This Golden Hour
In this podcast, we specifically serve new homeschool families through engaging conversations with homeschool parents and families at all levels of experience and expertise. Listeners will increase their confidence and assurance about their children's education and future while diminishing their fears. This podcast helps you know how to begin homeschooling, navigate challenges, and answer questions for all stages of the journey.
The name “This Golden Hour” has meaning. First, this name refers to the years parents have to raise and teach their children from birth to when they leave home to be on their own. As parents, we have a golden opportunity to teach and learn alongside our children during these formative and essential years of growth and development. Second, “This Golden Hour” points to this same period of childhood as the children’s chance to read, explore nature, and enjoy an inspiring atmosphere of family, love, and learning.
This Golden Hour
25. Daniel Allers and History Plus
In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Daniel Allers from central Alberta, Canada. Daniel is a homeschool graduate, director of his church choir, assistant director of the Central Alberta Homeschool Choir, he works with four different theaters, and he's the founder and creator of History Plus, previously known as History Alive. Daniel is the oldest of four siblings and they have all been homeschooled for their entire education. Daniel's mom encouraged him to chase his passions which has led Daniel to his career path with History Plus for more than a decade. With his wife, brother, and other family members, Daniel runs his business and travels throughout Alberta doing live workshops with many homeschool groups. He and his wife have also traveled all over the world to enhance their understanding and love for history, science, and learning. I was so impressed with Daniel's extensive knowledge and insightful counsel about homeschooling. For example, Daniel provides one the best synopses on the common socialization question that I've heard. His clear, concise, articulate delivery is engaging and enjoyable. Homeschool parents and others who are looking for an excellent resource for history and other core subjects should take a good look at History Plus!
Connect with Daniel and History Plus
https://www.historyplusonline.com/
Websites
https://www.practicalhomeschooling.com/
https://www.sonlight.com/
https://mathusee.com/
https://www.aheaonline.com/
Books
Story of the World Series
Hold On To Your Kids
This Golden Hour
One of the biggest things that you learn in home education is you don't necessarily just learn things. You learn how to learn things. If you can know how to figure out how to know something. You can learn almost anything it is not a parent's job, to just let the culture necessarily dictate how your child becomes. You want to be able to pass on family values. And frankly, who is most qualified to know how your kid is likely to learn things? Well, It's probably going to be you.
Tim Eaton:Hi, I'm Timmy Eaton, homeschool father of six and doctor of education. We've been homeschooling for more than 15 years and have watched our children go from birth to university successfully and completely without the school system. Homeschooling has grown tremendously in recent years and tons of parents are becoming interested in trying it out. But people have questions and concerns and misconceptions and lack the confidence to get started. New and seasoned homeschoolers are looking for more knowledge and peace and assurance to continue homeschooling. The guests and discussions on this podcast will empower anyone thinking of homeschooling to bring their kids home and start homeschooling. And homeschoolers at all stages of the journey will get what they need and want from these conversations. Thank you for joining us today and enjoy this episode of this Golden Hour Podcast as you exercise, drive, clean, or just chill. You're listening to this Golden Hour Podcast. In today's episode, we get to spend time with Daniel Allers from Central Alberta, Canada. Daniel is a homeschool graduate, director of his church choir, assistant director of the Central Alberta Homeschool Choir. He works with four different theatres, and he's the founder and creator of History Plus, previously known as History Alive. Daniel is the oldest of four siblings, and they have all been homeschooled for their entire education. Daniel's mom encouraged him to chase his passions, which has led Daniel to his career path with History Plus for more than a decade. With his wife, brother, and other family members, Daniel runs his business and travels throughout Alberta, doing live workshops with many homeschool groups. He and his wife have also traveled all over the world to enhance their understanding and love for history, science, and learning. I was so impressed with Daniel's extensive knowledge and insightful counsel about homeschooling. For example, Daniel provides one of the best synopses on the common socialization question that I've ever heard. His clear, concise, articulate delivery is engaging and enjoyable. Homeschool parents and others who are looking for an excellent resource for history and other core subjects should take a good look, at History Plus. Welcome back to another week of this Golden Hour podcast. We are very privileged and excited about having Daniel Allers on the show today. So thank you for taking time and being with us and we're gonna, a lot of people listening will know who you are already, especially in Alberta. But this'll be so fun to just talk and let people know who you are so they can begin to follow you and have their children benefit from all that you offer them. So thank you for being with us. Thanks for having me. Indeed. We're excited. And I was just telling Daniel before. I pressed record that it's so interesting when you've heard somebody for so long and then you hear their voice and you're actually talking to them. So anyone listening is going, Oh yeah, that's definitely him. So can you just start and just give us a little bio just of yourself, your life and anything you want to say.
Daniel Allers:Yeah, for sure. My name is Daniel Allers. I'm the founder and creator of History And yeah, my entire life has been history and science and geography, and I'm a homeschool graduate myself. I homeschooled all the way through. And close to a decade ago, we started trying to figure out a way to make it so that history and science can be, instead of something that kids tolerate, something can actually be a highlight for their educational journey. And History Plus was born. A decade on, I've taught. Thousands of workshops all over the world in person. Thousands of families around the world. Join us online. I've got to travel to most of the continents working on the last couple. And yeah, it's been an incredible journey. It's such a blessing.
Tim Eaton:That is amazing. So maybe I can tell already, I'm not going to follow my little outline. So I'm just, cause I what was your parents involvement with that? Like I'm saying it specifically. Like starting this business and like, how did they encourage you? What was their involvement?
Daniel Allers:You know what, that's a great question. And so much of it actually can go back straight to my mom. My mother actually is registered nurse here in the province of Alberta. She works developmental psychology and she homeschooled me and my brother and my two sisters all the way through. And one of my sisters is still she's in grade 10 this year, actually. So there's a couple of us. Still in home education formally, but she always said that with obviously in home education, one of the greatest gifts is that beyond the formal education, you can actually chase your passions. And for me, history and science and geography, like we have a giant world map on one wall and I've spent hours just looking at it.
Tim Eaton:I can stare at maps all day.
Daniel Allers:Oh, it's so great. And it was pre internet, right? So If you wanted to study, you went to the library and you read. And I'd always had such a passion for it. And then years passed and my mom had always said, Daniel, someday you have to figure out a way to make it so that you can actually do this as your actual occupation of teaching this for, and to people. And so she was really instrumental in bringing... it about in a format that could work and of course I live in central alberta which is a homeschooling hot spot globally.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, you're close to Red Deer there, aren't you?
Daniel Allers:Just south of Red Deer, yeah. Actually, I live on an old military base, which is great considering what I do. And yeah, it's funny how that all worked out. It's perfect. Oh, it is. And so we were able to start doing classes within Central Alberta. And then it just snowballed from there. Just this past fall sorry, summer season with Practical Homeschooling, a big publication in the States many of your listeners are probably familiar with. We won Best History Program in North America.
Tim Eaton:Oh my goodness, congratulations, that's excellent.
Daniel Allers:It was a huge surprise. But it put a smile on my face, right? It was somebody who's always loved history to... Get that peer review that it's a good resource.
Tim Eaton:That is awesome. I can attest, my family can attest that it is an amazing resource. So thank you. And what, so where was that? Where did that take place?
Daniel Allers:So that was practical homeschooling, which is one of America's big homeschooling publications. Every year they have they have what are called the iLearn awards and that's where they rank all of the top online curriculums around North America. And as far as I'm aware, at least within the history category, we were the only Canadian company represented. The rest were all big ones in the States. And yeah, they basically put it out to their entire readership. And saying, Hey, come rank these companies if you've used them before, what your thoughts were. And apparently we struck straight A's across the board, which is, I guess we're doing something right.
Tim Eaton:No, you are, man. That's so impressive. Congratulations. That's really cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's awesome. So I'm going to come back to that. I'm going to circle back and really get delve deep into What used to be called history live now called History Plus, is that correct? That's correct. And I want to hear what's behind that. And I think I understand just based on the additional curricula that you offer, but can you just in general or as specific you want, just describe your experience being homeschooled because you are you were in an era that's post the eighties, nineties, when it was. Really rare for people to choose that I mean, It still is, compared to the masses, but becoming so much more common. And so much more well accepted compared to the past. So what was your experience being homeschooled? Talk about it a little bit.
Daniel Allers:Yeah, for sure. I was, I guess I did catch just the tail end of the first gen and just the beginning of the second gen home ed. I was born in 1990. So I guess my home education journey started around 1995. And yeah, my, like so many homeschool families, especially back then, it started with the fact my mom and my dad were both bullied through school. And they were like, man alive, there's a way where we can actually, oversee our child's development. We can take them out of that sort of environment. And there are as many reasons that people homeschool as there are children. The vast, incredibly rich tapestry of families that you find doing it. But for me, it was such a blessing. I never had to go and catch the school bus. The first time I was in a school, actually, I was the teacher, which was a unique experience for me, and it is such an incredible privilege to be able to have had to be able to truly say that my parents are among my best friends. My brother is. He is the one that does the entire studio side of all these, and you'll oftentimes see him on episodes where he comes in and does, Some of the episodes, if I'm not able to do that.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, I love that you have your family involved with your work. That's so awesome.
