Slow Down Will You?

What if we've been approaching education all wrong? What if the race to cover more material, check more boxes, and meet arbitrary benchmarks is actually preventing our children from experiencing the deep, transformative learning they deserve?

Leslie Martino joins us to discuss her groundbreaking book "The Joy of Slow: Restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning." With warmth and wisdom, she challenges our culture's obsession with educational productivity and offers a refreshing alternative that prioritizes depth over breadth, process over product, and connection over curriculum.

Drawing from her extensive experience as both an educator and homeschooling parent, Leslie explains what "slow" really means in education – not just taking more time, but fundamentally shifting how we approach learning. She addresses the fears that keep families trapped in educational rat races and shares powerful stories of how embracing self-directed interests creates rich learning environments. From her daughter's journey customizing toys to her own exploration of Florida Highwaymen artists, Leslie illustrates how organic curiosity leads to deeper, more meaningful educational experiences than any prescribed curriculum.

This conversation will resonate with anyone feeling the pressure to accelerate learning at the expense of joy and connection. Whether you homeschool, send your children to traditional school, or simply want to nurture the natural love of learning in your family, Leslie's insights will help you recalibrate your educational approach to reflect what truly matters. You'll walk away with practical strategies for slowing down, honoring the learning process, and creating space for wonder and discovery in your home.

Ready to transform how you think about education? Listen now and discover the extraordinary power of slowing down.

For links and the transcript, visit wokehomeschooling.com/podcast

Transcript

Introducing The Joy of Slow

Delina 0:00

There are some books that inspire you to do better and reimagine what your days with your kids could look like. The Joy of Slow is one of those books. Welcome to Homeschool Yourself. I'm your host, delina. I invite you to slow down and take in this conversation with Leslie Martino, author of the Joy of Slow. I hope this conversation helps you get a taste of what is in her book. It's a perfect guide to recenter and recalibrate your homeschool life. If you're heading into a new year or new school year, or even a new month, take a listen. Hi, leslie, welcome to Homeschool Yourself. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you, so let's just start off. Will you please just introduce yourself and tell me how and why, like your book the Joy of Slow was important for you to write.

Leslie 0:46

Yes, sure, hi Delina.

Leslie 0:47

Thank you so much for having me on the podcast first of all.

Leslie 0:51

So, yes, I wrote a book called the Joy of Slow, restoring Balance and Wonder to Homeschool Learning, and I think it was important for me to write, maybe for a few different reasons, one of them being that these are the ideas in the book, are things that I'm passionate about, things that I've been talking about and sharing about for a long time, and I felt like I was always able to talk about these ideas in fractured pieces, a little bit here, a little bit there, but I felt like writing a book gave me a way to put it all in a house and organize it for everybody, so like this is actually how it lives in my brain and you know it's the pieces that you might have heard me talk about are parts of a whole picture, and so I felt like it was important for me to write it for those reasons.

Leslie 1:33

I also just wanted to. I love writing, I've always loved writing, and I knew I was going to write a book. I've co-authored books, but not solo and I just knew that it was something I was going to do again, and it just seemed really perfect to just in this, around this topic, something that I've been so passionate about.

Delina 1:53

I love it so much. I think it's the perfect book to start off, like right before you start your school year, probably right before you buy curriculum, Just right before you get started. Just a reset. It's so grounding and it's so helpful in just knowing your why and why you want to do this and the feeling of how you want to do this homeschooling thing. So let's just start off with explaining slow. What do you mean by?

Leslie 2:20

slow, yeah. So I think slow means a few different things and I think you can look at it in different contexts, like if you look at it in the context of education or the way that we approach learning. I think that slow means adopting a meaningful practice of building deep roots more than wide roots. You know, a lot of times in education we're so concerned with how much can you know, but can we know something well? Can we know a few things well?

Leslie 2:49

I think that, for me, is incorporated in the idea of slow. So whether you decide to use curriculum or whether you are letting learning unfold more naturally or learning about a passion or an interest, it's that valuing of deep understanding over just shallow mastery. So taking your time to do that and unfold learning in ways that are not about speed but about quality really over quantity. And because of that you know idea of slow and how we approach learning. I think inherent in that is that you have a healthy respect for the process of building knowledge.

Leslie 3:29

I think a lot of times in education we're so concerned with the end result and what you get and what you can show for your learning, you know, but what's more important is the things that you've experienced along the process the enlightenment, the disappointment, the struggle, the challenge, the wins, the highs, the lows. It's everything, it's all of it the conversations, the, you know, the mess ups, that it's just like everything that goes into the process of learning something, and so it's about appreciating that process, stopping along the way in that process to reflect on what's happening and and to know that that is developing you more than you standing at the end of that process and saying, oh, look at all the things that I've learned, I've gained.

Understanding Slow Education Philosophy

Delina 4:13

I think a lot of us want that theoretically, but what are some of the things that get in the way of that when homeschooling?

Leslie 4:22

Yeah, I think when we're homeschooling, you know, we are so concerned that we're going to mess things up. We're so concerned that we're not going to give the children the right things, or that someone else is going to look at us and say that we are somehow not doing it right or we are somehow not doing it in a way that serves the child well or is complete. You know, there's so many voices, I think, that we are contending with. It's going on in our own minds, in our own heads. We think some of us have family members and outside voices looking at us and constantly criticizing, unfortunately, and there's the powers that be. You know, depending on what state you live in. You know the questions that you have to answer what are you doing? What are you doing?

