Vanessa Braunn:

My blanket and I'm holding my flashlight.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, I thought it was a microphone. I thought you were gonna sing something for the podcast.

Vanessa Braunn:

You know what, she plays piano. She plays piano. She's not played singing yet, but,

Timmy Eaton:

oh.

Vanessa Braunn:

But yeah, she just finished her second year of piano and she loved it. Hey,

Timmy Eaton:

Guess what? I have three sons that play piano, and I have a daughter that plays the harp, violin and the cello. So we love music in our family. Alia.

Vanessa Braunn:

That is so cool. And you guys are close

Timmy Eaton:

enough. Maybe we can get together at some point and then you can just play music with each other

Vanessa Braunn:

that's cool. Yeah, they're in Lethbridge. Remember when you went there? Yeah. Yeah. That's great. That's pretty cool.

Timmy Eaton:

Cool. Okay.

Vanessa Braunn:

You go right down.

Timmy Eaton:

Good to meet you. Oh, she's awesome. Does she have a Yoda yet?

Vanessa Braunn:

Pardon? No. Okay. So we don't have a Yoda, but we do, we just do endless audio books. Yeah. Like on Spotify and all of that.

Timmy Eaton:

So I didn't, I'm telling you, a Yoda will change her life and yours. I'm, I just, it will, I'm serious. Yeah. So

Vanessa Braunn:

you I've never seen

Timmy Eaton:

it. Not, it's just crazy. It's you

Vanessa Braunn:

think it's different than just because they have audio books that they love.

Timmy Eaton:

No. Yeah. If they're doing something, I'm sure it's the same principle, but there's something about having their own thing with the headphones and they just like, they rock it out, man. I'm not kidding. As we started this, my daughter was finishing, she's 12, she was finishing mowing the lawn on our ride on, and she had her headphones on listening to a book. And it's just and my son's 13. It's just constant. But like from that time of six or seven on, man, it's just maybe early. Yeah. And

Vanessa Braunn:

We have our old, like I have like my old iPod nano and code even has or something and we've talked about it, but maybe we just do it because you're, I think you're right.

Timmy Eaton:

See if you dig it. You could try it out. The other thing is the one thing I would say is maybe my kids read less books because of that, but because my earlier kids read way more books. But I don't know it depends. My wife I think, doesn't think it is that significant as far as the way you consume the information. But I don't know, I, I do want them to read all the time and they don't read as much as our older kids, but that might be on us. So anyway, I dunno. But anyway, that's just my suggestion. I forgot what we were Oh, yeah. How did you start, like what was the first exposure? And then I'm always interested to know, okay, you got exposed to it, but then what made you go, okay, we're doing this, man.

Vanessa Braunn:

Sure. It's so wild. I was actually thinking about this recently because with this community group that I'm doing, the first workshop I wanna do is on like vision. And so I was actually trying to go back and think like, why, I was talking to Cody like my husband, and I was like where did we go? Like, when did this start? And I can really hone it. My, the final decision, I remember making that I had went and toured a kindergarten for my oldest daughter and I had gone in and there were a few like red flags for me. One of them was we walked into the room and there was just like a TV not even a smart board, like a TV took up half of the whiteboard space and that was my first red flag. In our home, we actually don't do any like active screen time. We do passive, so we do a little bit of TV time. We max out to about 45 minutes on a day, but we don't do it every day. We do a bit more when we have long car rides for camping, but that's about it. We'll maybe watch a movie, but yeah, we're just not big into screens and I'm not interested in introducing them anytime soon. And so that was like the first red flag. Another one was hearing I cannot speak to the truth of this, but just hearing through the grapevine from friends of mine that who do have school children, that they start introducing iPads or, Chromebooks or whatever in grade one. And I was like grade one that's too early. And so those were a couple red flags and then we actually across the hall into like the, what would it be called? Because kindergarten here is just half day, so it's like half day kindergarten and then a let's play ELP. There's different names for them. Early learning program that runs in the afternoon. And in that room there were four or five kids and the Moana soundtrack was playing on you could hear it, but then they also had the music videos for Moana on a tv. And I'm just looking and I'm like, I love music. I love music and we listen to a lot of different music. We love Moana. And we love scores of movies. Like I have nothing against movies, but I was just like, why do you need to have, if my kid was in here, they would be glued. To the television because we do so little of it. And I'm just like what's the point? Like why does this need to be on? So those were like the big red flags. And then another piece, and I wanna preface maybe the rest of this podcast just by saying every family's gonna do what's right for their family. Totally. And I have no problem. I'm actually not against public school, no problem with it. But this is just me personally, I couldn't let go. I just couldn't imagine sending her away for every morning.

