Homeschool or Die

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Commit, don't quit. Today at EffortlessEnglishClub.com EffortlessEnglishClub.com Today we're live on Facebook. I decided to try Facebook. I'm going to be talking about the coronavirus a little bit again today.

YouTube may be doing some censorship about the coronavirus, so I thought, eh, let's try Facebook. Also, just for... something different. Sometimes I like to get on Facebook.

Homeschool or die. Homeschool or die. That's our topic today. Homeschool or die. It's actually kind of a slogan or a motto that homeschool. I've seen it on bumper stickers.

Homeschool or die. I don't know. It's obviously an exaggeration. It's just something that homeschool people say sometimes. Homeschool or die. But basically, we're talking about homeschooling and how, in fact, this whole corona thing, with schools being canceled all around the world.

Yay! It's such an opportunity. This is the opportunity to do homeschooling, to try homeschooling. So many parents now have a chance. No more excuses. You have to do it, in fact.

That or your kids do nothing at home. But this is the time, right? All the people who have excuses or people who thought about doing homeschooling and, oh, I can't do it, I'm not sure. Well, now if you do it, you're going to realize it's not that difficult.

It's not difficult. It's actually quite easy. You may find that you really love it. Your children really love it. Maybe they don't have to go back to school.

Maybe don't send them back to school. Even after this corona stuff is gone, then you can just keep doing homeschooling. Why not? Homeschooling, homeschooling, homeschooling.

So I'm going to review an article today from the HSLDA. I really don't like their name because it's hard to remember. Homeschool Legal Defense Association, I believe is the name. Basically, they help people with homeschooling and especially with homeschooling laws, like the legal help.

If you have any legal problems or you're worried, is it, can I do this in my country? Can I do this in my state? And you're worried about that. You want to talk to lawyers or you need help.

If some government person's bothering you about homeschooling, you contact them, become a member. They'll help you. They'll have lawyers that will help you.

And also just their website has good information about, you know, all these things. It has good information about the different laws. And they just did a thing called the Homeschooling Quick Start. Homeschooling Quick Start.

It's a little article. Seven Simple Steps. to start homeschooling, part one. Seven simple steps to start homeschooling. So this is kind of like their quick guide, like since now's a great time to try homeschooling, if you have kids, then here are seven ways to get started.

So here we go. I'll share my screen. Okay. Okay, number one, connect with parents who are already homeschooling. Connect with parents who are already homeschooling.

So you can talk to other parents. There are social media groups. You could do searches on Facebook. You can do searches on, I don't know, probably Instagram, whatever.

Just do some searches. You'll find some social media groups or just web groups, online groups, where... You can meet with families, when you can meet other families or connect with other families who are doing homeschooling. Some are international, some will be specifically in your country, there might even be some in your town, in your community.

So you just got to do some searching online and you can find some groups. That's the easiest way to do it. where you can connect with other people who are already homeschooling. That's the best way to get advice, to ask questions.

If you're worried about it for some reason, you can talk to them and they'll help you. So that's good advice. It's a great way. Connect with other parents.

Okay, step number two. Get to know your state's homeschool law. Of course, this means state, as in if you're in the United States, each state has a different... laws and different rules.

And then also, you know, in the more general meaning of the word state, it means like nation or country. So you need to find out, like, what are the laws in your country? Some countries, the laws are not clear. There basically aren't any laws about it.

It's not illegal, but it's not clearly legal either. It's kind of like, I'm not sure. And so in those cases, it's really good to find other parents who are doing it already, ask them questions. and connect with this group, HSLDA.org.

Those of you watching on video, I should... Let me... I'll put it on the screen in a minute. HS... These are just letters, right? HSLDA.org, not .com, .org.

Okay, so HSLDA.org. Get on there. They also have information for... most countries around the world, the legal information. So, good idea. Because each area, each place has slightly different rules about it.

Number three, explore your child's learning preference, your teaching style, and your educational approach. Nice word, explore. So, in other words, you just want to experiment. You just want to play around, okay?

Don't stress out about it, man. It's no big deal, okay? It's not that hard. There's not one right way to do it. There are a lot of ways to do it. Very, very, very different ways to do homeschooling, which we'll talk about in point number four.

So just relax. And what's the best way for you and your family? It depends on your children and how they learn. It depends on you. What's your style of teaching?