Leslie 5:06

So I think a lot of those things can get in the way and stand in the way, and what it boils down to is a lot of fear, you know, and a lot of that fear is birthed out of a genuine place of love and concern, but it starts to look like control and it starts to get out of control, and then we end up not giving our children the things that we say we want to give them at the start. And so I think part of slow is also our own level of reflection and our own willingness to step outside of the rat race a little bit and to look at ourselves and look at what we're doing and say, hang on, does what I'm doing at home with my children align with what I really value? Because it's not that you can't ever do anything else or can't do things that are, you know, checking off someone else's boxes for whatever reasons. But if you're not doing more of the things that are meaningful to you and that align with your values, then why are we even doing those things?

Delina 6:07

Yeah.

Leslie 6:07

So I think part of slow, that's part of it for us as parents.

Delina 6:12

Has it ever cost you anything to go at a different pace in the culture? Has it cost you or your children, or have you For sure? Did you think it was going to cost you something and it was something different. Yeah.

Leslie 6:27

Yeah, I think at times it's costed different things. You know when, when you choose to go against the grain in any way, sometimes that costs really big things, sometimes like fractures in relationships or friendships, but those are tend to be like that really depends on the relationships and it depends on the issues, but sometimes it just costs you the sake of someone else. We we we want to be, we want to be comfortable and we want to be looked at in a good light and we want for everybody to understand what we're doing and we want to everyone to pat us on the back.

Delina 7:00

Yeah.

Leslie 7:01

But that's not really reality. You know, I think that when we are going against the grain, there are going to be people who look at what we're doing and say that's weird or that's crazy.

Delina 7:14

Or worse, like you're messing up your kids.

Leslie 7:16

This is not real life and you're not preparing them for real life, Exactly, Exactly, and I think you know, Exactly, exactly, and I think you know when we can look at the. We look at the opposite, like what will we gain from doing this? What would it mean for my family if I did this? Then that's the leverage that we can use to at the other side. That's not going to get us what we really want. That's just going to keep us fearful. But we want to make those decisions that we're making, to do the things that we believe are the right things for specific reasons. So we have to keep our eyes on what we'll gain from those things. You know, what would it mean for my family? What would it mean for our level of connection? What will I mean for my child's peace and sanity?

Leslie 8:04

What will it mean for my teenagers level of anxiety? What will it mean for my you know all of that. You know to adopt a slow pace in a world that's moving fast.

Delina 8:15

Yeah that's. That's what we have to keep our eyes on going to go to there, like I want to know what benefits your family has received from this pace, but I want our listeners to know that it's not just going to be, you know, unicorns and rainbows and yeah for sure. So what are some ideas about learning and about education that you think we need to let go of before taking this on?

Leslie 8:49

I think when it comes to yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Delina 8:52

I was going to say taking this on sounds so aggressive, like the opposite of slow Right.

Leslie 8:58

No, but I do think that if you are going to adopt a slower pace right, especially as it relates to learning and especially as it relates to education then you do have to let go of some traditional conceptions of certain educational ideas like progress. There is a very traditional idea of what it looks like to you know, for a child to be making progress. Usually that means that they are making that progress in lockstep with a bunch of other children who are the same age, learning the exact same material. But if we can allow ourselves to think of progress a little bit more broadly progress for if you think about it in your own life, progress often looks a little bit more like two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes it it's not linear, sometimes it's more circular or zigzagged, or sometimes it includes more than just being able to do some rote academic task.

Obstacles to Slow Homeschooling

Leslie 10:02

You know, maybe you can learn to write, and you can in a span of a few years, and you can say look at that, I have made progress in writing. But what about other kinds of progress, like self determination or the ability to be reflective, or to think about your own thinking, or to have a positive self talk or to organize your work. I just feel like you have to be willing to look at the development of a person, things like progress or even just simple things like the scope and what a scope and sequence should be of a curriculum. You know, even those things are very there are. Very often the traditional way of looking at these things are very narrow. There are very often the traditional way of looking at these things are very narrow, you know, so you can say this is the material, this has to be learned. Once you learn it, which basically means you can pass a test and regurgitate the information, then you have made progress and like is that really what learning actually is.

Leslie 11:02

You know, if you talk to different people working in different fields who have a system where they're like apprenticing under somebody, ask them if that's what it looks like.

Leslie 11:13

You know, usually this apprenticeship lasts for many hours, sometimes many years. Mastery of a subject is something that can honestly take a lifetime. Or you have people studying things for years and years and years and feel like they're still learning and still growing. So I just feel like we do kids a disservice when we make it so linear and we make it so defined like that. We have to actually able to be willing to let go of that a little bit to say, you know, we think that we have a responsibility to make all this learning occur within 18 years, when the reality is that, look at yourself as an adult, I'm still learning, I'm still growing, I'm still exploring ideas that I was exploring at five, seriously, and I'm like that's not even exaggerating, so like why, you know, if I can let that go a little bit for them, for my child, then that means I'm not going to be so worried about every little step that you're making. If I, you know I'm going to be more like more, I'm going to notice more about those small little steps that you're making and looking at how. That you know, I in the book I describe it as like how your educational garden is growing over time. You know what it's yielding. I describe it as like how your educational garden is growing over time. You know what it's yielding. I'm going to be looking for more, more growth than than just the one little seedling or the one little seed. I'm going to be looking at you know how you're doing when the wind comes and how it's just so much more. I know I'm speaking in metaphors, but I just learning is so much more so.