Daniel Allers:Oh it's great. And so much of it comes back to just our homeschool journey. And obviously you want your core curriculum you're reading or writing arithmetic, right? The classic, the three Rs, beyond that, once you have those, the fundamentals, every kid is wired differently. And of course you want a kid to have a well rounded education, but you also want to provide that latitude for your child to be able to become truly exceptional at something. Yes, you never know what that's going to be. Like when a kid expresses an interest in something, that might not mean that if they, like in my case, when I was four, I absolutely loved steam engines. They're super cool. Yes. It's not that I'm now a conductor. But that studying of steam engines led to, wait a minute, the Titanic ran on steam, oh my goodness, the Titanic sank, that was a huge deal when I was five, finding out about all that, and then snowballed into the just, the incredible richness that it is. And My brother and I both growing up, we were avid readers. That's a common theme in homeschool families. And we loved, of course, novels and all that. But when I was a kid, my mom made a rule when I was about six that for every fiction book we read, we had to read a nonfiction book too.
Tim Eaton:Oh, is that right? I like that.
Daniel Allers:Oh, yes, that was her rule. And so we would devour a novel. And then of course, we would go to the library. I had a library card. My mama had a library card. My dad had a library card. My brother didn't have a 50 book limit on each.
Tim Eaton:That's totally our family. We get the library. It's funny how the library actually gets mad at you. And you're like, wait a minute, this is what it's for.
Daniel Allers:Isn't that goal. Exactly. And yeah, we'd get out 200 books and we'd read them and we'd take them back the next week and get up 200 more. And I discovered the incredible world of nonfiction. And of course, it's a little different now in the day of the internet. It makes it a little bit easier in some ways, but harder in others because anybody can put anything on the internet. It's really hard to curate. What you're learning as opposed to if somebody published a book same thing, but they had to go to the work.
Tim Eaton:They went through a whole process. That's right before you can continue on that thread why did you know why your mom had that kind of like a requirement?
Daniel Allers:For her she wanted to make sure that we didn't just read that We also were learning things about the world around us, right? And for while my mom is the nurse and my dad actually is a language arts teacher himself In Central Alberta. So yes, even teachers homeschool their kids.
Tim Eaton:Yes. I know it's a common theme among my guests.
Daniel Allers:Absolutely. And so we always just had that goal of exposing the kids to so many different things. And so oftentimes when kids are young they're such learning magnets. If they learn something new that they've never heard of, they're like, wait, what is that? And then they can go and study. And so that's what I did. I still read novels. But I would say 90 percent of all reading I do is nonfiction. I have my own library down in our basement. It's just all the wars and so many different aspects of history. And it's fun when occasionally students like like your kids, okay, every so often one will be passing through and you're like, Hey, can we swing by? And I'm like, Oh, sure. Oh, really? We'll check out. We'll check out some military artifacts and stuff like that. It's fun that a passion has been able to become a a career where you can then instill that passion in others.
Tim Eaton:No, that's the ideal. That's the ideal. You're blessed.
Daniel Allers:It is a blessing and we homeschooled all the way through and guess I homeschooled traditionally, actually all the way through high school. It can be done. It's something that can be scary. You don't end up with that, the nice little piece of paper from the government of Alberta or whatever jurisdiction you're from. But there's so many latitudes and different ways to do things, right? And as time has rolled on, those alternate avenues have become so much more commonplace.
Tim Eaton:And commonly accepted by universities.
Daniel Allers:And yes, universities are coming to realize, Home educated students, by and large, tend to be self workers. They tend to be able to keep themselves on track, which is what the university experience is. And so going from the school system to university is oftentimes much more of a learning curve than going from home education to university.
Tim Eaton:Excellent. So I wrote a dissertation on home education five years ago, and that was one of my most of the major findings from my study that you, you said it perfectly, that it is the self directed learning that you just inevitably pick up on in, in homeschool, especially from grade nine to grade 12, where Almost 95 percent of their learning is self directed. So we did the same thing. Two of our kids have gone through that and all through the traditional homeschooling, no, no hybrid attempt hybrid working. So that's awesome. Thank you for saying that's good. So what would you be able to I don't know, how well you remember, like you probably just have bits and pieces that really stand out, but what would be like a typical day when what are the, what's the age range? Are you the oldest? I am the oldest. Yeah. And then what's the age range of your siblings.
Daniel Allers:So there's four of us. I'm the oldest. And I'm pushing 33 now. So im getting up there, but my brother's 30 actually, he just turned 31. So to your gap between me and my brother, and then there's a 12 year gap between him and my one sister. And then there's another 4 year gap. Yeah actually, that one she actually now works for us. Oh, cool. A lot of our if you ever do any of the worksheets and stuff, she oftentimes is involved with designing those. But then my youngest sister, so there's combined, there's a 17 year gap between me and my youngest sister. Wow. And so gone through multiple sort of Multiple different stages of not just our home education journey, but home education in general and how the tips have gone. And yeah, as far as a general typical day for home education for us.
Tim Eaton:So basically it would have been you and your brother, right? This is two rounds homeschool and your sisters did that as well. And yeah, so then I guess what would be like is with you and your brother and then probably young ones at the time. But yeah, go ahead. Totally. Yeah.
Daniel Allers:For us, obviously it depends on age level too, but we tended to do segments where we wouldn't necessarily do every subject every day. And some find that's the best fit. Some kids, especially if you're talking people who have different ways of learning, if someone's very ADHD, for example, you would approach it in a different way, right? Work with learning styles, kinesthetic, auditory, visual, all of that. Yes. And for me, I was very... I was a pretty laser focused individual. We were always the family where our mom and dad had to make the rule that we weren't allowed to get up before 6 a. m. And so we were up crack of dawn, we both played piano all the way through to high level. So usually one of us was done our piano practice by 7 a. m. much to the chagrin of our dad. And then we jumped into various subjects, math, we usually did early in the week, Mondays and Tuesdays, we do heavy focus on math. And then later in the week, we would oftentimes do more of a focus on language arts, et cetera. The really weird thing was, at least for me, myself, I never really did a formal history type curriculum because it's just what I was always doing for fun.
Tim Eaton:That's how we've done it too. That's how we've done it. Have you done, have you read the story of the world? Have you, yeah, we love those anyway, carry on. But I feel that just resonated.
Daniel Allers:Oh, absolutely. That was one of the resources that I used growing up that we would have. We also had oh, what was it? Diana Warren. She did a bunch of audio series on history and stuff. And so when we were traveling on our cassette player in the van, we would be listening to those. And that was always fun. But obviously, when there is a natural bent, oftentimes that subject becomes so much. less formal and more just what you do. Whereas say for my brother who liked history, but it wasn't his be all end all, he loved science a lot more than that. And so for him, okay, we'll probably throw in some actual formal history programming in there. That's the beautiful thing, right? There's as many right ways to homeschool as there are kids. Yes. And so every day had a little bit of a difference later in in our schooling, we got into some, a bit of organized sports, not major league. We didn't want it to dominate our entire lives. And then of course, also into theater and choral arts and stuff like that as well, which I'm still heavily involved with in central Alberta, running theater and choir.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, I saw that you direct a church choir. Is that right?
Daniel Allers:That's correct. Yeah. My church, I'm the choir director there. I'm the assistant director of the central Alberta homeschool choir, which is about currently this year, I think it's 140 voice choir. And then in the Springs I work with. Three or four different theaters, a couple of developmental theaters, and then a postgraduate theater in central Alberta as well so...
Tim Eaton:Really you are busy. Holy cow, man.
Daniel Allers:We tend to when we're going, we go very hard and try not to do anything.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, that's great. Let me see if you can recall like. During your homeschooling yourself, like in your family, do you recall, what were the hardest challenges or problems? Because like when listeners come into these types of podcasts and they really want to learn from how did you guys, bounce back from this or that, what do you remember is like most challenging or like the hardest things you guys had to deal with?
Daniel Allers:You know what, back then, let's be honest, the stigma still exists. Oh no. You homeschool, how are you going to socialize your kids, which is completely ridiculous.
Tim Eaton:And it is changing. I'm glad to say it is changing, but it's still there.
Daniel Allers:That's slowly people are realizing, but if you're new to home education and you have heard that again and again, and it's a question to ask, no, it is not nearly as big of a problem as you expect. It's going to be. You will spend more time. Dealing with people asking how your kids are getting socialization, then you are going to spend trying to figure out ways for your kids to get socialized. The beautiful thing is. You don't just socialize with people who are your exact same age. Your kids get used to working with kids who are younger, with people who are older, with seniors, and actually learning and absorbing from the lifetime of knowledge that they've got. But back then, obviously, the stigma was a lot bigger. Home education was considered to still be weird. And it wasn't something that people would do for any sort of more mainstream reason, like today. And yes, you would deal with that. Other than that, big challenges, man
Tim Eaton:your dad having to deal with the piano early in the morning.
Daniel Allers:Yeah, absolutely. There's of course little things like that.
