Actor Sam Sorbo has been on a mission to win people over to the homeschooling camp for years, and now that Americans all across the country are having to educate their kids from home, she’s hoping parents might learn to like it.
The U.S. is reeling from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the world keeps moving and stuff still has to get done. One of those things is education. So parents of young children really have to become Swiss Army knives — they have to continue to work and parent while adding teacher to their list of duties.
And in all this, there are plenty of parents who just don’t feel prepared to be homeschoolers. They work full-time and teaching from home was just never on their radars, so doing it now is daunting, particularly when there are no other options.
Feeling inadequate, though, is “good,” Sorbo told Faithwire.
“What happens is that affords you the ability to go on a journey of discovery,” Sorbo explained. “Heaven forbid that you think you know what you’re doing.”
“If you don’t have the answers for your kids, that’s awesome,” she continued, “because then they will be able to see you in action, finding answers. And we want to teach our kids how to find answers.”
Navigating this new reality with your children, the 55-year-old celebrity said, gives parents the opportunity “to go and do and try.”
“This nation was built on home-educated people,” she reflected. “It was their idea. And it was built on the entrepreneurial spirit, so let’s put the entrepreneurial spirit back into our education.”
After years of their own struggles with the education system, Sorbo and her husband, Kevin, decided to homeschool their own children. The system just was not working for them, and ultimately, Sorbo decided it was her responsibility to educate their children.
Aware so many parents are struggling to figure out what they’re doing now, Sorbo has created an entire Home Educator curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade — and it’s free until April 30.
She described the package as “soup to nuts,” giving parents all the tools they need to teach their children from home. The curriculum, which is sent out every day via email, gives parents a full day of assignments, an agenda for the day, all of the resources required, as well as instructions for how to teach the material.
Parents are also granted access to a Facebook group where they can talk through everything with other parents learning how to teach their kids from home.
“It’s kind of like baptism by fire,” Sorbo said. “You have a fantastic opportunity right now. So I’m encouraging parents to embrace it and understand, look, you’ve given up a lot, but part of what you’ve given up is you’re not commuting anymore — that’s found time, that’s time you can spend with your kids, time that you never had before.”
Ultimately, she said, there are a lot of silver linings to be found in this season. She’s already heard from parents who are finally considering the merits of home-educating.
“Heaven forbid we go back to normal,” Sorbo said. “I mean, who says normal was working all that well?”
Listen to the rest of our 20-minute conversation in the video above.