From the Homeschool Front … Unschooling by Colleen Hroncich

In their early years of life, children learn to sit, stand, walk, talk, and scribble. They learn the names of people in their family. They’re insatiable learners—exploring their universes with endless curiosity. They do all of this without sitting in classrooms.

But once they turn 5 or 6, society seems to think they can’t or won’t learn independently anymore. Kids are put in classrooms at younger and younger ages. The nation’s largest teachers’ union wants the government to mandate full-day kindergarten for every 5 year old. How long before their call for universal preschool also becomes a mandate?

It seems that people have lost sight of the importance of free play when it comes to children learning. I first realized this when my oldest daughter was in school. We’d chosen a small, family-oriented, academically focused, Catholic school for our kids. While there was a lot we liked about the school’s atmosphere, I was troubled by the lack of free time for the children. With so much time structured, how would kids learn to cooperate, share, regulate their own behavior, and think creatively? 

Eventually we switched to homeschooling, in large part to gain control over our lives. We wanted more flexibility and more family time. We wanted our kids to become independent and to love learning. We didn’t want to replicate school at home; we wanted to embrace learning in our home.

I hadn’t heard of unschooling back then, so I described our approach as “eclectic.” I didn’t use a formal curriculum other than for math. My kids learned history through books, videos, trips to museums, and discussions. They learned to write by writing—blogs, letters, stories, and even books. My oldest entered essay contests for fun and won thousands of dollars and a trip to NYC—now the other kids follow her lead. They enjoy writing, which I think is at least partly due to the freedom they’ve had. 

Speech and debate has helped educate them in a number of ways. The research and writing skills they’ve acquired are transferrable to any field. Despite our casual approach to science in the lower grades, they’ve done quite well in college science classes as high schoolers. I think this is because they’re inquisitive and know how to think, research, and communicate. 

I now know that our approach to homeschooling is often called unschooling or child-directed learning. It focuses on actual learning rather than checking off the boxes of school. More and more people are beginning to embrace unschooling. There are even unschooling “schools,” where kids have access to things like labs, workshops, apprenticeships, and art studios.

In a typical school—with a rigid curriculum, emphasis on grades and standardized tests, and students whose parents might not understand the concept—it might seem tough to embrace the idea of unschooling. However, finding ways to give students some freedom amid all the rules and layers of bureaucracy can help them take ownership of their education. If we want creative thinkers and problem solvers in future generations, we need to give them some freedom now.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front … CyberPatriot by Colleen Hroncich

When my 15-year-old daughter asked if we could start a CyberPatriot team, my initial thought was “No.” It’s not that I didn’t support the idea. I learned about CyberPatriot several years ago. Sponsored by the Air Force Association, it sounded like an amazing program. Kids form teams, learn about cyber security, and work in online competitions to find and fix security flaws in virtual machines. 

The reason I wanted to say “No” when my daughter asked was that I know next to nothing about the inner workings of computers. Like any mom who wants to push off a major decision, I told my daughter “I’ll think about it.” Like any experienced daughter, she knew that meant “probably not.”

My kids know I like them to take initiative. We have a busy life. If they wait for me to make things happen for them, they’re going to miss out on some opportunities. So my daughter asked if she could contact a computer science professor at a local college to see if he’d serve as a mentor if we started a team. To my surprise, he immediately agreed.

In addition to finding a mentor, my daughter recruited 5 other kids to join her team. The mentor met with us and helped us understand the concepts involved in the competition. He showed the kids which training modules would be most important for the initial competition round. 

My daughter and I have worked together on the training modules. I now understand why websites insist on such elaborate passwords. An 8-character password with only numbers can be cracked in under one second. Add lower and upper case letters and symbols, and it’ll take up to three weeks to hack. If you bump up to 9 characters, it’ll take 5 years to crack. At 10 characters, your password is safe for up to 526 years!

The CyberPatriot program is giving my daughter and her teammates useful skills that will help them secure their own devices. It’s also exposing them to potential careers that won’t be going away anytime soon. Happily, we’re getting these benefits with little expense and a lot of flexibility. The competitions are online, so we don’t have to travel to a distant tournament site. And they can be completed at our convenience within a 6-hour window during a specified weekend.

My daughter is also learning responsibility and leadership as she tries to plan meetings that will accommodate the schedules of multiple homeschool families and a college professor. 