Tim Eaton:And on that socialization, because that's great. And I can see it seemed like you guys just had a fairly, not everybody has it, and I'm not saying it was always smooth, but it does sound like you guys were, you and your brother seemed like you were pretty, like into it. And so that's so helpful because, yeah. There are lots of parents who, it's hard sometimes where you have kids that aren't into it or that are asking to go to school or whatever else, which is, which aren't like bad things. They're just things to grapple with, but on the socialization, if somebody said to you, they said, Daniel so how do you define it? Like what is, because that's the thing that I find, like when people say homeschool kids are weird or whatever, first of all, I teach as well. Like your dad and apples come from trees. That's what I've learned. And that's just, whether that's at homeschool or. Any kind of education, that's just families, right? But like, how would you define it for people? Because when people discuss it, they're talking about a kid that's comfortable talking with adults or doesn't totally fit in with the cool kids at school. That becomes what's termed as strange or different or weird. Yeah. And if that's the case, then I love it. I want my kids. Oh, definitely. So how would you define it? How would you respond to somebody who says what is it? And and how is it occurring in
Daniel Allers:homeschool? What is it as in the?
Tim Eaton:Like, how would you define socialization? Because people say, oh, how do they do social life?
Daniel Allers:So, well, To get into that, we have to dive a little bit deeper into some very interesting stuff to do with brain development. And I'll throw a little bit of that in as well. I love the psychology of learning and all that as well. But essentially, When you talk about socialization, what people within the public system tend to think about is my kid is not going to be around their peers all the time. So why would them, why would they, how are they going to build friendships? That's the big thing. When they say socialization, in reality, they're saying, is my kid going to be alone? Are they
Tim Eaton:going to, are they going to perform in the culture that exists?
Daniel Allers:Exactly. And in reality, and to that, I partly say do you really want them to? Sometimes. If you are home educating and your kid actually finds a passion for something and an actual something they're interested in, of course, they're going to be a little bit different and different isn't bad. The school system is built around a cookie cutter. And if everyone goes into the same cookie cutter, they come out looking the same. If they don't go into the same cookie cutter, then they come out looking a little bit different. It's just practical. Exactly. And if you look at history, the people who have made the big okay, not always obviously, but a lot of the people have made the big differences are the people who were a little bit different. So different isn't bad. As far as socialization with friends and all of that is something where now it is easier than it used to be. If you are on Facebook, which I'm not, I've never been on any social media. It's not really my jam, but Anybody who's looking for a homeschool group, every single community in Alberta has a Facebook page of, hey, let's meet up, hey, maybe we should do occasional get togethers, etc. And there's so much of that, whether you want to be involved in team sports, there's options. If you want to be involved with theatre, or choir, or even service opportunities, or possibly things like learning blacksmithing, or leatherwork. There are so many group learning activities that are still possible. The difference becomes with what is something called peer bonding. And peer bonding is something that for many people, they're unaware of, but once they hear about it, it becomes Oh, that makes sense. And so there's a gentleman, his name was Dr. Gordon Neufeld. Yeah. Hold on to your kids. Absolutely. Hold on to your kids. And one of his things, he would go into different places around North America, including hardened like actual penitentiaries or hardened criminals. And he would see that there is something developmentally that never occurred in the brain. And... He found an incredible correlation between when a child's primary influence on their life stopped being someone that they look up to and became their peers. Yeah lateral raising. Exactly. And when that happens, of course, what you end up there is a little bit of a, hive mind of people whose brains aren't developed. And of course. They can make something that makes sense for themselves, but that doesn't mean that that's the most productive. And so that's one of those benefits of home education is that obviously you can still quote unquote, lose your kid, not literally, but lose them as in the influence, even within home education and social media has been huge. The For like from my generation to this generation, social media has made such a difference of things that parents have to be aware
Tim Eaton:of. Yes, it's so conspicuous, the problems associated and the correlations. And again, on so many of these interviews, we I'm careful to say I don't demonize it. But on the other hand, it is just it's not like a matter of opinion. It's like it is. It is behind so many of the problems, and yet we just ignorantly give them to our kids and allow it, and in the name of freedom or something like that.
Daniel Allers:And that's, oftentimes the case is because the parents who are not of that generation, man alive it can be addictive. Yeah. And not only can it be addictive, it can be a way where even though, say, you spend the majority of your time with your kids in home education, It's still very easy for that child to then become peer bonded to the opinions of their friends. And let's be honest, even for adults, it's not really healthy for us to be constantly exposed to everyone's opinion all the time. It's, it can be a big problem, but every great tool, right? With every great resource, there's also a great Negative side that you have to be aware of.
Tim Eaton:Well said, no, brother, I'm so glad you were, you've said it that way. And I love how you, the way that you just presented that in a very kind of science based research based way, people can then say at the end of that spiel, Daniel or somebody else could say, so is that what you want for your kid and make a choice? But as for me and mine we, we prefer a different type of socialization. But you're right. It still is very difficult with the rise of social media and the ability to be connected if chosen always to your peers or to whoever you're trying to connect to. That was really good. Thank you. Thank you. That was excellent. What would you say? What talk about your own social what did you do to, what did you do as far as. You talked a lot about what social development really is, but what did you do? Like you said you were involved in some sports for a time and theater. How else did you kind of, uh, for sure deal with friends?
Daniel Allers:Oh yeah, absolutely. We were pretty insular when we were young. We were pretty. We had four or five, I'd say close friends that also homeschooled. And we'd oftentimes get together two or three times a week. We'd play games. We'd sometimes do science experiments. We do all these sorts of things, but we were pretty. Insular homeschoolers and you'll find a lot that are they're like, you know what it works for a family Yeah, when you're when kids are actually like my brother is my best friend easy always has been And so for us to always be together was not a chore not every family dynamic is necessarily like that But for us we were pretty insular and of course when I got into our teen years, obviously, you know We thought well, you know what sports sound like fun time. So we would play soccer Played football for a while, but I'm five foot eight and built like a stick. I'm not exactly a football kind of guy and played hockey for a while. Very Canadian. But beyond that, then towards the later teen years, we did get involved with a lot of. So for example, the Central Alberta Homeschool Choir that I now am the assistant director of. I joined that for the first year of operation when I was 17. And all of those concerts have always been fundraisers for an orphanage that we've actually built in Africa. And so It's wonderful to be able to not just bring people together, but when you can bring people together to a common goal with something to achieve, and that's where socialization for socialization sake is always fun. But if you can have it where it's okay, you're working with other people, but you're achieving something, whether that's the playoffs are coming, or maybe it's, we have a theater production, we have to get ready by X day, then you have a goal you're working towards. And it really makes those friendships, not just, oh, this is my buddy. It's been like, yo, I've worked with this person, I've observed who they are, and yeah, there's been friendships that last for decades.
Tim Eaton:And I, I'm just thinking of your, again I'm meeting you for the first time now, but I've been acquainted with you and just your ability to do what you do through your business is just such evidence of a, of such a proper and an impressive socialization, at least in my view. And so I love that. I love how you responded to that. So how would you answer this one when people wonder about. Cause my kids have done the same thing. They didn't get a diploma, didn't require one for what they're pursuing. How do you respond to people when they say, Hey, how did you prepare for post secondary and for career? And how did you view that as a family? Like, how did you guys approach that? Cause a lot of families they will homeschool until their kids are in grade seven, eight, nine, somewhere in there. And then they're like, but I'm not even going to try to do the high school thing. And I'm going. Yeah. And in my feeling is no, again, to each his or her own but I'm like, no, that's like the time where you're that they'll really blossom. And like you said prior that you'll take, you'll develop and cultivate those skills that are what universities are looking for. Yeah.
Daniel Allers:Okay. Great question. First of all, that is a passion of mine is the concept of traditional education through high school. And that's, I'm using old language there. It used to be called traditional. is what is now called parent led, at least within the province of Alberta. But traditionally, the parent chooses all of the curriculum aspects, whereas teacher directed or teacher led used to be called aligned. And that is where you actually did what the government was doing that specific year.
Tim Eaton:Alberta programs a study here in Alberta.
Daniel Allers:Exactly, the diploma studies and all that stuff. Our family approach was very much, there's absolutely nothing wrong with going to post secondary. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with not going to post secondary as well. Amen. There are countless good careers out there, many of which can be just as high paying and have just as big an impact, that are trades or where you don't actually need a formal post secondary education. And so if you're going to university to get a degree and your kid's man, I really want to be a neurosurgeon. Great. You probably want to go to university. Yeah. But. If your kid is like, well, oh man, I don't know. Let's be honest. How many of us knew exactly what we were going to end up doing for a career when we were 17? Some of us who are lucky probably did, but for many of us, we don't know.
Tim Eaton:No you're exploring those are the, that's the years of exploration.
Daniel Allers:Yeah. And so it becomes so difficult, especially in this day and age where, everything is so expensive. If you're going to school just to go to college. Then that can be a huge thing to saddle someone with monetarily, right? Huge debt that eventually will need to be paid, right? And so for us, yes, it was all about that skill building. And one of the biggest things that you learn in home education is you don't necessarily just learn things. You learn how to learn things. Yeah, perfectly said. Oh, and if you can know how to figure out how to know something. You can learn almost anything because like I am not an expert on everything. And if my lawnmower stops working like it did today, as I was doing the last cutting of the year, I can look at it and say, ah, yes that's an engine But you can be like, okay, so do a little research. Okay. So that's the carburetor. There's the spark plug. Okay. Okay. So it's probably this and working again.
