This Golden Hour

80. Peter Stock, President of HSLDA Canada

• Timothy Eaton

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In today’s episode, we get to spend time with Peter Stock from Toronto, Ontario. Peter is a homeschooling father and President of both HSLDA Canada and CCHE. We discuss the homeschooling landscape in Canada, legal challenges, and the history and evolution of homeschool legislation. Peter shares his personal journey into homeschooling, the flexible nature of home education, and the significant role of organizations like HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defence Association) and CCHE (Canadian Centre for Home Education) in supporting and defending the rights of homeschooling families. Our conversation also covers the development of resources such as homeschool.today and the importance of intentional parenting and individualized learning.

Resources
HSLDA Library
Canadian Centre for Home Education
Homeschool.today
CAS - Courts Administration Service


This Golden Hour

Peter Stock:

When I was on a tour Of harvard university i was a young man not too many years out of university myself i was working on parliament hill some friends and i traveled down to boston for the weekend and took a tour and the thing that i heard at harvard was that. At that point in time, this was the early nineties, about a quarter of the undergraduate class at Harvard had been home educated.

Timmy 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 Peter Stock from Toronto, Ontario. Peter is a homeschooling father and president of both H-S-L-D-A Canada and CCHE. We discussed the homeschooling landscape in Canada, legal challenges and the history and evolution of homeschool legislation. Peter shares his personal journey into homeschooling, the flexible nature of home education, and the significant role of organizations like HSLDA, which is Homeschool Legal Defense Association and CCHE, Canadian Center for Home Education, in supporting and defending the rights of homeschooling families. Our conversation also covers the development of resources such as homeschool. today and the importance of intentional parenting and individualized learning. Welcome back to this golden hour podcast today. We are definitely privileged to have with us Peter Stock. Peter. Thank you for being with us

Peter Stock:

My pleasure Tim good

Timmy Eaton:

to be here So let me just do a little brief introduction so that our audience gets to know you better, and then you can give an introduction as well. So Peter Stock is the president of HSLDA Canada, and we'll explain all of these acronyms here in a minute. He's also the executive director of CCHE in affiliation with homeschool. today. And so we're so excited to talk about all the resources that that Peter is a part of, and then also talk about his personal experience with homeschooling. Peter, thanks for being here. And maybe tell us just a little bit of introduction about yourself and we'll get into all these different roles.

Peter Stock:

Yeah I suppose the subject's home education, so maybe what I should just share is how I first I don't know if any of us really remembers when we first heard of home education you'd have to go back quite a ways in history, I'm sure, but I really first paid attention to it is probably the best way to describe this. When I was on a tour Of harvard university i was a young man not too many years out of university myself i was working on parliament hill some friends and i traveled down to boston for the weekend and took a tour and the thing that i heard at harvard was that. At that point in time, this was the early nineties, about a quarter of the undergraduate class at Harvard had been home educated. I said, my goodness, I've, what is this home education thing? I'm like, there, there must be something special about it for, this top Ivy league university premier institution to, to pay so much attention to it and to be literally recruiting students who had been home educated to be its students. I thought that was quite remarkable. So long before I was married, long before I had kids, I thought, I've got to learn more about home education. So that's where my journey started.

Timmy Eaton:

Wow. No, I, and I didn't realize that. So that would have been like what year around?

Peter Stock:

Yeah, about 90, 93, 94 was when I visited. And actually in digging into the issue a little more, I found a quote from the Dean of Admissions at Harvard back in 1989, who was saying at that time, and this is published in the Harvard Crimson Magazine. It's easy to find online. He was saying at that time that they give preference to home educated students. They say they, these are students with unusual educational experiences and all the great reasons that we now know that people home educate they'd recognize this 35 years ago, which is amazing.

Timmy Eaton:

That is amazing. It's interesting to me because I did my doctorate degree at University of Alberta, wrote my dissertation on home education, specifically focusing on like preparation for secondary home education, how it prepares you academically for post secondary, but never came across that. So that is really interesting that many students were, had some form of home education before going to Harvard.

Peter Stock:

Yes. Yeah. Quite something. That is. Yeah. So my journey started there and a number of years later we had two young children and one of them was close to school age. And we thought we're not 100 percent thrilled with the public education system. We don't know that the academics care about that. Quality is really there and goodness gracious. My wife was gonna be home anyway with the younger child Even if we sent the older one off to school, so we thought let's just try it for a year And and that's what we did and it was great. It was fun We were able to do it and we thought well, we'll try it again for another year And we've always taken that approach as a family. It's let's Re evaluate definitely on an annual basis, but often, much more often, how is it going, what works best for each of our kids, and we found, really over the long haul that home education is what works, and it works for our family it delivers something special for our kids, and yes, the academic qualities there, the socialization, which we all hear about we were able to deliver that too, and And we've had an adventure as a family. We've traveled we've done all sorts of things that being in a more structured system would have prevented or not allowed us to enjoy and explore.

Timmy Eaton:

And so how did you initially find information? Because this would have been, what, the late 90s?