Timmy Eaton:

That was definitely the early impetus for my wife. She's just going, what? And I say it often in these things, but I'm so glad she asked the questions.'cause she just went by intuition instead of by like, what you do.'cause I totally would've been the guy you send your kid to school at six and she's or five or whatever, and she's why am I sending my kid away? I love spending time with her. And why would I do this? She's just yeah. It just did not make any rational sense. And so she's no, we're not doing that.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. And that's I would probably get along very well with your wife'cause that was very much similar. And then there was also the piece a little bit from like the parental side of the control, a little bit. I would loose, I'd need to loosen control. Like I, I need to give up that power of like my how I influence my children. And I would have to give so much of that away. And I have many friends who are teachers and who are beautiful, wonderful people. Yeah. But for our family unit, it was just like I can't do it. I can't just do it. Yeah. No matter

Timmy Eaton:

how wonderful they are, they're not Elliot's mom.

Vanessa Braunn:

Exactly. And so I just, I wanted her, yeah. I needed to keep her close, even with, at the time what I had. So she would've been almost five. So I had. A three, almost 4-year-old, and then I would've had a one Yearold or something like that. Like even,

Timmy Eaton:

so how do you respond to people that, that would be like, again, different worlds, different opinions, that's all good, but how do you respond to somebody who goes, but it's good for them to be exposed to others at that stage of their life?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, so I would just go to pure orientation. I think we, I don't know if we talked about it yet in this podcast, or we talked about right before it started, but oh my gosh. I would just go say go check out Dr. Neufeld book and hold onto your

Timmy Eaton:

kids.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. And just, read even just a small portion of it. And I would say I don't agree. I think socialization is a myth. It's actually, I wanna look at common myths within homeschooling in at the community group that I'm running. Yeah, that's cool. Because I just I can't believe it. And even go as far to say like that um, singleton child the kid that doesn't have siblings. I'm like, I don't know. I just can't imagine that friends are as important as what this culture says and looking at the statistics of depression and anxiety amongst teens and how it correlates so neatly with peer orientation.

Timmy Eaton:

And how much you and I were talking about a little bit, but like to the extent to which that is exacerbated by phones. And again, I said to you earlier I'm not trying to sound like grandpa, but it's true man. Again, not everybody agrees with it, but if you are trying to, guard a little bit of like addiction and constant dopamine hits through texting and whatever else, like it's a real thing.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, totally. It's. It's wild. So yeah, so those were the first that was like the final it feels like it was like the end of the journey of we are not going into public school. But before that, okay, so right away from like age, I remember when my daughter was about two, I started reading like more like Maria Montessori stuff. Yeah. And I had been exposed to Montessori Waldorf in, when I was doing like my first education degree. So when I was doing my ed degree there was a bit of that. And then I was also, I must have been TAing for a class, when I was doing my grad studies so I must have, yeah I think I was doing like a language arts and elementary level language arts. Teaching class and the one teacher, she just talked endlessly about all the alternative teaching to public school except homeschooling. Homeschooling never came up, but she would talk about, yeah. Waldorf Montessori. And that was the initial, it piqued my interest and then I got into Montessori when my daughter was about two, which is typical. And then in Medicine Hat we just have nothing like in terms of alternative education other than homeschool, but in terms of actual like buildings for schooling, right? There's nothing we have, we have public school, we have Catholic public we have Cape, which is a charter school. But they don't have grass in their outside compound. No. Yeah. So that wasn't for us. And then the few Montessori daycares that are here, they only go to kindergarten. Versus like when you're in Calgary, Edmonton, or even Okotoks, like they all have these like crazy Montessori schools that go to grade six to nine, like et cetera. Yeah. And we just didn't have anything like that here. And then I got introduced to the forest school here, so that is run by this wonderful woman who can identify like any plant just by looking at it. And she was brilliant. And so we started going to the forest school, I think even before we started homeschooling.