What's your style of parenting? What's the style of your family in general? Are you really organized and you get up early and you got a lot... you have like a kind of a tight schedule or you really relax, really loose.

That's kind of what we are in my family here. So, you know, depending on your style and your children's learning styles, we know how they like to learn. Do they like to sit and be very independent and do a lot of reading? Do they need more structure, more guidance, right, where you're kind of

guiding them a lot more directly, depends on their age, all these things, okay? So, just relax and just try it out and just try different things. If you try something, it doesn't work, your kids don't like it, you don't like it, just try something else, okay? No need to get worried about it.

Okay, number four, find your child's curriculum. Okay, a curriculum is a learning plan. So, there's a lot of ways to do this, okay? Um... As they mentioned in number three, there are some that are very loose, okay?

And there are some that are very, you know, very, very, very, very, very organized. You can buy free ones or, I mean, you can buy inexpensive ones or you can get free ones. And on this, right here on this webpage I'm looking at, hslda.org slash getting started, they have a little list of free or inexpensive curriculum.

And it goes to a link and they got a big list of different ones you could try. There are many, many, many more than this. So you just, again, get online and start searching. You know, homeschool curriculum.

And again, you find one that fits your family. And again, don't be afraid to try a few. Try one. You could try a free one and see if you like it. And if you don't like it or your kids don't like it, again, no big deal.

Try a different one. Again, you probably want something that fits your family. You might want something that's specifically very Christian, or very Muslim, or very Buddhist, or that's not religious, or that's like a classical education, or something more loose.

There are many, many ways to do it. So choose a curriculum and just try it for a while, and then you can make changes later. Okay, point number five, suggestion five from this website.

Decide where you will homeschool. Create your unique schedule. All right. So they kind of recommend, you know, like choose a place, maybe a room in your house.

Okay. It might be in your living room. It might be in your kitchen, dining room. It could be in a coffee shop. It could be outdoors, whatever. But kind of have maybe one little area of where you live, your house or your apartment, and make that your learning area, your education area for your kids.

You can put little posters on the wall, put some books in that area. It's a nice idea. And create a schedule. Decide, you know, like how many hours a day will you do it.

Usually with homeschooling, you only need to do a max of three, maybe four hours a day. Certainly not more than that. And you can do less. With younger kids, you can definitely do less.

Okay, point number six. Enjoy the learning process. Re-evaluate with your kids periodically, meaning occasionally. Change anything that isn't working for you.

This is a great thing about homeschooling because you are the boss. You are in charge. It's just like you learning English as you're an independent learner. So you're the boss.

You can change things around anytime you want. Like you could try doing learning in the morning, doing homeschooling in the morning, you know, at eight in the morning. And then maybe your family doesn't like getting up early or you like to be very relaxed in the morning. So you just change it.

You can decide, let's do it in the afternoon instead. School, you can't do that. School, they have to follow the school schedule, the government schedule. There's no flexibility.

But with this way, you can... You know, do anything you want. You could try a very structured, a very organized curriculum, and you find out later you don't like it, your kids don't like it, it's not working for some reason, maybe it's boring.

So you decide, let's be more loose, let's find a different curriculum, or let's just make our own, and let's be more relaxed about it. You can do anything you want, or you can do the opposite too. Sometimes maybe you might find your child, you start in a relaxed way, but maybe your child is being a little too lazy.

You think they're not learning enough. So you realize, okay, we need to make a change. We're going to have to be a little more structured. We're going to have to plan and be more organized, right?

But you can just make those changes anytime you want. It's very flexible. And then finally, number seven, they say celebrate your students' growth. Right.

So celebrate with your children as they learn, as they grow, as they improve in different areas. Have celebrations. Make it enjoyable. Make it fun. You know, make them love learning.

That's one of the key things. School tends to kill that love of learning. And many children, you can bring it alive so that they love, love, love learning.

All right. I'm going to add the website. hslda.org and I'll even put the name getting dash started alright if you're watching on video it's on my screen now hslda.org slash getting dash started is the website I was just on now they also have a nice video which I on my Gab account I put a link to this video some woman from this group

kind of reviewing the same basic ideas for parents who are thinking about doing homeschooling, trying it. You know, I just found out from my sister in America that she has five children, so their school, all the schools closed down.