Peter Stock:

Yeah it would well, actually early 2000s and by that time provincial homeschool conferences were really a regular thing. In fact, there were at that time, probably more homeschool conferences happening with vendors and so on that scale of conference were happening with vendors across the country, simply because, don't want to say it was pre internet, but it was before the internet had really become totally useful to homeschoolers. You weren't getting curriculum off the internet. You weren't getting speakers off the internet. If you wanted any of that kind of solid information, if you wanted to dig down, if you wanted to ask questions, you really had to go to a conference. And so that's what we did. We went to a conference in Ontario. And heard it, heard a number of speakers still had lots of questions when we were done, but we were also able to find curriculum and identify what was available and, what our options were. And even at that time quite frankly, there were a lot of options. This is something as you probably know, Tim, and many of your listeners will know. When when homeschoolers start out, the the sheer variety of curriculum can be almost overwhelming. There's so much to choose from. But the wonderful thing is so much of it is really an improvement on what you could get in the public system, quite frankly. It almost doesn't matter what you choose, you're going to do better.

Timmy Eaton:

I just interviewed Marlene Peterson from the, from she lives in Missouri now, but she she was talking about she does libraries of hope and she was talking about how it's always curriculum after environment, that environment is so much More integral to the learning, but the curriculum is obviously important. So when those early days, would you and your wife describe it as like a joint venture, like equally looking into it and weighing things, or was your wife really taking the lead? Like, how was it going down for you guys?

Peter Stock:

I think in terms of the actual planning for the year Since my wife is has been the primary teacher for most of those years, she's taken the lead and deciding. I think we'll try this curriculum or we'll run with this program or this course or this unit study, whatever it happens to be. Now I chime in. I've also had the advantage and this isn't the case in every family, but I've had the advantage. I'm working from home myself for most of my career and as a result I have been able to participate, in the teaching and in some of the school day and there's even been periods of time where i've been the primary teacher which has been quite interesting and given me an insight into what you know, mostly moms, deal with and the adventure that they live with on a daily basis. So

Timmy Eaton:

that's great. What's the range of your children? You The age range.

Peter Stock:

Currently they're uh, 2022, 2017 and 14. We have a few birthdays coming up. So three of three of them are finished completely their secondary schooling, one is finished his post secondary, at least the first degree, one's halfway through a degree, and the third one he's working he's more interested in the trades and he's building houses as we speak. And then we have a. Our final child is just venturing into the secondary school years.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes. Which is a

Peter Stock:

biting time.

Timmy Eaton:

One thing I would say just to go back to what you were saying earlier is that I really, I would really recommend The resources on homeschool today that ha that kind of help you to determine what type of homeschool situation, at least at the start. And then you can obviously morph and adapt. But I found that really helpful to us. We've been homeschooling for almost 20 years. But when I took that, it was just very clear that we were an eclectic homeschool family, but I found that little survey was really helpful. So I recommend that to any listeners to go to homeschool. today and look that up. And it's excellent. Or I can even put a link in the in the show notes. Cause it's excellent. So thank you for that. I don't know how you guys. Develop that, but that's a great resource.

Peter Stock:

Our staff and all those who helped to develop our homeschool. today website they're all homeschooling veterans themselves. So you're getting the benefit of decades and decades of experience with with that material. So it's not just something somebody's thrown together.

Timmy Eaton:

No, and that is so clear. But just like to your point of how overwhelming the curricular choices can be. I find that it's so nice to have some key places to turn people to. And I find your sites just very informative and simple to navigate. And so they're excellent resources. So I definitely highly recommend them. I do want to get more into definitely your how did you get in with HSLDA and all that? But I just wanted to, I was wondering about your beginning experiences with homeschooling, what do you remember? What would you would say are, were your biggest challenges and your, and the greatest benefits that you remember in those early years? And then how, however that evolved.

Peter Stock:

Yeah I would say to be honest and, this is true for probably a very high percentage of families starting out. Most of us were schooled in the public system ourselves.

Peter Stock (2):

Yeah.

Peter Stock:

And so I would say, one of the Biggest if not the biggest challenge we had was not trying to replicate The educational approach that we had learned or we had been inculcated in as children ourselves you know when you try to make school at home You try to fit everything into that box. You lose some of the some of the beauty of homeschooling, quite frankly. The ability to be flexible, the ability to say, You know what? Today's the day where we're not going to do, the regularly scheduled programming. We're going to do this other thing that we're really interested in. Or yes, we've only assigned, half an hour for math, but, We seem to be struggling with this concept. So let's spend more time on it. Let's let's push through and understand it and yeah Okay, we're doing fine with spelling. In fact, one child is so far ahead in spelling We're not even going to do it for a month or whatever because it's not a good use of time so so that flexibility and embracing the flexibility to go where The children's needs are best served You is so valuable and I think we all have this tendency coming out of the public system to say, we have to do this, we have to do that, we have to fit everything in a certain box, we have to check a list, etc. And that doesn't make it as good as it can be.

