 All right, thanks everyone for being here We're gonna talk each of us. I guess eight minutes or so about some different Alternatives strategies and education in which we've been involved. Of course Delos not a dr. D Lorenz is not an easy guy to follow. So I think Dr. Woods is up to the task so we'll start Gonna be very straightforward today because the time is so limited so no jokes at all just straightforward jokes tonight I'll tell some jokes tonight. Those will be alcohol-fueled. So by definition much better Than what I would have told today I'll start off the way I have to start off every talk these days, which is I have an e-book on this subject Which is free. I actually have an e-book I put together called education without the state because this is of course is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks We face after the roads then they want to know well How are you gonna have schools unless somebody is you know clocking you in the head to take money from you to fund them? And the answer is you just don't you don't need that at all So the the book is called education without the state and you can get it for free at The website is no state education dot com. So I've got that that stuff there All right I'm gonna talk about a couple of practical things that I've been involved in Because another criticism we get is that we're all about theory, but we're not enough about practice It's great to hear theoretical explanations for things and it's wonderful to understand how society ought to function But how about we get off our rear ends and actually do something actually implement the theory so that it affects people's lives So that's one of that's something that I've been very sensitive to and so I've tried to respond to that and one of the projects I've been involved in is the K through 12 Ron Paul home school curriculum and the Benefits of the Ron Paul curriculum are are many and this is a very practical way to advance our ideas There are a lot of impractical ways there. There are Political action committees that have spent millions and tens of millions of dollars fruitlessly Nothing to show for it and Not one of those people ever thought what if we created a home school curriculum to train young people So that the whole country wouldn't be zombies it just doesn't even occur to them to spend the money that way It's it's always graft, you know, how can we make sure that political consultants are getting paid five figures a month? That's the primary Goal apparently, but we had a different goal with the Ron Paul curriculum So it's self-taught and video-based Which means that if you're a homeschooling parent and you're running yourself ragged to keep your house in order And make sure everybody's doing the right thing and there are all kinds of challenges that you face 90% of that is wiped away by by this self-taught program Of course, it will give your kids a different perspective from what they're gonna get in government-run schools That's true in economics in history and other fields, but that's not even its primary merit, although it's a very great merit There are courses in this curriculum that are highly practical that you're not gonna You're certainly not gonna get in one of the government buildings these government-run schools are gonna train you like it's 1953 and you're gonna be taught no practical skills whatsoever You're not gonna be taught how to market yourself how to find a niche for yourself how to be entrepreneurial You're just gonna be sent out To college for four years and then after that you're gonna sit at home waiting for the phone to ring on the other end of Which is somebody telling you that they think you're useful. Well, this doesn't work in 2021 at all If it ever did so we have courses on how to run your own home business. How about that or Of course on how to write effective advertising copy if you know how to do that and you're halfway decent at that You'll never be poor Period that that is that's beyond debate We'll have a course on how to be an effective public speaker Because if we convey information to people that is step one, but that's not the only step The other step is teaching people how in turn to convey the ideas further to others and Public speaking is one of those things many many people are terrified of so we have a course on that How to be an effective public speaker? We also teach People young people how to blog now blogs aren't as popular as they used to be say five years ago But they're not nothing and they teach people how to write how to write concisely, which is especially important We teach them how to use the standard video platforms in other words how to use resources out there that are free that they can convey ideas with So the website for it is Ron Paul homeschool.com. That's my Affiliate site. I give you a lot of bonuses if you join through it But it's it's not enough even just to think about the kids because then there are all of us in this room the adults All of us suffered educational malpractice. That's a fact all of us and I don't want to leave the adults out either So I have an adult program Called Liberty classroom comm now. It's true some older students will use it for homeschooling It has been used for homeschooling, but I intended it mainly as Adult enrichment for people who feel like they didn't get the real story in school Or maybe they were just bad students and they weren't paying attention and they want to learn the stuff now And so this is these are courses on again history economics philosophy related fields That you can listen to and consume while you're driving around and it's the real stuff taught by me and by other faculty members I trust and the principle of it is I cannot fix Yale University and I cannot fix the Crazy things that are taught