Mr. Webb: 0:00

Are you curious about the transformative potential of custom homeschool teaching for subjects like English, writing, history and civics? Have you ever wondered how to tailor your child's education to their unique learning style, especially in a homeschool environment? Did you know there's a support group for parents, a private space to seek out solutions instead of online judgment? Welcome to The Conservative Classroom, where we're teaching the truth and preserving our values. I'm your host, Mr. Webb, and I'm glad you're here.

Mr. Webb: 0:38

This podcast is a haven for conservative educators, parents and patriots like you, who believe in the importance of free speech, traditional values and education without indoctrination. Each week, we dive into issues that are plaguing our education system and keeping you up at night. In each episode, we offer common sense ideas to improve education in our classrooms and communities. You may feel like you're the last conservative educator or parent, but I want you to know that you are not alone. By the way, if you like what you hear today, please share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. Together, we can teach the truth and preserve our values. In today's episode, we're thrilled to welcome an exceptional guest a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience in homeschool teaching and online tutoring. A seasoned educator with a website, a podcast and a YouTube channel. Now let's get started. Today I'm excited to welcome a special guest to the Conservative Classroom, Deb Fillman, host of The Reason We Learn podcast and YouTube channel, former classroom teacher, homeschool mom and private tutor. Deb, thank you for joining us.

Deb Fillman: 2:02

Thanks for inviting me.

Mr. Webb: 2:04

I appreciate it. I have followed you on Twitter a little bit. You're pretty active on there and post a lot of interesting things. But to start with, can you tell us a bit about yourself, your background, what led you to getting out of the traditional classroom and getting into tutoring and homeschooling?

Deb Fillman: 2:25

Well, believe it or not, I was only in the classroom for about three years, so that means I left in my mid-20s. I didn't set out to become a classroom teacher when I first went to college. I went to Colby College in Maine. I got a degree in American Studies. I was big history, nut and literature and art history. I just loved all that stuff. I had it in mind that I might be a museum curator or something like that.

Deb Fillman: 2:53

Realized that wasn't really a great career path, I thought what else could I do to still be involved in learning and immerse myself in the subject matter that I loved? So I thought I'll be a teacher and, like a lot of young people going into teaching, I was fairly naive. This is early 90s. I thought I'd make a difference. I thought I would go in there and teach kids to read and love reading and love learning and all the things. And I very quickly learned that the way they were teaching reading even then was not how I learned to read. I mean, in fairness, I learned to read when I was like three.

Deb Fillman: 3:26

But I mean in other words these kids were being asked to sort of memorize words. It was a very weird way. And I knew phonics, I knew how to teach with phonics and they weren't letting me do that. And every time I tried to teach the way I thought best for the kids to actually learn, which included taking my students in first and second grade who were reading very proficiently, to the library to pick out more challenging books and working closely on phonics with the kids who weren't doing quite as well one-on-one. I'd be jastised Like you're making us look bad. Stop doing that. This isn't what you're supposed to do. Use this curriculum, use that.

Deb Fillman: 4:09

And I realized I wasn't cut out temperamentally to have my teaching directed by committee, you know, sort of. It felt too reminiscent of middle school mean girls Like this is the way we do it and we want you to do it like this and we that. And there was something very hive-mindy about it even then and I just I can't explain it. Something kind of snapped in me where I said if I can't do what I think is right for the students and I'm having to sort of toe the line or get with the program, and they also made me join a union which I didn't like, because I'm just philosophically opposed to unions, I I'm not going to do it anymore because then I'm doing wrong. There are certain things you know in terms of values. If somebody is saying, you know you can't do this very important thing, well then you shouldn't do it. And that's. That was the conclusion I came to.