Timmy Eaton:

Yes. No, just amen to everything you said, because lately I've been talking a lot about the the ideas of de schooling and how on an ongoing basis, I find myself having to do that and to continually read to keep myself up to date on things and remember our, the purposes that we started with, because I can so easily, even though it's been years, I can so easily get back into a very, conventional way of thinking. And and sometimes that can be not as effective in the homeschool setting. So I appreciate you saying that. What about challenges? Like as far as your children were concerned and what, is there anything that was hard as far as finding time for like your wife, finding time for herself or the kids and their desires to either be with friends or in school. I know that, you said you were able to provide good social. Life as well. But

Peter Stock:

yeah. So on, on that particular topic the social we've always managed to find co ops and support groups and so on. And that is a challenge for some families. I recognize in more rural areas or areas where homeschooling maybe hasn't grown as much as it has in other places. Certainly if you're in a suburban or Bigger town or whatever suburban area, even a big city, of course, you're going to find lots of variety, but it is a challenge for some families for sure. No, I think the bigger challenge we probably faced is the fact that it's hard to be, and this is particularly true for moms, it's hard to be both the teacher. And a parent. And sometimes it feels like those goals or those jobs, if you will are in a bit of conflict. The teacher wants to see the work done. The mom is sympathetic to the fact that the child is, in a certain emotional state or has various other needs. And, you don't want to ruin the good for the sake of trying to achieve the perfect and especially for parents who are perfectionists this can be a real challenge. I want to finish the math curriculum, like I, I want to get it done. And yet that child has just had enough and it's time to move on. That's probably the perennial challenge.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, I agree. And it's hard sometimes to define the line between Permissiveness and and then, and what really is that's enough. Like you, you understand the principles, the concepts or you really are just not, you're not ready. There's always this concept of don't teach until they're ready. And then when they're ready, they do learn. And so that, I think that's a, that's something that has to be navigated intentionally and it's not easy. And so that can be challenging for, can you describe and this is hard to do. Especially I've been trying to do this lately myself. As I always say, we've been homeschooling from birth to university and we've had very similar stages. Our kids are 11 to 20. We have six children and so we've seen them go through every stage now and it's just so enriching and yet we see the challenges and they continue even though we've been doing this for, 16, 17 plus years. And I say 20 years cause from birth there, there's still challenges that you just face all the time. Amen. So would you be able to describe your role, the evolution of your role as husband and father of a homeschooling family? And that's hard. I know that's a big thing, but. Oh, sure.

Peter Stock:

And this will only

Timmy Eaton:

be very, particular to your context and to your situation. Every family and role will be different, but.

Peter Stock:

Yeah. It's a tough one to answer. I, I'd say there's certainly phases or stages in children, in, in the development of each individual child. And of course, they're all unique. So they have different different personalities, different needs. And I think probably my answer in a sense is looking back is, you want to be the parent first, you're a dad in particular, you're a rock that your kids depend on and So you need to put their needs first academic needs are important, but they're not as important as some other needs and yeah little kids are certainly different than teenagers, and many respects, the teen years are the toughest challenge it's a wonderful time, your children are becoming young. Independent, they're finding out who they are they're developing their own identity. That's a very fragile thing. And obviously we're, hate to mention it, but we, we're seeing that abused in the public system and in other places in society right now, where children are being told children. False things about their identity. We don't need to get into that necessarily. But

Timmy Eaton:

yeah,

Peter Stock:

but you know as a dad as a mom you have a central role in helping that child to find their identity Helping to shape it helping to guide them stepping back a bit too though and letting them Maybe even make some mistakes hopefully, the mistakes they make aren't the life threatening variety or the life changing variety But you know guiding them along the way if there's too much of an attempt at controlling the direction you can Provoke rebellion if you're if you stand off too much. Yes, your child can run into real danger. So finding that balance is extremely tricky and Just like when we start out as parents, we don't have a guidebook and there's no perfect answer and every child is different and some are much easier than others to deal with. But, we we pray for guidance and hopefully we're able to. To give our children, you know, there are children we, they're gifted to us for a period of time to, to raise and it's a wonderful thing when they get to the end of those teen years and they really start to spread their wings and fly and you see them soar. That, that's exciting.

Timmy Eaton:

One thing I've, I love what you just said there. And one thing I've been thinking about a lot, the name of this podcast and what I'm doing is called this golden hour. And it's a dual meaning because it's this golden hour as a family to spend time together, but it's also a golden hour for them to have like magical moments of learning that so often can be diminished by the traditional system or other forms of education. At least that's my opinion and my view. And so the, I've been saying lately, like high school, and again, like you said, it's good for families to take it a year at a time, or even a month at a time as the case may be, but that for me, I really do see it as a bummer at the high school years to not choose home education, because it's the time when you can, like you said, soar, spread your wings. And I really think that there's no other time that can help you prepare. For your future and developing your, yourself, then in those high school years we call it homeschooling. And I get why, and now we're stuck with that word, but I've always found it a misnomer. And I almost think what you were just describing to me is intentional parenting. And I almost think that's actually a more accurate term for what we do. It's intentional parenting. And that includes learning and lifestyle and all aspects of being a family. And so I just really appreciate how you describe that. That was great. Is there any other thoughts that you have just about your personal experience before we shift into how you got into HSLDA and in your work there?