Leslie 12:41

I think we have to just be willing to say just learning is so much more so. I think we have to just be willing to say, to question things, to say is that really all that it is? Is this really all that this could mean? Is this all that this could be? Sometimes, when it comes to traditional subjects, we say, well, you've got to cover this, you've got to cover arithmetic, you've got to cover algebra, you've got to cover calculus, you've got to cover, cover, cover, cover.

Leslie 13:03

And one of the ideas I bring out in the book well, what if we talk about uncovering? You know what does it mean to uncover a subject rather than cover it, right, like now you're talking about? Okay, well, what else could this possibly include? What else could this possibly mean? How might a mathematician actually look at this versus what it looks like in my textbook. It's just a willingness to ask questions and to let something exist and be more than we think it is. We have to be willing to do that if we're going to adopt these slower practices. I know I've said a lot.

Delina 13:35

No, I was just having so many thoughts while you were talking. My main response to this is if you're worried about what AI is doing, go get this book, because this is what AI can't do. Exactly, exactly, yes, this is what the robots can't compete with us.

Leslie 13:53

This is what the robots can't do, and you know what. We live in such an information-rich age, right Like knowledge is literally at our fingertips. It's impossible for us to actually know everything, but what the AI cannot do you're right, delina is know things. Well, know things through a hand-brain connection, connect with things emotionally. There's so much about that, about the human experience when it comes to learning, that has not like AI can't replicate. You know, but we want to act like machines.

Leslie 14:28

We want to train our bodies and train our children to respond like machines and it's like, no, let's do what the machines can't do.

Delina 14:35

Yeah, exactly this approach is let's be more human and less machine.

Leslie 14:39

Let's be more human. Yeah, I like that.

Delina 14:42

Our culture sends the message that school equals learning, equals education. So let's just keep talking about what we misunderstand about learning and education. I love this quote from the foreword in your book. This says I tried never to let schooling get in the way of his education and I love that I think that just you know balances the words, so they mean what they're supposed to mean and they're not synonymous. And just tell me how that self-directed learning works with you, yeah, sure.

Self-Directed Learning in Practice

Leslie 15:17

So the beauty of, I think, one of the reasons why I think I made it an entire chapter, you know, self-directed learning, the idea of exploring your own interests and passions it's because parents often see it as very separate from education in general, because they tie education to whatever is being learned in school. And although that's part of education, right, that's part of learning, something we are constantly learning. We're constantly learning new ideas, processing new things, and it actually is both. It includes the ways that we are interacting with different subjects and different curriculum, and writing and reading the skills that we're learning and acquiring, but we're also acquiring and using those skills to access even more information. And when we allow room to be able to, when we allow room for education to also include more and to be also about exploring interests and passions, I feel like it's like an explosion happens, you know, like a bomb. A bomb goes off and it's like, in a good way, a happy bomb. A happy bomb. It just allows learning to be so much more and you can actually notice more about yourself when it's something that's self-directed and something that's related to an interest, because I think you know a lot of times when you're just learning things that you have no connection to. You don't even want to stop and think about some of the ways that you're growing and developing because you're just there's no connection to it, you know. But what I love doing with kids is saying no, you go ahead and explore this interest, you go ahead and explore this passion, and I'm just going to watch you. I'm going to be here as a mentor, but I'm going to watch you because you're going to learn things about yourself and about this thing that you're exploring that we would have never been able to capture in another context. So, for example and that doesn't mean that you're going to like and enjoy every topic or idea or thing that your kid wants to explore but the point is, is that inside of just about anything, there is learning that can happen.

Leslie 17:35

And so, just as a quick example, my daughter, from a very young age, was always interested in these littlest pet shop toys. Okay, like I don't know, I don't know if you can even I don't really, I don't even really know how popular they are now but she would take these toys, she'd play with them, but then she got interested in customizing them and basically that means that you are repainting them, or even sculpting parts to add to them and then doing like a complete repaint. I mean, she would take these things and, like, gouge their eyes out and put new eyes in them and then, like, all of a sudden, and who knew that? There was like this whole underground, underground world of people who were like, doing these things, there's like a, like a, almost like a Comic-Con, but for Littlest Pet Shop, it's, it's, I've learned a lot, okay, and you, you know, and although I could look at her and say, like, what are you doing with your time? Like, what did it? Like, how do you even want to do this? Me sitting there and watching her from a position of a mentorship, right, some of the things that I've been able to walk her through, oh, my goodness, I'm talking not just like the art of sculpting, okay, and learning about different materials. I mean, she knows about materials for sculpting that I didn't even know existed before she started exploring this, right? So, like, how do you hone a craft? How do you, how do you develop a skill? And for her you know that was sculpting and painting here. So there's, there's that Then, you know, she, at different stages in her life, would form clubs with a friend group, friend groups around this.