Timmy Eaton:

Like how old was your, how old was Alia by then?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, so she was probably only four. And I didn't realize that it was homeschoolers. This is all coming back to me now. This is all starting to make sense. Oh,

Timmy Eaton:

that's good. I'm glad I'm glad I'm awakening this.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, because, so we started going just because I thought, oh, another group to go to, to fill our time. And it was cool and outdoors. And Stephanie the woman who runs it was like, just this brilliant outdoor woman, and I wanted to learn from her. And so we started going, and then I started to learn that, yeah, these were all homeschooled kids and they were amazing, and I just love them. They were so friendly and they were outgoing, interested,

Timmy Eaton:

and

Vanessa Braunn:

yeah. And they were, and they come up and talk to my kids and nobody was too cool. Like it was just these really cool group of kids. And so it combined like this being outside and this like alternative schooling, these two different spheres of thought that were inside of my head. It took them and it put them together. And then so in addition to that medicine hat, we also have something called the Guild. And this is, the Guild is actually, it precedes CO, but since CO there have been many people that have been trying to create something like it, but it's a one and a half day a week program that's run through one of the school boards. And it's teacher run. So all of the people who teach, so it's grade specific. So I think it goes to kindergarten to grade eight or maybe grade nine. And so they have 10 kids per grade and they go to school for a day and a half and it was like these group of parents that got together who said what do homeschoolers do? Not so well or poorly. And they settled on science. They said a lot of homeschooling families are scared of science. We're not one of those families just as a math teacher and an engineer combo. Yeah. But many of that are and they said writing was another one they said. And

Timmy Eaton:

Who was this that put this together?

Vanessa Braunn:

So it's run by like a board. So they're registered as like a not-for-profit.

Timmy Eaton:

I'd be interested to know, like the rubric, or like the measure, because I get what people say when they say that. It's like stuff that's neglected typically. They'll say, oh, homeschool families typically neglect that. But then I always wanna play out the the long view of it. Because like you said, every family is going to approach it so uniquely. And so I'm always reluctant to say, oh you should have done this. You should have done that.'cause I'm like going that totally depends on the purpose that family is after. I do get the idea of a well-rounded education but man, employers and universities are finding totally different things in the research. And I'm not trying to make a big deal about this one thing, but I just find it interesting when people do hone in on that. And I get it.'cause they're going, yeah they tend to neglect science or math or something like that. But then it's like we impose our values on the futures of these individuals and who knows what they're gonna pursue.

Vanessa Braunn:

And the Guild came out of obviously a group of parents who got together who said let's talk about what maybe what we're struggling with Yeah. And what we see other people are struggling with. Totally. And they just settled on. Yeah. So it was like science writing. Phys ed can be difficult, group things Sure. Can be difficult for you, for sure, for you when you don't have like a baseball team. Some people do have baseball teams though, but Yeah. Sometimes like I've said

Timmy Eaton:

in a lot of these interviews that there's like homeschool leagues in a lot of places in the states.

Vanessa Braunn:

Totally. Yeah. And now, like the Guild actually just this past year, they can now compete within the city really? So they can do badminton. Like they sent kids to badminton tournaments that were just for like public schoolers this year. So they got the proper accreditation for that. And then they also have a really good like band and drama program. So every year they run a Shakespeare in the park and they have a full band, a band concert. Again, a something that like, as a single homeschooling family, you can't do. Are they

Timmy Eaton:

homeschool families that do that run it, that, that are just have teaching background or what is it?

Vanessa Braunn:

No, so they're all fully accredited teachers who are ready. Oh, wow. Yeah. But then the board itself is made up. A kind of what you would call like a parent council in a public school setting. Yeah. And so it's run by homeschool parents. And essentially, they're the ones that hire the teachers. Cool. So all of the teachers are paid according to the union.'cause like legally they have to be, but the money is coming directly from the guild and not from the government.