Peter Stock:

Yeah, I guess just a further thought about the secondary years or the teen years. And the ability to, of parents, we have this unique perspective into who our kids are, there's so many young people who would say, Oh, I don't know what I want to do with my life. I don't know what I want to study as I move off into perhaps a post secondary. And that's fully understandable. But as parents, we probably have the best and most objective perspective about who our kids are, what their strengths are, and certainly what they don't like as well. We've, as you say, we've got that unique golden window of time, a golden hour of time to to really invest in. In them as individuals in a way that no school system can because school systems are, they're based on 25 kids in the classroom and they're based on moving at that pace. But we can see that this child has a real interest in working with their hands. We can find opportunities, an internship working with carpenter or electrician. We can get them involved in debating and we can take them on a tour of Parliament Hill. We can do those sorts of things that have the flexibility to do. And the other neat thing is, of course, we're not bound by school hours in the same way either. For example my, my third child who is the one who's interested in trades a couple of years ago, he was able to do an internship with commercial carpentry one day a week, he started seven in the morning and go to five at night or whatever. And he did that for a term and that's not so easy to do when you have classes scheduled Monday to Friday, nine to three or whatever it is in the school system. So

Timmy Eaton:

he would have been what, like 14 or 15 years old doing that apprenticeship.

Peter Stock:

Yes, 15. Yeah,

Timmy Eaton:

that's excellent. Yeah. And I love that. And I feel like that those ideas are appealing to more and more families. I'm finding that not just the flexibility, but the ability to target. And it's not that these children have to stay in those roles, but it gives them experience that informs their future decisions more clearly. than anything I experienced. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and went to a good school, but just wasn't taught to approach it so deliberately in, in the way I was going to approach my, studies or just career path. And so I love that homeschooling lends itself to that. That's great. Yeah, let's let, if we can, let's transition a little bit if I can give my listeners just a little bit of history Homeschool Legal Defense Association in the United States started when Mike Ferris, who was an attorney in Washington had a lot of people asking him for help because he was an attorney. And then at the same time, there was a man named Mike Smith in California who was having similar experiences and they met at a conference in 1983. And then they ended up basically forming HSLDA. But what I don't know is the history of how that, I assume that they're connected. And so how did they connect in Canada? Because I think that was happening in Canada, almost a replicated story was happening. And I don't know who the attorney was that homeschool families were going to, but if you could give us a little bit of background and then where you. Sure.

Peter Stock:

Yeah. Yeah. So the organization in Canada was founded in 1991, and Yes. The US organization was very supportive at the time even to the extent of if you will, lending us their name, Yeah. Yeah. This, H-S-L-D-A Canada is a separate organization, legally and in every other way. But they were, they had. Develop some expertise in the US and we're kind enough to share it and say, this is what we did. You could do the same in Canada. So rather than reinvent the wheel a number of families got together and said, let's start this organization here. And they hired an attorney, a lawyer. From Southern Alberta Dallas Miller who who was in private practice at the time, and he was the first president of the organization and led it for many years, led it through some, some very, I'm going to say rough waters because at that time, in the early 90s homeschooling was not clearly legal, Probably the best way to describe it for a layman is it fell into a bit of a gray area in the law. Maybe it was legal, maybe it wasn't, but it depended who you talk to. And so HSLDA fought many court battles, went to many legislatures, lobbied many politicians and fought and fought and in the early 90s, and again, this is a reason people came together to form the organization. Some families were threatened with fines for home educating, some were even threatened with jail time and some were threatened with having their kids taken away. This is a story you can hear repeated in many other places. But, the neat thing is a little over 30 years later homeschooling is legal in all 10 provinces in all three territories in Canada. In fact, some of them even refer to it, and Quebec is one of them. Quebec Ministry of Education refers to home education, the choice to home educate as a right. They actually use that terminology. That's fantastic. And and the Alberta government takes a similar approach that parents have

Timmy Eaton:

the primary responsibility.

Peter Stock:

I responsibility to educate their children. And the legal landscape, at least at the legislative or the statutory level is is very different than it was 30 odd years ago in Canada. It's very clear that home education is legal. However if I want to talk about, the present day, and I'm sure you have some questions about that, but let me just introduce that that topic, if you will, by saying that we have as many problems now as we did back then, probably more they're just of a different nature, and a lot of it relates to the, a lot of, part of it is the fact that there are many more homeschoolers, of course, and if you have lots of people involved in that activity, you're going to have various regulatory challenges with that. Another aspect to the issue is though that a lot of school boards, a lot of teachers unions, and unfortunately a lot of children's aid societies either don't understand the law or don't respect it fully. And so we still got a cultural battle to fight with some institutions. And that's ongoing. Just to give you some sense and we can talk more about this, but we're so busy that in the last year, we've actually hired an additional lawyer for our team where we're getting that many calls. So we get calls every week from families somewhere in Canada that are having a challenge from a school board. CAS or some other government agency and most of them never expected to get that kind of call, but they're dealing They're calling us and our lawyers are representing them So

Timmy Eaton:

are those calls coming from a concentrated, place typically I know it's all over canada, but is there?