I’m very happy my daughter wasn’t discouraged by my “I’ll think about it” response. CyberPatriot has been a learning experience for us both. It’s definitely worth looking into for your students.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front by Colleen Hroncich...100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know

I’ve always been interested in law, history, economics, and politics. So when I saw a book titled An Introduction to Constitutional Law: 100 Supreme Court Cases Everyone Should Know, I was immediately intrigued. By a stroke of luck, I was in Washington, DC recently when the authors were giving speaking about their book and the multimedia platform behind it.

Randy Barnett, professor at Georgetown Law and Director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, and Josh Blackman, professor at South Texas School of Law, developed An Introduction to Constitutional Law to innovate how constitutional law is studied.

Purchasing the book gives you access to an online library of 63 videos featuring photographs, maps, and even audio from the Supreme Court that bring the 100 cases to life. Blackman says he uses the platform to flip his classroom; the students read the chapters and watch the videos before coming to class. Then he can focus class time on discussing the importance of the decisions and really digging deep into the issues at play.

The book is roughly chronological, but it’s primarily organized around key constitutional principles, such as enumerated powers, federalism, equal protection, and specific constitutional rights. Since it includes background and supporting information for each case, the program also provides a great history and civics education.  

The authors emphasized that the book is meant to be widely accessible. While it is great for law students, it is equally valuable for high school and college students. Given our participation in speech and debate, I correctly assumed my kids would be pretty interested when I showed them the book and the video library. We’ve only just begun digging into it.

Barnett describes the book as “an overarching story [constitutional law] about 100 individual stories [the cases].” He says the best way to understand the story, which starts at the founding and continues to the present, is to learn about them in the historical context in which they were decided. 

With most Americans lacking even basic knowledge about our constitution, this program could be an important step toward improving constitutional literacy. 

PS from izzit.org – Randy Barnett is one of the Constitutional experts in our new video, Becoming Equal Under the Law, which explores how the Constitution has changed over the years to give civil rights to more people. Watch it now!

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front … Online learning aids by Colleen Hroncich

Home educators today are incredibly lucky. Homeschooling is increasingly embraced by society; there are numerous homeschool clubs, co-ops, sports leagues, and more; and many colleges have adopted flexible admissions guidelines that allow them to evaluate homeschoolers individually. However, the thing that I am most frequently thankful for as a home educator is the internet. 

It never ceases to amaze me how many online learning options there are today, many of which are free or very low cost. The most well-known of these is probably Khan Academy, which includes thousands of videos covering math, science, history, civics, and more. These videos are great supplements to other curricula and are particularly helpful to students who are struggling in specific areas. Skill checks are built into the courses so students can focus on areas where they need extra work.  In recent years, Khan Academy has partnered with the College Board to produce prep courses for the SAT and AP exams.

There are also online options to help you learn or improve at a foreign language. Duolingo’s website and app allow you to learn a language for free. Many libraries subscribe to language-learning sites like Mango Languages – you just need to enter your library card number to create an account. Rosetta Stone, Babbel, and Rocket Language are some of the fee-based sites. While these online learning options won’t have the same structure as a language course in school, they can help you become conversational, improve your pronunciation, and build your vocabulary.

For students who are interested in computer programming, online options abound. Codecademy has free and fee-based courses in multiple computer languages. We haven’t tried code.org, which is free, but I’ve heard good things about it. Scratch and Scratch Jr. are geared toward younger kids to get them used to the language and structure of coding. Khan Academy also includes computer programming courses.  

If your older students are interested in history and civics, Hillsdale College has tremendous online courses at no charge. Offerings include U.S. History, the Constitution, Literature, and Economics. Liberty Classroom is a fee-based option that covers Economics, History (U.S. and Western Civilization), and logic. Many other sites, including banks and financial service firms, offer free or low cost financial and stock market courses.

Whether you’re a homeschooler or a teacher in a public or private school, these tools can open new horizons for your students … and for you. I’ve taken advantage of several online classes with my kids and on my own. These days the biggest problem is choosing which ones to take given the numerous options and limited time.

I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to online learning options. If you have other suggestions of courses you’ve used, please share them in the comment section.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front … How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Seventeen years ago, I left a career as a research analyst at a local public policy think tank to stay home with my first child. Our plan was that I would return to work once our youngest child was in school. When we started homeschooling, this plan fell by the wayside. Since my children are getting more independent in their schooling, I would like to get back into policy research part time from home. However, my time at home with them left me with a tremendous gap in my resume. This summer I had the opportunity to bridge that gap.