Tim Eaton:Wow, did I get lucky? Yeah. You know how to learn it. You know how
Daniel Allers:to learn. I love it. Exactly. And it's, obviously a silly little example, but to be able to. To be able to learn how to learn that is the key,
Tim Eaton:but that you weren't intimidated by it too. That's a huge part of that. Because there's a reality and just blocks and in the, I grew up going to school in near Chicago and that isn't in the system to teach you how to think.
Daniel Allers:They teach you, here's what's going to be on the test. And you're like, okay, learn that. Okay, it's done. Good. I can forget. Whereas in reality, that's not really the real world, is it in the real world? You build your skills, you build upon your skills. And so in a lot of ways, a lot of especially high school level stuff, it should be kind of apprenticeship. Learning where you're actually learning and saying, okay, this isn't just, here's trigonometry because for most of us, trigonometry is beating your head on a wall. It's like, okay, I, I understand how it works, but why, whereas in reality, the odds of them needing to have a high level trigonometry in their everyday life. Is relatively low, not saying you shouldn't have an idea, but it's good to...
Tim Eaton:It's good for thinking and it's good for development, but you're right, application,
Daniel Allers:well
Tim Eaton:yeah, I love how you said all that I just have to say, and then carry on just the way that you just thought through the idea of. of approaching post secondary and things that you plan on doing. I love how you thought through that about just beginning with the end in mind. And that's exactly how we're trying to talk through these things in our family. And so I really appreciate how you thought.
Daniel Allers:It is, and it can be daunting. And that's for me families every day, and I talk to so many new families who are new to education, and they're like, what about high school? It's one of the big things. And it's not that it can't be done. Is it a little scary? Absolutely. Because even in this day and age, it's not as common. And of those that do continue home educating through high school, which I think is a wonderful blessing for the kids. And obviously not every kid wants to, and sometimes the blessing is knowing what's best for your kids regardless. But even beyond that, there's so many that then just take the, Alberta curriculum through high school. There's nothing wrong with that. That's what my wife did. She actually has her diploma. Whereas I don't. I just, at the end, I took my SAT.
Tim Eaton:Was she homeschooled as well, your wife?
Daniel Allers:She was, actually. Both me and my brother. Our wives were both homeschooled all the way through as well.
Tim Eaton:Really? That's awesome. No, that's really cool. That's not great. You don't find that that often. Yeah, that's like, what's starting to happen.
Daniel Allers:Exactly. Exactly. It's starting to become more commonplace where there isn't one parent trying to convince the other parent of the merits. And obviously that's so often the case. We talked to so many. It's like, man, I really want to homeschool, but my husband or my wife just really isn't on board. They think we're going to screw up our kids. Oh, man. And it's You know, as someone who's still close to home education, your heart kind of aches for that because it's man, I totally understand the struggle, but when you can give it a shot, and it can take a little while to figure it out. I mean, The one thing that we always say is be, don't be afraid to try something. Yeah. And then say, man, this Doesn't work for my kid. Yeah, that's a beautiful thing about having such a rich community. Now is if you bought a curriculum, say you work with, Oh, I don't know. I'll just use sunlight for math. For example, if you're using that for the grade level, like lower grades, you're using sunlight and it doesn't jive with how your kid thinks. I bet there's another parent out there who would be very happy to, give you a partial reimbursement for that for their kid. And you can try a different program because like for me, Matthew C, I use Matthew C all the way through work great with my brain. It doesn't for everyone. And that comes down to again, when you get into learning styles, many are visual, where you what you see is what you learn and remember. Many are auditory, which is what you hear you learn to remember. And to be honest, the main bulk of the education system is geared towards visual and auditory learners. Yes. Crick is that a huge percentage. Is at least partially kinesthetic where you learn by doing and to be honest, everyone learns better by having done it for sure. If you need to be tactile, that is not the education system's forte. And so to be able to figure out ways where you can combine those different learning styles, it's what really can bring it to the forefront for that specific kid, right?
Tim Eaton:Yes. Oh, so good. So good. So have you and your wife talked about like when you have children or if you have children have you already decided that? Or are you what, how have you guys thought?
Daniel Allers:Absolutely. Home Ed all the way.
Tim Eaton:Yeah. And what would be your guys main motivations? If somebody would say, so why? What are the main motivations?
Daniel Allers:And if we're being perfectly honest, the world is a very interesting place. It always has been, but it seems to be getting more so exponentially. And the number of things where it's like, okay, it is not a parent's job, to just let the culture necessarily dictate how your child becomes. You want to be able to pass on family values. You want to be able to do that. And frankly, who is most qualified to know how your kid is likely to learn things? It's probably going to be you. You care the most. Exactly. And so the fact that the parent can be a primary influence is obviously a huge reason. And once you have settled in your mind that those other peripherals, such as socialization and things like that, aren't nearly as scary as you think they are, that all works out in the wash, that's that takes a huge stressor out, right? The other thing that we oftentimes work with too is families who say their parents work. And it's man, but my husband works full time, but I also work part time. How on earth could we homeschool? That was our family. My mom, who's an RN, she worked two days a week all the way through. Now we were blessed enough that we had our grandparents live just a couple neighborhoods away. Oh, awesome. And so we had what we called Oh yeah. We, We had what we called grandma days and grandma would come and she would she was the one actually taught us math
Tim Eaton:That is so crazy that you're saying that. I just, my, my wife just told me about somebody else whose grandparents taught them. And then the interview I had a couple of days ago, same thing. Oh, actually it was somebody from Big Life Journal was on and and same thing her mother in law, her children's grandparent or grandma taught them math. So I love hearing that corporation of family into the homeschool and my mother in law does a lot with our kids. So that's a great thing to hear.
Daniel Allers:That's great. And obviously, every family situation is different. Not everyone has that immediate available family support. But the beautiful thing with home ed. Is that now in this generation, where obviously the internet is a powerful tool with powerful good and powerful bad. It does mean that there are opportunities for there to be professionals in certain industries that can then take some of that load off for teaching as well.
Tim Eaton:Yes. Awesome. So good. I love that. I love the idea of first of all, the principle of mentorship and then to do that within our families is a great way to incorporate that. What would what are your thoughts about whether curriculum or the learning environment? Is most important. I'm not trying to pit the two against each other, but what would you say to that? Like how important is the curriculum compared to the learning environment?
Daniel Allers:That's a really good question. And to be honest, both are important for sure. But if you had say a class in a school where that class every day is 30 kids versus a class of 15, you're likely to get more learning done. How much of that is because the class size, how much of sorry, the environment and how much of that is because the teacher can then pour more into each kid. That's the question, right? So every curriculum has its merits. Some of them are very obviously geared towards certain learning styles. And so if you have a kid who's purely kinesthetic, like my brother was nearly purely kinesthetic learner, it can be a real challenge working through certain curriculums. Yes. That'd be bad. If you have the ability to make that curriculum work for you instead of you work for the curriculum, then it's an entirely different conversation, right? It's meshing the two. It's combining the two. Curriculum becomes a part of the environment. Exactly. They become part of each other. But also then, you can take that and you're like, Okay, so like we're doing spelling, for example. Some will spell from flashcards. Some will learn to spell from just learning to read. Yes. Some will need to write it out. Yes. Hey, every curriculum has bits and pieces of that, but if you can say, throw out the pieces that aren't working, keep the pieces that do, hey, the curriculum, you can make most curriculums work if you have to. There are some out there that are just truly atrocious, but fortunately, most of them don't end up lasting too long.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, I find that we and hopefully this isn't a knock, but I find that when homeschool families. Try to mimic the school. That's where they bump into like their biggest problems. So it's good to take resources and principles, but then applying it in the home education setting, it's just a common, I would call it a mistake that we're trying to replicate what happens in the schools. Not that all that happens in the schools is wrong or something, but that, or even a lot of it, but that it's just. It's a different setting. It's just a different context and you have to apply the principles.
Daniel Allers:Definitely. And on that note, I never really finished what I was talking about we were doing school. You do not need to take a full school day. Like the idea of a full school day from eight, what have you, in the morning until three, four, five p. m. Like I see families who are starting out and they think that's what it looked like. the afternoon, we would do science experiments. I would read about the wars because that was like a huge thing for me, reading about the history. But we'd go out, we'd play, we'd do sports, we'd do Lego, which is engineering in action. We'd do so much else. Because everyday life is learning beyond just the classroom. That's
Tim Eaton:the thing. We call it like we do my kids will say the same thing. Sometimes they'll say, we're going to do school until this time. And then I'm going, wait, wait, like the whole thing is learning and that's why, and I get it. I'm not trying to be picky pants because I get it but it is true that we have these terms that we use. And the fact is to me, one of the most attractive things about homeschooling is that you're learning all the time and that you're actually. That you're deliberate about that and verbal about that. This is learning and the economy of the home and doing your chores and mowing the lawn, like you said earlier, and going on field trips and traveling as a family and going to the grocery store, the bank, like these are true, and it's true, it's not like homeschoolers have a corner on those things. And so just consider it learning.