I talked to my friends Kristen and Joe in San Francisco. All the schools are closed for 30 days at least. So it's happening in Japan, right here in Japan. All the schools are closed for 30 days at least.

So it's pretty much schools are closing down all around the world. This is a wonderful thing. What an opportunity we have. Maybe let the kids enjoy a week or so of just vacation, doing nothing and having fun.

Great for them. They'll be so happy. And then when you decide, oh, maybe they need to start doing some learning, start up a homeschooling plan. You can talk to your kids and say, hey, let's do homeschooling.

Here's the good news. Again, with homeschooling, you don't need so many hours, right? In school, they go to school for six, seven hours a day, right? But that's because they waste so much time in school.

But with homeschooling, because you're focused, there's just your children, nobody else. There's no wasted time. They only need maybe two hours a day, three hours a day, maybe at the high school level, four hours a day, right? That's it.

Just... Choose a time, start, work for a good two to three hours. A few breaks in there, of course. And then you're done and they can just go play and have fun the rest of the day.

It's great. They'll love it. It's a much easier schedule for them. It's much more enjoyable for them. Just the schedule's better for them. Much less stress, I would say.

They have much more free time as being homeschooled. Now, of course, you know, you as an adult, maybe if you don't have children, homeschooling is really just another way to say independent learning, right? Family learning, independent learning, home learning. And of course, that's exactly what you are doing with Effortless English.

With your English as an adult, right? You're an independent learner. You're doing home education. You're doing it right now yourself with English, right?

Right? So it's wonderful. It's fantastic. So all you're doing, if you have kids, they're just doing what you're doing. You're doing it with English as an adult.

Well, they can do it with every subject, with every topic. Same basic idea. And look, you get much better results being an independent learner, learning at home English. Much better results than you got in school with English.

Well, guess what? That's also true for every topic. Every topic. So give your kids this gift. And for yourself, see this coronavirus thing as an opportunity.

You know, this might be a great opportunity to spend more time listening to English, doing our speaking challenge, right? Many people are going to be working from home.

Many people are going to be kind of just indoors more, at home more. So... Get your phone, get your iPod, put in your headphones, listen to English, read English, watch some English, movies, and then do our speaking challenge. Another great thing.

With our speaking challenge, of course, you can use Skype. You don't have to go to any meetings face-to-face. You don't have to worry about sickness or anything. You can just talk to people on Skype.

Totally safe. So this is a great, actually, opportunity. to really focus in on your own learning also while you're at home during all this craziness. Okay, let's get into our comments.

Live on Facebook, as I said, this time Facebook. I decided to do Facebook today. And of course, a lot of our same folks follow me over here to Facebook, which is great. Dalal Aberdamane.

I saw Vladislav already. Great. Asthma. Great. Good to see you all. Hale says, you're one of the best teachers in the world. Thank you. Everything you've done for your students.

That's very kind. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos from Brazil. One of the greatest English teachers I've seen. Carlinhos. Thank you. That's very kind also.

Thank you so much. Yeah, like Aberdemani says, I hated school when I was small. When I heard the truth from you and Mr. Gato, I knew that it was right.

And that I was right as a kid. I hated it too. I hated it too. And exactly, when I read John Taylor Got Those Books, I just, you know, as I'm reading, I'm just saying, yes, yes, yes, you know, just agreeing with everything he wrote.

Those are fantastic books, Dumbing Us Down, Weapons of Mass Instruction, lots of great books. And yeah, he was 100% correct. I said he likes my beard and mustache. The beard and mustache suit you.

Well, thank you. Yeah, some people seem to like it. I think you are an American. Carlinius. Yes, I'm American. American. USA. Ah, Dalal, you finished reading The Hobbit.

I feel sorry about Thorin's bad ending. Yeah, we'll get there in our book club. We're doing The Hobbit for our book club. Hi, Anna Kristina. Good morning to you.

Vladislav, good to see you. Yeah, in some countries, homeschooling may be illegal, which means you're going to, if you really want to do it, you're going to have to fight for it, you know, organize with other parents and you're going to have to fight to get those laws changed. It's, you know, it's too bad, but...

That's how it became legal in many countries. In the United States, for example, is parents fighting to do it. Or they just broke the law. Sometimes you just break the law.

