From Mennonite Kid to Self-Educator

I have always enjoyed learning. Many kids hated school; I loved every minute. However, I never went to a traditional public school. The first six years of my life were spent in a small private school in association with the Mennonite church my father was a pastor of.

I got bored with the work there. Thankfully I had several teachers that were committed to each individual student. I learned after the fact that my first-grade teacher had been slipping me third-grade work during my spare time. In fourth grade, my teacher allowed me to take the president cards and memorize them by face. Throughout the years, I spent a large amount of time as teacher’s helper: grading work and completing small projects as needed.

The Mennonite school was not ranked high on an academic level: students there were expected to learn the bare minimum and then go on to be productive members of the closed community. Girls were not allowed to work outside the community, many got married young and went on to raise families of their own. Boys went straight into the family trade; they also were discouraged from having jobs outside the community. Students graduated after tenth grade.

Families that were more educationally minded encouraged their children to complete 12th grade and get a GED. Most were content with their children knowing only what the school taught them. Mennonite kids came out of that school with an extremely slim worldview. All textbooks were produced by Mennonite publishers in order to reflect the general view of the community and leave the minds of children untainted. School libraries were small: books from the church’s publishers and a few extras that had been proofread to nothingness. In short, the school had in place a perfect program for indoctrinating children to stay in the Mennonite church.

By the time the kids left school, most truly believed that anything outside the church structure was completely evil. How do people remain in a system like this, you wonder? The truth is, they know nothing different. They have been raised in the system and their parents before them. Many have no idea there could possibly be an alternative; they spend their lives truly believing the community is the only way to Heaven.

Although the school was not the best learning environment, and the principles behind the system were skewed, I still had a productive and educational childhood. My parents were strong believers in education, and I studied outside school more than I did within the classroom. My father was an avid reader and collected numerous old books. I read practically every book we owned. (My father definitely did not believe that the Mennonite publishers produced the only good works.) I also spent time reading in Spanish and tagging along with my dad to his construction jobs. I took care of chickens and raised calves, and I learned the basics of running a household. I became an expert in the arts of cooking, cleaning, gardening, and taking care of children: the basics of a woman’s place within the Mennonite community.

When I was twelve years old my father resigned his pastorship and pulled us out of the Mennonite church. At that point, we got kicked out of the small school because of being a “bad influence” on the other kids. (Apparently speaking your mind wasn’t taken too well.)

At that moment we started our journey homeschooling. I had no friends outside the Mennonite system. They weren’t allowed to associate with me anymore. I threw myself into teaching kids younger than me, especially the Junior Sunday School class at our small house church. I got the basics of Math, Literature, Science, Geography, and History down during that first year.

In March of 2013, my life was altered significantly when my Dad died unexpectedly. At that point, my journey of self-education began. Previously I got straight A’s on every subject; now I couldn’t focus enough to finish a whole lesson at a time. And, frankly, I didn’t care. The only thing that kept me living was the small business I was running to help make money for our family.

My education during that time was not in textbooks. It was in the daily hard work of raising animals and connecting with customers. I got a start in marketing. I closed deals that averaged $700. I learned the art of taking pictures of 12 squirming puppies within an hour. This was the biggest project I had ever undertaken, and the one I gained the most value from.

Sometime after that, I began Classical Conversations, a homeschool program that adopts a community perspective on homeschooling. This was the first time I had thought actively about project-based education, though I had been practicing it for several years.

I thrived in Classical Conversations. I loved the policy debates, the impromptu presentations, and the memorized Individual Events. One year I completed a Mock Trial with my classmates. I learned more from fifteen weeks of studying lawyers and court cases than I ever learned from an Algebra book. (Don’t get me wrong; I love Algebra.)

During these years I also experimented heavily with teaching techniques. I was completely in charge of teaching my younger sister to read. I tried using the direct methods that most schools adopt. Frankly, those methods seemed entirely inefficient and much too stressful for both student and teacher. Finally, I simply told her to pick a book she liked. We read orally for an average of an hour every single day. She learned to read.

And that was my “education”. However, everyone I talked to looked at me and said, “You’ll be one of those people that never stop learning.” It’s funny how the majority of humanity takes for granted that learning stops after traditional school. Yet they recognize those “rare” individuals who break the mold and label them as different. The truth is, education is a life-long process. When humanity becomes obsessed with promoting learning over a certain restricted period of time, it kills true education.

I was entering my senior year of high school, concerned with what awaited me. I didn’t want to go to college. The age of Information is upon us; I knew unless I had a specific field I wanted to enter that required an advanced degree, I could learn any information faster and more efficiently on my own. However, I wanted a fast-paced, self-directed learning experience with a mentor or two and maybe some passionate classmates.

I told myself, however, that my idea was impossible and that there was no school I could find that would fit my perspective on education. I was wrong. I found Praxis, which is a boot camp/ apprenticeship program that builds professional skills and offers multiple learning opportunities besides the boot camp. Not only that, but participants have access full-time to advisors that are there to push them past the obstacles that hold them back and offer actionable tips and encouragement. The 6-month boot camp is an intense, self-directed path that leads to 6 months of paid apprenticeship in a startup company. The underlying expectation for fast-paced, constant growth pushes each participant to his or her limits. Not only did I find myself in a program that fulfilled my greatest dreams, I also joined with several hundred young people that are as passionate as I am about fueling the birth of an educational revolution.

I am thrilled to watch the evolution of my philosophy of education. Each facet of my life has contributed to my established belief that education was never meant to be an institutionalized standard from which no one is allowed to deviate. Learning is the process of maturing as an individual, and that process will look different for every human on this planet.

Where do I go next? From here, it’s only going to get bigger. I’m staring the launch of my first podcast in the face. I have an apprenticeship experience to look forward to. I still work for several hours every day on educational projects with my siblings. Now is the time where I communicate my passion for people and education to the world. That’s why I wrote this post.