🛠️ Tools & Resources

Ivy Kids:
A digital learning platform offering educational videos, games, and activities for young children to develop literacy, math, and critical thinking skills.
Type: Activity Kit – Ages: Pre-school to Grade 3 – Info: Secular – Cost: Paid (Varies according to subscription)

Beginning Painting Set:
A complete art kit with DVDs, paints, brushes, and paper for learning watercolor, acrylic, and oil painting. Suitable for ages 6+ (watercolor/acrylic) and 10+ (oil).
Type: Videos – Ages: 6 through adult – Info: Secular – Cost: Paid ($63.95)

Around the World in 180 Days:
A full-year (180-day) geography curriculum covering world cultures for grades 4–12. Includes flexible reading and activity options for different ages.
Type: Books/Courses – Ages: All Ages – Info: Faith-based – Cost: $7.88–$31.95

Christ and the Americas:
Junior high/high school U.S. history textbook blending Catholic and general historical events. Uses storytelling to make history engaging and meaningful.
Type: Books – Ages: Grades 7–10 – Info: Faith-based – Cost: $15–$25

Journey Homeschool Academy:
Journey Homeschool Academy offers breakthrough video-based courses for families who want a quality homeschool education with a distinctly Christian worldview.
Type: Videos – Ages: All Ages – Info: Faith-based – Cost: $129–$279

The System That Stole Your Dreams Is After Your Kids

There's something about our education system that most people never question, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. It's one of those revelations that makes you pause and reconsider everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world around you.

The billionaire who shaped how we learn

It's 1903, and John D. Rockefeller – one of the richest men in history – decides to "help" American education. He creates the General Education Board and pours what would be 1.27 billion dollars in today's money into schools across the country. Sounds generous, right?

But Rockefeller wasn't trying to create a nation of brilliant thinkers and innovators. He wanted something entirely different: a reliable workforce for his industrial empire.

Think about that for a moment.

The very foundation of our modern school system wasn't designed to help you discover your unique talents or encourage you to think outside the box.

It was engineered to produce compliant workers who would fit seamlessly into the industrial machine.

Why schools feel like factories (because they are)

Ever wondered why school feels so... mechanical?

There's a reason for that industrial vibe you couldn't quite put your finger on.

The bells that signal when to move. The rows of desks. The rigid schedule. The way you moved from station to station throughout the day.

Sound familiar?

It should – because it's exactly how factories operate.

This wasn't an accident.

It was brilliant design.

Schools became the perfect training ground for industrial society.

Students learned to follow orders, stick to schedules, and accept their place in a hierarchy.

The very features we criticise about education today – the lack of individualisation, the authoritarian structure, the one-size-fits-all approach – were precisely what made it so effective at creating factory workers.

What this did to your entrepreneurial spirit

Here's where it gets personal.

Remember being a kid and having wild ideas about starting your own business or creating something amazing? What happened to that spark?

The system didn't just ignore your entrepreneurial instincts – it actively trained them out of you. Day after day, year after year, you learned that following instructions was more valuable than asking questions. That fitting in mattered more than standing out. That there was one "right" answer to every problem.

By the time you graduated, you'd been conditioned to believe you weren't cut out for entrepreneurship.

But what if that's not true?

What if you never lacked the ability – you were just systematically taught to suppress it?

The world changed, but schools didn't

Here we are in 2025, living in an age where a teenager can build an app in their bedroom and reach millions of people. Where creativity and innovation drive entire economies. Where the internet has democratised opportunity in ways Rockefeller could never have imagined.

Yet our schools still operate like it's 1903.

We're preparing students for a world of cubicles and time clocks while the real world rewards flexibility, creativity, and entrepreneurial thinking.

We're using an industrial-age system to prepare people for a digital-age world.

The question that changes everything

So here's what I want you to consider: What dreams did you abandon not because you weren't capable, but because you were taught they weren't practical?

And here's an even bigger question: If you could unlearn everything that made you doubt your ability to create something meaningful, what would you build?

So what do we do about this?

I'm not saying we should burn down every school (though the thought is tempting sometimes). But I am saying we need to recognise what happened to us – and more importantly, what we can do about it now.

The first step is awareness.

Understanding that your self-doubt might not be based on reality, but on decades of conditioning.

That voice in your head saying "I'm not entrepreneurial material" or "I should just stick to my safe job" – that might not be your voice at all. It might be the echo of a system designed to keep you in your lane.

The second step is deconstruction.

Start questioning the assumptions you've carried about work, success, and what's possible for your life. Challenge the idea that security comes only from having a boss and a steady paycheck.

The third step is experimentation.

Start small. Try something new. Create something. Build something. The goal isn't to become the next tech billionaire overnight – it's to reconnect with the part of you that knows you're capable of more than you've been led to believe.

Your community needs what you have to offer

Here's the beautiful truth that the industrial education system never taught you: your unique perspective, your specific combination of experiences and talents, your way of seeing problems – that's exactly what the world needs right now.

We don't need more people following the same playbook. We need more people brave enough to write their own.

The system told you to fit in, but your community needs you to stand out. It taught you to follow, but the world needs you to lead. It trained you to consume, but your purpose might be to create.

The choice is yours

Every day, you get to choose: Will you continue living by the rules of a system designed over a century ago, or will you start designing your own life?

The factory whistle doesn't have to control your day anymore. The bell doesn't have to tell you when to start and stop thinking. You're not in school anymore – you're in the real world, where the most rewarding paths are often the ones you create yourself.

But here's what matters even more than your own freedom – your kids are watching.

Right now, they're sitting in those same classrooms you did.

They're learning to stand in line, ask permission to use the bathroom, and believe that their worth comes from following instructions perfectly.

They're having their natural curiosity slowly drained out of them, just like yours was.

When your child comes home excited about a wild business idea or a creative project, how do you respond?

Do you encourage that spark, or do you unconsciously repeat the same phrases that were used to dim your own light? "Be realistic." "Focus on your grades." "You need to think about your future."

We have the power to break this cycle.

We can choose to nurture the entrepreneur, the artist, the innovator that lives inside every child – including the one you used to be.

Your kids don't have to spend their adult lives wondering "what if." They don't have to carry the same doubts and limitations that were programmed into you. They can grow up knowing they're capable of creating, leading, and building something meaningful.

The system is still there, still churning out workers for an industrial age that's long gone.

But you get to choose what happens in your home, in your conversations, in the way you see and develop potential.

What will you choose?

🔦 Community Spotlight

This section includes some relevant articles/videos, people to check out, and links you might find interesting from around the homeschool community.

1. To her, homeschooling isn’t just a task—it’s a calling. It gets heavy sometimes, but she stays grounded by remembering the deeper purpose behind it all. (link)

2. She says her goal isn’t just less screen time—it’s raising kids who reach for books instead. She’s building a family culture of reading, not scrolling. (link)

3. Parenting is the hardest part of homeschooling, not the lessons or the academics, but the daily work of showing up with patience and presence. (link)

4. Homeschooled, private schooled, public schooled—she’s done it all. This post shows that it wasn’t about milestones or timelines, but the steady foundation and security she carried forward. (link)