Leslie 19:09

So how do you maintain a club? How do you lead a club? How do you lead people? How do you communicate with people? How do you make sure everybody feels heard? How do you like?

Leslie 19:18

These are all skills that are going to translate to something else that she wants to do. There was one thing that sort of happened online which I won't rehash, but I had to, we had, I had to mentor her through what is copyright law and like. So, like, it's not about the topic, it's never about the topic. It's about the skills you're learning along the way, the development of a person and the things that you are able to realize. And all of these skills, when we really think about it, are things that will translate to the next project that you tackle, to the next thing you want to do, because you take that information with you. You would never be able to I can't say never, but it would be so much more difficult to replicate those things and those little discrete areas of learning if she weren't connected and like, highly interested, invested in what we were doing. Do you know what I mean? And so, yeah, of course, like, include the interest, include the passion as part of the learning, because it's a, it's a really critical piece of it.

Delina 20:20

Wow, do you just let these things organically emerge, the things that they're interested in and let them?

Leslie 20:27

Yeah, that's a good question. So for us in our home because I knew for us that I wanted to make time for this kind of learning in a very intentional way what we did from very early on was like say, just the same way that people say, hey, we're going to do math now, I would say, hey, this is our project time now, Like this is our time when we are all just going to like, give to these sorts of, you know, projects and passions. And that has looked different in all different seasons for us.

Leslie 20:58

So sometimes, especially when the kids were younger, it was like, hey, here's an hour or two hours of the morning where we're just dedicating to this, but that's not the only way that it can exist in a home, especially if you have older children I'm talking like moving upwards towards 10 and 11, 12 teenagers especially. They've got things that they're interested in, right, there are things that they are interested in doing so, and a lot of times you'll see those things happening on the weekends, or happening late in the evening, or happening, you know, and that's all natural and that's all fine. So sometimes it's just about letting them exist wherever and whenever they exist, and then like coming alongside of and making them know that you see it as a critical piece of their learning. And how do you make those things a big deal? Well, you sit with them and you let them talk to you about what it is that you're doing, or you highlight it at the dinner table, or you're like, listen, if you value self-directed learning at the dinner table, hey mom, what are you working on? Like? What are you? What are you working on right now? What are you doing? What's what challenges do you have? All right, dad, what about you? What do you got going on, son? What about you? It's making it important, you know. So there's different ways to make it, to give it a level of intention in your family that makes sense for your family.

Leslie 22:11

So I go and I describe what our project times look like in the book. But I am also, I hope, is what is clear in the book is that I say it doesn't have to exist like thatdirected interests, and there are ways to intentionally support it without it necessarily looking like that. You know and and and we've explored different ways that it can look like. There are some times, just because of whatever interests my kids are exploring, we are not, they don't need that one hour, two hour time. So I'm like, okay, cool, let's do some other things.

Leslie 22:44

And then there are times when they're like it'll happen for two kids or it'll happen for all of them, and they're like, oh, we really want to explore this. So guess what? For like two months we scrap anything else, other curriculum, and I'm like, let's just go all out, like we are just willing to play with it. But that's the beauty of homeschooling, which I think fear creeps up. And we're not, we don't, we we're. It's scary. That becomes scary for us to just play with a routine like that, to just play with a schedule we're like, but that's two months of no math.

Delina 23:12

What about my plans?

Leslie 23:14

It's two. What about my plans? You know, right, but I promise you, like we're, we are not ruining our children when we, when we do those kinds of things.

Learning Through Personal Interests

Delina 23:21

I promise you Side note I think I was guilty of like two of them want to do it and the other one doesn't, and I'm like we either all have to agree or, because I'm one person, because it's so much easier, this train is moving in this direction. But I love what you said about the time at the dining room table and your kids are asking you what are you getting into? Because you have interests, right. Yes, and I love that because I love this story that you said in the book about how you homeschooled yourself with the Florida Highwaymen. Will you tell that story?

Leslie 23:59

Yes, yes, yes, one of my favorite stories to tell. So I'm not even really. Oh, I think I do remember how it started. I was sitting, I'm not even really. Oh, I think I do remember how it started. I was sitting, it was the summertime, I don't remember what summer, but I was sitting at a pool with a few other friends and all of our kids were just in the water. And we were all just sitting around the pool and one friend said hey, have you ever heard of the Florida Highwaymen? And we all started talking and, you know, some of us had heard of it, others of us know, or some of us knew very little. And we all started talking and, you know, some of us had heard of it, others of us know, or some of us knew very little, and so one friend was just sort of sharing whatever she knew at that point. But it sparked some curiosity for me and although I had heard of them, I realized I didn't know a lot about them and they were like from my, my state I live in Florida and so what I did was I started researching and just little by little I started reading more things about them and it just got really interested and really weird in a good way, really fast, because here in Florida, like you'll go into like a bank and if it's like an older bank and the bank has like older paintings or photos on the wall, lo and behold, that's a Florida Highwaymen painting. Like just it's everywhere, yet nowhere, like not very many people know about it, and then all of a sudden you start realizing it's everywhere.