Deb Fillman: 5:09

And it was really in that decision that I also decided that I would someday be a homeschooling parent if I ever had children, because I thought, if I'm, I'm one person. If there are other teachers out there who are being told similar things or being made to feel like they have to, you know, get with the program and follow the herd, then they might someday have to turn to my child and, if not, explicitly say I can't help you or I can't do right by you, then just not do it. And why would I voluntarily send my child into that setting. So it was just a pretty easy decision that that was just going to be something I never was going to do. And people have said well, you know, did you think? Well, I know how to teach because I went to graduate school and I got a master's in education and then I knew I would be able to do it. It wasn't really that, although I suppose that was somewhere in the back of my mind. It was more if I'm going to be a mom, then I'm not going to send my children some place where I know it's not Gonna be right for them. So that's how I got into homeschooling and I spent the rest of my working life in Other fields.

Deb Fillman: 6:14

I worked in HR for a little while doing some training for adults and computer stuff. I was pretty good at computers. I did some marketing things because once you know how people learn, you can. It's it's not that big a shift to working in sort of copywriting. I did information design for web design in the mid 90s mid to late 90s when the internet and e-commerce was picking up. Because again, I understood how people learned and moved through a learning process which is pretty similar to learning how to navigate a website.

Mr. Webb: 6:46

So Transferable skills.

Deb Fillman: 6:48

Yeah, it's, it's kind of transferable and you know. But that's also a reflection of my entire approach to learning and teaching itself. It's a you know, why do we learn what? Why did I call my brand the reason we learn. It's sort of a play on words. We have to learn to use reason. We're born with the capacity for it, but it's not automatic. You have to actually learn how to do it. That's why you'll see some cultures where they don't focus as much on reason and there aren't any there. I'm not gonna name names at the moment, but you know there's some places where they don't do a lot of thinking, where they do a lot of feeling, and and a lot of that feeling is anger and rage and you know things don't go well. But you have to learn to use your capacity for reason. And also, I wanted to help parents and others in my audience Think about why do we do it? Why do we educate our children and by we I mean individual families, not we as a society, and you know. But the way I, my career, has evolved is sort of a testament to what an individual is capable of in terms of reinvention, learning new skills, adaptability, all those things when you had a good foundation reading proficiency, math, you know, numeracy, cultural literacy, vocabulary all the basics right.

Deb Fillman: 8:07

When things didn't work out for my teaching career, I didn't panic. It wasn't like, oh my god, I can't do anything else. I just thought, well, what can I do? Who needs these things? Let's go figure it out.

Deb Fillman: 8:21

And I knew how to figure it out, and so I thought that was the point of education for everybody. I thought the point of education was to learn how to live life on planet earth and have what you needed so you wouldn't be dependent on government that's like supposed to be the quote-unquote safety net. And I just thought that was common sense and came up, and you know, out of college and then graduate school, into a world that had other plans, it seemed. I started looking around in the older I got, the more encountered people who looked at me like I had, you know, three heads when I would suggest that maybe we needed our students to be independent, to be functional on their own. And as the years have gone by, as you've seen in recent years, that's even more aberrant. You'd say that to people aren't we educating individuals? And they look at you like what? No, we're educating identities, we're educating groups of people.

Mr. Webb: 9:17

Yeah, there's a lot that's changed over the years and and students should be learning skills that they will use, you know, in real life. And I'll even go so far as to say, and this is definitely Not popular with an education, not popular teachers, and you may disagree on me, disagree with me on this, but some students that are going to work with their hands and they're going to to be farmers or they don't need, they might not need, you know, a Degree. Well, they definitely don't need a degree, but they may not even need to go through all 12, 13 years of school.

Deb Fillman: 10:03

Well, I would argue that people will.