Peter Stock:

It's every province the provinces that have higher populations of homeschoolers are going to have, theoretically more problems, but I wouldn't say there's any one province that stands out as worse than another at this point in time some are more challenging to homeschool in because they're, because of the regulatory burden, because of the level of reporting required. But in terms of challenges, actual legal challenges that individual families face it's right across the country.

Timmy Eaton:

And I think what you're saying is important for everybody, myself included, listening, it's like you said, you don't anticipate it until it's there. And a lot of new homeschoolers, homeschooling used to be what the weird people did, and now it is not just mainstream, but it's also almost, when you look on social media, it's a trend. Like it's cool to homeschool now. And that's just so weird to so many people because at the first question people ask is about are your kids going to be weird? And so that's an interesting change but I think what you're, and the reason I point that out is that when people are approaching this, They should know that what they are getting into, so to speak, because it's something that we are so blessed to enjoy at a level that people really worked and fought for. And it is the way it is, but many of us are ignorant of that. Like we don't know what price was paid to get us the freedoms that we enjoy currently. Yeah. So that's

Peter Stock:

true. And

Timmy Eaton:

yeah. Amen. So where, so how did you come into it? What was your are you are you a law, do you have law background or what was your affiliation?

Peter Stock:

No. In a certain sense, but my my background is I'd spent over 20 years on Parliament Hill working for a variety of MPs and Cabinet Ministers in an advisory capacity, and the uh, position homeschooling for many years at that point but when the position came open a lawyer friend suggested, you know what, you'd probably be good for that role, and so I applied, and it turned out The board thought so too. So here I am and I've been doing it for seven and a half years now. And the time's just flown by. So it's been wonderful.

Timmy Eaton:

That's excellent. So tell us the evolution of things as far as HSLDA and CCHE and homeschool. today. Like how do, how are all those affiliated and what almost chronologically so we can follow that?

Peter Stock:

Sure. Yeah. As I mentioned, HSLDA was founded in 91. About 10 years later the organization realized that people were willing to contribute over and above their membership fees to support the movement. And so we wanted to make the best use of those donations. And so a separate legally separate organization, a charity was founded, and that's the Canadian Center for Home Education. So I actually lead both organizations. I lead HSLDA, I lead CCHE. And if people want to make a donation to support the movement, to support our legal efforts, to support, All sorts of other work that CCHE does they can make a donation they can get a tax credit for it So that's a wonderful helpful thing If they want the services that go with being an HSLDA member they join HSLDA and they pay either a monthly or annual membership fee So one is membership fee for services. The other is just general donations, but both organizations work cooperatively to support the movement across Canada. And so when it comes to a legal issue, let's say there is a case at some point where a family is challenged and maybe there's a constitutional question or just a serious threat from a government. This family will not be able to home educate because we don't like it. We'll walk into court. We will defend that family. And and usually successfully, which is a wonderful thing, the law is on our side now, as we've said, and and we'll fight that battle. But sometimes, a court, if a case goes to trial, trials are very expensive. Tens of thousands to well over 100, 000, depending how far it goes through the system. And we can't do that on membership fees alone. And so we do rely on the support of generous donors through CCHE to help us meet the financial challenges we sometimes face and defending our freedoms, Canada.

Timmy Eaton:

And I'm just wondering are you finding, I don't know if you know the statistics on this, but are you, are the members typically becoming members because of something that happened or. Are they preempting that?

Peter Stock:

There's a variety. I think that, word of mouth gets around. People realize that there are still challenges and that, what are, the question would be, what am I going to do if I get a knock at the door from CAS? You know, do I, Do I really think I can handle that myself? And, my, my suggestion is most people would not do well with that situation and wouldn't want having and wouldn't want to, yeah. And so having the advice the representation from. Literally, the top lawyers in the country that deal with this issue at, just a phone call away the comfort and security, the peace of mind that brings is worth our modest membership fee. That alone is a reason for a lot of people to join. However, there are others who join for more altruistic reasons and They just want to help the movement. They want to help families like that who do run into trouble. And are probably fairly confident, that I'm probably not going to have those problems myself, but I recognize others are. And so they want to do, their part. And this is a good way to do it. So we get both.

Timmy Eaton:

And can you walk us through maybe an example? What's, what would be like a a current typical situation that that families, and I'm sure there's a wondrous variety of legal concerns or issues that arise, but what would be like a typical like call or situation where HSLDA will come in as for advocacy?

Peter Stock:

Yeah, okay, I'll give you a couple of examples because we have situations that are fairly minor that can become more serious. And then we have other situations that are very serious right at the beginning. A fairly minor complaint we get, and it's very common at the beginning of the school year in particular, is we'll get a family calling us saying school board has refused my Notice of intent to home educate or my application to home educate depending on the province or they're asking for more information than i've ever had to give before or they're trying to pressure me They're asking questions. I don't feel comfortable with anything in that area right and there could be a couple of reasons for that one that's fairly common, and we get this every single year, is that there's a new bureaucrat who's taken the role of being the homeschool administrator or monitor for a school in a given area, and they're just, they're not necessarily ill educated.