there, but I can create my own thing and go around them This is what we mean about strategy. It would be a bad strategy to hold a sign outside the Yale history department That would be stupid and pathetic and weak It's it's it's brilliant and amazing and strong to build your own thing despite these people That's what we're doing The great Glenn Jacobs you'll remember him from the wrestling world as Cain Said that Liberty classroom taught him more history than he learned in all of high school and college So Liberty classroom comm is the website and if you'd like to give it a test drive you can take a free course at Freehistory course comm can you believe free history course comm was available? But the old man here snatched it up and put it to good use So that's the second thing and finally the third thing I told you I had a lot to say in very little time Which to say it finally education is not just about History and and the sciences and whatever and by the way the Ron Paul curriculum science curriculum is amazing The kids are building robots and radios and they're learning meteorology and how to survive in the outdoors They're not just learning formulas that are abstracted from actual living but there's more to because these days most of the struggles people have in this room and Around the country have nothing to do with the non-aggression principle or libertarianism Most of the struggles that they face they want to know What with the Fed doing what it's doing? Where should I put my money the answer can't just be gold? What do I do? Tell me what I'm supposed to do with my money or How am I supposed to educate my kids in a society that hates me? How am I supposed to do it? I have to homeschool them. I don't see how that's possible I have to work for a living these are real questions people have do I send my kids off to that meat grinder called the University if not, what do they do give me the proof? I know it's wonderful to trash the university But what are the practical? Alternatives they want to know the answers of that Or my job situation under the current circumstance extremely precarious What am I supposed to do in this in this kind of world or even something as simple as this? You enter a room full of strangers Are you terrified or are you confident? Do you know what to do in that situation? Do you know how to strike up a conversation with a stranger that puts both you and that person at ease these kinds of little things are what are going to When put together Constitute my new project which I'm gonna be launching in a couple of weeks So if you get if you go to no state education comm get my e-book you'll be on my mailing list And I will tell you when this thing launches. I'm launching what I'm calling a school of life Where we're gonna take all these other things that aren't part of your formal education But doggone it are really important to learn how to flourish in a world that hates you So these three things put together are my little contribution to what we're all trying to do And I'd be glad to discuss it all further, but that's the end of my time. Thank you Hello, can you guys hear me? I'm going to just sit to talk to you my name is Katie and I was at the summit last year with the Tuttle Twins team I've done a lot of work with them with writing and content editing and newsletter stuff Right now. I'm working on a history curriculum. That's coming out soon. So that's fun stuff But I think that I am here on this panel to talk not about Tuttle Twins stuff, but to talk about our life and our experiences in the way that we have navigated Alternative education so my husband and I have seven children and We homeschooled them all up to college for those who chose to attend college our oldest did and she just graduated this spring and We have another who thought she'd try it out and then quickly decided that that was a terrible thing for her and she Walks away from it. And so I love that Tom talked about theoretical Knowledge and and how we love to talk about all the things that are wrong and all the ways that we could fix them But we're we're often kind of light on case studies So I like to think that our family is kind of a case study on this So we pulled our kids out of school when our oldest was about 10 And so some of our younger children Never did attend school which always makes it kind of fun when you know, they are in a setting Like Sunday school for example and our son came out and said my teacher is terrible. I hate her Said why and he said she says we have to raise our hand before we ask questions And I was like, oh, that's actually super normal. Sorry. We forgot to teach you that For the most part Our kids are you know well socialized except that they don't know to raise their hands and stand in line for bathrooms and stuff but We I would have been great to have Liberty classroom and some of your Resources when we were first starting out because we knew that we didn't want to replicate school at home We knew the history of the public education system and kind of saw a long time ago that It wasn't broken, you know, we always hear oh, it's broken. It's not broken It's doing exactly what it was designed to do and we didn't want And we didn't want to participate in that so we opted out of it entirely And then we were left trying to figure out what to do with all these kids who we didn't want to just You know do school at home So now I think they've coined the term unschooling which not a favorite of mine It sounds you know kind of anti-intellectual and that's certainly not what we did But we did focus on each of our children and their strengths and their abilities their interests and we spent a whole lot of time as a family our dinner conversations were always Educational like when you create an environment in your home where