Hey Lisa, good to see you too. Two says, I'm in my last year of high school, then I don't have to struggle with school anymore. Congratulations. It's a good feeling.

Emeen says, what are the negative effects of homeschooling? None. Well, okay, I'll be... I don't see any negative effects. None for me. Okay, so in terms of homeschooling my own children, none.

Now... I don't know, maybe for some parents, negative would be you have to do more work. I mean, that's the key thing, I guess. I wouldn't call it negative.

I would just say it is an extra challenge, right? It's a challenge because now, as the parent, yes, you've got to do more work. If your kids go off to school, you just send them to school and then you don't have to do anything, right? You're hoping some stranger, some employee, a government employee, you're hoping they will teach your child well.

They won't. But if they stay home and homeschooling, well, guess what? Now you have to figure that out. You've got to do that, right? You've got to choose the curriculum.

You've got to try different things. You've got to make a plan. You've got to make a schedule. So, yeah, it is more work. It's definitely more work for the parent.

Now, you can, it doesn't have to be a ton of work. It doesn't have to be super, super difficult. Especially, like I said, you can buy curriculum. Curriculi.

You can buy a curriculum, right? Which will give you all the materials you need. And so, you just basically, you just tell your child, okay, today we're doing this one. And you just follow along.

That's what teachers in school do. You know, they just follow along in the textbook. It's not really that challenging. So you can buy something or maybe find something for free and you're just following along.

You don't have to really do a lot. It is extra work, but it's not horrible. It doesn't have to be so difficult. On the other hand, you might enjoy it, like I'm looking forward to it.

I'm already doing things with my babies now, and I like it. It gives me a feeling of purpose. I like it. I like being more involved with my children. I like being the one to teach them.

I should be. I'm their father. I don't want some stranger in a government society school to teach them. I'll do it. So for me, it's not a negative, it's a positive.

Depends on how you look at it. Yeah, okay, so I'm sure a lot of people everywhere are seeing this sort of thing. Andrea says, I'm from Romania. Here everyone is in a panic.

They're buying a lot of food. School is closed. People are working from home, if possible. My parents are in Italy. The situation is the same. Yeah, Italy is probably the worst, right?

And China is the super worst. Kids have online classes and homework. Stay positive. Indeed. Indeed. Stay positive and do not fear. I'll get to that do not fear part in a minute.

Oh, that's an interesting question. Osama Abraham says, I want to live with an American family. Do you know any family that rent a room inside their house so I can improve my language?

I don't personally know, but there's probably some program like this. Do some searching online and My guess is there's probably somebody is doing this where you can pay to live with a family, like a host family, and as like a language, intensive language program or something. But I don't specifically know.

Pretty sure. Like I did something like that in Spanish in Guatemala for a month. So I'm sure they must have them for English. Go boldly, Waleed Abh says, oh, this is just another long, very nice compliment.

I'll read it, though. It's very nice. Truly, A.J. Hogue is one of the greatest teachers I've ever met, if not ultimately the greatest. Like Muhammad Ali of teaching.

He doesn't just teach English, but life aspects as well. If one follows him, he certainly will be successful in his career. No matter how many podcasts or videos I watch, I never feel bored while seeing him. Very, very, very nice.

Thank you so much. A lot of kind comments today. Thank you. It's very nice. Helps my motivation to keep going. Take care of your health. I am. I'm feeling good.

Yeah, Gabrielle says, oh, the beard is new for me. It's just for those winters. It was cold and dark, and I just stopped shaving. I will be shaving it next week.

Yeah, okay, here's a good point. Vladislav says, I read an article today. U.S. schools have been canceled for a while due to the coronavirus, correct? Correct.

Parents complain, what to do with kids? Kids are not learning. I know some crazy parents, when they studied, they studied so-so, didn't like school, and still they send their kids to school. Yeah, right.

I mean, like they, you know, this is this kind of, this is what school creates, guys. This is one of the things I hate about it. It's because it trains people to be passive. So yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of parents who are just like, what do we do?

You know, like, it just takes like the tiniest bit of thinking to figure it out. How to teach your kids some things, right? I mean, especially with the internet, it's so easy.

Just get online and look around and you'll find some things, find a curriculum. I mean, at the worst, you can just follow... The textbooks from your kid's school, you could start doing that at least. That's easy.

