Home is Where the LEARNING Is w/ Chris Linder

Are our children learning everything they need to thrive?

Schools teach many important subjects—but what about critical thinking, financial literacy, creativity, and practical life skills?

This week on Nailed It Motherhood, educator and Homeschool Remix author Chris Linder joins Tamara Eldridge for an eye-opening conversation about how parents can intentionally bridge the gaps in their child's education—without necessarily becoming full-time homeschoolers.

Together, they discuss:
✨ What hybrid homeschooling really looks like
✨ Why curiosity is one of a child's greatest superpowers
✨ Practical ways to teach life skills at home
✨ How parents can raise confident, independent thinkers
✨ Why education doesn't have to stop when the school day ends

Whether your child attends public, private, charter, or homeschool, this episode will challenge you to rethink what it truly means to prepare children for life.

Because raising successful kids isn't about having all the answers—it's about teaching them how to find them.

Connect with Chris:

homeschoolremix.com

Homeschoolremix.substack.com 

Facebook: Homeschool Remix

Blue Sky: @homeschoolremix

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Sometimes it feels like being a parent today means juggling more than just schedules and stats. We're also navigating systems, schools, opinions, and a culture that seems to be debating our kids at every turn. God don't we know it. But in the middle of all that noise, there's still us just showing up, figuring it out, and trying to raise whole healthy humans. Welcome to the Nailed It Motherhood Podcast. I am your host with the most, Tamara Eldridge. And around here, we make space for honest conversations, real reflection, and the laughs that keep us sane. And today will be no different. So let's get into it. Today's guest is someone helping parents navigate a shifting culture and an ever-changing educational landscape. Chris Linder is an Atlanta parent, the author of Homeschool Remix, and a leader in hybrid homeschooling in EdTech, who has been on the front lines of what many families, especially black and brown families, are facing as education becomes a cultural battleground. He combines the basics of traditional schooling with the flexibility families need, offering practical, accessible ways for parents to fill in the gaps schools often leave behind. Listeners, please help me welcome to the Nailed It Motherhood platform, a soldier on the educational battlefield, Mr. Chris Linder. Hi, sir.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's it's good to be here. I listened to your show. I think it's great. Uh just want to say thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Thank you so much for listening, first and foremost, but thank you for showing up. I truly, truly appreciate you. Um, I will say I appreciate you just showing up and emailing me because that's how you became a part of our guest list. You emailed me and you said, this is something that I really respect and appreciate that you have this platform for moms to be real and raw about. And I want to be able to share something for moms to really think about when it comes to education. And so I was like, uh, yeah, uh, this is my heart, this is my passion. So please, please come on. I kind of had to beg you after the first email, but I'm glad you came. Yeah, you remember.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

You remember, and I'm gonna cover it up the end of the year, holidays, all that stuff. I'll you know, I'll blame that.