learning isn't compartmentalized, right? We're not learning now We're just doing life and we talk about history and we talk about economics and you know I was introduced to me as this a long time ago. And so these are ideas that we raised our kids just Conversationally teaching them and how do we learn like you don't want to learn something that seems treacherous and tedious and it takes forever you you learn things and the things stay with you that you're interested in or that you are Experiencing in a setting that is comfortable and that you're engaged in and so when you when you approach teaching your children in that way It never feels like teaching we we went years and years and years without ever purchasing curriculum. We just Did life with our kids and what that meant was Not just turning them loose to do whatever they wanted to but it meant being very very engaged as parents You know, I was always Working usually from home with writing projects and stuff my husband's been in the military for 18 years, so We were busy people, but we still homeschooled all of our children and we did it without curriculum Because that's not what they that's not what they wanted. That wasn't what worked we allowed them to pursue the things that They felt called to you know, we have a daughter who's written several books And when she was writing we would just let her tuck behind this little nook She made behind our couch and she would write all day long and she turned out beautiful beautiful work We have, you know another daughter who's opened a bakery and she spent all of her time baking and She's making a career out of it because we didn't Pull her and kind of force her to you know, do worksheets during the day I mean we did still teach, you know all of the things that they also need to know They can all solve math problems and stuff but We really focused on Teaching our children how to do life. I love your new project. It's awesome and and we saw that that that worked when our oldest decided that she wanted to go to college, so she was 16 and We said, okay, well, let's try, you know, let's try this and see if it works out so she Went to community college for two years got all of her Janet's done was able to transfer to university She got scholarships. It was great She didn't take the SAT or the ACT and and what we kind of learned in that was that it's all a racket all of it You don't have to jump through the hoops. You don't have to take this This course that's just awful. I mean kids are suffering They're miserable and I think they're not going to become less miserable anytime soon. They're miserable at school They're miserable on their paths. They hate to learn and they have this view of education as this very compartmentalized thing They hate it. They hate it And then they go on to college because they're supposed to and they wander around in a crude debt and they hate that too and we have these Adults who are just miserable and and why wouldn't they be their path has been miserable And so when our you know, our daughter did end up getting into school and thriving and doing fine, but And so we knew that you know, we hadn't actually ruined them because until she got in we thought Maybe this has just been a terrible mistake. And so we were writing and and she did fine And that gave us confidence, I guess to continue this course with the rest of our children She doesn't know that she was the guinea pig, but she for sure was and now we we see you know the the public education system and and especially these last couple of years So that later tonight, we're gonna hear about, you know, where are we? How bad is it? What should we do? in public education We're at a tipping point like it's as bad as you can imagine So you have to get your kids out of school You can choose to homeschool. You can choose to use online curriculum. You can choose to unschool You can do child-led learning. It doesn't really matter right now I know this sounds like I'm a crazy person But if you pulled your children out of school and did nothing with them for a whole year Then include them in everything that you do in all of your trips and all of your conversations Put them around the intelligent Capable people that you all have in your circles and let them become comfortable around those people You'd probably do better for them than maybe anything else you could ever do So if you're if you're on the fence about I Can't take them out of school or I'm not qualified to homeschool or I don't know what to do Just get them out like it's now you have to do it now and then You'll figure it out like no one is as qualified to homeschool or to teach your children as you are no one Anything that you don't know you can learn you can direct them to a capable person that you trust who can teach them You're you're the one that's the most qualified to teach them because you're the most invested in them You know them the best and you care the most so so what must be done like right now? It's that you got to opt out of this system and and you'll find the path, but it can't be staying in the system All right, thank you both I guess my exposure to strategic alternatives in education would be the most recent one although when I first learned to the Mises Institute in the late 80s I I'd had 21 hours of undergraduate econ never been exposed to the Austrian school and then Thanks to dr. Paul in the 88 presidential campaign 1988. I found the Mises Institute and been Happily associated at least loosely ever since I Was working in the proprietary school business at the time which at the time was considered a strategic alternative to education because profit was supposed to be No part of education But I'm now very happy to work for the nonprofit which I do I think in the board meeting a couple of years