Leslie 25:10

So around the same time it was the summer and I was. I love art and I was just sort of I just sort of said I really want to learn how to do landscape paintings better. And then it was happening simultaneously as my interest in the Florida Highwaymen, who were a group of artists who I think it was the 50s, 60s and 70s. They were painting landscapes in interesting things with landscape art and they all have, they each have individual stories about how they started and got started, how they learned art. Some of them knew nothing about art but because this became a way to make money, you had like some highwaymen coming and saying, well, come here, I'm going to teach you how to slap paint on this Upsum board and we're going to sell this and make money. And it's like folk art. You know there's, there's a purpose behind it.

Leslie 26:11

But I got really interested and I so I started painting outdoors with my children and because it was an interest of mine, I invited them along. I was like you guys want to learn this with me. They, they were, they thought it was cool too, so they never really minded. But like it was extra, like I, I was into it. I, we went to Fort, we drove down to Fort Pierce.

Leslie 26:34

I had them sitting out in some of the same locations pulling out our, our, our sketch stuff and paint and like trying to repaint some scenes. We went to the Bacchus Museum. Down there we went and did the Florida Heritage Trail, looking at, you know, some of the places where they've been. And then I started to find some of the older generation people who are still alive and still painting, or second generation, their sons and daughters, still painting, and we would go and find where they were doing these exhibits and just like I'm like, come on, guys, let's go have a chat with them, my kids were like, oh, a chat, how about that? Like, yes, yes, let's do it.

Leslie 27:10

But you know, it was so much fun and I learned so much about just this topic that I was getting really interested in, but also about myself. As I was painting and learning to paint what I was capable of. I painted in a style that I had never done before. My daughter learned a lot she's an artist too so she naturally sort of gravitated toward this is with me and got so interested in well as well and started painting like better than I did in this same style, and, you know, you got to sell some of her paintings. I met somebody who was actually trained under the highwaymen and he he actually sold us an art piece that was painted on her birthday that she found like we just have such cool stories.

Leslie 27:51

It was a really exciting time.

Leslie 27:53

It was an exciting summer where I was learning and growing and allowed myself like the freedom and the joy to do it. And I'll tell you what continuing to homeschool ourselves and continuing to be growing responsive human beings with our own interests and passions helps us to mentor our children through that same process, because we remember what it feels like. We remember the emotions, the excitement, the challenges, the frustrations, and we can mentor our children through some of those same things rather than, if we're just disconnected from it, just mom who's sitting there saying do this, do that, don't do this Don't do that While I go wash the dishes or what you know like let's.

Leslie 28:30

can we just acknowledge that we, we all want to be, we all have a right to our own ideas. We all want to, we all want to live with that level of excitement towards learning. Learning is fun. Learning is actually fun, guys.

Delina 28:41

Yeah, it's true. And and nothing can. Two things One, watching your children have that spark in their eyes and you know seeing their eyes dart back and forth when they're learning something and they're thinking through it Nothing, there's nothing like it. But the other thing is just them watching you do the same thing. They want it, they want it.

Leslie 29:02

Yeah, they do and they see. They also see that becoming an adult is not boring and, like you know, because, like often you know, I think, as kids you're looking at adults and you see all the responsibility right. Especially, you know your teenagers are looking at you like, wow, you have to shell out a lot of money, pay for these groceries, pay these insurance and all this stuff. It's like responsibility responsibility, but it's also exciting because you continue to grow and you continue to learn throughout life. I love talking to like 60 and 70 year olds who are like what's next, what can I learn? Like they are some of the most exciting people to talk, to. Do you know what I mean? Because they're not. It's not like there's like some timeline, like, oh, now you done.

Delina 29:46

You can't grow anymore, no, I've learned everything. I've learned everything. Yeah, I finished the internet Exactly.

Leslie 29:52

Right. Our children need to see that that, that it's a continuation of that and it continues to be a growth. It continues to be an exciting thing and learning continues to be an exciting thing, but that's how we create the lifelong learners. You know, we throw out these cute little terms but we don't really consider what it means to create one or what it really means. Yeah, you know, and that's what's going to get you Practice.

Delina 30:16

Get you not going, but get you to keep going. When all of this responsibility is like you have to keep learning something. You have to keep making life make sense. Exactly.

Leslie 30:27

Exactly, exactly.

Delina 30:28

Finding joy in it, right, yeah, so you use the word becoming a couple of minutes ago. Talk about that the role of becoming versus checking boxes and how we're you know our role in that, in helping our children become, yeah in helping our children become.

Leslie 30:50

Yeah, I think it goes back to the idea of valuing the process over the product, because when we the role of becoming, it is everything that is involved in that becoming, and so whenever I think of words like that, like process and becoming, for me, you know, people sometimes misinterpret what I mean and they think so you're just after like this rainbow or this idea of perfection. I'm like no process includes all of it. It includes the struggles, it includes the challenge, it includes the joys, it includes the sadder moments, it includes everything. So becoming is like who am I becoming? Alongside of these things, in spite of these things, because of these things, it is helping our children to become and to grow and nurture themselves. Well, I wanted to read this.