I worked as a Research Fellow at the Commonwealth Foundation, Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank. This involved moving across the state for the summer, which I was able to do since my husband works from home and my oldest daughter has her license. It is a very strange experience to go from being a homeschooling mother of four to being single and childless and working full time. As you can imagine, it was a learning experience for us all.

For my part, I had a chance to immerse myself in research and writing, which I love to do. I also learned about various public policies, networking, social media, and more. Most participants in the program were recent graduates, so it was interesting to see their perspective on different topics. Much of what I learned will help my kids, too, as they prepare for college and beyond. In the coming months, I’ll share on this blog some of the resources that I discovered.

My summer away was also a great learning experience for my children, who range in age from 11 – 17. They were responsible for their own laundry and were largely in charge of meals and grocery shopping. They coordinated their own schedules (with approval from my husband or me) and had to stay on top of their activities and outings. While they enjoyed the Independence at first, by the end of the summer they were ready to have me running the show again. (Although I think I’ll let them continue doing their own laundry. I’ve enjoyed laundry for one instead of six this summer!)

While the practical lessons we learned this summer were important, the biggest benefits were perhaps less tangible. I gained a new appreciation for being able to stay home and raise my children. It wasn’t the best financial move, but the time I’ve had with them has been worth the struggles. My Research Fellow participation also set a good example for them. It can be scary to try something new, such as moving away for the summer and being the only “old” person in the program. It was beneficial for my kids to see me overcome my trepidation and successfully complete the program.

A common theme among most homeschoolers is that education isn’t confined to what our society thinks of as “school.” Last summer was certainly evidence of that for my family.   

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front...Frederic Bastiat by Colleen Hroncich

One of the perks of homeschooling is that I get to learn alongside my children. Not long ago we studied Frederic Bastiat, a French economist and statesman who lived from 1801-1850. He had a tremendous ability to use analogies from daily life to explain economic phenomena.

One of his most important essays was “That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen.” Here Bastiat explains that we must evaluate an action not just by looking at the immediate – or seen – effects. We must also examine the subsequent – or unseen – effects from the action.

This, he notes, is the difference between a good economist and a bad economist: “the one takes account of the visible effect; the other takes account both of the effects which are seen and also of those which it is necessary to foresee.” We witness this frequently in the political world. Politicians love to gain votes by supporting laws that seem to be beneficial one group or another. They rarely worry about the future consequences of their actions, knowing they’ll be gone when it comes time to pay the piper.

Let’s face it, though, we can see the same thing right within our own homes. If we use a credit card to go on a fantastic family vacation, we might be paying for it for years to come. Every year millions of people take on a huge debt burden buying Christmas gifts for everyone on their lists. Some are probably still paying it off when the next Christmas comes around. It can be easy to whip out a credit card in the heat of the moment, but we need to look ahead and see what the long term effects of that swipe will be.

When it comes to raising children, the same principle applies. Sometimes it is easier for me to just clean up a mess than to corral my kids and get them to finish the job. The seen effect of me doing the work is that the mess gets cleaned up more quickly. The unseen effect is that I’ve missed the chance to teach my children to clean up after themselves … thus ensuring future messes left for me.


Whether dealing with economics, politics, or home life, considering the unseen effects of an action can save a lot of problems down the road.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front...Competitive Speaking by Colleen Hroncich

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals in educating my children at home is to raise adults who can think critically. While there are many tools that I use to help accomplish this objective, competitive speech and debate probably tops the list. Whether you are a professional teacher, a homeschooler, or a concerned parent, I urge you to look into speech and debate opportunities for your children/students.

The most obvious benefit of competitive speaking is that the kids become better public speakers. (Duh, you’re probably thinking!) No one who knew my oldest daughter in elementary school ever would have predicted that in her sophomore year she’d be top speaker out of 56 debaters at a tournament drawing kids from throughout New England. My younger kids have followed her lead and are better public speakers (at ages 14, 12, and 10) than many adults.

While public speaking proficiency is important, the ability to analyze what they read, look at issues from multiple sides, draw conclusions based on in-depth research, quickly evaluate a question or argument and formulate a response, and remain friends with opponents after a heated debate are equally valuable takeaways from speech and debate. Although I must admit that it can be disconcerting when your child spots the flaws in your reasoning and calls you on it!