Daniel Allers:Absolutely. The amount of math you can get done at a superstore is incredible, right? Like if you want to, you can talk about everything from, you know, if you get anything that you have to weigh, you can figure those out. If you want to talk about percentages, you got your GST, which was much harder in the nineties because it was 7%. So 5 percent is much nicer for learning to do those percentages.
Tim Eaton:I want to transition here in a minute to History Plus, but before we do that, just two more, two more questions. If you were talking to new homeschool families. And they were like grappling and humming and hawing. They knew they wanted to, but they're like, oh, it's so daunting. Yeah. What would be your message to them? What would you say? And then I know this is a, this answer will definitely be different for different stages of kids like where they are like if somebody starting with their, they've got three kids and they're all below seven, that's gonna be a different answer from having three kids in the youth years. So just try to work with that.
Daniel Allers:Okay, so I think I've already said it here, but The fact that there is many right ways to homeschool as there are kids is something that cannot be stated enough because so often if you're just getting into it and you're doing your research, which like, anybody who's really serious about it is probably doing. They're like, Oh my goodness. This person says, I have to do this. And it's Oh no, what are all these words? What am I doing? Oh no, it doesn't. It's not that it doesn't matter. There are as many right ways as our kids. So if you try something and you find, wow, you know what? For our family dynamic, this is not really working. That doesn't mean home education isn't a fit for you. It means what you've been attempting just isn't quite right. And so being okay with tweaking flexibility adjust. Yes. If you're that's especially if you're starting out from square one at the beginning, it's obviously a little bit easier, right? Because the kids don't have. Any sort of peer bonding that has occurred. And a lot of times when a kid is no, I wanna go to school, it's because what they're really saying is, no, I wanna see my friends. I wanna see my friends. True. It's not that they actually miss sitting there and learning about fractions, it's so true. It's that they miss being there with their buddies and there's so many opportunities for that, but there is a bit of a decompression time. That's needed. And this is where you oftentimes will hear the term on the schooling. And there are unschoolers who use absolutely no structured curriculum. That's right. And that is the choice that people make. And that is nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. It's just different for different families. It can be very successful. It can be very not successful. But having a period where the learning occurring is not the primary focus Can be very healthy, especially if you're just getting out of the public school system. Yeah. There needs to be that decompression cycle. They call it de schooling. Yes, de schooling. Absolutely. Where you're like, okay, wow, actually, wait, I've got way more flexibility than my friends who were in school and if we want to just up and go somewhere, we can just do that. It usually doesn't take that long for a kid to early teen to start to realize, whoa, there's actually a, there's a whole lot of really awesome things that I get to do that other people don't get to do. But there can be that time where just any sort of thing that can have an addictive component to it, whether that's drugs, whether that's social media, whether that's friends, sometimes you have to overcome those initial hurdles.
Tim Eaton:Yes. Wow. Thank you. You've said a couple times that idea that as many Ways is there at a homeschool? There are kids and right ways. So having said that though, what would you say are like fundamental principles that are universal and transcendent and I'm saying if you had to do point form, if somebody said, Daniel, give me like four or five or less Point form like these are the principles that should be incorporated and again, it's not necessarily unique to the homeschooling context per se, but just to learning and but maybe specifically to homeschool. So what do you, what would you say?
Daniel Allers:By and large, if you are looking at homeschooling. It's because you have a great passion for your kids, which means you can trust the fact that you know what is best for your kids. And if you know that, you can say, okay, this isn't feeling right. Maybe we won't do that. The other thing is do not discount how brains develop at different speeds. What your one child was ready for, math for example, at a certain age, might not be true for someone else. For my brother, for example, he could not grasp long division when he started out doing it. And my mom's response? He didn't do math for four months. Four months later, he was, like, instantly got it. Wow. Sometimes... All it is a little bit of just the brain isn't quite ready.
Tim Eaton:And mom is in tune, attuned to her children and she's feeling it.
Daniel Allers:Exactly, right? And she didn't feel like she had to, right? It wasn't like, oh no, we're moving on from long division in three weeks at school. And if my kid doesn't have this, we're not going to touch it again. And if you didn't have that you could just say, okay, we'll push that a little bit down. Focus on a different subject right now. Have that flexibility. And for me, I always say, You're lucky as a parent if your kid loves math. You're lucky as a parent if your kid loves writing, right? If those core, brutally important elements, what we used to be called, the three R's arithmetic, if that is their passion, that takes a huge chunk out of your workload. But In my opinion, and this is where some factions of home education do disagree with me, I think there's a lot of value in making sure that your kid is competent in reading, because that's how you learn everything, is competent in writing, because that's how you communicate with the world, and is competent in math. Not necessarily at the extreme high levels, but you should be able to know if you're being ripped off and you should be able to know, okay, this estimate that you gave me cannot be correct. I just did a little bit of mental math.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, it's functioning in the world that we live in. I love how you're saying that and I love how clear Your points are and you have your reasons for them, right? One, one thing that I've been working with families about is and I struggle with it because you don't want to unduly overwhelm families, but like to start out and really help them say and it doesn't have to be this totally Like perfect statement, but to help them establish a purpose statement and say, here are values, here are beliefs and then be willing to be, to flex that and to negotiate with your children and to work with them to evaluate those values on an, and those beliefs and those priorities on an ongoing basis so that you're not unduly concerned about things that you're not necessarily doing or things that you're pursuing. Basically, it's beginning at the end of mind, be true to yourselves and then. Thank you. Homeschool or teach accordingly. And that's in and out of the school. But I did have a specific question for you. Let's say you're, so you're 33. So when you're 50, you, let's say you had a child right now you're a kid, 17. What happens when you're like your kids are in the youth years, 14 to 18 and they, as you're trying to determine what they're going to learn and how they're going to pursue their future. And you have these very clear values, right? Which informs you feeling things for your kids. Oh, you really should do this. Let's not spend too much time on that. Let's avoid this. Let's incorporate that. And then your kids values or beliefs or priorities divide with yours. How do you. How do you navigate that? Because that's a reality.
Daniel Allers:There's your key, right? And that's where parents get to do the parenting, right? And that's where it becomes so, so nebulous in many ways. Yes. That's where partly too, I was just going to say there as well. The other big core thing is don't be afraid to chase passions. When you let a kid chase a passion, oftentimes that ends up leading into something that they can end up doing for their life. But. When you're talking about when, of course, once kids get truly sentient and have their own opinions about everything, it does get hard, right? There aren't a lot of parents who wouldn't say that, okay, it can be tough in the teen years sometimes, right? Every kid's unique. But I think that one of the biggest gifts that a parent can give to a kid is by the time you're an adult, you should know who You are. And you can't totally. Everyone's always growing. Everyone's always morphing into a better, hopefully, version of themselves. But, if you know about yourself, that can be just as important as anything you learn. For myself, I live with a high leveling of anxiety every day. It doesn't mean anything's going wrong, but my body feels like something is imminently going to go wrong. I know that about myself, which means it doesn't, I don't discount my gut. But it does mean I can say, okay, Daniel, you know this about yourself. I know that I will never be a math teacher. It is not my gift and it's not something I'd ever want. So I'm probably never going to actually work for NASA in any meaningful capacity, and I'm okay with that. You're okay with that. Yeah no, know thyself. Oh, absolutely. And so if when kids do start to get their own passions, their own interests, their own everything, it's where it boils down to parents have to be able to take stock of themselves. Yes, because it's obviously important for parents to not be trying to live vicariously through their child. You obviously hear the stories, the horror stories out of weddings, right? Yeah, where the mom is oh, this is and it's this is somehow not even my kid's wedding. It's my, my, their mom's wedding, which is what they wished for. You have to make sure that obviously, okay, is this disagreeing that me and my kid are having on whatever the issue may be? Is this something where it's this is how I'm wired? And so the way that they're seeing this is different, but not necessarily wrong. Or is this a core worldview issue? If my kid decided that they wanted to go and make a living selling cocaine, I would have a major problem with that. And we would discuss. But the other big thing is that when you're working through those years of where kids are learning the do's and the don'ts, it's so valuable. To not just be, don't do this, don't do this, do this. It's very important for kids to be assumed that they have the mental capacity of the why. Yeah. Like my mom she's yeah, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with drinking, but we don't drink. And for her, as I work in developmental psychology, she said, I, you don't always see families ruined by alcohol, but In 30 years of clinical practice, you've seen enough family. She said, I've never seen a family ruined without alcohol. Good point. And so it's and I was like, fair enough.
Tim Eaton:Yeah, that is fair enough. That's very reasonable.
Daniel Allers:I'm like some are, like smoking, it's bad for your lungs. Everyone knows that easy example. But when kids can not just start to the, Oh, this is what my mom says. My mom says I'm not allowed to X. As opposed to, Oh, we don't do this, but they understand the why, and that can oftentimes make it where it becomes less of a, I am telling my kid what they have to do until they're an adult into a, I'm teaching my kid the reasons why this is what we do. And of course, kids make their own decisions. That's right. Sometimes they're going to grow up on their own and people some people have the gift of being able to learn from the mistakes of others. Some have to make the mistakes themselves. Yeah. And that's just, that's life, right?