ago the Institute board voted to create an online graduate program, which was the Vision of Murray Rothbard and von Mises for a long time. They tried to get this going at other schools, but no school seemed appropriate so the alternative Strategy here was to create our own graduate school. I'm very excited about it. We got a very quick start in part because the Rockwell had the good sense to establish the Institute in Alabama Which is a very great place to be and I'm very happy to be there especially now, but We I was hired in November of 2019 by August of 2020 we started our first cohort of 11 graduate students I say that's quick Because I just spent the earlier part of this week at an accreditation conference in Denver with an Organization that with with which we're seeking accreditation some of the people at that conference tried to start a school and it took More than 18 months closer to two years for them to even get a state license to teach a Postsecondary school class we filed our application in January after I started in November and by March We had our state license and we could start teaching students so Very happy to be in Alabama for that reason as well We've made some significant progress. I'd like to think we've started we've started 31 graduate students in our master of arts and Austrian economics, we will start another cohort in January We should have graduates in from this program as early as March of 2022 We are probably within 10 days of filing our application for accreditation And if some of you are wondering why we would bother to do that. I share your sentiments. That was my initial instinct Reputation of the Institute is so good that we had hoped to rely exclusively on our own reputation. I think that would have been great, but Little did we figure out that in order to teach students in all 50 states We would have to apply for licenses in all 50 states Which would cost something in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand dollars as described to me earlier in the week We would have to ride herd on basically 50 different states regulations, but we found a We found a reciprocity organization that's been adopted by 49 states, which allows us to be licensed in our own state and teach in all 50 Which seems like a really good deal Having worked to get Ron Paul on the ballot in all 50 states I sort of didn't want to have to do that on a continuous basis just to teach good economics so We decide we'll pursue the accreditation. We're offering degrees. We're licensed in our own state Once accredited that will allow us to teach in all all 49 states and if you think accreditors are all bad Another thing I learned earlier in the week is the the organization that we're working with the credits a gunsmithing school in Arizona So they can't be all bad, right? So we have some distinct advantages I think in our program a big Thank you to all the donors who've contributed both to the Institute and to the program specifically Because this means we don't have to take government aid. We can keep the price low for students No government aid means Significantly reduced regulation especially at the federal level we comply with Alabama join this reciprocity organization We're good to go in 49 states and we can teach in the 50th one So long as we have no physical presence there. It's California. No one wants a physical presence in California School Another super advantage we have is the the existing infrastructure the Institute is as you'll know From looking at the brochure for next year's supporter summit Schedule for Vienna as I understand it. We have 39 years of an Infrastructure and it didn't even cost us 1.5 trillion dollars to create it What that infrastructure means to us as a graduate schools, we have PhDs like dr. D Lorenzo. You just heard from Dr. Woods Lots of them and they're all eager to give back to the Institute who helped them through their process so we have PhDs ready to go in Exactly what we want them to know and teach One of the advantages is in the 100% online program, which we are means if you went to Well, I had the lecture you're going to UNLV, but the best in instructors in every Austrian topic We've got the Dr. Klein's in the pearl teaching micro We have Dr. D Lorenzo about to teach a class in regulation Dr. Newman's both of them have helped us out But you don't you can get the best Austrian Subject specialists without having to move from school to school to school you do it all in our program, which is fantastic We already had a library a great library and a librarian This is something the creditors care about but it's great for the students if they have need help with research They can pick up the phone that can zoom our zoom into a meeting with the librarian And we also have a very great development organization that's existed for a long time and created financial stability something else Students care about the creditors care about it keeps the price low for the students So I couldn't be more excited about what I'm doing No one seems to want my job of working with the creditors in writing this huge document that we need to present But I'm very excited about having and I'm very excited about the program program I'm excited to have people graduating in a few months and Expanding the program to all 50 states because we can now teach in Warsaw, Poland But not Warsaw, Indiana and you might this This struck me as a but even in night even in 2020 during the online education Conversion several states where we could formally teach a past legislation that says no you can't teach here anymore without getting a state Specific license even though you have no physical presence in the state So it's important that we're moving forward with what we're doing. I'm excited about it. So go ahead. Thank you very much