SPEAKER_02 2:57

Uh hey, it life happens, life lies, but we made it, we survived, and then I got sick, so you know, it is what it is. We're here, we're here today. Are you better now? I'm so much better now, so much better. We are so glad that you're here. Um, but you know, I have to pause before we get into your journey, and it is gonna be a good one from what I hear. But we have to take a moment and give our listeners what they came here for when it comes to me as a parent. And that is our toffee tale because they don't really care about me, they care about Tavia, my baby girl. So I have to give them the Tavi Tail. And Chris, I think you might like this one. I really do. Today's Tavia or today's Taffy Tail, I'm gonna call Simone Biles. And I'm gonna call it Simone Biles because my baby girl is into gymnastics. She just started over the summer, and she's really, really good at it. Like, she is she started it, and from the moment she started, she just started excelling at it. And parents would be like, Oh, how long has she been in? And I'm like, Oh, she just started last week. And they, you know, a month goes by, how long has she been in gymnastics? She just started, and they're just in awe because they're like, Oh, well. So she's just it's something that she's always really been into. She's always flipped, she's always she never sits still, ever sits still. And I always I can recall, even in my belly, like it was just non-stop. I would be laying down and she would be moving, and it would be like I could, I I remember taking video of my stomach just shifting. I'm like, this this little girl will not sit still. But I'm learning now that this is a a good thing, this is uh a skill set that she has, and she's so strong. But the the funniest thing about it is that my boyfriend, he is in such awe of this ability. She's super strong, she's super talented, and she can pick up pretty much anything she tries. She taught herself how to do a backflip recently. Like she'll just stand there and just do a back bend and then just flip herself over, and she's six. So it's just like, how do you how did you learn how to do that? But I have to I have to like kind of tap him on the shoulder and bring him back to reality because she's not supposed to be flipping in the house. So he's like just smiling, like, she's just so good. And I'm like, she's in the house, she's flipping in the house. I need you to get over how good she is, she's flipping in the house, but she's just so good, she's so talented. I'm like, you have to understand there are still boundaries and there are still rules that have to apply. The girl is flipping in the house. There are things that can break in the house, so he will take every opportunity that he gets to let her see Simone Biles and watch gymnastics so he can just keep pumping her up and showing her what you can be, and you know, I I almost don't even have to bother because he's so into it with her because he's so amazed. So I kind of just take her to practice. I I I definitely try to build her confidence up, but I also like to bring her down to reality sometimes. So that is my topbytail today. My girl is she's definitely got it. So in 10 years, when she's going to the Olympics, Chris Linder, you heard it here first. So thank you for listening to my topbytail.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Well, I wish her luck, you know. I think it's great that you know, she's got people behind her that are both trying to keep her grounded, but also showing her what's possible. I think that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yes, thank you so much. I do appreciate that. Um, you know, it's beautiful to just be able to have these opportunities as black and brown people because what 25, 30 years ago, just to know that gymnastics costs what it does. I I don't know that we would have been able to have these opportunities, afford these opportunities, and have these types of access to just say we would have just done it at the playground and kept it moving, right? Let's be honest, that's what I did. I it wasn't happening for me because my mom wouldn't have been able to afford that. Oh, right. So, again, thank you again so much for listening. I appreciate you validating my baby's story. And it is now time for us to hear why we came for your story, your story of homeschooling. You started off as a classroom instructor, and you felt like there was a disconnect. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