Mr. Webb: 10:05

I'm sorry, I was gonna say used to, you know, folks would drop out and they would go raise large families and be happy, and Now it seems we've pushed, we've pushed, we pushed and it's unattainable for some folks. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Deb Fillman: 10:22

Well, I was going to say not only do I agree with you, but I'm Sort of on a personal crusade to Abolish schooling as we know it. I mean, I'm a government school abolitionist. I think having the government involved at all is unconstitutional and and violates the fan, the sanctity of the family and the and the Rights of the parents from the get-go because it's compulsory. So I I just don't think the government has any, any Legitimate role to play in that. The only legitimate role will be a rights respecting one, which means if a child's rights are being violated by their parents and they're being actively denied Access to any form of educational and so their parents are just putting them to hard labor at the age of five or something you know what I mean and they aren't. You know it would be the same as the kid, the parents depriving them of nutrition. Then I might say, all right, we need to have a chat, right, but that's protecting the child and protecting that, that individual. But no, I don't think the government should be deciding what we learn, how long we learn, where, what building we go to, who the teachers are Going to be. That is such a conflict of interest that I can't believe that people have accepted it at the very beginning.

Deb Fillman: 11:30

When it was first proposed, parents opposed it. The majority parents opposed it over 150 years ago. It didn't catch on in all the states. Well, it didn't become mandatory in all the states until it'd been mandatory in many of the states. So they were like dominoes that they fell and some of the last holdouts had to be taken at gunpoint. Their kids had to be taken from them. So it used to be that Americans knew this is wait a minute, we're Americans. The state doesn't come to the door and take our kids and take them off to a government facility and force them To. You know, listen to government hired employees. But now we take it as this is my entitlement, and so I agree with you. Not only has the school day gotten longer, because it used to be just, you know, a few hours day, but also the amount of school years got longer over the years to now. It's practically cradle to to college and they want to bring in universal preschool and take the kids away from their homes altogether and and I think this is very bad for all of us it's certainly destroying our liberty. It destroys families. The family unit is so damaged. Now they're actively trying to interfere with family structure and family integrity by turning children against their parents.

Deb Fillman: 12:50

So I agree, I think. But it's not so much about whether some kids are gonna work with their hands or not. It just should be up to individual Parents, families, students, etc. To pursue their education from the beginning as they, you know, see fit. Now I will.

Deb Fillman: 13:08

I will say I'm biased and that I do believe every child I don't care what your future goals might be every child should be Literate, and I mean proficient. Okay, so not just I can read the newspaper or magazine, but really be able to read, even like classic literature. And the reason I say that is that even if you're going to be a farmer or you're going to be, you know, work with your hands, a mechanic or something like that, the complexity of the ideas that you can consider and weigh and, you know, evaluate is only as big as your vocabulary. So, even if you're a farmer, someday some politician steps up and says we have a policy and we want to sell it to you that we're gonna do, do, do, do, do, do, if that person can spin a yarn or use words that you don't necessarily understand or speak about Concepts that you've never really considered because you hadn't, you know, you didn't have the chance to immerse yourself in language and turns of phrase and rhetoric and so forth and think through things. They could put one over on you and I don't want that to happen to anyone. What, whatever path you choose in your life, you should still have the level of sophistication in your thinking that somebody who is more quote credentialed, you know, can't come along and take advantage of you, and that is a concern that I have. So I think they all need to have Reading proficiency, numeracy again, tax policy, economic policy, any kind of thing that somebody wants to come in and say I'm gonna help you with these farm subsidies and I'm gonna do that.

Deb Fillman: 14:34

It's when you understand economics and you understand math, you know you can turn to the person. That's not very big help. How about you go away? Okay, and so I think, but I do believe, I know for a fact that can happen in Less than 13 years. You do not need to go to school for 13 years to learn the math. You'll need to know the basic understanding of the history of Western civilization, the vocabulary you need to know.

Deb Fillman: 15:00

You could probably accomplish that by the time a child is, let's say, 13, 14 years old. If you did it right, you could absolutely do that, and it still wouldn't be eight hours a day. You could get it done in about two to three Maximum a day, and that leaves plenty of time for the kid to run around outside, get fresh air, exercise, learn other hands kind of skills, learn how to fix that car, learn how to cook, learn how to sell, learn how to grow vegetables. There are a million things you can learn how to do in all the hours that they're wasting in the school building, and Then you are fully rounded, self-sufficient human being who can't have their so-called betters. Put one over on them.

