What the heck is a paradigm shift?

What is something that we have noticed that's a big problem in our current school system?

What we've been noticing a lot, especially these last few years, is that parents, teachers, and kids are all—for the majority that we've interacted with—really having a hard time under the current school system. 

I (Alysia) have two girls. They're 8 and 12 right now. The last year was a real struggle. That was their last year in traditional school.

That was a really hard year all around. There was just so much changing in the world. All the changes that we've all been aware of the last couple of years had a really big effect on school systems and kids being in school and how they experienced it. There were just a lot of challenges.

Plus, my kids also had some personal challenges with bullying and academics specific to their age and grade. So, it was really, really rough. What I noticed is that last year specifically, but even in the years leading up, the staff and teachers at their school didn't seem to care too much about the wellbeing of my kids.

I talked to them many times about everything that was going on at home. That my kids didn't want to go and I was calling in many days a week making up reasons why they weren't going be there today. And if they're at school, I get calls from them to come home sick.

We all know now what that means. If your child tells the school they're sick, then that creates this whole other ordeal you have to go through—getting tested and so on. So it's not just, “Hey, I'm sick today, I can go back tomorrow.” It’s “I'm sick today and now I won't be back in school for a week.” And so, a lot was getting missed because of that. 

My last option was to transition my kids to homeschool and it was not an easy choice for me. I stressed out for a while about it. Kristy knows, she was right there with me and she helped me make that transition at the end of last year. For the last two months my kids homeschooled, and that's how we started developing this new paradigm of what we're doing here with this blog and in the Barefoot Learning Club.

Reframing what school can really look like. 

I (Kristy) relate to that because when kids are saying, “I don't feel good”, or, “This is too hard”, that is their way of communicating that they're suffering. And kids internalize it and think it's their fault.

They don't realize that the broken education system is not working for them and it's unfortunate that that happens. It’s definitely a hard balance right now for so many. 

I was a teacher for more than 30 years in a classroom teacher, working in tutoring centers privately tutoring, and homeschooling kids. I've pretty much done it all. Most of my background is with Resources, which is kids that have learning differences. I witnessed how the kids were struggling.

Kids with learning differences, like dyslexia, for example, get more and more behind and their self-esteem just goes away.

“It's their fault. They must be stupid.” Right? —Wrong.

The flip side is the super smart, gifted kids. They’re suffering because they're bored out of their minds. They need to be stimulated and have their minds active and they're just being held back. The kids in the middle, they're pretty bored too.

The boredom of sitting on an iPad and punching buttons or doing a worksheet, that kind of curriculum doesn’t work. I used to get my hands slapped all the time. It needs to shift. The focus needs to come back to the little kids on foundation. 

Alysia and I came together and said, “Hey, why don't we create the Barefoot Learning Club and create a system?”

Parents can take back their power and kids get to learn at the level they're at. They can be taught to read, write, spell, and do math in a way that actually works and doesn't bore them to tears. Most kids are in that situation right now where they're just not getting their personal needs met because every child learns differently. 

That’s really what this paradigm shift in education is, as we talk about it. It’s what Kristy just said—allowing children to learn and explore in a way that's joyful for them, in a way that feels good and empowers them, and makes them want to learn new things.

They naturally want to learn. When they're being supported the right way—which is actually so simple—the difference in them goes from, “I don't wanna,” and not getting out of bed to, “When do we have school again? I can't wait.” That's pretty amazing. 

This is a quick introduction to what the paradigm shift in education is all about. We're going to have more on the topic soon!