Tim Eaton:That's a great response, and the word that you started off with like this nebulous area, I think that was the right, that was the right word. Like one thing that I would share is cause not every time it's this stark moral thing that you're negotiating with your kids or talking about or communicating. But I love the principles of communication, negotiation, and when I say negotiation, I'm not saying, this pie in the sky, what do you think? What do you think? What's everyone's opinion? And at some point as a parent, and I think instead of it being like more, more like dictatorial, it's more you know what, you might have something there, but I just can't see it as the parent. And as the parent, if I regret it later, so be it. But I like, this is this is how I see this. And I'm operating from a place where I can assure my kids always is that I'm operating not from a place of perfection, but from a place of love and. True concern for their welfare and that's one thing I've tried to say I go I'm hey, I might be off in this because it's not always this crazy moral dilemma Sometimes it's literally like how much time you're out with your friends and how much yeah And it could be like yeah that movie does that really edify and inspire you and you know It's not always these crazy stark moral things. And so and then at that point children And it's hard because in the world we live in, this isn't necessarily fostered. It's more be who you are and whatever, but it's no, there's a parental role here. And too often in these generations, like today, parents are being parented by their children. And that's not a judgment. That's a true observation. And so we need to parent and then just tell our kids, Hey, I love you. And if it's, and if I'm off, then, then forgive me later. But You're going to be a parent too. And so you're going to be able to empathize with how difficult it can be.
Daniel Allers:I'm not sure if we've ever lived through a chapter in history. And I'm talking as a guy who's history, the amount of concerted breakdown of parental rights, but not just parental rights from a governmental standpoint, parental rights as in. It used to be assumed this is your parent. Your parent has that final authority that is questioned at every level. Now, when you start breaking down the absolute fundamentals like that, it's not particularly surprising when you start seeing peripheral issues in the world.
Tim Eaton:And that might even be illustrated. And again, I, cause I really do mean that I'm not anti school. I realized that it's a, especially the vast majority. However, that is, that might be correlated with the, with, cause public school is new. We used to be an agrarian society. Home education was the way they didn't call it. That was just live with your family. But but the idea I've had a couple of interviews where it's like, And I remember this as a child, like people have to ask the permission of schools about their own kids. And I just, that's just so weird, man. There's so many things that are like, this is my child. And I'm not saying don't be, let's not be belligerent and unwilling to work with what we elect to be a part of. For example, if I do elect to have my kids go to school, I'm not going to tell them how to run their program. However, it's still my child. And so I'm not going to say. Can I take my kid out at this? No. It's my kid. And I love this kid and I want what's best for them.
Daniel Allers:Absolutely. And that's where it gets interesting is because you see a lot of, as things have progressed and as governments get larger, both here in the Western world and stuff where you start seeing rights that are being questioned. There's a lot of, well, absolutely. There's a lot of things where there's groups that are now trying to get governments to put in say a parent constitution. But the problem is. Is that in reality, it's that the parental rights have been there a lot longer than the government has, and it doesn't need to be that they're, because if a government grants something, a government can take it away. But if it's an acknowledgment that a parent, it's just an acknowledgment of, yeah, it's your kid, right? And of course, there are horrible parents out there. There are systems in place for those situations. That's right. That's right. And that's not what we're, that's not what we're talking about, obviously. But. It needs to be that recognition that yes, there are certain rights that parents have where it's not that the government can grant you that you have this. It's no, you have this already. Amen. It's you. You're the parent.
Tim Eaton:That's right. It's in there. That's so good. I really appreciate that. Appreciate that discussion. That was excellent. Okay. Let's transition now. So used to be called history live now called History Plus how did you did talk a little bit about how that came to be? Because your mom said how are you going to, how are you going to take this passion and and monetize it or make it a career was probably the better way to say it, but tell us about the evolution of history alive and the recent change to history. Plus that was on our kid's schedule today was. It's always some time with Daniel Allers on Tuesday morning. So anyway tell us about it.
Daniel Allers:For sure. For those of you who might be completely unaware of what this is, what we do is we teach history and science, geography, we teach it in ways they're actually fun and funny, and actually bring that learning to a place where kids will remember it and keep it for a long time. We try kinesthetic with the visual, with the auditory, so that it all becomes this. that regardless of what your learning style is, you're going to get value out of it. And ten years ago, when we started banding this about, the big part was, I'd always considered whether or not it'd be worth going and getting a degree in history, because I love history. But then you look around the world, there's not a lot of jobs where you can make a living. Being a historian.
Tim Eaton:I did history in university. That was my degree. And I did history. But then I had to do history teaching unless I was going to pursue law school, which was in my head. But anyway, so amen to what you're saying.
Daniel Allers:It's tough. And so my mom was like, there's got to be a way that you can actually bring this passion because I would always be teaching informally in, in homeschool groups and stuff. And it was just like, wow, this is so such a fun way to learn. Yeah. And so we finally figured that, with us being blessed with living right in the dead center of central Alberta. We could actually travel throughout Alberta and teach these classes. So what we would do is if you're lucky enough to live in Alberta and you want to come on out to one of our workshops, you're more than welcome to. We teach in at the beginning year, we started and taught in 12 different communities across Alberta. We go back to every community. 10 times throughout the course of the school year. And we would work through one aspect of the world of history or science. So that first year for ages 12 and up, because again, we work with homeschoolers. So we don't work by grade level. We work with an age range in the mornings. We would work with ages eight to 11 and we work through the entire world of geography. And I always say geography is so much more critical than most people think because it's the tapestry that history is printed on. Because if you don't understand, if you don't understand geography, History doesn't make sense, because it's where the people were, what was in their way, which is why they interacted in the ways that they do. And so we worked through the world of geography, and then in the older group we worked through the world of, Chronologic world history from ancient Egypt to the modern era with a sort of a Western centric view. Zero I mean on Canada. And that first year I had 200 students across Alberta. I taught 240 workshops. I almost died. It was crazy labor intensive. That sounds like it. Next year we had over 500 students and then 700 students. And then that continued very nicely until COVID derailed the entire world. And like everyone else, we thought we were going to be shut down for two weeks. And then five months passed and there was no, oh man, but for three days, I thought for the first time in 10 years, I was going to have some time to just not be crazy busy. And then the next day I went to my brother, Jonathan, who had just had they had just had their second child and he was on parental leave at that time. And he had just spent the last six months mastering green screening and videography. Wow. I said. Think the world could use this right now because everyone is stuck at home and we launched into the online. So you weren't doing any online stuff before that. We were not doing any online before that. We only did in person. It had always been my dream that someday we'd be able to, I didn't fully grasp what an absolutely monumental undertaking it would be.
Tim Eaton:Like literally exponentially and limitless audience.
Daniel Allers:And That was the goal is right. I think the one thing that I can't multiply is myself and it's very hard to teach more workshops like, like communities and States like Texas was asking you to come down. And I was like, I'm sorry, I can't, I teach as many in person as I can, but that's where the online came in. And now we teach right in your living room. In nice, and this is a beautiful thing for homeschool families. It's all pre recorded. You don't have to log in at a certain time. Some kids will want to do one five minute segment a day throughout the entire month. Some will want to binge watch all of them and then go and watch their favorites throughout the year. Every family's different. We are homeschooled. We understand that there's a thousand, right? Let's do it. So we tried to make a curriculum corresponds with the fact that people learn differently. And now we've got, I think we discovered we have students on every continent. Except Antarctica. There's not a lot of kids in Antarctica.
Tim Eaton:And and how many students do you have? Do you, could you have an idea?
Daniel Allers:We don't know. We know we have over 2000 families that join us around the world. And so that's, we estimate probably in that 5000 plus range of students at the moment. Oh, I'd say the fall season is just going right through right now. And so Oh my goodness, it's so much dealing with getting everything rolling again come fall. And yeah, so we just really focused on trying to make it a real highlight for kids and teaching kids that History doesn't have to be dull. And that is the biggest problem we find is we're finding parents now who history was one of their least favorite subjects because they love it in school. And yeah. And they're like, man, how am I going to teach my kid history? And that it's not going to be boring for them when I think it's really dull too. And so we've specialized in creating a way of proving that history can be incredibly fun. In reality, history is the giant compilation of all the times in history we've horrifically screwed up. And it makes it very interesting when you realize oh no. And then kids can be like, whoa, that shouldn't be that way. And then they learn, right? As I always say. You get about two hours, give or take, of actual concerted teaching on whatever subject we're tackling that month. And every month, a new topic goes online. And this year, specifically for the 2023 2024 school year, we're working through the world of science meshed with history. Because schools tend to teach history and science as two very different things. Whereas in reality, they're woven together.
Tim Eaton:They're so interconnected.
Daniel Allers:Without one without the other is completely useless like they're so woven But I always say if I'm teaching ancient Egypt, can I teach your kid everything there is to know about ancient Egypt in two hours? Of course not. Can I make your kid want to know everything that there is to know about ancient Egypt in two hours? You better believe it. Yeah, and that's the goal because if they can get that hook the hook that says This is actually cool.
Tim Eaton:I want to keep learning about this.