The Florida Highwaymen Project

Leslie 31:49

In chapter three of the book there's somebody who I quote, Mark Prensky, who is an author and speaker known for his ideas about digital citizenship, and so he wrote the real goal of education and of school is becoming becoming a good person and becoming a more capable person than when you started. Our kids should be asking themselves who am I becoming? Have I become a better thinker? If so, in what ways Am I able to do things I couldn't before. What is important to me and why? Can I relate comfortably to individuals in teams and in virtual communities? Can I accomplish bigger, more sophisticated projects to add to my portfolio? What kind of person have I had to become to achieve these accomplishments? Can I make the world a better place, and for me that stands out so much? What kind of person have I had to become to achieve these accomplishments? Those are the things I want to constantly be talking to my children about that is so good.

Delina 32:48

Right Because sometimes we look at people who have achieved so much and they have become horrible bosses horrible people to be around. No one can stand them, but we still, you know, put them on a pedestal because they're so wealthy or they're so, I don't know, influential.

Leslie 33:10

Yes, on the process. But as you're walking through that process, you know one of the things I constantly talk to my kids about. As we are looking at our personal projects and self-directed work. One of the things that I always say is what does your work say about you? And it could be little, I mean five-year-olds could do this.

Leslie 33:41

I remember I was a school teacher and I did a lot of this kind of work in the classroom and one time we were sitting around I was sitting around the room with very young kids and one child decided to sew a doll and we were just sharing the work and one of the things that I helped the kids develop is the ability to speak descriptively, to not put down somebody or to speak respectfully, and so one of the things that they looked at this person's doll and said I noticed that you have a lot of thread that's sort of sticking out of places and it's not neatly tucked in. And you know what that child said. She took her doll and she looked at it and she said I noticed that everybody is saying that my work says that I'm a messy worker and I'm. I don't want to be that, so I'm going to do this again. I never sat there and said to her, take the stitches out and do it again, but she realized that she wanted the message that her work was sending to be something different.

Leslie 34:45

She was young guys. Surely we can help 10 year olds and 11 year olds and 13 year olds and 16 year olds do that same kinds of thinking right About, like what kind of person do I have to become to achieve the things that I am trying to achieve? Like, what level of consistency do I need to put into this? What level of? Is it OK that I don't give much attention to this, because maybe it is OK, but why is it OK? Maybe I'm trying to put my attention here. Like you know, I think those are certain the kinds of conversations that we don't often allow in the learning and the becoming, but I think that they are important.

Delina 35:26

I love that. I love all of the self the becoming, but I think that they are important. I love that. I love all of the self-reflection.

Leslie 35:31

Yeah.

Delina 35:32

And yeah, this was not in my notes, but as you were talking, I was thinking about we need to do our own self-reflection, because sometimes we see our kids dive deep into something and we immediately say how can we monetize this? How can you sell that on Etsy? Exactly, you know, you're almost taking the joy out of just being their creative selves. Or sometimes you see them dive into something and you're already like, okay, she's going to be an actress, okay, he's going to be an engineer.

Leslie 36:07

Puts his legos together on your future right yes, and I talk about a lot of that in the book too, you know, because it's. Those are like natural reactions we have as parents especially. We're like you know, we gotta, we're helping you to become something surely this is what you will become because you have this interest.

Leslie 36:22

you know, yeah, yeah, how to step back and, uh know, let go a little bit of that level of control of the things that they choose to do and even who they're choosing to become. That's hard, and I think that's actually one of the hardest things about parenting. That most of us don't want to admit is that we can't exactly control as much as we think that we're tasked to, or we think that we should, and we don't always know the outcome. We don't always know the outcome. You know we're doing all of these things in the hopes that, but we don't always know what it's going to yield. And that's probably one of the hardest things about homeschooling, but honestly, it's parenting?

Delina 36:59

Yeah, we want to know or we want to make it happen. Right yeah. Yeah, ooh, parenting is a whole thing, okay, so in your book you also talk about teaching your child and not the curriculum. You gave an example of a history of curriculum that you had that was designed for one year but you stretched it out for three years. I felt like that was a great example of teaching the child and not the curriculum. But tell me about that experience.

Leslie 37:26

Yeah, yeah. So, um, I don't actually that's. That's interesting. I put that in the book because I don't really share that with a lot of people, cause I I, when I say certain things like that to people, they just look at me like yeah, what did you skip if you took three years Exactly?

Leslie 37:43

Um, yeah, yeah, Like it really. Um, that is definitely a willingness to, to, to, to look at things differently. But you're right, it was a great example of teaching the child, not the curriculum, because a lot of times we look at curriculum and we look at the way it's a, it's a, you know, six month curriculum or whatever, and so we think we have a duty to make it, you know begin and end in that time.