Mr. Webb: 15:41

I've talked to a lot of home schoolers. You tell me that their kids can do in just a few hours kind of what you mentioned, what the folks in the public schools, what it takes them a week to do in the structured setting when you're in a classroom with 29 other students and at different levels, so they can. They can complete in just a few hours what it takes their peers a week to do. And then in the remaining time they actually learn life skills, they go out and volunteer or they, they, they work on projects, they build things.

Deb Fillman: 16:18

Absolutely that that is so true. So much of what gets done in school is hurry up and wait a lot of wasted time kids Are. We were asking our children to spend their precious childhood Waiting on other people, often adults, to do things that have no bearing on their reality, and the impact on them psychologically is profound. The actual lesson, if read John Taylor Gatto's books, the actual lesson they learn is that I don't really have a say. My job in life is to just kind of be compliant, put up with it, etc. And there will always be those kids who won't or can't do that.

Deb Fillman: 16:57

And it manifests in a couple different ways. In one one way is to act out, and they might be, they might misbehave or be unruly or just, you know, class clown or something. So they acting out, and other times they act in meaning, they turn it in on themselves, they get anxious, they get apathetic, they get nihilistic, self-harming behaviors. When you feel like your life you're spending the hours of your days of your life in a kind of holding pattern or Prison, if you will. Where are you? Just you just have to put up with it. That is not a way to get excited about the world. That is not a positive thing for a human beings development. And yet they'll talk to us about social and emotional learning and all these things like what are the social emotional skills you're teaching?

Deb Fillman: 17:44

Compliance, a kind of patience. That isn't really patience, is just sort of a complacency, and I'm not at all surprised that so many people took lockdowns as an example as well. I guess we just got to go along with it because they spent all their time they grew up in these schools. That's what they, that's the lesson they learned. People in power tell me to do things. I do them.

Mr. Webb: 18:08

Right.

Deb Fillman: 18:10

And we don't need to be doing that. We're going to lose our freedom if we keep, if we keep raising our kids that way. But I do want to say, too, that what you're talking about with homeschoolers and the things that they're able to do and so on, what is not discussed often enough is that there's no schedule specific to homeschool. It can be whatever you want it to be, but the most important thing is rhythm, and what I mean by that is that each family can educate their children for their supposed school years, or school age years, the same way they would with their babies and their toddlers. It follows the rhythm of the parents. It follows the rhythm of their working life, the way they want to live their life. You know what time they want to wake up in the morning, go to bed at night, how the married couple interacts with each other. There are so many benefits to the family unit of homeschooling that don't get discussed enough. We tend to focus on comparing and contrasting with school and looking at it as how much school work did you get done? Or how many you know? How much exercise did you get? Instead of thinking about, you have a family that just continues to function like a family throughout the child's life. And that means, if it's most conducive to the family's rhythm, that you're sitting and reading with them at 6 pm after you get done with your job and during the day, Instead, the child was doing a lot of artwork or doing crafts or running around outside and you know, or playing with their siblings or helping around the house. Then that's what that looks like. If it works better very early in the morning because you have a shift at work or something. It's with that rhythm.

Deb Fillman: 19:46

But wait is now. Parents have to. Parents are also complying. Oh, I got to drop the kid off at school, I got to get in the car, pull the line, got to get the bus. The whole family is operating on the government schedule for at least nine months out of the year. And then even your summer is around. When the government says you can have summer, you know like when they say you is your summer break, when is your vacation in the spring? This is all being dictated by people outside your family. That right there creates tension between married couples, between the parents and the children. So many points of tension that simply go away because you as a family, you know the parents sit down and decide how do we want this to go, and it's entirely up to you.

Mr. Webb: 20:38

See, I hadn't even thought about those aspects of it. We're just, we're so used to it because it's normal, because we have been raised and brought up in the school system and that's just the way it's done. And I would say that if a parent didn't send their kids to public school and just started homeschooling them whenever they wanted to, that it would be more in a rhythm, whereas parents that maybe wait until their kid is in middle school or, you know, maybe even high school, then they're used to sending their kids to school and they have in their mind I would think, okay, we need to school from this hour to this hour, so we will work on math for the first hour. And it's not such. It doesn't flow so well.