That is that you're exactly right. There was a definite disconnect in the things that um both the things that the the state or the curriculum were having me uh teach and the experiences that my students were were getting. And then um as a parent, and I'll I'll kind of frame this and back up, but as a parent, I was noticing the same kind of disconnect between what my what my two daughters were learning in school, or not learning, or being taught in school, um, and the things that they should have been learning in school, the the things that they you know would would use practically for for their life um beyond school, um, things that they weren't getting. Um so I always I had always noticed this gap between them. But um to back up all the way, I had a very interesting upbringing when it came to education. When I started in school, uh I went to a small private charter school that instead of a traditional classroom where you have a teacher and you have a number of students and they're all like focused on what the teacher's teaching them. We worked in individual cubicles um on uh little we worked at our own pace in little magazine type textbooks called paces. And we uh just basically, whenever we had a question, we would we had a little flag, we'd put it in the top of our desk, and the teacher would come around to our cubicle and answer our question. But beyond that, um, first grade through sixth grade for me was working at my own pace, um, you know, in in given subjects and and just basically figuring things out on my own. Um there was a definite uh uh mismatch as far as uh social uh social kind of uh I would say just the way I I interacted socially with my peers because um the only times that we really would interact would be at recess or at lunch. Um you didn't get the normal classroom kind of goings on, but um, but all in all, I think uh it gave me a good um baseline for for my studies. I didn't see the inside of a traditional classroom until middle school, where I went to uh a private middle school that uh had excellent teachers, um, and they really taught me how to um think critically, how to find answers for what I was looking for uh in the text, how to um respond to the text in in written ways and express myself through the written word. Um for seventh and eighth grade, I had a really um great opportunity. And you were talking about your daughter, you know, having opportunities that we didn't have. Um from my middle school experience, I really had great opportunities to learn in a different way, um, and to kind of learn skills that I carried through high school and college and beyond. Um when I went to high school, um it was finally a public high school with uh all the normal bells and whistles that you'd see on on TV, and I was like, oh, this is what regular school is like. And um, but uh my school actually had a radio station, and I got into radio broadcasting for a while and and loved that, and that actually became my career after college for for a long time. Um I went to a small college and and majored in communications. I didn't really uh consider becoming a teacher, although my aunt had had suggested that that's the thing that you should go to school for, become a teacher, and then you'll always have that to fall back on. So I I minored in education, um, but my major was communications, literature, and mass media. And and so after college, I pursued radio because I felt like, okay, this is this is what I want to do. Um, I want to sit in a room, I want to play records, I want to, you know, talk to people on the air and and do this all day long. That's that's my dream job. And I did that for a few years. And honestly, it was both the best time of my life and also sometimes incredibly boring. And uh so I got to a point where um I was I was thinking to myself, okay, I can't, I can't do this for the next the next two decades. I can't do this for the rest of my life. I've gotta see what else is out there. I had this this wanderlust, I had this desire to see what was going on in the world besides just this. So I got a book, and the book was called Work Your Way Around the World. And in it, it described how you could get a job teaching English in other countries, um, Japan, Korea, or you could get a job picking fruit in Guatemala or Venezuela when when it's time for fruit picking season, or you could do all these other things all all around. If you just wanted to be a world traveler, you could get jobs in season all around the world. The only thing I wanted to do really was teach English because um it didn't involve too hard, I thought. It didn't involve hard labor, but uh it was something that, hey, I'm a native English speaker, I can I can do that. Um, so I I bought a ticket for South Korea, and I went and within a week I had found a job teaching English at a hogwan. A hogwan is like a small private uh like institution for learning, but kind of like um what we call a cram school, kind of like extra school for for students who are trying to learn English or trying to learn um test prep or math or or what have you. Um so I taught English as a as a native English speaker, um, and I taught for two years. And I taught uh most of my students were college student age, some were like older, like businessmen or housewives, and some were younger, maybe middle school or high school age, uh, but most of them were college students, and and I had a great time teaching them, and I realized that if a person, if a student is really, if they see the benefit to what they're learning, they'll be really motivated to do well. Um, I never had a problem with students who um were worried about uh or just not motivated or just didn't didn't care. Um, because English was something that all of my students realized that there was it was something that they'd have to learn uh to do well in in college and to do well in their future careers. So there was always something driving them to learn. So they were very hard studiers, hard workers, um, and it was a great teaching experience. Um, when I felt homesick for America, I came back and got back into radio broadcasting, but I always um kind of uh either substitute taught or kept teaching like on the back burner um as that career next step. And that paid off after about um after about 10 years of uh working in radio, I transitioned into teaching in the classroom and taught world literature at uh 10th grade level, um, taught speech and debate. Um and again, I had I had great students, but a lot of times they were they were not the motivated students that I had gotten used to in South Korea. These were uh high schoolers who who didn't really want to be there. Um they so it was uh it was kind of a struggle sometimes to to both manage the classroom and to keep them interested in in what we were you know trying to get them to understand and and also to to really bridge that that gap between the the core of knowledge and the usefulness of that knowledge, trying to um express uh trying to get them to understand that this knowledge that they're they're picking up is going to be useful to them in the future. So um so that was the challenge, but uh I realized that I was a better teacher than I was a babysitter, and and then I I kind of went back into um media, but I went into the technical side of media and became a web developer and uh a technical project manager, working on systems of of getting things done and organization and and kind of uh the technical side of all that. Um my wife, who was also a teacher, she wrote um a few books on common core and books on using anchor charts in the classroom. And we started doing professional development for teachers around the country. So we would go to a city and um lead their teachers into uh in kind of a writing jump start workshop so that they could teach writing to their students or use anchor charts for their students. Um and we had a lot of success doing that. Um and we were uh we were more successful, but we did notice that there was an increasing gap in what students would learn or or be taught and the things that they were needing, they were actually needing, but not getting. And we we notice, and probably a lot of your your viewers notice this, is that uh critical thinking is just not something that's that's taught in schools. Practical life skills, the days of home ec and things like that, not really you know taught a lot in schools anymore. Um there's so much that kids aren't getting financial literacy, um, and And just, you know, basic ways of being able to express themselves through through writing and and so on are just falling by the wayside, and people are starting to, or teachers are are being forced to teach to the test. Um, and I believe that that's that's kind of um, you know, I can go off on another a whole other tangent about how that's probably by design that uh you know the the US education system is is based on uh bringing kids to a fifth or sixth grade reading level and not giving them any critical thinking and then graduating them um because that makes a good worker, that makes a good laborer, doesn't necessarily make a good um you know, entrepreneur or executive, but that's not the point. They really want to make a good, you know, massive labor force. So I I wanted to kind of supplement the things that uh my daughters weren't getting in school with lessons that would teach them critical thinking, that would teach them financial literacy and all of these other skills that they weren't getting in school. Um, so I came up with a framework for a system called uh homeschool remix. And that's what my uh hybrid homeschooling is all about. It's a way of keeping your kids enrolled in school and then supplementing what they're not getting in school with targeted home lessons that teach those skills and then interw interweave critical thinking throughout all of those all of those skills. And that's what hybrid homeschooling is all about.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Oh, thank God you're there.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