You already have the books. I wouldn't recommend that long term, but for right now you could do that until you find something you like better. So that's it. I mean, it's not really very complicated.

But yeah, people get a little lazy about it. Yeah, Aberdemani says, do or die. I like this phrase. And that's where the, probably the homeschool or die phrase comes from.

The true English idiom is do or die. Do or die. Supin Surin, good to see you in Thailand. Nice. Yeah, here's a nice quote. Abramani again has a nice quote from John Taylor Gatto.

Schools divorce kids from parental control. Yeah, school creates, school makes the family weaker by getting between parents and the kids. It weakens the relationship between parents and kids. It weakens the authority of parents in their children's eyes.

Very, very bad. Yeah, like I was talking about independent learning. Independent learning is the best thing I'm doing now with your video and your podcast. It's really enjoyable and I never get bored.

Right. Exactly. Tina says, here in Iraq, everything's closed. I think about everywhere is all being closed down. The world economy is stopping. Hopefully not too long.

Why did you decide to do Facebook this time? I thought you're a strong opponent to social media. Yeah, I am. But YouTube's just as bad. Google is horrible.

So... What are my choices right now? You know, Facebook's bad. They're a terrible company. Google is probably much worse. It's hard to say. They're both pretty bad.

Yeah, I'm still waiting. I'm waiting for a nice replacement that will have a good live streaming capability. Now, I am looking at a couple. There is one called DLive.

D-L-I-V-E. DLive.com, I think. that looks like it might have some potential, I may try doing some streaming on that one. It's not a Silicon Valley. It's Chinese-owned, I think, which is not perfect, but at least it's not Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley is still worse than Communist China, surprisingly, but I'd say they are far worse. So, you know, and I'm hoping BitChute, says they're developing a live stream ability but it's not ready yet maybe Gab will develop some kind of live streaming that would be my first choice if they do it but you know so for now I'll use what I I'll rotate around I'll use YouTube and Facebook and use them until something better comes and hopefully that will be soon so no it's a good question

Okay, Azad says, please talk about the coronavirus. I am going to talk about the coronavirus. I'm going to read a quote right now from the Bhagavad Gita. It says, just surrender.

Okay, this is God talking. The Bhagavad Gita. Just surrender unto me. Do not fear. Just surrender unto me. This is right at the end of the Bhagavad Gita.

And this is God summarizing his message. And this is the message. Surrender to me. Surrender to God. And do not fear. Now you will find. So that's the Bhagavad Gita.

Beautiful. And one second. Da da da da da da da da da da da da. Okay, one second. Oh, one second, guys. This is going to take a minute. But anyway, let's just talk about that, and then I'll do another quote.

Do not fear. So, that's my message to you. Do not fear. I've been saying this on YouTube and during my show and my podcast. Do not fear and be prepared.

You know, just do your best to be prepared. That's all. You don't have to be afraid. I think most of this... You're not going to die, okay? You're not going to die, okay?

But there's going to be this panic. Obviously, there's all this economic stuff right now, crashes in the stock market, and people are running to the grocery store, right? Okay, but don't fear. Just don't fear.

Prepare, you know, yeah, buy some extra supplies in case you can't get any groceries for a while. You might need to have enough food for a few months in your house. That would be a good idea.

In case you can't get out much. Be healthy. Just keep your general health up. But don't fear. There's no need to be crazy afraid of this. It's not that bad.

Okay. Okay, so that's my general thoughts on coronavirus. Watch my recent videos, by the way. Just looking something up really quick, sorry. Yeah, okay, here's a nice, this is what I was looking for, the Bible quote.

about fear. So, here are a few Bible quotes about fear. Isaiah 35.4 Be strong. Do not fear. God will come. He will come with vengeance, with divine retribution.

He will come to save you. Joshua 1.9 Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

And there are many more. You get the idea. So there we have the Gita and the Bible. Don't fear. Don't fear. Don't fear. You're going to be fine. You're going to be fine.

And again, like I said, I was kind of talking with some YouTube supporting members yesterday. See it as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to do extra online learning, right? Focus on your English more.

Opportunity to do homeschooling if you have kids. Opportunity to spend more time with your family. Opportunity to learn about disaster preparation and things like that, which is a good topic to learn about.