Timmy Eaton:

They're ignorant of it. They're not trying to

Peter Stock:

be malicious, but they're, yeah they're ignorant of the law. So our lawyers are usually able to straighten those situations out fairly quickly. On the other hand, there are school boards where they've lost a lot of students to home education and they're realizing their budget is bleeding. When in, in many provinces the grant that follows a student, Into the home into the public system is somewhere in the range of ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year. It's a lot of money. So when you lose a family, let's say a four kids to home education, that's a teacher salary, right? That's a lot of money for a school board to lose. And so there's a financial incentive for the school board to try and pressure. That family back into the system and so they may use a variety of tactics to try and achieve that. Now when we become aware of that, our lawyer is able to deal with that again fairly quickly. Because again, the law is on our side and we're able to say essentially cease and desist or back off or whatever needs to be said and able to deal with those situations. Families aren't necessarily well equipped to do that, but our lawyer deals with it regularly. So that's something we help with now on the more serious side. And I mentioned this before what if you get a knock at the door? From a children's aid society worker, especially if they're there with a policeman there could be a variety of reasons. This has happened. Again, many of them are not necessarily the family's fault or Have

Peter Stock (2):

or certainly

Peter Stock:

have nothing to do with home education but CES can still become quickly involved with the family, and it could be anything from an anonymous complaint to a disgruntled relative, a nosy neighbor a teenager who's unhappy, even within the household that has happened. It could be a complaint about or it could be from a school board. We've had that in the last week I'm aware. There can be a lot of directions this comes from, but at the end of the day, if CA, I think people need to understand this, if CAS gets a complaint from anyone for any reason, and they are anonymous they are required to investigate. They, they can't just say that sounds frivolous. We're going to leave it alone. No, they have to go and investigate. And investigations can be quite intrusive. So this is where you really need the legal advice and backing to defend your position, your freedom your rights as a parent and as a home educator. Our lawyers are able to step in at that point. One, one thing I should say is that a lot of CAS. type complaints that families that call us face are not initially related to home education. It could be about a whole variety of other things. It could be something as simple as fostering or adopting but it could be a child maybe in the same family who's in the public system, who's having some problems or something like that. But once CAS gets involved for any reason. home education can quickly become affected. So that's where we play a key role in representing and defending that family.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah. And thank you like on behalf of everybody. Thank you for that. Because I did, again we're, I bet you the majority, especially because there's such an influx of homeschoolers post COVID. And legitimate numbers of doubling since, what is it? 2020 that there's so much more families that just don't, aren't aware enough of the resource, but and the potential need. And so I think it's, it's in our interest to know, especially with how modest the fee is and what you're getting for that. When people, if anybody goes on to HSLDA. ca. And looks up what you pay for what you get. It's, it is, it's incredible. And so I just have two final questions and then anything that you want to say. Something that goes along with this discussion is this I don't even know what adjective to give it, but like the idea of homeschool funding, you mentioned, 10 to 15, 000 that follows each kid in the school. And there's been lots of discussions about that. And homeschoolers have, I actually just posted something about this yesterday about how homeschoolers are typically reluctant because we don't want the bureaucratic oversight yet. We would appreciate the extra help and what that would do for learning and education. And our children are citizens of the same country who will. Who are by statistically way higher involved in civic engagement. And so it makes sense that your kids would have, equal representation with how but again, we're reluctant to have government interference. I've been learning about ESAs, Education Savings Accounts, in the States, and I'm interested to see how that works out. But I just want to get your view from all that you've been involved with. Is, are there conversations that are happening about either, one, either, I, and I'm reluctant to even say it, but like improving the funding, like I'm in Alberta, I think it has the best funding in Canada. As far as homeschool funding goes, but yet it's still like a low fraction. We have six children and typically homeschool families are one, um, one parent works and so they're single in house families typically. So anyway, I know that's a lot of blah, but what would you say about funding what's happening and what do we have to be cautious of and not regret?

Peter Stock:

Yeah, it's a tough question because I certainly appreciate How you feel and how most families feel about the money. We all pay the taxes and we're not seeing the benefit and saving

Timmy Eaton:

taxpayers.

Peter Stock:

Exactly. In fact, you're right. We probably homeschoolers across Canada probably save provincial governments across the country a total of over 2 billion a year in spending. I remember an article in 2012 in the

Timmy Eaton:

states where they, the homeschoolers saved the American taxpayer 9 billion. That was 2012. It has by far doubled since then. And so anyway, so it is anyway, carry on.