This is exciting, this framework. I the story was very valuable, and I appreciate you sharing it. The first question I want to ask, because um this is a targeted podcast, is what did it look like in practice with your daughters? Homeschool remix.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Okay, so what really tipped it off, what really got it going, um, and and planted the seed in my head was um my daughter was having trouble in algebra, and I am not a math person at all. So I had to figure out a way, and you know, she's a smart girl, I had to figure out a way to get her to the level of all the other students in the algebra class, um, so she wouldn't get, you know, dropped down to the basic math class. Um because uh with a lot of you know how we always say if you're black or brown, you gotta do things like you know, twice as good as everybody else, just to have that equal footing. I knew that if she got dropped down to the basic math class, that would be it. She'd be on that track for the rest of her high school career. She'd be like in the basic math track, which, you know, nothing wrong with that. But, you know, I I would just wanted her to have better opportunities. Um, so her getting into algebra freshman year was great. I wanted to keep her in the in algebra, um, which meant that I had to do some algebra, you know, kind of figure out some some ways of getting her uh some algebra training. And I don't have a lot of money for tutors, so it wasn't about trying to get like an algebra tutor. Um, so I found a um a homeschool curriculum that was similar to the curriculum that I had grown up with uh going to school first through sixth grade. It was kind of like the um like the updated version of that. And so I worked with her using that curriculum and and got her to pass algebra with, you know, B's and A's. But um I realized that okay, so so if I can figure this out, I can figure out how to teach any subject and get them, you know, the subjects that they're not getting in school, which like the one I really go back to a lot is financial literacy, because I think that that's really important, but um, it's for some reason the first thing to go by the wayside in in high school education. Like we're raising kids who are more ready to um handle an active shooter than to balance a checkbook. Umancial literacy, especially for marginalized students, black and brown kids, they're not getting any form of financial literacy. And again, I think that that's by design. I think that if you're just happy with whatever job you can get after high school, then that turns you into a good laborer. And according to the Department of Education, they've fulfilled their job. They've fulfilled their promise to you. But um for my kids, I wanted something better. I wanted to at least give them choices so that they could do other things. So um I found ways to implement financial literacy, found ways to implement kind of a real cultural history and cultural art appreciation, because that's another thing that is just getting erased and getting like thrown out of schools, um, any kind of uh art and literature that that may not fit the exact mainstream of what you know people want. You know, if it'll raise a question or if it'll, you know, make somebody think, then now it seems like we don't need that in school. We need to get that out of school. So uh so I really wanted to find ways of getting that back into the education system, you know, the personal education system. And that's what that's what homeschool remix framework was all about. I wanted to just remix education.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

I appreciate that. Um what are people saying? What are people saying?

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Um the feedback that I've gotten from working with different parents um is that it's it's something that's that's really needed, but a lot of parents are either afraid because one of two things. Either they feel that they don't have they're not smart enough to teach their kids, they they feel that it's it's something that's you know way above you know their level of education. What I tell people is look, um I'm not a mathematician, but I can teach my daughter algebra and the algebra too. So, you know, it's not a matter of you not knowing the subject matter, it's a matter of you being able to teach your child how to think critically and how to find answers. You're teaching them how to learn, you're not just teaching them facts and figures and formulas and things that you probably don't know. You need to teach them, hey, this is how to figure out how to find out the answers to these questions, how to find out the these these problems, how to solve these problems. Um so a lot of parents are are you know reticent because they're like, oh, I I I don't know a lot about science. I barely got through high school myself. And I'm like, yeah, that's what they want you to think. They want you to think that you're not smart enough to teach your kids, so just leave it all up to the state. And that's that's the wrong way of of looking at it. The other the other reason that parents are reticent is that they just don't have a way of getting uh the resources or they think that it's too expensive. And a lot of cases, um uh to to get a full-time homeschool curriculum, it is very expensive. And it is much easier to just leave your kids in school. And that's why the homeschool, the hybrid homeschooling framework is so beneficial because it lets you get the advantage of that structure and the socialization of the traditional school, you know, and you just pick those key subjects that they're not getting enough of in school, and you're just finding curriculum for that, or you're finding lessons um and developing a lesson plan for for those particular subjects. And that's a lot cheaper than buying a full off-the-shelf curriculum. Um, so you know, when I when I work with with parents, um just being able to identify, you know, what's holding them back, and being able to, you know, hold their hand a little bit and walk them through it and say, okay, I I get why you're feeling this. Here's why, um, or here's how you can uh step over that hurdle. Here's how you can overcome that. Um, and a lot of parents are just like, oh, okay, I never really thought of it that way. Yeah, that makes sense, and they can go do that. Um, and the real thing that's a game changer now is AI. Um, and when I when I first started writing the book, it wasn't really something that parents could really take advantage of. But now it there's really no excuse not to um design, you know, design your own lesson plans using AI, using Chat GPT. Um the the one caution that I always give is that uh your your AI of choice will probably hallucinate. So you can't uh you can't assume that once you've made the lesson plan that everything in it is accurate, you have to double and triple check and and you know make it show its sources so that you know you can ensure the accuracy. But as far as the structure, and especially if you use something like you know, the homeschool remix framework, you're you're actually teaching critical thinking. And and what that looks like is you're not just uh giving them a passage to read and then giving them multiple choice questions. What you're doing is you're giving them a passage to read, then asking them open-ended questions, and having them explain and come to conclusions about what they've what they've read so that they can internalize and find the real lesson inside of whatever that passage is on whatever topic or subject that you're teaching.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