Timmy Eaton:

Interesting. Yeah. I just love hearing the different movements in education. Yeah,

Vanessa Braunn:

it's so cool. And so we joined it, like we jumped in so kindergarten is just like a half day, it's very small just because of the half funding and stuff. So it's just a single half day, whereas grade one to 10 is a day and a half, one full day and one half day. But we did the kindergarten program and I was like it was fine. It was just fine. It was like just a fun half day for my oldest daughter to go to. Yeah. And then grade one was coming around and I had just had my youngest son he was like five months old at the time. And then I had, yeah, 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, and I was like, I needed the time. Yeah. And so I sent her in and she was very excited to go. Just thrilled to go. So she had no problem doing that program. But this year, like after we finished, I have some friends that don't use the Guild. Some of my closest friends they just fully homeschool on their own. And so I was humming and hawing and I was like maybe like we don't do the guild this year. But my almo now second grader, she was like, no, I'm going. Like I am. I am going. She likes it. I am in for it. She does like it. And if we go back to the peer orientation piece, like I'm always so aware of it and like leery almost about it. But I also have to remember like my kids can make friends.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

Without peer orientation happening.

Timmy Eaton:

For sure.

Vanessa Braunn:

And I obviously Gordon Neufeld, like he does talk about that. His book. And he does stress that quite a bit in the book, but that book can feel like okay, we're running away to the mountains and like you are not talking.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. To put it in context, it's because it's based on a system that's been around for a long time that does emphasize so much social and there's not the parental, overview or the supervision and it just becomes so peer oriented and we think it's supposedly healthy because it's development and yet we're doing this like weird thing where we're grouping all these people of the same age and anyway it is just, yeah, the book is awesome. So it is fascinating. I think

Vanessa Braunn:

so, so yeah, so that's really how we got into homeschooling and like I could not imagine it any other way. My husband. I wish he could be here to talk about it,'cause when we talked about doing this podcast, he was kinda like what do I have to say? And it actually got me thinking more about role of dad in, hopefully I'm here. Yeah. And, I've primarily for sure made the decisions in regards to schooling when it comes to our kiddos and just being a, the stay at home mom. I, yeah, he's extremely supportive. But I have made those decisions. And I think even if I said tomorrow, if I said, you know what? I'm extremely overwhelmed. I wanna send all the kids to school. He would be like, okay let's talk about this. But, I wanna do what's right and best for, you as my wife.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

And so he, so with that, yeah. We're

Timmy Eaton:

not dying on any hills, but let's, lets talk through this. Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

And, but in saying that I have thought about a lot about like how he comes into like our homeschool life'cause Yeah, sure. Like he's at work, I am doing the teaching of, reading and the math. He gets to read in the evening with my daughter they get to read a book together. We've added that into our routine, but so much bigger than that is the lifestyle that homeschooling has allowed us to have. So my husband is probably more outdoorsy than I am and he's the guy who has a wild berries of the Canadian Rockies book and he has mushrooms of Western Canada and he has trees from British Columbia to Manitoba. Yeah. And he has all these books and as a result, my girls can identify. We were just camping this past weekend with some of our best friends and my girls are like, you can eat this berry, but don't eat that berry. That's the Bain berry. But these are fairy bells. You can eat fairy bells. And they were just going through all of these and, my friend the mom, she was like, are like are You sure are, yeah. Oh yeah, we're sure. They will let you know. They know way more than I do, and that's all because of my husband. Yeah. And and homeschooling has really afforded us the opportunities to just go, because we start camping in June and hopefully, we'll start camping even in May, maybe, and we camp in through September so we are afforded all of these opportunities. To be outside and really, put our feet on the ground. Yeah. And my husband just leads the charge and the girls just soak it up. So I'm the at home teacher and he is the, like out there teacher. He's the phys ed

Timmy Eaton:

teacher.

Vanessa Braunn:

It really? Yes. He's the phys ed and outdoor ed and like life skills. If you lose your way in the middle of the Rockies, he's the one that'll get you home. He's the voice in your head that's getting you home.