So you'll be all right. You'll be okay. We're all going to be fine. Taufik says, the special one is here again. Good to see you. I thought that was Mourinho was the special one.

Hey Khalifi, good to see you too. Yeah, like Burwa says, I think homeschooling is the best way to have more contact between parents and their children and parents can understand their children. Yes, closer relationship between parents and children. In general, homeschooling families have closer relationships with each other.

Also between brothers and sisters, they have a better relationship in general. Tomasz says in Poland, we have two weeks of school closed. See, it is an opportunity. I celebrate.

School sucks. So if school's closed, that's a good thing. is a benefit of the coronavirus this is not a bad result this is a benefit i imagine a lot of kids feel the same way i imagine a lot of children are celebrating no school yay i would have when i was a kid if school was canceled whenever anytime school was canceled like because of snow usually snow oh man it was a party it was so i was so so happy so i imagine this is a great thing

Yeah, like Lisa says, one of the gifts of this viral hysteria is that parents can try how homeschooling works. I agree. This is a great benefit of the coronavirus is that lots of people can do it.

Deadman Wonderland says, does homeschooling cost a lot of money? No, it can be free. It's up to you. I mean, you can. I'm sure there are some expensive curricula out there.

But... You can also just do everything yourself. Just use the library, and it can be totally and completely free. So, no, it's not expensive. Abraham Ali, hello to you.

Good to see you. Yeah, Jaker says the same thing. Coronavirus is a great chance for us to get more experience in homeschooling. Cute child picture there.

It's an obligation, in fact. Good, good. Khalid says, do parents make the best teachers? Absolutely. Absolutely they do. 100%. Oh, yeah, Pauline, going back to the question someone else had.

Couch surfing is a good way to practice English with locals. Yeah, it's also a cheap way to travel. I think there's couchsurfing.com or just do a search online, couch surfing. Surfing like in the water, right?

Couch, like something you sit on. And this means basically you can stay with people cheaply or often for free when you travel around. And it is a great way to connect with local people, talk to them. Yes, indeed.

Good suggestion. Dalal says, Yeah, homemade is better, right? I agree. Oh yeah, Lisa says I can't fly to America to visit my friends. Now's not the best time for an international vacation.

All the flights are closing. Yeah, here's a good, Sam has an example of school, kind of a I remember being in third grade of high school, having a history of Poland lesson. I was prepared for the test.

After the test, a history teacher gave me an F. She told me I was cheating, that I memorized pages from a book. She could not believe that I acquired that knowledge. I was extremely angry. Since then, I hated her and school.

Exactly. The whole grading thing is so stupid. Honestly. I remember in high school... just realizing suddenly in a class that my teacher and the textbook were wrong.

They were just teaching either lies, I don't know if they knew they were wrong, or they were just realizing that this is bullshit. It's because as a kid in high school, I've mentioned before, I was kind of into these history games and gaming, kind of a geek, but

As a result, I started reading books about World War II history and Greek history and military history and reading books by, you know, like generals that were in the war and all these kind of things. So I learned a lot about it just by doing that. And so then in history class, they're teaching things that I knew were wrong from doing all that extra reading.

You know, it's that kind of thing. And you realize, oh man, school's not very good. Yeah, like Vladislav with a similar point. Most school teachers are not that good.

Correct. I had a terrible geography teacher for the last two school years. She gave us tests with questions we could not even find in the textbook. It seemed to be tests for advanced geography learners.

She yelled at us because we wrote badly these kinds of tests. Kind of a power thing, right, that she was doing. For years after graduation, she retired. She seems to be doing some stupid things.

In the Russian social web... Oh yeah, VKontakte. Kind of like Russian Facebook, right? She invited me to play some stupid and meaningless and long games with thousands of levels.

Right. There are a lot of idiots in the school system working as teachers or administrators. Just the truth, guys. Yeah, Jamie says my kids attend Montessori school.

I've heard good things about Montessori. I have. It's private school. It's quite different than the classic traditional stuff. I've heard good things about it.

I haven't actually done it myself or looked into it in detail, but I have heard good things about it. Thomas says, in my opinion, now is the best time for fasting in Europe. I'm planning to start. I have enough healthy food, but I'll start with fasting.

now with quiet time at home c this is another way to look at it in a very positive way and fasting improves your immune system fasting will help you have a stronger immune system so you don't get sick so that's a great if you're if you're fat it's a good way to lose some fat and uh If you're worried about your immune system and being healthy, it's a great way to bring up your immune system by doing some fasting.