Deb Fillman: 21:31

Well, that's a mistake.

Deb Fillman: 21:32

I mean, and I would tell people that first of all, if you have to pull a child out of school to homeschool them or decide to, the first thing you need to do is de-school them and de-school yourself. You have to detox from that schedule mindset and let your child feel what it feels like to have some agency. And that doesn't mean they get to run wild and do whatever they want or that you just ignore them. That means you come up with a list of sort of approved kinds of activities that they can do that are not necessarily academic Okay, they can be. If the kid says I want to read 10 books, okay, fine. But or I want to do a math workbook. But it's more to get out of the habit of I'm on a school schedule and just decompress, detox, get out of that, learn to not be on tech all day, because in school they're on tech all day. So a lot of times parents will say to me well, you know, if they come home and word will be on tech all day, I'm like, well, they're on tech all day at school, so you know, but you bring them home, you're actually going to have the opportunity to detox them from the tech. You might find, like, if you have a child who does like to be busy with their hands or build things or do things, that can be part of their de-schooling hey, you've said you've always wanted to help learn how to work on dad's car or track whatever. You've said You've always wanted to get whatever. If the kid is old enough to work, like 15 or older, they can get a job during de-schooling time and the fact that they're not actively doing an academic class is not a problem. Let them go earn some money for all and be in the real world and look how fast their curiosity peaks. I'm like all right, I think if there's some stuff I need to learn, okay, so I recommend to people I don't recommend. I tell them this is a must do.

Deb Fillman: 23:15

If you're pulling your child out and they're above fifth grade, your first task is to de-school. Now, while they're de-schooling and doing things like you're allowed to read books, go play outside, ride your bike, build something, paint something or do art or help around the house. These are like the approved activities and you have to check off all these boxes of things that you've done in that day before you can ever touch tech. But I'm not assigning you homework, it's just these are the activities you can engage in freely. Then you do that and some argue that you need a month of it for every year the kid's been in school, and I think that's probably a bit excessive. But I'd say at least a month of this.

Deb Fillman: 23:52

And during that month the parents task is to build community. What does that look like? Well, before, your community was organized around school, probably. So now what you have to do is get acquainted with your local home school community. Get on to you know whether it's Facebook, check if there's groups. Go through HSLDA, the Home School Legal Defense Association. See if they have some local groups in your area. Even look at things like your local Y or you know church. Sometimes a lot of churches have groups. Synagogues have groups. See what they've got going on for homeschool. If you have a museum in your area, see if there are homeschool related activities or programs. Here in Charlotte, north Carolina, or Discovery Place has a whole homeschool set of courses. So until you look you don't really realize what's out there. So then you find what feels right to me and my family as far as community. You don't need hundreds of people using maybe like a couple of families that you can connect with and start to find some activities you can go be part of and get to know them.

Deb Fillman: 24:48

And then, only then, can you sit down and start to think about academics. And even then your first task is I have to know what my kid knows already. So you have to get a grade mindset. Let's say you pulled your child out of what was sixth grade at school. That that is nothing to do with reality right now. Now you have to assess what does my child actually know in math? What does my child actually know about reading and vocabulary and so on? And there are ways to do that. There are many online math programs that have little placement tests. You can have your child sitting to do this, you know. Work your way up till you start getting things wrong. Let's see where you really are, and the de-schooling time helps the child break out of this notion that I'm behind or I'm ahead or whatever. It's not about behind or ahead compared to whom.