Timmy Eaton:

And that's a part of the whole, not just do Deschooling from the conventional institutional system, but even deschooling for homeschoolers about homeschool because it really is, like you're saying, a way of life. And he's not going, I'm a homeschool dad right now, I'm going to teach you something. He's just going, I love outdoors. Let's I want my kids to participate in this. And so naturally, mom and dad share their interests, what they're into and that and homeschool parents don't have a corner on that. But there's the time to do it. And the course that I teach with proactive homeschool dads is it can be done with intention where it doesn't max you out'cause you're already a dad, you're already a husband, you're already a mom, you're already a wife. And so it's just a way to intentionally fill those roles. And I feel like homeschool provides a context that allows for that so ideally. And but anyway, yeah. So to hear that he's doing

Vanessa Braunn:

well and I love that education has become this like, living thing in our house.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, it's not what happens in the school.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes, as a, as a fully public schooled and, post, graduate degree. Like I, I pursued the things and I, I hope to do a PhD once my kids get a little bit older. So I love the ivory tower, don't get me wrong, but it was always this thing that was there even when I was doing my thesis for like my graduate work, it was like a thing that I had to do that I had to get done, and I had to sit in my room and do it. And then all of a sudden my external, when I defended my thesis, my external supervisor, he was a, so at the University of Regina campus, there's the First Nations University of Canada, and like the campus is right there. My external, he was actually a first Nations man. Professor at the First Nations University. So he comes over and he's like asking me all these questions during my defense, and I'm just like, these are like, why are you asking me this? All of a sudden it was like so broad because he was bringing in this incredible knowledge, this entirely different worldview. Yeah. Into my narrow, westernized view of education. And I'm just like I really struggled with a lot of his questions, but he always seemed okay with that. Like it was like he was okay with my struggle. But now I see, I've just changed so much. And homeschooling has really given me that ability to like view education so broadly. Putting your feet in the dirt is as important as doing that mad minute. Yeah. If not more important. There are things. That we learn that we cannot verbally explain, and it's vital. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

If somebody said to you, they said, so what are your main motivations? You talked a lot about starting stuff like that, but if somebody just said to you, you know, a, a friend you meet, like you kind of described meeting people at different, of, activities with your kids, and if somebody said to you, Hey Vanessa what are the main three motivations of why you chose that route?

Vanessa Braunn:

I would say the first one would be that I just love my kids. Ah, it's always that one that's everyone loves their kids. I just wanna be with my kids. Yeah. And that is like the number one, it like, education doesn't matter, I just wanna be with them. And I'm really excited. I feel like we're on the cusp, like with my oldest daughter, we're on that cusp of the learning to read and reading to learn. We're like just in that middle we're, that light bulb is coming. So

Timmy Eaton:

cool. Oh, that's so exciting.

Vanessa Braunn:

And then I'm so excited for when that light bulb comes. And and

Timmy Eaton:

You get to observe that and witness that and not to take away from others, but it, it is sad to me sometimes that that doesn't happen within the family. That happens a lot of times at the school. And it's so cool that you witnessed that.

Vanessa Braunn:

Teachers are excited. Like teachers are so as I would say they're equally excited. Yeah. Like they love their kids and they're so excited when their kids succeed at these things. But I'm their mom. I wanna do the thing, I wanna see it, I wanna see, when they can like when we're doing something in math and all of a sudden they multiply something just because, before they even know what multiplication is, they do three groups of four and they're just like that's 12. And I'm just

Timmy Eaton:

yeah, you get it.

Vanessa Braunn:

I wanna do all that, so I don't wanna miss it. So I'm just like, we talk about crawling and walking for a baby. Now I wanna do all of those steps for all of, like forever.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. As you say, that, it just resonates with me. Now it's I've heard that so many times, but I've experienced that so many times and I know my wife has like where you witness them, learn something. And it's it's actually like a part of you that's learning it because it's this is my offspring, this is my kid. And then I, again, a par a teacher loves it too, but when you got 25, 35 kids in a class, it's not the same. It's just not the same. And they're not they're not your kid. And it's it really is something to go, oh, I just saw a step in that direction and yeah. So that's sacred, man. That's cool stuff.