And if you're worried about groceries, well, you can stretch your groceries if you're doing some fasting. So, all in all, yes. A great opportunity. Here's Tata Rosina.

Good to see you again. What parents actually should do is teach their kids to love the learning process. Yes. Yes. Like that, your kids will need your help and support only several years.

Then they will keep moving independently. Sounds cool. No, that's exactly what happens in homeschooling. If you do it well, that, of course, at a young, young age, they need you to do a lot of direct teaching.

I've got babies that are one years old. They can't read books independently yet, right? But by teaching them to read, teaching them to love learning, to love reading...

then yes, at a fairly young age, they will become more and more and more independent. Certainly by middle school age, your kids at home, you don't have to do much. They will be doing like 90% of it independently. And you're there to guide a little bit and check on them and maybe a little.

But as they get older each year, they become more and more and more and more self-motivated independent, which is one of the great benefits of homeschooling. They learn to be the boss of their own learning. They're not passive.

They're active learners. Very good. Abraham Ali, can you do another book by John Taylor Gatto? He has a book called The Underground History of American Education.

I want to hate schools more. Yeah, we could. I'll see. Maybe we'll do another one. This is a common thing. This is what everybody always brings up. This must be some kind of propaganda because everybody asks the same question.

Do homeschool kids lack social contacts? No. Number one, the best social contacts for kids are adults, not kids the same age. Kids the same age, they don't learn anything useful from.

But they learn a lot from adults in their life especially, of course, parents and their siblings, their brothers and sisters. And then, of course, if your home is going, it doesn't mean you do nothing. They can do sports.

They can do all kinds of activities. And, of course, just in their local neighborhood, have friends. So there are plenty of opportunities still for social life.

School is a terrible place to learn social skills. They learn bullying, mostly. Okay, a couple more. I'm late, but I send you my optimism. Everything will be fine.

This is another big challenge for all of us. In the end, we will be stronger than before this panic. Indeed. Let other people panic. I don't really think that people are panicking.

I think that's a media thing. I don't see any panic in Japan. None. Nobody's panicking here. Nobody. Everybody's totally chilled out and relaxed. There's zero panic here, right?

It's the media. They're saying people are panicking just because they're buying a lot of stuff at the grocery store. That's not panic. That's preparation.

That's kind of smart to do. If you think that everything's being closed, right? They're closing schools. They're closing lots of companies and things.

If you're worried that everything's being closed, if you're worried that maybe you know, the groceries might get closed for a while, then, yeah, it's smart to buy extra supplies. The only problem is everyone's trying to do it now. It's a little late to do it now.

You know, this is why I said this is a good thing to learn from this experience. Because in the future, you should always, always, always in your house have three months, at least three months of food stored. You know, it could just be bags of rice and canned food, whatever. But

Learn from this so that in the future, you don't have to worry to buy everything when everyone else is also trying to buy, okay? But I don't call that panic. It's just bad preparation, okay? It's late preparation where everybody's rushing, right?

But panic is when people are, you know, and they're just out of control. So I don't see anybody out of control, certainly not in Japan. And when I talk to my family in America, nobody's panicked. Nobody's panicked.

Nobody's crazy and going crazy. The media is always going to try to find a few people who are the most foolish, the most emotional, and they'll put them on the TV, try to make everybody think that there's a big panic. I don't think there really is. Certainly not...

Nowhere that I know is panicking. Maybe somewhere. But just relax, okay? Prepare. If you can, buy extra stuff at the grocery store, especially food. And by the way, for your hands, soap is good, okay?

You don't have to have alcohol. Just regular soap for washing your hands. That's great. And then relax. You're ready. That's it. Yeah, like Iter says, self-learning is the best way to get valuable information.

In any topic, exactly. You have to be driven and motivated yourself. Then it's much more effective. I know my life, you know, when I've been passive, as a passive learner, you know, just in school, I usually learn stuff, take a test, and then forget most of it.

But when I'm motivated myself to learn it, and to figure it out, then I... then I remember it and use it in real life. Okay, maybe a couple more. Oh, in Egypt, they had to close because of bad weather, raining.