Peter Stock:

Yeah. It's a phenomenal amount of money. However, and this is a big, however. When governments provide funding to anybody or anything, they want accountability. There are strings attached and that's not unreasonable. It is reasonable to, we expect our governments to be accountable for the spending that they do. The question then becomes what type of accountability will they look for? Initially it might just be like, fill out a form and maybe then it's tell us what curriculum you're using, or what are you spending that money on? And then it becomes I'm not sure that we want you spending money on that curriculum. It needs to be one of these books over here that we've approved. And then it becomes narrower and narrower, and then there's more reporting. And. You know what when you have a good government, a government that is, let's say, friendly towards homeschooling, these things don't seem like a big deal.

Peter Stock (2):

Let's

Peter Stock:

just give us the money. We'll spend it. The government will leave us alone. And that's certainly been the case in Alberta for many years. However, governments change and and the attitude of those in power changes as a result. And so you get a government that. Is not friendly towards homeschooling, and that's when you start to have problems. That's when there's a demand to use a certain curriculum or follow a certain educational method, etc. And you're free to teach your children as you see best restricted or even almost denied. And unfortunately, we've actually seen this in Canada in the last five years, and I'll give you the example. It's in the province of Quebec. Now, I mentioned that home education is a right there, and it is. Parents can choose that freely. However, there's a tremendous amount of reporting. There's a tremendous amount of oversight, including interviews on an annual basis for and with each child. Okay, so this isn't just, you know, send us a, send us a notice telling us what you've been doing. There, there's actually, physical interaction. Between the bureaucracy and your family and what the the CAQ government has done in the last few years is they have now forced home educated students to write public school exams in and this is not a small matter. In Quebec, they follow more of the European system. So kids in grades four, six, eight, 10, and 11 write exams in a number of subjects. In those years, and these exams are each up to a few hours long, so you might write a three hour math exam in grade 10, let's say, and a three hour French exam, et cetera, et cetera. These are major exams, and one of the, one of the things that concerns us most is one of the subjects that they demand that our children write exams, and it's social studies. Math is, generally speaking, universal. Yeah, so I can use whatever math curriculum I want, Saxon math or horizons or whatever it may be, but when it comes to and, the students in the public school use the public system, public systems books and, as you say, We all write the same exam and it's not a problem. But when it comes to social studies I can suddenly no longer use the curriculum I picked out. I really need to use the government's curriculum, which may contain ideologies and I and philosophies, which I fundamentally disagree with. Absolutely. And my children are forced to learn them if they're going to pass that exam. So that's a major problem. This is the government getting into the private homeschool rooms of the nation. Yeah.

Timmy Eaton:

So it's one thing to say, yeah, you have the right to, but then you have all these strings attached that make you go, yes, man, that you, what's the difference. It's I could see myself moving under such a circumstance. And

Peter Stock:

that's, what's happened in Quebec. Many. And it's lit it's literally thousands of families that have left the province over this So it's a very sad situation because as we know home education provides so many benefits to our young people to our children And families are willing to invest in our children this way the benefits to society are tremendous. We talked about the cost in the government That's one thing but even above and beyond that we're producing wonderful You contributing members of society that are making a huge difference in our world. And the government's in Quebec anyway, is interfering with that. And

Timmy Eaton:

I tell you, Peter, I can't make sense of it because if anybody has done any, just even surfaced research on home education and the results. And these are not these aren't, this isn't from the early 2000 and 1990 studies. These are current studies that find in, in, so maybe I'll just tie it into this. I recently was watching this thing on an online marketer and he's always asked about his qualifications and his response is always my results are my qualifications. And to me, if somebody were to look at the results and the statistics of homeschool results, for example academic results, which is obviously one of the top ones and yet we're spending how much taxpayer dollars on education that is. failing in a lot of ways. And then you look at entrance exams into post secondary institutions is much higher than the average. Mental health is improved. We talked about civic engagement and yet there's all this this desire for accountability. And I understand that. I understand the principle of accountability, but when you have philosophies or ideologies That are in conflict, that's really hard. And so anyway, I think there's progress, but like you said earlier, it's not like we're out of the woods. There's work to do.

Peter Stock:

Yeah. Yeah. And in Quebec in particular what has spurred this demand more than anything is an attempt to indoctrinate. And I'll just mention that we're seeing this across Europe as well. France. Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary are just a few of the countries that, and now Romania, unfortunately, are a few of the countries that just in the last few years have either outright banned home education or severely restricted it. And the reason is they want the kids in the public system so they can indoctrinate them.

Timmy Eaton:

Yeah, it's so crazy that it's 2000, almost 2025, and we have that level of Propagandizing. It's just, it is unbelievable. And so we do I really do think this has a lot to do with freedom and not just these, like I said, not just these trendy homeschool things of flexibility and lifestyle but truly it comes down to freedom and your family values. And and which is interesting to me because, when you go to these countries that you said are causing these restrictions, they obviously have values they want to have respected. And shouldn't that be. Allowed for all maybe one more final thing, unless you have something else to say on that is just, can you just describe your role then? So what's your role within the organizations that you're leading? I know that's a big question, but