If you’re a homeschooler, there are several leagues you can consider: NCFCA, Stoa, and CCA are three with which I’m familiar. For teachers at public or private schools the leagues I know of are NSDA and NCFL. Homeschoolers can form teams in NCFL (we did that this year), but they have to go through their local public school to compete in NSDA. Different leagues are more popular in various regions of the country.


If you’d like more information, please let me know in the comments. If I don’t know the answer to your questions, I can probably direct you to someone who does.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front...Life Skills by Colleen Hroncich

Life skills. Way back in the old days, parents and grandparents passed life skills on to the younger generations. Basic carpentry, plumbing, home repairs, sewing, food preservation, and more were common knowledge to most people. Not anymore. These days it is a challenge to find someone with one of these skills – much less all of them.

Several years ago it occurred to me that neither my husband nor I had any of these life skills. How would we pass them on to our kids when we didn’t possess them ourselves? Moreover, with the school calendar ruling our lives, how would we ever find the time for the kids to learn them from someone else? This problem was one of the initial motivators in our decision to begin educating our children at home.

Of course, having the kids at home didn’t solve the problem of us not having the skills to pass on to them. For that we’ve had to use outside resources. Fortunately, in the homeschool world these skills aren’t so hard to find. Friends of ours have given our kids lessons in sewing, knitting, gardening, and construction. My son was able to help the contractor who finished our basement and learned how to frame walls, hang drywall, and install electrical boxes (although we won’t let him try that one on his own!). He and I went on to build beds for him and my daughter – we even added a bookcase headboard to his.

My girls weren’t too interested in carpentry work; the culinary arts appeal to them. They’ve taken classes in cooking, canning, and gardening. My oldest daughter takes on meal planning and preparation a few days a month, and her sister wants to follow suit. (I don’t like to cook, so it works for me!)

We still have a long ways to go before I can say my kids are proficient at these life skills. But at least we’re farther down the road than we were a few years ago.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

From the Homeschool Front …Why Homeschool? by Colleen Hroncich

I never expected to homeschool my kids. Growing up, I only knew of one homeschooling family … and let’s just say they were considered a bit odd. My oldest was in 6th grade and my youngest was in kindergarten when we decided to make the switch. We had a bit of a bumpy start, but 5 years later we’re still at it. 

I love the freedom and flexibility that go along with homeschooling. We control our own schedules. We set our own school calendar. Learning is woven into every part of our lives, not relegated to “school” hours. When people hear I homeschool 4 kids, they frequently say that sounds stressful. Strangely, in many ways our lives are less stressful than when the kids were “in school.” No more packing lunches, hectic mornings trying to get to the bus stop, or chaotic nights trying to finish homework. 

One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling is that each child can work at his or her own pace – slowing down or speeding up depending on the material. This individualized pacing is difficult to replicate in the classroom, although technology is bringing more flexible options to “brick and mortar” schools, too. 

Educating our children at home also lets us expose them to many points of view. We want to raise critical thinkers – adults who see through talking points and challenge conventional wisdom. We don’t want parrots … even if they’re parroting our own ideas. This variety of viewpoints, and the freedom to question them, is essential to developing critical thinkers.

Homeschooling certainly has its challenges. I’m the teacher, disciplinarian, bus driver, scheduler, cafeteria worker, and more. The house is messier than it would be if they were at school all day. There is a lot of togetherness (which can be a pro or a con, depending on the day). But the benefits – to our family as a whole, to each child individually, and to us as parents – strongly outweigh the costs. 

Our kids know they can stop homeschooling if they want. The fact that they stick with it tells me I’m doing the right thing for them.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

New Orleans: Culture and Conferences by Nick Liberatore

New Orleans is a city of intriguing culture. Most recently it was site of the largest social studies conference in the country held by the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS).  It’s a city in which a Thursday can be the reason for celebration, where parades break out in the middle of the street, and bands perform jazz ensembles outside of the local oyster bar.

My name is Nick Liberatore, and after working with izzit.org for a little over a year now, the opportunity to see first-hand how something like this works was refreshing.  From an action civics card game designed to teach kids how to incite change in their community to businesses that help teachers organize trips for students, educational prowess was on display.  At izzit.org, we focus on helping teachers on a strict budget get the resources they need to effectively teach by engaging children with respectful debate using critical thinking, and the need for this was apparent as well. 