Vanessa Braunn:

Totally. So I would say that's the first motivation. The second one is definitely like the alternative education piece. So I touched a bit, like looking at like Montessori and Waldorf and when I was on that journey in the early years and the parenting journey that I was on too.'cause there's this whole thing about Montessori parenting. And so when I was looking into all of that and realizing like I really wanted like an alternative education model for my kids. I didn't want the desk thing for them. If they choose that later, if they choose. I wanna go into school later. So that number two is definitely that alternative education piece. And then the third one is likely related to technology and it's two parts.'cause I feel like they play into each other, but I really embrace like a slow living, intentional living in like our, like our life in our family life. Even like the choices that we make for extracurricular not that they themselves are slow, like our kids still do soccer and things like that. But in terms of the frequency of them we're very aware of the time that it takes to do activities and we're not willing to sacrifice a lot of our family time for things. And especially as my oldest daughter gets older, it's all of a sudden, there's seven and it's okay, we wanna do soccer. And it's it's two days a week plus a game. And I'm like. Why?'cause we're trying to develop, we not giving up that much. I know. I'm just like, this is crazy. So we really focus on that. But then a piece that ties into that I think is technology and because I think technology is, a main precursor to busyness. And even like the TV shows that we do watch, we tend to be on like the slower side of things. And like Bluey or Franklin, things like that, as opposed to like Paw Patrol, we used to be into Paw Patrol, and then I slowly weaned us out of that realm. And yeah. And so we're just like really intentional with that. And I feel like with technology and its prevalence in public school, it just wasn't conducive for our lifestyle. And so I, I just wasn't willing to sacrifice. And I would be very curious about if there was a family that came into a public school and said actually, I don't want my kid having a Chromebook. What would the teacher do?

Timmy Eaton:

What about your families? What did your husband's family, your family think and how has that evolved with your decision? Yeah,

Vanessa Braunn:

Okay, so growing up in my family there are five kids, and then my parents, and they've been now married for over 40 years. And we are super tight, like super close family. My actually my eldest brother, he passed away when he was 18. And we always talk about that being like somewhat of a catalyst, like our family is just your

Timmy Eaton:

older brother.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. He was the oldest actually of the five of us.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh,

Vanessa Braunn:

I'm

Timmy Eaton:

sorry to hear that.

Vanessa Braunn:

Um, Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. It was now, yeah, a long, over 20 years ago that he did pass away and. That was such a catalyst and like it really brought us together in a way that any sort of, whether you wanna say like philosophical, religious, political views cannot. Pull us apart. And we all have our differences, and yet we roll with it and we're all just talk to me more about what you do in this. Like we were raised Catholic, and my one sister is now a practicing Hindu and, and we love her and yeah, man, we talk to her about it and, we, she still accepts our Catholicism. And there's all these pieces of all of us. And so homeschooling was really a nothing to my parents. Your parents and

Timmy Eaton:

your siblings.

Vanessa Braunn:

And I also, I grew up as like the golden child. I hate the term and I hope none of you. Yeah. But it,

Timmy Eaton:

there, there is something real about that,

Vanessa Braunn:

but I was, and so I, I just I have spent a whole life of succeeding in things and I don't mean to sound like no.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, I think you can say it straight up.

Vanessa Braunn:

I'm

Timmy Eaton:

alright.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah. But I talk to my therapist about this all the time. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing but I, what I mean to say though is like my, so my family sees me doing things well and so when I went wanted to do this, they never, they back you up. They were never like. You can't don't do that. You're not like they, they knew me well enough to be like, yeah, okay. And I guess the teacher background helped because they often, both sides of like my family and my husband's family, they often will like circle that in. Yeah. Oh, but you're a teacher.

Timmy Eaton:

And do you like foresee incorporating your mom and dad into some of the stuff that you do with your kids as, because you got four kids. I just have seen how my mother-in-law has blessed our kids. She's done several classes with them, and they get online together with a bunch of cousins and it, there's just a cool way to incorporate your extended family, whether they homeschool or not. If you had a sibling that had a certain expertise in an area and they could share that with your kids, it's just so cool to connect that with them. Anyway, just food for thought, but do you foresee anything like that or,

Vanessa Braunn:

I feel like it. Almost was happening before we even decided to homeschool. My, so my husband, his one grandpa was like this incredible woods, like he worked with wood. So your kid's great

Timmy Eaton:

grandfather?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes. Wow. And just this, and he's still alive. He's in his nineties now and he's just this incredible woodworking. I'm trying to see if I can find I guess it doesn't matter, but this is a lid to one of his creations. He's just incredible. And so my husband grew up playing in his wood shop, like playing with his machines and stuff. And it was just like absolutely incredible. And that is just like one piece. And now, my mother-in-law my husband's grandpa's daughter yeah. She, my mother-in-law, she, has honed into how to do that and I'm like, this just gets passed on. For sure. I've never thought though of having any family member do an actual class, I think it's brilliant.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. It is. It is and it like connects you connects them. It like it builds relationships and it actually, again, because they care about your kids, and so you should see the effort my mother-in-law puts into teaching them stocks and Farsi and she's done some writing things