Deb Fillman: 25:36

The goal is that your child doesn't launch from your home at 18, not knowing how to read. So if you try to force them into what's quote unquote sixth grade reading and really they were pretty far behind in the school definition and you need to start at the beginning. Then you need to start at the beginning. Here's the good news to parents who are listening as scary as it sounds, if you've to start to teach reading from scratch and I'm not kidding, if you discover that your sixth graders reading at like second or third grade level and this is not far fetched, by the way and going back to the beginning and going over some easier books, going over phonics, going over spelling rules and stuff, there is no shame in this. I highly recommend it because their ability to catch up is amazing. Even young adults are able to catch themselves up on things where that you know. You just have to believe in them and you have to find the right approach and let them know that. Look, I Mastery is what I care about. I care that you're able to do this. I couldn't care less that the book you're reading is an easier book than you think you're supposed to be reading. This is irrelevant. I want you to be able to do it right and you just keep repeating that and keep repeating that and then they, they start seeing how they're more competent each day. That builds their confidence, which then gets them wanting to do it more and so on. It's not uncommon for kids to come out of school and just I'm not reading, I don't want to read. They don't read in school, they skim, and they have audiobooks read to them. So you might have to go back to the beginning, believe it or not.

Deb Fillman: 27:09

My child, my youngest, was homeschooled. Then her dad and I split when she was just, you know, going into elementary school, except homeschooled, like preschools. Her older siblings were in, you know, grade school, homeschooled. So she was my last child and she had to go into the kindergarten. Things were not going so well in public school when she finally, when she came out of public school to be homeschooled again, initially her dad insisted on her going in sort of an online program. It was still homeschooled, but online program. I wasn't the teacher. She did quite well. She was getting A's and Progressing pretty quickly.

Deb Fillman: 27:44

But she came to me the end of last year's, the end of ninth grade. She came to me and she said this is now after three years of being back homeschooling. Mom, I know I'm getting A's, but I don't think I know anything. I still I feel like I don't know a lot and, honestly, you see, I have an A in math. I still don't really feel comfortable with fractions or percentages and I'm not solid and multiplication and I'm thinking how are you getting an A in math? So even in the online homeschool program it was just like there was still skimming along and skimming along.

Deb Fillman: 28:14

So this year we went back to the beginning, and I mean addition. Now she plowed through that like weak, but the point was let's get things so rock solid you can do it in your sleep so that by the time you get to the fractions it's like boom-boop-boop-boop-boop. She got to those fractions and she said you know, this is kind of fun. Now I really feel like I get it now and that's the goal. It doesn't matter that she's 15 years old Now, she's solid and I have seen progress this year alone. Where I'm doing it. It's no longer a program or whatever. We're just working through at the level where she is Not some arbitrary grade level and I'm getting questions. Like you know, I want to go to an art museum. I've learned a lot of stuff in history this year. It makes me really curious to see art from this period of that period. Okay, that conversation would not have happened a couple years ago.

Mr. Webb: 29:06

Right, that's awesome, and it sounds like she has a great Self-awareness. For such a young person, that's awesome.

Deb Fillman: 29:13

Get them out of the school and they develop that on their own. It's amazing.

Mr. Webb: 29:18

They have time to think and while we're talking about math, I'm a middle school math teacher and I see students that I teach, for instance, 7th grade math, teach 7th and 8th grade.

Mr. Webb: 29:30

But let's say, having 7th grader in one class, I might have 7th graders that are on a third grade math level, 4th grade, 5th grade on up through 7th. Some of them are on a 8th grade level and I've said, for those folks that are behind, especially in math, they would be much better off to to be able to go into a classroom or whatever setting and Pick up where they got off track Exactly. But in public schools, as a public school teacher, you know, teaching 7th grade, I am supposed to teach a through z in the 7th grade content and If someone is still struggling with their multiplication facts, it's. The other concepts are so difficult and it's hard to get that student caught back up. Absolutely so. But before I forget, we've been talking a lot about homeschooling. Now you haven't really mentioned this. But the reason we learn, website Podcasts and YouTube channel you offer some resources for homeschoolers, am I correct?

Deb Fillman: 30:36

I do. What I have is I've created a private discord community that people can join. It is a membership community. We it's through a platform called woke screen says woke screen, comm forward, slash the reason we learn, and people can go in there and they can join. And in that private discord I have a section called resources and in the resources I have all kinds of Links to curriculum materials, articles, websites, even you know, preferred Technical tools, etc. I also produce twice a week.