  And who doesn't love free stuff? Teachers were, to say the least, grateful for anything that they need not pay for out of pocket! 

You can tell right away from talking to the teachers at the conference teach because they love it, and that is extremely important.  With the newest smart devices from watches to phones, keeping the attention of children can be a challenge, and one that all teachers recognized. 

Attending the NCSS conference was an interesting opportunity for me. Getting to meet teachers and hearing what they had to say about izzit.org was helpful and enlightening. Even better, I was able to share with a lot of teachers who'd never heard about us.

For those who already knew, we offered some lagniappe in the form of extra free DVDs and other conference swag. 

Next year's NCSS conference will be held Dec. 2 - 4, 2016 in Washington, D.C. We'll be there, and hopefully we'll see some of you there, too.

Nick Liberatore

Keeping Our Customers Happy!

You probably know that teachers and homeschoolers across the country use izzit.org DVDs and other teaching materials. What you may not know about is our fabulous customer service team, based in Erie, PA, who make sure our customers get what they need. Below are some sample emails from educators about our customer service.

How sweet of you to email me back with all that wonderful information! Honestly, I thought my email would go into some database, and may never be read! I can't tell you enough how your willingness to share resources and assistance is appreciated! I look forward to checking out those websites.

Thank you again! :)

Lockport, NY

Joye, thank you for your correspondence. Fortunately, I have recently retired from many years at a wonderful, small town school. My school email has been "banished." Your service has been impressive and useful. I have and will continue to inform my teaching associates of your services. Many thanks for your excellent programs.

Eunice, LA

Finally, all is well and thank you for all your help. I ordered a new DVD and it was difficult to choose....so many must haves. Currently I use Pennies a Day every semester. The students get it! I do appreciate this source of educational materials. Money is so tight and free new items are welcome from the educator as well as from the student. Maybe especially the student! 

Respectfully, 

Middletown, IN

This email was sent to us by mistake- the teacher meant to forward one of our marketing emails to a friend. Customer service wrote back to tell him of his error and thank him for the referral, and he was very happy to hear from us, but had already corrected himself. The new release in the marketing email was Monkey Business.

Saw this new release thought you might be able to use it. If you register with this company you can get one free DVD a year as long as you evaluate it. They are very inexpensive even if you buy them and usually pretty good.

Falmouth, KY

So, anytime you have a question, concern, or problem with your izzit.org materials, call or email us. We'll take good care of you! (We also, as you see above, love to hear good things, too!)
We especially appreciate your recommendations to other educators you know.

If you or anyone you know, is interested in FREE educational materials, have them come create an account with us here. We have much more than just free DVDs, and we're creating new membership options for this fall. We help educators promote critical thinking among students in their classrooms and at home.

You're About to Enter...The Teaching Zone by Susan Gable

(Cue the scary music!)

Imagine, if you will...a classroom filled with enrapt, engaged, enthralled students, hanging on your every word...

Too much of a stretch? Sound like an alternate dimension? Is it more likely they’re sneaking peeks at tech when they’re not supposed to be, or trying to explain why they didn’t turn in their homework? And you’re busy trying to be sure all the free lunch forms have been turned in, and the emergency contact cards, and master the new curriculum, along with the new Learning Management System, and don’t forget, there’s a staff meeting after school next week?

Yep. Being a teacher is a lot of hard work. There’s a LOT to handle. That’s why we here at izzit.org like to do what we can to make your life easier, be it through our free DVDs, our new streaming access to all our videos, online quizzes, or the thorough teacher’s guides we create. We know you’re busy.

The Teaching Zone is going to be a new spot for you to get ideas from your fellow educators, from teachers to homeschoolers, from New York to California, from public school to private to cyber. We’ll have book reviews, classroom activities, posts about new trends in education, new apps and software for you to use – all sorts of things.

And if you want to talk/learn about it, and you don’t see us posting about it, feel free to drop me an email and tell me what you’d like to see.

This is an education space.

So...let’s talk teaching, in all its variations.

Welcome back, and I hope you have a fantastic 2015-16 school year!

Susan Gable is the Director of Educational Curriculum at izzit.org. She holds a BA in Psychology from Douglas College/Rutgers University and is a certified elementary teacher in 3 states, with ten years of classroom experience. She’s a multi-published, award-winning author who also teaches writing workshops. Email her at Susan AT izzit.org.