Peter Stock:

yeah I lead a team and it's. It's interesting because we live in a world where more and more work can be and is often remote. So we actually have staff in five provinces now, um, and they're, in most cases, working remotely. We do have an office, but it's only a small portion of the staff that actually work in the office. The rest are working remotely. Essentially from home and so managing a rather disparate group of people who have different focuses is I won't call it a challenge. It's it's fun. It's exciting. We're doing some great things. Yeah, but it has its challenges for sure. Yeah. And we're doing some neat things. You mentioned homeschool. today. So again, that's a great resource for people who have questions or want to get started. Some of the other things that we do though, that people may not be aware of we have a curriculum consultant. So we talked about that earlier, how trying to decide is tough and homeschool. today certainly has some good guidance there. But if you want to, if you want to talk to somebody who's an expert, And and really set out a plan for an individual child, particularly children who have exceptional needs of one sort or another, you can sit down with our curriculum consultant, virtually and and develop a plan. And then we also have an exceptional needs consultant. So this is somebody who can help you if you have a child that you suspect may have a learning challenge of some sort. Or they have a learning challenge and you need additional resources to help meet that need. And by the way, I should just mention, you may, you may have had guests who've talked about this in the past, Tim, but for children who do have exceptional needs, home education is one of the greatest gifts you could possibly give them. There's no question. It's a topic in and of itself, but it's, I've had so many

Timmy Eaton:

guests on this podcast that have just attested to that from their personal experience, neurodivergent and autism and you name it dyslexia.

Peter Stock:

Yes, absolutely. And there's one other resource that we We're really excited about and it's our digital library. 3000 audio books and eBooks and these fall into various genres and categories, lots of books for kids. They'll never run out of books to read wholesome books classics. And we also have books for teaching parents and books on exceptional needs. There's also books that can supplement your teaching plan as well. Canadian history and biography, for example, would be one category. So there's a great deal of available resource there that people can draw on. And we have families that are saving a fair bit of money, not having to go and buy supplementary materials. Because, they can find Mark Twain or whoever, Rudyard Kipling or whomever they need on the digital library. And it's free with their membership. A great way for students.

Timmy Eaton:

And one thing I would add to that is I've had so many guests on the podcast that have talked about just how libraries have changed and that again, like what you said, it's, and it's not that you're trying to change everybody else, but that you have every right to have your own values and priorities. And those seem to be assaulted sometimes, even when you go to public libraries. And so we need good resources like this. I was wondering. Are you affiliated with anyone like Pat Feranga or anybody else to coordinate those types of efforts? Because there's so many good resources that can, that we have,

Peter Stock:

yeah, no, we what I would say is we've developed some of the collection in conjunction with our research director at the Canadian Centre for Home Education, Dr. Joe Woodard. He's taught the great books for many years. And so we've developed a great books collection and actually created a, an outline of a program that parents can use through the high school years for their kids to start to dig into the great books. And there's a good article on the members site about the great books and what they are and how to use them, how to access them. And so we would encourage people to check out the great books collection there. And, this is a. This is the canon of Western civilization. If your kids did nothing else through the high school years, other than a bit of math, if they were to read all these books, they would come out better educated. Almost any undergraduate at any university in the country.

Timmy Eaton:

I feel like people hear that and say, Some would be like, roll their eyes, but I truly agree with that. Like I really do. It's how you interact with those books, but man, books are sufficient. The good the good books, the great books are sufficient for an education. Look at our world's histories past and all those who were educated through books and through family. tutoring and interaction. So that's wonderful. Thank you so much. I, this has been an excellent interview. I really appreciate you taking time. Give you the final word and then we'll wrap up.

Peter Stock:

Yeah. I'm excited about what's ahead. You mentioned earlier, we've seen a doubling of the number of homeschoolers. There's a sad reason for some of that. COVID

Peter Stock (2):

and

Peter Stock:

that's a good thing. People who had been thinking about it actually took the leap. And so we're really glad to welcome those people, but unfortunately, we see our public system melting down. I think that's the correct description at this point in time. So more and more families are looking for alternatives. Some are going to private schools and. And, there are quite a number that are now picking home education. So we want to be ready to welcome this new cohort of families give them the resources they need, invest in them and help them to have the success that we've had. And I, I think the future is incredibly bright for home education, but it is a fragile thing. We're a minority as such, we really need to work to you. And invest to defend our rights and freedoms as home educators is as teaching parents, and that's an ongoing battle. So that's why we're here. That's what H. S. L. D. does and we appreciate we appreciate the time to share about it. But we would also appreciate people joining us as well. Don't just think about it, but actually I actually join

Timmy Eaton:

Yes. No, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. It, it's true. it's not just an individual family decision to, to learn in a certain way or to live in a certain way, although it is that, but it really is a decision that affects the future of a nation, like ultimately. And if the family is the. The the laboratory of what society is, then we're affecting a whole nation. And so I really think it is that big. So thank you very much. Thank you for taking time. This has been Peter Stock, you guys, president of HSLDA Canada, and thank you for taking time with us. Thank you, Tim. See you soon. Have a great afternoon.

Peter Stock:

You bet.

Timmy Eaton:

That wraps up another edition of This Golden Hour podcast. If you haven't done so already, I would totally appreciate it if you would take a minute and give us a review on Apple 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.