Leslie 38:13

And so I think that we can use curriculum, sure, but I prefer to use it as a tool, a tool to help me with the deeper thinking and learning that I expect to be going on regardless of the curriculum. And so with the history curriculum, I loved, I loved the framework that it gave me. It gave me some great topics and it gave me some great like. It organized for me sort of like a body of knowledge of a particular time in history in a particular country, but it wasn't everything and it didn't necessarily include the things that we gravitated to and were interested in. So, you know, let's say, you know, we got to this one chapter or one particular time period and you know it was talking about different people planning the development of Washington DC, I don't know. And we started learning about, and then one kid learned about Benjamin Banneker, but there wasn't enough in this curriculum to even talk about who he was or what he did, like, okay, well, why? Like, you want to know more about him? Let's go off grid a little bit, you know, let's go ahead and invite that in and learn about. Oh, and what do you know? That leads to something else and that leads to something else. And it's like when it stops leading to somewhere, it's like okay, stops leading to somewhere, it's like okay, let's go back, let's go back here. And when you do stuff like that, it's a little scary, but it definitely takes a lot of time and and so but. But the things that we were able to do were applicable to us, they were personal to us. They, the learning was so much more rich. Yeah, you know, it's like sure.

Leslie 39:47

The thing is is that we fool ourselves when we think that because you didn't, okay, but you went so deep, you know, on this particular time in history, what about the entire timeline of history? And it's like, okay, so you think that just doing this cursory, cursory run through, run through it all, if I ask you in three years to tell me everything on that timeline, do you really believe you'll be able to do it with accuracy? Do you really believe that you will be able to talk about it in any sort of meaningful way, just because you covered it and read it and got through it quickly and did all the activities and read, watched all the videos. Probably you know.

Leslie 40:27

So let's use that curriculum as a tool. It's a great tool. It organized a lot, it gave me a lot of great resources, but it's not all there is for this body of knowledge, right? So I can incorporate other tools, and you know. And then there are times when you know we can just move through it more quickly because maybe that connection or that vibrant interest just isn't there, and that's okay too. So, yeah, this, this curriculum, stretched out over three years.

Delina 40:54

No, and I I think that it it's an opportunity for self-reflection for the parent that's doing you know that has a curriculum, because you think that if you do it exactly like this, then what does it say about me that I finished it when it was supposed to? Be finished you know, and so you have to take a step back and be like doesn't actually say anything about you. There's no prize at the end for doing this.

Leslie 41:19

There's no prize, but some of it is like personality type because some personality types it's like you just get that joy and satisfaction of just checking out that box and saying yes.

Leslie 41:29

I completed a task, I did it and I get that. I really really do. But what is taught is not always equal to what is learned to also realize that you know in the book I brought up this example back in the. Was it the 90s, 80s? No, I think it was 90s or no. Probably no, it was probably the 2000s, the early 2000s that show Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

Delina 41:57

Right.

Leslie 41:59

What was so funny about that show was all the adults who failed miserably, you know, because they could not remember like grade school curricular content and it's like, well, that's kind of I felt like that was exactly the point, right Like.

Delina 42:10

Maybe not the point they were trying to make. Yeah, right, right.

Leslie 42:12

Right.

Delina 42:13

Yep Perfect example. Yeah, how you're not going to remember this stuff later. And it's okay, it's okay. So have you, leslie, ever felt the pressure of joining the pace of the culture? And how did you resist that if you did feel that?

Leslie 42:27

pressure.

Leslie 42:32

I have many, many, conversations throughout the day and throughout the week in my head Some of the things that I have intentionally tried to do. You know, there are some things, yes, that may become more easily to me than somebody else, but it doesn't mean that I am not bombarded by fearful thoughts or it doesn't mean that I sometimes second guess what I'm doing or question. You know, I have, I have some children with some very real learning differences, including dyslexia, dyscalculia, and so you constantly asking questions like, oh my gosh, like what am I doing? Am I really, am I doing my child a disservice? Am I like? What's the right move here? Yes, I have all those kinds of thoughts, but some of the things that I've really had to do was to slow down, step back and be descriptive about and reflective about my experience and what I'm seeing and noticing in the children. But I have also had to be really clear about what my values are, and by really clear, basically, that means spell them out, say them, reflect on them, notice when they change and keep that at the forefront, because those are the things that keep me going. Everybody has the negative fears and thoughts and the questions, but it's keeping those values at the forefront. You know, even in terms of I highly value. You know you always hear this expression, but for me it's like reality, connection over curriculum. For me, that is a high value.

Leslie 43:59

When I sit down and do math with my, with a kid, I want us to both get up from that experience, not angry with each other. And so I have to behave differently in those moments. I can't I can't control anything they do, but I can control me, and so sometimes that means scrapping my plans for the day. Sometimes it means shortening my plans for the day, being responsive to the human being in front of me. The other day, my son got up, you know, which is not always the case. He got up and after I sat down and I was working on some math with him and he said I love you, I love you, mommy, and I was so happy, like that was his response when we closed the book. And then I looked at him and I said I love you more than math, and he was like I love you more than math too, you know, but that's a high value for me. And so there are choices that I'm going to have to make when I'm doing.

Leslie 44:48

Math is just one example. There are choices that I'm going to have to make when I'm doing math to align my life with that value, to align my time with that value. So for me, that's the thing that keeps me honest, keeps me true to what I'm doing and allows me to keep going and making the choices I'm making. It doesn't mean that I don't have those thoughts, but like, allow them to exist, but reflect on them and evaluate what they mean for your life. About, about you know where that idea is even coming from. Like, do the do the personal work, the inner work that you need to do to be able to overcome those things? Because you know every, every feeling is coming from an idea and every idea, like all of those things, are coming from somewhere. So, just as easily as it is to focus on that idea, we can put our focus elsewhere and then have different feelings you know, yeah, this is like homeschool mom therapy.