So, yeah, yeah. I um I want to go back to your beginning.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Cool.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

Um, because you said that when you were in first through fifth grade, you were in a cubicle basically doing the work on your own, and you were really building and developing those critical thinking skills and just kind of flagging the teacher when you had that those questions. Um, were you drawing from that experience as a child when you were developing this framework of that critical thinking? Did you did you like unpack those formative years when you were thinking about what your children were lacking?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

I don't know that I did a lot of unpacking of those earlier years. Um other than finding an updated version of that curriculum that I had used back then, um those formative years in me, I think just gave me a different outlook on what education should and can be. Um but also it it just made me personally just um just look at everything, just look at life a lot differently. Like I just, you know, I naturally am uh an independent person. I'm comfortable with, you know, you just give me a task and come back a day later or two days later, and you know, I've figured out how to do it, you know. And if I need help, I'll I'll seek out help. But I'm very self-directed, and that's a result of that. I didn't make the the homeschool remix framework based on that, based on that level of independence, because students have different learning styles, and those learning styles can actually change based on what subjects they're studying, what you know, their comfort level. So I'm a big proponent of meeting your student where they are based on whatever subject that you're teaching. Um, and some students do better independently, some students do better with experiential info uh education. Um, you know, going out and actually going to a to a museum and seeing things up close or experiencing things. Um I think figuring out, and I would say that a parent is the child's best teacher because they know, just like your kids know what buttons to press and make you mad, you know what buttons to press to make them go, aha, and learn something better. You know, you know that innately. You just have to listen to that inner voice and be able to relate to your kids on a way that a teacher who's in charge of 25 different kids, you know, every hour of the day through the day, you know, they they can't hope to reach your child as closely as you can. So, you know, that more than anything, more than the independence that I would have gotten from from my experience as a student, um, that more than anything defines and drives the homeschool remix framework. And the the other, the secret sauce really is the creative thinking. And creative thinking needs to be, it's not, it's not its own subject, it's not its own thing. It needs to be interwoven through each subject, and it's the way that you teach, not necessarily what you teach. And uh, you know, like I mentioned, open-ended questions is a way of getting them to think and internalize and process critically. You know, longer form uh writing assignments or multimedia assignments is another way of getting them to take whatever uh nuggets that they've learned and to be able to process that and and basically teach someone else. You know, that's what critical thinking is all about.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

So I have one final question before we transition to our game. Um, I can't thank you enough for coming on. I I'm excited to look into this because I think I'm at that age where my daughter is still very much in the critical thinking stage at such a young age. Um, and I I still have that ability that she is in those years where she wants to absorb everything. So I can still teach her financial literacy. I can still teach her those practical life skills because she just wants to be up under me all the time. So, do you offer like a schedule for this hybrid framework? You send the kid to school. What does that look like when they come home from school? Do we do we do lessons after school, after homework, or is this a weekend thing where we set aside time on Saturdays? What are some of your options for scheduling lesson plans around these essential topics that are necessary for your entrepreneurs, your critical thinkers, your people that don't just want to be laborers?