Deb Fillman: 31:15

I produce videos that are private for this community. One is geared towards homeschooling and topics that might concern a homeschooling family and one is just sort of culture in general so people can understand kind of what's going on in education and in the world related to families and children and all the stuff. And those are privately accessible through that group for those people as well. They'll also have access to communicate with me and communicate with each other. So you know you can get ideas from other people that's On on that side. And then I created a separate Support group for parents and this is this is for parents who are also in the schools, because I hear from a lot of parents I say, well, I'm not ready to homeschool, I'm not sure, or you know my kids in eighth grade, ninth grade, tenth grade, or they're on the baseball team, or you know it's. It's just not in the cards for me. So I still, I still want to help them and I still want to help their, their kids, get the best possible Education they can get. So I have something called the reason we parent, which is a community I've created. It's also through a private discord channel, so people don't have to show their faces and they can even use a pseudonym. So it's private. I don't sell any data or anything more private than Facebook groups, and there's no judgment either.

Deb Fillman: 32:29

People have access to me on Wednesdays at noon for a couple hours and Sundays at seven this Eastern time, for a couple hours, where they can again. You come in, vent, ask for advice, moral support. This is going on in the school and I don't know what to do. Is it worth going to school or what do you think? I research public schooling to such a level I'm not just a homeschool person I research public school to such a level that I understand how the sausage is made. I can make recommendations to people about what they might want to do or not want to do, given their unique Situation and rather than have people try to hire me for an hour at a time you know, with consulting fees, is anyone? I'm just to set up a support group. I can either join for a year, join for month at a time, come in and get their needs met as they need it, and it's gonna be a lot cheaper. I can help a lot more families and we can go about it that way.

Deb Fillman: 33:18

The beauty of the discord servers I can share screen, they can share screen, we can look at documents. So if parent came in and said, alright, I got this thing sent home, it's an assignment, I don't really understand it, but I don't think I like it. They're asking me to sign off on it. What do you think we can bring that right up on the screen, whether it's an image or a link, and I can go through it and do my Analysis and say, alright, here's what I'm seeing, and give you some information to make an educated decision. So that's that's what I offer to people both in school and looking to homeschool, so they can Make these, these tough decisions. And I'm not trying to make it sound like Pulling a child out of school is the easiest thing you'll ever do, but I will say it's probably gonna be one of the best things you ever do.

Mr. Webb: 34:03

If you can pull it off, I want to switch gears just a little bit because I wanted to make sure and ask you about this. You posted a video, um, just a few days ago. So by the time the listeners I guess here this it'll be a couple of weeks, couple of weeks old, but what the 2030 agenda looks like in the classroom, and I'm about 30 or 40 minutes into that video and, if it's okay with you, I'm going to put a link in the show notes this video can you tell the parents and the teachers that are listening why they should check this video out and why it's so important?

Deb Fillman: 34:41

Well, I think they should check it out, because when we go on the internet and we discuss things like UNESCO and the world economic forum, Klaus Schwab, and you know, 2030 agenda, First of all, if you don't know what those things are, you should. So you should watch the video because you'll get a very quick primer on what it is and why we, as Americans, who actually value the constitution and the bill of rights and individual liberty, Um, why you should know what those things mean, Um. But then I think we think of it. As you know, teachers are dawning devil horns and and capes and you know they're walking into the classroom and doing some sinister indoctrination ceremony or whatever, and I don't think they realize how benign it looks. So what I try to do is by sharing the social media uh feeds of some of the teachers in a school in a specific district that's very deep into trying to teach the kids the social uh, uh, the SDG goals, Um, the sustainable development goals, which are part of the whole UN's 2030 agenda.