And everyone was happy. And there was much rejoicing. Kalifi says, Fear is the mind killer. Independent learners and leaders must be brave in tough times.

That's well said. This is also an opportunity to practice faith. Practice faith. And relax. It's going to be okay. Hey, Mikel, in Myanmar. I want to go to Myanmar.

I haven't been yet, but I want to go. Matteo says, hello from Italy. I'm not contagious. Nice. All right, a couple more and then I'm going to go. What time is it?

Oh, yeah, I got to go. I've got babies to take care of. Meditation helps. Marvin recommends. Marvin Ramirez. Meditation helps in many different ways. Yes, meditation is great.

I agree. Meditation is fantastic. It's great. It could be something else to do. Practice the meditation now. Califi says, in Spain they close the schools and they forbid all crowded meetings.

People wait with impatience to follow this act, especially kids. Yeah, so, you know, here's the thing. The good Taoist way to approach all this is to go with it and to just find the good in it instead of don't be afraid, don't be angry, because there's nothing you can do about it right now.

It's beyond our individual control, even if you think it's total nonsense. they're still canceling they're still doing all this stuff so um instead just find the good in it right find the good in it like i said it's a if you're a parent it's an opportunity to try homeschooling uh it's an opportunity to do more reading at home it's an opportunity to do a lot more hours of english every day it's an opportunity to relax at home more with your family to be home with your family more uh

If you eat at restaurants a lot, it's an opportunity to learn some cooking and to cook more at home. It's an opportunity to work on your house, fix your house, clean your house, paint it, make it nice. All these things. These are all opportunities.

It's an opportunity to practice survival skills, disaster skills. Because while I don't think this one's so dangerous, in the future, there might be a dangerous disaster in your city. Right? Again, like I mentioned on YouTube, that, you know, I live in Japan.

They have earthquakes. Now, that scares me. Okay, I've been in a few small earthquakes. No big damage, but it's a scary feeling to be in a tall building and it starts moving and shaking.

You know, it's not a good feeling. It's a really, really, really scary feeling. That scares me. We get big earthquakes in Japan. So... I look at this coronavirus as kind of a nice test of disaster preparation.

So I can think like, okay, if there was no food, if there was no water, if there was no power right now for several months, what would we do? What do we need to keep in our apartment? What if we had to leave the apartment? What if there's an earthquake and it damages the building and we have to leave, we have to go to another city?

How would we do that with our children? and survive? What if it was in the middle of winter and it was super cold? Then what supplies do I need? How can I keep everybody alive?

How can we survive in a disaster like that, right? So the coronavirus is actually a very mild, very minor, very small version of that. And many of you live in earthquake areas or potentially fire. Like in California, they get the giant fires, right?

that can come very fast. Or a flood or a tsunami, like a flood. They mentioned Egypt is getting huge amounts of rain. If you live in an area like that, it might just suddenly, the water can rise very fast.

So anyway, these kind of disasters can happen. And so it's just good to learn the basic skills and think about your strategies so that you're ready. You're always prepared for that. So if something does happen and it really is bad,

Again, you don't need to panic. You're prepared. You thought about it already. You prepared before. So you're ready. You're going to be okay. You'll survive.

So that's another opportunity we have now. It's a good lesson for all of us to think about these things. It is funny how toilet paper is one of the ones that everybody buys like crazy.

You can always do the Indian method if you have to. Left hand. All right, guys. Time to go. Oh, here's someone who does homeschooling. I want to, who answers the question.

So I'm going to finish with this one. Hey, Sriracha. Good to see you, by the way. My kids have plenty of social life between sports, library time, physical education with homeschooling groups, et cetera, et cetera, says Jenny Corso.

Thank you, Jenny. There you go. Exactly. There's plenty to do, right? Like, how do you have a social life? You're not in school. What's your social life, right?

Do all your friends... Is your social life focused on school? Or is your social... If you're working at a job, are all your friends at work? How do you make friends?

Well, you do things. You go out to activities. You have clubs in your neighborhood. There are a huge number of ways to have a social life and connect with people.

You take... Sports, whatever, right? I mean, that's what adults do. That's what most people do. So do the same with your kids. It's easy. All right, guys.

Lots of love to you all, as always. Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Join today at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Today's Friday, so tomorrow is our book club.

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