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yes. Uh so the answer is yes, all of the above. Um the the beauty of the framework is the flexibility. You're able to say, okay, some states require you to be in school at least two days a week, some probably all five days a week. It's it's up to you. There's nothing saying that you can't homeschool your kids. Um, but if you leave them in school for the full week, um maybe you know, hybrid homeschooling looks like um a 45-minute lesson every day, or maybe an hour or two on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then maybe a longer time on Saturdays, maybe three or four hours on Saturday, or two hours on Saturday. Um, it's really flexible and it's it's based on what you and your student, your child, um feel comfortable with. Um, I'm really big on having the child, you know, in on the planning process because it helps with buy-in, it helps with getting them on board with with doing the work. If, you know, if they were the ones to come up with the schedule, if they were the ones to come up with how much time they're going to devote to to you know this or whatever. Um another thing uh is motivation is probably one of those, um, one of those key things that people have trouble with in the beginning. Um, I'm a big proponent of cash. I think that allowance should always be tied into grades. Um, you know, my girls will tell you, I don't pay for I don't pay for for D's. So anytime a progress report coming, you know, you might miss your allowance because of your grades. And I mean, and that works both ways. It's a carrot and a stick. You know, you can give a person a performance bonus, you know, for for getting A's or for doing well in whatever assignment, whatever assessment that you decide to use for your your hybrid homeschooling. So, you know, it's it's very flexible and You know, it really needs to be custom tailored to you and your child's needs.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Awesome. I appreciate that. And um, I do want to take this time to thank you for coming on and sharing. So, listeners, please make sure you check out homeschool remix so that you can think about if this is something that you would be interested in. This is not something that you have to do, but maybe just pull a couple lessons and consider some critical thinking, some creative thinking, some practical life skills that you want to intertwine into your students' uh everyday schooling. These are critical skills that our students are kind of missing in the educational curriculum these days. And I can tell you that as an educator, they're not getting everything that we know that they need to soar in this world. So um, check him out. He did a phenomenal job today, despite our technical challenges. Thank you again for showing up. I appreciate you sharing your story.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

But Chris, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 45:21

You're so welcome. Do you want to try to push through and play a game with me today?

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Yes, yes, please. I've been looking forward to the game. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

I'm so excited. So here's what I'm not gonna do. I'm not gonna add any more technology to this browser, and I'm not gonna put the timer on here. I'm gonna use my phone and put the timer on my phone. But I'm gonna put three minutes on the clock while I explain tea time because it is time to play tea time. Tea time is a game of rapid fire. I have a bucket full of questions. Some of them are deep, some of them are just for fun, most of them are just for fun. But Chris has three minutes to answer as many questions as he can so that we just get a little bit more insight into who he is. So, listeners, are y'all ready? Yo, Chris, are you ready?

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Yes, I'm so excited. Three minutes on the clock. I will hit start and we shall begin. The first question is what is the title of your biopic?

SPEAKER_00 46:45

Um The Life of a Critical Thinking Master.

SPEAKER_02 46:55

I like it. Which emoji do you use the most?

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Um it's either the cool sunglasses emoji or the pizza emoji.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yes. Name okay, so here's another fun one. Name your life's Broadway play. They're very similar.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Uh Chris the Department of Education Slayer.

SPEAKER_02 47:35

I like that. Where's your dream vacation spot?

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Um right now it's uh right now it's Portugal.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Oh, okay. What is your guilty pleasure?

SPEAKER_00 47:55

Um binging television shows from the 90s and 2000s.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Not mad at you at all. What season of life are you in right now, and what is it teaching you?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Autumn, and it's teaching me to uh prepare my my storehouses for winter.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

That's actually quite deep. Quite deep. What small things bring you joy?

SPEAKER_00 48:32

Um honestly, it's two things. It's my back deck and brisket on my smoker.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Yes. I'm gonna imagine brisket on your smoker on your back deck.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

What always yeah, what always is one thing, it's my back deck with the smoker and brisket on it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

Yes. What always makes you giggle?

SPEAKER_00 49:10

Um, I have a Shiba Inu, and for some reason, whenever I'm in the kitchen and she hears me rustling some plastic, opening something, you know, she can be on the second floor and she rushes down and you know, with this optimistic kind of stare, just hoping that it's meat.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

So that is so cute. Okay, well, thank you so much. That was your time. Um, I had one more question, but I enjoyed that story uh about what makes you giggle. That was fun to listen to, and that probably would make me giggle too. So thank you for playing tea time. I hope you enjoyed it just as much as we enjoyed listening to your answers. I say we like there's like three of us in the excuse me. I embodied my listeners.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

I love it, I love it.