Deb Fillman: 35:42

Is it looks nice, I mean the picture. Look at the little kids and they're coloring and they're making graphs and they're oh, they're, they're drawing pictures of their lunch and oh, look, they're doing an invention project and another project over here. So the pictures that you see and the stories that come home, you know, in the official documentation from school, look and sound so benign. They look and sound so nice. Where teaching these kids to be thoughtful and caring and and this and that. And what I point out in the video is look how much time they're on those Chrome books, they're staring at screens. They're not really interacting with each other.

Deb Fillman: 36:19

So the video take. I'm going through and commenting and pointing out from an educator's perspective, which you'll understand and appreciate, the, the, the story behind the story. What is the unseen here and what does this really represent in terms of learning? You know, what is the actual lesson they're learning from this activity and are the teachers actually teaching or are they presenting or monitoring? And I think parents should watch, because my goal is to disabuse you of the notion that, first of all, the, the sinister goals you hear about, will be recognizable instantly because they'll look bad. They don't. They look kind of nice and fun.

Mr. Webb: 37:00

They look harmless yeah.

Deb Fillman: 37:01

They look harmless, right. And the second thing is for you to awaken that sense of wonder as far as how do I know they've learning anything? How do you know they're learning anything, you know? It's kind of like I wonder what's actually getting communicated to my child, and I want people to wonder that just trusting a grade, just trusting a report home, or you know like your kid is awesome or whatever, is not telling you even a fraction of the story of what your child is actually learning about themself, about the world, about you. And so I tried in the video to show how it is dark a lot darker, I think, than people imagine, but it looks a lot shinier and more colorful.

Mr. Webb: 37:48

And to be effective, you know it needs to look good to make people want to do it, so that makes sense.

Deb Fillman: 37:53

That's right. So they're engaged. Look how much fun they're having.

Mr. Webb: 37:57

Exactly what's the one thing you want the listener to remember, if they don't remember anything else about this episode?

Deb Fillman: 38:06

I want them to remember how how powerful they are in their child's life truly, and that it's not never too late to take back your family. It is up to you. The Superman is not coming, so if you're worried about your kids and your education, look in the mirror.

Mr. Webb: 38:28

That is a great message. I appreciate that and I appreciate, appreciate the work that you do. Thank you. As we wrap things up, I already mentioned I'm going to put a link to that video and I'll put a link to your website, but this is your time to share any projects, social media, website, anything you want to share, plug or promote.

Deb Fillman: 38:54

Well, as I said, I really want to plug and promote the two communities on the discord that people can find If they go to wokescreencom forward slash the reason we learn. If, even if you go there, if you look in the navigation, there's a section for communities, you'll also see the reason we parent, even if you don't think you have a need for it, if you could share it with other parents. I'm always adding resources. It is a private space. I will never sell your data. I will never spam you.

Deb Fillman: 39:25

It is solely the reason it's a members only community is partly to help fund the work I do, but also to keep things private. I want the parents who confided me or come in to get resources to maintain their family's privacy to not feel judged, no matter what their decision is. People need help and there's too much judgment going around right now on the part of the schools and the unions, judging parents and the government too, and I think it can feel overwhelming. So if you, if you join either of those communities or share them with other people, that would be a great help to me and, I believe, to other parents, and then subscribe to my YouTube channel, because I do have a live show each week on Monday evenings and I'm always putting out new content, keeping your breastboats going on, and your subscription does also help, so thank you.

Mr. Webb: 40:21

And I appreciate that. I will post links for all that. And, gosh, I appreciate you joining us today. It's been a pleasure having you. You're so welcome and I've learned so much and I really encourage folks to check out the video and check out the resources that you offer and thanks for coming on. I have you back again, I'm sure.

Deb Fillman: 40:42

Thank you, Thank you so much.

Mr. Webb: 40:46

That's it for today's episode of The Conservative Classroom. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something. If you liked what you heard, please don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Most importantly, share this podcast with a like-minded educator, parent or patriot. You can also connect with us on social media and share your thoughts on today's topic. Give feedback on the podcast or suggest a topic by sending me an email at TheConservativeClassroom@gmail. com. We'd love to hear from you.

Mr. Webb: 41:24

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Mr. Webb: 41:59

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