Delina 45:43

I appreciate this therapy session, no joke. Seriously, when I read this book, I felt two things nostalgic for our homeschool life that we had when the kids were younger. And then I wanted to go snatch them right out of their high schools, like no, we're not doing this pace, no more, I don't care what anybody says, I don't care about nothing, I don't even care what y'all say. That's what I felt like and I messaged you in that moment. I was like I'm snatching them out today, but you said that you can still incorporate some of the important parts, no matter where they're in school. So you know asking for a friend, of course Tell me how families who don't homeschool can incorporate more slow in their lives.

Leslie 46:31

Yeah, you know that is actually one thing. Response to this book that I have been really excited and delighted by is the people who say that this to them is, yes, about education, yes, about learning, but is so much more about parenting. Because I think that you know other ideas in the book about the idea of slow. It's about less consumption and instant gratification and more gratitude and ways to give, and those are things that you can think about as a family, no matter where education is happening. You know you can slow down moments of learning that you feel are going by way too fast for your own child in that setting, at home, by being intentional, by saying no, I care about your well-being, I care about your interest.

Leslie 47:23

Still Like, let's explore an interest and pursue an interest. Who says that can't happen on a weekend? Or who says that that can't happen after school? Or I mean, I was a school teacher and as a school it was a very nontraditional setting so we didn't. I didn't believe in homework so I didn't give it, but you know other teachers did. But I love those conversations where the parent would be like I don't want to do this.

Delina 47:44

I don't want to.

Slow Parenting Values

Leslie 47:46

I'm like, okay, why? Because they had other valuable ways to spend their time. Great, great, you know, like I. Just you know, or even you know, maybe that's not you, maybe you do have to do the homework. Then you know what. Slow down, sit next to you. Slow down, stop vacuuming, stop doing laundry, go sit down, get in the same physical space with your child, struggle with them. Let me try one of those problems. Just sit next to them, shoulder to shoulder, and do that. Or talk about hey, what books are you reading now in that class? Any of them really like? Yeah, mom, I really like this one. Go for a drive, Especially older kids. They love the somebody. I love the way they described it as like parallel facing activities.

Leslie 48:28

It's like get nervous when you do the eye contact, you know, but it's like you're both, you're driving and they're in the car.

Leslie 48:33

You're both facing the same direction, but you just have this great conversation about some book that they really love. Hey, that reminds me of this book that I read. Like have a real conversation. One of the things I talk about in the book is the art of conversation. As parents, we sometimes fire off questions to our kids and call that conversation. Conversation is give and take. How do you have a conversation excuse me, a conversation with your friend? Have a conversation like that with your child, like no matter what age they are, like these are all things that can be happening no matter where your child does school.

Leslie 49:03

You can slow down, you can be more intentional. You can do things that fill you up as a family. You can do things that are against the green or the pace of life. Go ahead and go out, go out on a hike, go out on a walk, go to a park. You know I like to take walks and I call them different things. I say to my kids let's take a thinking walk or let's take a noticing walk, and we are like literally, just give me a city street and we are just walking down the road noticing things like oh my gosh, did you ever see that on top of that building, that's such a nice slow activity, you know, or let's a thinking walk, like you know, like you're not really noticing what's around you Cause you're like deep in thought over about something.

Leslie 49:37

Everybody be quiet. Yeah, you know, one time we I discovered that we actually like doing this back in 2020. It was weird, but not weird anymore. We went out on a walk we had to walk the dog and I put on an audio book on my phone as we were going and we all it was like. We were like it's like, let's go walk and listen to an audio book. I don't know, you know we put those two things together, but we actually discovered that we loved it. It helped us to just slow down, take a class together, explore an interest together. You know there's so many ideas. There's so many ways that this could live and breathe, no matter where education is happening. That's just a piece of it. We're all responsible for our children's education in many ways, no matter where school is happening.

Delina 50:22

I love that. I love that. Thank you so much, leslie, for just sharing all your wisdom with us, and y'all pick up the book. It is wherever you buy your books, that's where you'll find it, and I'll also have a link to it on the show notes. But, leslie, will you also tell us where to, because I love your Instagram too, so let us tell us where to find you on social media, sure.

Leslie 50:43

On social media. I am most active on Instagram and you can find me at Leslie M Martino. You have to stick that M in there for Instagram, but you can find my website at lesliemartinocom. You can see my blog there. Sign up for my newsletter all the stuff.

Delina 50:57

I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Delina. I enjoyed this. I can't say enough good things about Leslie and her book. Find links to her book and her social media on our website wokehomeschoolingcom slash podcast. I encourage you to grab her book and see how you can take some of the principles in there to enrich your child's learning life and even to find new ways to homeschool yourself. Until next time, go and learn something today.

Incorporating Slow into Any Educational Setting

Announcer 51:34

Homeschool Yourself is a production of Woke Homeschooling Inc. For show notes and links to things mentioned in the episode, visit wokehomeschoolingcom slash podcast. Woke Homeschooling empowers parents to teach their kids an inclusive, truthful history. We invite you to visit our website and download a sample of the history curriculum we offer for kids. Visit us at wokehomeschoolingcom.