Daniel Allers:Everything on their own. And that's how you end up with those wonderful kids who are like an expert on some random minutiae which most adults don't know about. And they're like, yo, have you heard about what have you? And you're like, actually, no, I haven't. They'll just go on a rant. And you're like,
Tim Eaton:I have definitely learned more about history as a dad. than I did previously, and I did history in university and it's because you, it may, it might've been like my readiness for it or my passion and seeing my kids enjoy it and like it. And then a lot of that has to do with the materials that you put out and then other people, but I, it's so fun to learn it and to connect it. I like how you're saying the interdisciplinary. Different subjects and how they're so interconnected to teach one without the other. And is that behind the change to History Plus? Like why the name change?
Daniel Allers:Partly. So there's actually a couple things there. So we've been established as History Alive in Canada for years and years and years. And then we went online. And then totally unexpectedly to us, we started getting a rather large following south of the border. And as that started growing, we discovered that there was a company in, I think California somewhere, that had created a textbook by the name of History Alive in the early 1990s. Oh, they still maintain a copyright on that phrase. Okay. So for us, we're like, okay, if we're going to actually get into the American market more, we don't want to be stepping on anybody's toes. We want to find something where we can be a distinct entity. And that's the world where, you know. Again, I guess the learning how to learn, man, I'll tell you, once you start creating something, you don't realize how much you don't know about the minutiae of the brain. Part of it was, part of it was based on the fact that we didn't want any confusion, because we were starting to get schools in America that would say, hey, you're History Alive, and we're like, actually, you're looking for this other company? And we didn't want to have to deal with that.
Tim Eaton:And that's, yeah, wise. I noticed on your website that you said same thing, different name.
Daniel Allers:Exactly. Same great teaching, just a new name that it's under. And we found that because we do more than history, we do the geography. We do the science. And as we go further, we're starting to get more and more things that we introduce in there. When with history plus like it's History Plus so much more than in there and sometimes people ask is like, Oh, everything seems to be a focus on science this year and we're like yes, by popular demand every few years we do a focus that is science based, but it's just as much history. As before, just that interdisciplinary meshing of the of the subjects.
Tim Eaton:Yes. Yes. And talk about the traveling a little bit. Do you I, my assumption is that you do, that you still travel because you like it, but what, because you're, you, do you still travel that extensively?
Daniel Allers:So I actually do I do not teach, I used to teach about 230 plus workshops a year. Now I have that trimmed down to in person, I teach about 140 a year. And part of that is because my brother Jonathan now teaches some of the in person classes as well. He's going to in January. But the other thing is just that I don't teach quite as many places I used to, but I still spend probably close to A hundred plus nights a year on the road.
Tim Eaton:And are you in, or is that all in Alberta?
Daniel Allers:No, so we teach our in class person workshops almost exclusively within Alberta, but part of our mandate is for me, I've been studying my entire life, but it's one thing to study it. And it's another thing to actually get to go there and look at it. Like until I went to the Imperial War Museum in London, England, I didn't realize just how massive a V2 rocket that the Nazis had that they would use for shelling, London, how big they were. And so as I get, and that's one of the beautiful blessings to come out of us being online is that as it absorbs more of the financial strain, and obviously if you want to come and join us for all your listeners, if you want to come and join us, it's not expensive. It's 10 Canadian a month. If you want to join for an entire year, you can sign up. It's 100 for a year. It gets you thousands of videos.
Tim Eaton:I can attest. It's amazing.
Daniel Allers:It's awesome and worth it. As that picks up the the weight of the financial burden, what we do is we pour that money back into making it even more. And so what I've been doing now, we were over in London, we did a bunch of filming in London, England, this past spring, we were over in Newfoundland, on the other side of Canada, we got to hike up into the mountains and explore a crash Cold War bomber, lots of very unique aspects, then we get to bring that, whoa, this person that I've already met online, which would be myself, like your kids have. If you join us, you'll build a little bit of a camaraderie of, Oh, this guy is interesting. Oh, yes. And then when I get to go off to some cool other place, they Whoa,
Tim Eaton:You've been there. You've seen that cool.
Daniel Allers:And so it really makes it so that it becomes a learning that they're truly invested in. But for myself, yeah, we're looking at hopefully we were going to go to Israel. And then, we're not sure if we should be going to Israel in January right now. Yeah, maybe not right now. It's fallen out. But we're looking at possibly doing a quick jump in January over to Western Asia and down into Northern Africa. Wow. And then hopefully next year down to South America. And does your wife come with you on those trips? She does. One of the great blessings right now is that my wife and I travel to... All of these places and teach together.
Tim Eaton:That's amazing, man.
Daniel Allers:The only way I'm able to spend a hundred nights a year out on the road is she's with me through all of it.
Tim Eaton:So that's really awesome, man. Like that, that, that is what one thing that the thought that keeps occurring to me. Is that what I love about you as an example of a the potential fruit of homeschooling is that you have incorporated your, like all of your passions, which are not everybody can do, but I love that's a possibility like your like theater, your vocal or singing or piano music side of it, and then your subject matter that you love. And the other thing that I, that has been very clear to me, like one thing that my son and I, my son helps me to edit these podcasts. And which is awesome because he's really good at it. But one thing that he's noticed is you can do this one thing where you click one button and it takes out all the filler words. And I can tell already that you are going to have very few filler words. You're so concise in your speech. You can just tell that you've been teaching and been professionally delivering and presenting for years. And it's just it's, it, what a testimony to the potential of homeschool production.
Daniel Allers:You never really know where you're going to end up. And people ask. People will say, I'll sometimes ask kids, what do you want to do when you grow up? And they look at me, they're like, I don't know. I'm like, that's fine. I don't know what I want to do when I grew up either. Let's be honest, we're all still growing, but it's true. The, what we've been able to produce online, if I hadn't spent literally thousands of workshops previous to that. The craft. Oh my goodness. So much more work because I'd have to be doing so many takes. When you guys watch this online you get about 20 plus video episodes a month on a certain subject. Most of them are done in one take. Like I, I sit down and I just.
Tim Eaton:Oh, my goodness. Are you serious? Where do you film? Where do you do it all?
Daniel Allers:We actually, this past summer, we built a green screen studio right here in Springbrook, Alberta. We're actually Central Alberta's first green screen studio.
Tim Eaton:Oh, so that's your brother's expertise there.
Daniel Allers:Yeah, that's his expertise. And so we have our own green screen studio. We do all of that. And then the beautiful thing is that As it expands and shifts, not entirely into an online aspect because we always want to keep that in person. I speak at homeschool conventions and stuff, AHEA in Central Alberta, I'll be speaking there again this coming year. For the teens, so if you've got kids who join us online and you'd like to come and do one with me in person, you're more than welcome to come on out. But It does allow me to continue to pour back into the home education community through theater and through choir and these other disciplines that kids can have. And so I look back and man, I would never have intentionally seen my path going where it has gone. But it has been such a blessing how
Tim Eaton:How fun, man, how enjoyable and fulfilling.
Daniel Allers:Yeah. And like everyone, there's aspects of your job that you don't like, but other than that, for by and large, they say, if you like what you're doing, you don't work a day in your life. And I come back home every day. Very tired. It's a very labor intensive way to work. But you also get an incredible fulfillment out of finding that hopefully. You're helping create a historically literate generation and that's so great because we've been missing that.
Tim Eaton:So what are what are, if I'm able to, if I'm allowed to ask, what are some undesirables for you?
Daniel Allers:Oh, Administration is as things get bigger and bigger, bless her heart. My wife handles most of the emails and the registration and all of that. We get done a workshop and she's Oh man, I've got 68 emails that I have to deal with. I'm like, Oh, you poor soul. But. Yeah, administration is fun. The hard part is when you have I say that not facetiously. I actually do greatly enjoy administration type things. But it's not fun when you have to do one or the other. You have to do both and you're like, oh, no. Then one starts eating out of the other. It's just a lot. It's just, yeah, the undesirable aspects mainly come if I get sick, like if I catch something, then it becomes absolute slack. Back up. Oh, man, alive. Last year, I got mono mononucleosis. And so I was like, my energy was like 30 percent for six months. And I Oh, drag of a year. So you go home and just lie down. And you're like, I don't know how I'm going to get the next day done. But of course, Every morning you have just enough energy to get through it.
Tim Eaton:Oh my goodness. That is tough, man. Just a couple more questions if you're like, like how much are more are people outside of the homeschool community tapping into your resources?
Daniel Allers:We find more and more. That's the case. We actually have a school board in southern Texas that stumbled upon us and we actually now are in the classroom in multiple school divisions. We find there's an awful lot of families that they find. That they're stunned at how little actual history is taught. In the public school system. And so there's a lot of families that are like, I'd like there to be both something that teaches my kid that there is interesting stuff, but also teaches them what occurred. Like the number of people I talked with who are close to my age, they've never heard of entire regions of the world, or they've never heard of. major chapters of history. And it's wow, that's so sad, because it's so interesting. And it Yeah, let's be honest. The famous Winston Churchill quote, obviously, he was paraphrasing even then, those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it. And it's a paraphrase, but it's so true. To understand what has occurred, you can sometimes take a look at what's happening and say, Wait a minute, haven't we been here before? And you can say, that's not necessarily an ideal occurrence. Yeah.
Tim Eaton:That's awesome. I'm glad people are tapping into it, but especially, I think families in all situations are looking for alternative methods. And so I think it's still nice to have these. Resources available. What can you just describe like as briefly as you want, what do you typically do at a live workshop? What's the, what do you do? What's the system?