SPEAKER_02 50:12

Well, Chris, I really do want to thank you again for joining us on Nailed It Motherhood Podcast. We always love bringing a dad to the podcast, especially a dad with your perspective of being in the classroom to saying, hold up, hold up, something may write, let's fix something here. You have had quite the career life, um, the life cycle, I'll say. And I will also say that I was a communications major and study broadcast journalism. And um, my first job was a voiceover artist for six and a half years. So we have something in common. I fell into education as a substitute teacher. So that was fun, but it was definitely fun listening to your journey into education. So at this time, I would love to give you back the floor so that you can share any words of wisdom or encouragement that you have for any parents, whether it be dad, whether it be mom, or anybody who is raising kids, especially those who are considering homeschooling their kids, um, or might be on the fence. Like, do I take my kids out full time? Da-da-da-da-da-da. What would you like to share with us today?

SPEAKER_00 51:29

Um the one thing I want to share is don't stress. It's it's really easy to fall into the trap of saying, oh, if I'm going to be a homeschooler, I've got to teach everything right, I've got to do everything right, um, I've got to pack their day with with lessons. I can't let them, you know, miss out on anything. If you just take a step back and focus on teaching the fundamentals of how to learn. If you teach your your kid how to learn, that's 80-90% of the battle right there. The the facts and figures, the formulas, all that stuff will come. Just focus on teaching them how to learn and igniting that spark of curiosity, and and you'll be fine, and your kids will be fine. So don't stress.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

I love those words of encouragement, and I think that is something that we all need to take, especially me. We all need to take it.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

No, me, me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Um, I I it actually reminds me of something that you said that I did write down, and um I just love the fact that you said if they see the benefit, they'll be motivated to do it. And that kind of ties up just this thing called parenting. Like there is this huge benefit of being a parent. It's it's the success of our children. Um, and so if we can just be reminded that we pour into them all of this greatness and all of these beautiful things and these reminding them that they're good people, reminding them that they can, reminding them that this life can be greater for them, then they will be motivated because we poured all of these good things into them. Um, and so I'm taking what you said about what you learned over in a completely different country about how they were inspired by your teaching. And I'm gonna use that in my parenting journey. I'm going to be, I'm going to benefit and I'm going to pour in goodness into my child, and I'm going to allow that to motivate me to be a good parent, which will therefore motivate her to be a good person. Um, so thank you for that. At this time, I do have a question for you, and I just want to know how people can connect to you and what is next for you. What are you doing after homeschool remix?

SPEAKER_00 54:35

Um, so we're uh they can connect with us with um homeschoolemix.com or uh following us on Facebook at homeschoolremix or blue sky at homeschool remix or substack at homeschoolremix.substack.com. Um we're developing an app for hybrid homeschool parents and students. Um we have a uh another application that's that's transitioning into this new application called the Homeschool Remix Mixtape. And what that is is basically a curated collection of lessons for um for teens uh to teach critical thinking and in a number of different subjects. So that will be integrated with this uh this app that we're working on now. And we're looking at uh coming out with that in second quarter of this year, and you know that's what we're working on next.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

Okay, mixed tape for teens. I love it. I see 90s and 2000s, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

Yeah, it's a little retro, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it at all. So this is the part of the episode where I ask everybody the same questions because I'm a sort of a data geek because I worked in the data department at one point in the school district. So I have three questions that I ask everyone. So I'm not gonna be any different with you because you are the homeschool remix king. So, Chris, I have to ask you, is parenting hard? Yes, yes, you said that without hesitation. But are your daughters still standing?

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Yes, they are, and thriving.

SPEAKER_02 56:43

Yes, thriving. Okay. So, what do you want to proudly tell our guests today?

SPEAKER_00 56:50

This dad is nailing it.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

Nailing it. Chris Linder. He's nailing it, y'all. And we're gonna empower him too. He's doing a darn good job and his job as dad. If you like this episode and you want to see more personal parenting journeys like that of Chris Linder, please don't forget to follow us, like, subscribe, and follow us on your favorite podcast platform. So thank you all and have a great day! Bye.