Vanessa Braunn:

and I will say that is the one place where FaceTime, that is the one place where we do a lot of it. And it's so cool to see my 1-year-old, he talks to my mom almost every day on FaceTime. And then so when he sees her in real life he's not scared of her. It takes him so little to warm up. He's oh yeah, I've been carrying you around. And my dad was visiting at the beginning of August and he was here and then he left and my son woke up the next morning and he was just like, Papa. And he, he wanted my dad. And I was like dad, grandpa's not here. And I pulled him up on FaceTime and he's trying to grab him out of the screen so I, yeah I'm not scared of technology. I'm just trying to figure out a way that I can. Implemented in my kids' lives. Yeah. Where it is a tool and not an addiction.

Timmy Eaton:

We're with you. We're with you on that. Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

And I just don't think that we have enough safeguards in public schools to to create that tool, not addiction like I. We're missing something. And they, again, they,

Timmy Eaton:

again, they just don't have the same not because they don't care, because how could you expect them to have the same level of care as a parent numbers, like we just Yeah. Numbers and they're not their kids. What do you tell families that are just starting? Because obviously you've had lots of experience with that. You're organizing things for homeschool families in your community. What is your advice and counsel to families that are starting and are feeling overwhelmed or unsure or anything? Those types of sentiments,

Vanessa Braunn:

like education is alive in your home, regardless of what you do on paper. I think that we can get so wrapped up in I need to recreate school at home. And any seasoned homeschooler will be like, absolutely not. And so when we had started, so I'm really big on better late and early. That's our motto in my house.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah.

Vanessa Braunn:

And so we really Is that based

Timmy Eaton:

on Raymond and Dorothy Moore?

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes.

Timmy Eaton:

Okay. Yes.

Vanessa Braunn:

So we really just slow everything down. And don't rush things. As a result when we started my oldest so kindergarten, we didn't do anything. No. Bookwork. We also call it bookwork, not schoolwork, by the way, but so we do no bookwork in kindergarten. Yeah. And we start in grade one and we go very slow. So we do some math as they want to, and we start to introduce reading. Now, when we start to introduce reading, all of a sudden it becomes really clear that they've learned for the past five years. I know I, I'm not going A, B, c, d, they're doing sounds of letters long before that, but not because I'm sitting down opening a book in front of them or even singing a song to them every morning that they hear. It's nothing like that. It's absolutely incredible. And so whether you're like pulling your kids out of public school or if you're at the very beginning and you're starting. Slow, slow down. Ooh, I love it. Don't do the formal social studies. Look around and find curriculum Gather round. We're actually like starting some gather round units this year because all of a sudden you have this curriculum that works for, a bunch of all your kids all at once, all your kids that are in school, you can go and teach them one unit together. I'm really excited to do gather round with so I'll have two of them doing it. Because my second daughter who's gonna be in kindergarten, she's just chomping at the bit. Oh. Which is so classic, right? Of that like second born. Yes. And they're both girls and so she's I need to do all the things my sister's doing. And so they're both gonna be doing it and I'm really excited to start. But you don't have to do that. You don't have to start in social studies, go outside, get your kids outside. Occasionally open a book and read to them, and that's all you have to do.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, I so much wisdom in that, and from experience and having seen that all the way through to university, I just say amen.'cause it's true. I don't know if I could say something more crucial or enjoyable or fulfilling than reading to your kids and having them get into reading and just that, the connection that happens between parents and kids when that happens. Thank you so much. I, that was a, that was like a whirlwind, such a fast interview. And so we'll have to do this again some time. But thank you for taking time tonight to, to hang out and to talk.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yes. Thank you for having me. And thanks for having Elia in too.

Timmy Eaton:

Oh, that was so fun. Love it. Thank you. We'll talk again.

Vanessa Braunn:

Yeah, sounds good.

Timmy Eaton:

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.