Daniel Allers:So for us, like we said, we tried to get that, all the learning styles represented. So we try and have the visual. So obviously it's all slideshows and stuff. So we've got our big projector, we've got everything up on the screen. And so as I'm talking, which usually tends to be quite humorous, we always say we're not really an education, we're an edutainment. It's the meshing of education and entertainment together, because then kids, if it's funny, they remember. And so we do that, but you can't just sit for two hours and learn. Everyone, even if you're not on the ADHD side of things, you need to be able to get up and move for your brain to fully re engage. So we always have Crafts and games and activities and skits and all this stuff. We don't do skits with the younger age group, but with the older age group we have skits readers theater type thing that the kids will do. And of course they don't have to, some prefer to watch. And then for example, this past month, I was teaching in person on space, the history of space exploration. Where were you? Where was it? Oh, goodness. So far I've taught that one in Cochrane and Calgary and Three Hills and Red Deer and Macomb, and next week I go up to Wetaskiwin, Edmonton and Stoney Plain to do those, so it's every day is a new adventure. But we don't just talk about it, we do a skit about, going to the moon, about the first, when Neil Armstrong got Aldrin and Michael Collins back on the command, all that stuff, the history of that. We get to do a skit, and then, this is the older group, they get to design their own lunar lander out of piles of random material, and we do basically the egg drop challenge. And we drop it from about 12, 15 feet in the air, and we see if their astronaut lives. And if it dies, they mourn the egg, And so it's it's really fun because One of the great things about doing it in person is we actually get to see these kids eight, nine times over the course of the year. And it becomes, since it's something that happens only once a month, it becomes something that the kid really looks forward to. And they're like, oh man, okay, we got to go and do that. And it's a new novel thing that occurs once a month. But the beauty of the online program. Is that you can do it from literally anywhere on the planet and you can take as much time as you want. Like we've got lots of extra resources and answer sheets and quiz answer sheets, quizzes, all that kind of stuff that people can take advantage of. But of course people don't have to feel like they have to, they might just watch the videos. Not for them, for their history facts.
Tim Eaton:How long is a workshop typically?
Daniel Allers:Our in person? Yes. For in person, it's about two and a half hours.
Tim Eaton:And what's the typical audience size?
Daniel Allers:Depends. We try and limit our younger age range to about 40 to 45. And then for our older age group, oftentimes it's pushing 50, 55 ish. Gotcha. You can see why I say it's labor intensive. Yes. It's very fun because you get a group of people and by the second workshop that they're with me, they're usually pretty engaged in what's going on. So everyone's just laughing and having a good time.
Tim Eaton:And who usually comes up with the, are you and your brother or who's coming up with for example, let's get a bunch of materials to create your lunar module or let's however you're going to facilitate the learning, who develops those ideas.
Daniel Allers:Thank you. We've refined that over the years. But when I started this out, one of the biggest things that I knew that I had to do was I didn't want to just create something that could be a flash in the pan. I didn't want to create something that it's like, Oh, people come and they'll do it, but then they've already done it. And then you don't have that people because while there are lots of home educators, it's not a large enough community that you could have New people every single time. And you wouldn't want that anyway, if you want to build a community. So what we did is we created a two age group system. So younger and older, and then each of those does a three year cycle. So what this means is that if you get your kids in, when they're saying nine years old, they have six years of brand new workshops that they can then attend for the next six years of their educational journey and beyond that, many come back and we'll do it again. Because obviously what you learn at the age of 12 and what you learn at the age of 15, 16. From the same material can be very different.
Tim Eaton:Oh, totally. Yeah. You've changed.
Daniel Allers:Cycle. And yeah, we find that works really well. And so what we do is that now, mercifully, I'm not creating new programs. At the moment, I'm able to work with the ones that I've already done. I know it works. I know what I wanted to change. And we just go and we present.
Tim Eaton:So the work is just you're just working.
Daniel Allers:Yes. It's not like when I started out where I would teach all day and then come home and write scripts in the evening. And, oh my goodness.
Tim Eaton:It's been a while. Maybe, oh, I'm just looking at our time and I appreciate you taking so much time with us. Oh, no problem. What's just as a, maybe as a, I want to just have a parting of kind of counsel advice from you. But and then I want you to be able to tell us where people can find you, maybe talk a little bit about the world. Um, like, what, What advice would you give to like learners? I'm saying. You're talking to a group of kids and this is probably what you do typically at these workshops, maybe what's like your parting words to like, Hey I'm I'm directing my sentiments to you as learners and as people who are pursuing their lives, in the future, like what's, what advice do you give them for their learning?
Daniel Allers:Stay curious. That's always a huge one, right? You don't have to know everything, but you should want to know everything just because. It's there. It's for us to learn and we find so often that curiosity is the biggest difference between somebody being able to make a phenomenal, unique difference in the world and, living a happy life. Not that there's anything wrong with living a nice little quiet life, but You should always have that hunger of, whoa, why is that? How is that? What does this mean? Can we make that better? And we find that when you get to those people, and that's what home education really excels at is making people who can think outside the box. Sometimes that box is there for a reason. Other times that box only exists because that's just the way it's been done. Just self imposed. Exactly. And so realizing that there, the sky is the limit. We find that as kids get. Exposed more and more to more adult issues at younger ages that you run into that.
Tim Eaton:That in Deadening of curiosity,
Daniel Allers:That deadening of the world is, oh no. And I'm one person, one person with a vision can make an incredible difference. And so to not lose sight of, who you are, to not lose sight of the fact that you're always going to be learning more. That's one of my guiding principles is I think that every person I ever meet. Knows more about something than I do. I just need to find what that something is because that's probably what they're passionate about. And then if people get passionate about something, man, it's amazing. The difference that can be made.
Tim Eaton:So with that busy schedule you have, when do you have time to read these nonfiction books and novels? And...
Daniel Allers:I often lament that almost all of the reading that I do now is for research. The one thing that I can't discount is I do have. A nearly photographic memory. And so for when I'm doing my studying and stuff, as I already mentioned, it makes it so much smoother because I can do a quick little recap and it's all back in the front of my mind. Sadly, I don't get nearly as much time for reading during the school year as I used to, but that's fine. I find that I make up for it during the summer months where I plow through a few weeks,
Tim Eaton:Oh, that's amazing, man. Thank you so much for all your time. Let's tell it. Let's tell people where they can find you different places that you're at, where people can follow and find, and then just a little bit on the world wars.
Daniel Allers:For sure. So if you want to check out our program number one, we do have a free trial. You can do, you can sign up. Yes, you do need to put your credit card information. That way they know somebody isn't just signing up for a free trial again and again, you can try it for a month. Entirely free. See if it's a good fit. And every month brings a new subject. You can find that list on our website and that website is history plus online. And if you go to historyplusonline. com, you can see upcoming topics. Do know that when you subscribe, and this is one thing that we always mention for families, the subject that was the previous month comes down on the fifth of the following month. So if October, for example, we're learning about the laws of motion, that will be available Until the 5th of November, and then it's gone, and that's partly a hosting thing, we've got terabytes of videos and we can't have them all up, and if we did, people would get so bogged down in what's available. So every month brings you a brand new curated list of a specific aspect of history. But! We, this fall, started something completely new that we haven't done before. We launched a one off program that people can take advantage of. That is on the World Wars. So it's called History Plus and the World Wars. You can find it on our website in our store. And it goes through the main points. It's obviously not a true in depth look like I would love to create someday, but that would take literally a lifetime. It gives the major impacts, the major battles, the major outcomes of World War I. And World War Two, and it does this in that same five minute video segments. It also includes tours of like my personal artifact collection. I have one of the largest military antique collections in Alberta. And and a lot of those make appearances in some of these videos about it really bringing it to life. And that we actually created with a pay what you want system. Like we said, for us, we know. So many people homeschool. They don't homeschool because they're rich. They homeschool because they want to be able to be involved in their kids lives at a different kind of level. And my family was like that. You don't homeschool because you have money. And so we try to make sure that all of our resources are at that price point where no matter what, you should be able to take advantage of it. And the World Wars one, I think there's a suggested price on there of I want to say 30, but seriously, it's pay what you want, anything over 1 works. So if you're on the fence about whether or not it'd be a good fit with your family, take advantage of the free trial. This World Wars program is only available till the end of November, and once you do sign up, you have 60 days to be able to absorb through all the material. And yeah, hopefully it ends up being a real good fit for some people learning about it through this, remembrance season. Thank
Tim Eaton:you very much. And I might be biased, but my, my feeling is that it's good for families, so I would highly encourage people to do that.
Daniel Allers:So it's a pretty fun way to learn. Thank you very much. Yes. That's historyplusonline. com. And if you're interested in checking out whether or not an in person workshop might be a possibility for your family, that's on historyplus. ca.
Tim Eaton:Thank you very much. It's been an excellent conversation. This is Daniel Allers, everybody. And we'll talk soon. Thank you. Take care. That wraps up another edition of this golden hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review in Apple podcasts or Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you much. Please consider sharing this show with friends and family members that you think would get something out of it. And thank you for listening and for your support. I'm your host, Tim Eaton. Until next time, remember to cherish this golden hour with your children and family.