Hello, everyone. Kumar Dattatreya here with Agile Meridian and the Meridian Point. Thank you for joining us. Welcome again to another episode of this podcast. And as you know, this podcast is focused on stories of disruption and innovation, whether it's disrupting industries or disrupting, you know, people disrupting their own lives, new jobs, new ways of working, whatever. We try to highlight those stories. And today, my guest is Kimberley Gawne. She's the visionary founder of Star Students, a beacon of inspiration in the field of education, with a deep passion for fostering learning. With a bachelor's degree in education, Kimberly has left an indelible mark in the lives of countless students. Recognizing the need for a more inclusive educational environment, Kimberly established Star Students to provide equal opportunities for all learners through innovative strategies and individualized attention. She has redefined what it means to learn and excel. Kimberly's commitment extends beyond the classroom as she advocates for education reform and equal access to quality education. Her dedication has earned her accolades from both peers and industry experts. As an avid reader and lifelong learner, Kimberly continues to transform lives through her innovative approaches and heartfelt desire to inspire, exemplifying her unwavering dedication to shaping the minds of tomorrow's leaders. So with that, let me welcome Kimberly to the stage. Thank you for joining us, Kimberly. It's really, really good to have you here.
Kimberly: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Kumar: Of course. Yeah. No worries. So what inspired you to start Star Students? And how has your personal experience, if you will, shaped your desire to start this endeavor?
Kimberly: That's a very good question. A good one to start off on, I might say. So, in terms of what inspired me to start Star Students, I have always had a passion for teaching. I have always had a passion for education. And so part of my journey, as a young individual, as a teenager, and even into young adulthood, was making sure that I was always learning and that I was always growing. The idea being that I wanted to be able to further my own mindset. And so teaching just always came naturally to me, as a teenager, and helping younger students and such. That was something that I really wanted to be able to go through with in terms of making an actual career. And so, me having wanted to be a teacher since a very little, a very young girl, I went through the appropriate steps, etcetera, to become one. I did my six years and then I graduated Teachers College in April of 2020, actually. And the way that the world was in 2020, if you remember, the teaching world, in the public school system anyways, did not look so great. And so I pivoted into what you might call private education, still enabling me to be able to teach and to be able to do what I love to do, but just not have to have the additional insecurities or, yeah, I guess you'd call them insecurities of the job market and everything else that was going on at the time. I just didn't agree with a lot of what was going on. So that's where Star Students came from, and that's how Star Students happened. It was something that I said, "Well, I want to be a teacher. I can't do it the way I thought I was gonna be able to do it anymore, so I'm gonna find another way to make it happen." Yeah. And that was in the beginning of 2021, so just about three and a half years ago now.
Kumar: That's a great start. So you actually got your start in the middle of COVID, when schools are shut down, kids were, you know, learning from home or attempting to learn from home, and so everyone is really, in a way, being homeschooled. But talk to me about that. I mean, how, what was that experience like for most students, the experience of being homeschooled? Not homeschooled necessarily, but, you know, learning from home, that whole sort of distance learning?
Kimberly: Yes. Well, I can't necessarily speak for everyone because, of course, everyone has different views on what went on and how things worked. But from the vast majority of parents that I've talked to over the course of the past, you know, three and a half to four years, a lot of parents, before COVID, before the whole, before everything happened and things shut down, they were very frustrated with the public school system to begin with. I always say that what happened in 2020 was not something that caused flaws in the public system, it just exposed them because now you have children who are at home with their parents because, for, you know, for however long people were locked in their houses or they were working from home or even if they weren't, maybe they chose to stay there. Right? And the amount of flaws, the amount of problems that were exposed because now you're bringing education directly into the home, right? And this is in no way, you know, with the parents that I speak with, they're in no way frustrated with the teachers, like the teachers themselves, or they're frustrated with their kids, of course, it has nothing to do with the people that were involved in the situation, but where a lot of the frustration came from was with the systems that were put in place for online learning in the home in a public school format. It just wasn't, it's just not doable. Public school, I mean, my own opinion is that public school doesn't work to begin with, let alone a public school in an online setting. Right? And so that was from what I have heard over the past three and a half to four years, that's been one of the biggest frustrations or the biggest flaws that's been complained about, about the public system, is that it's just not done, it's just not set up for success for children. It's just not meant for that.
Kumar: Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I want to delve into that too. You know, what is it about the public school system that isn't working and are there examples of systems in other parts of the world that may be working, but I first want to hone in on what you do. And so you provide homeschooling programs for kids. Can you talk a little bit about us and how these programs are, you know, catered to kids' needs and the advantages of homeschooling in general?
Kimberly: For sure. Yeah. So, I mean, you mentioned advantages of homeschooling. I will say that that is an absolute advantage of being able to homeschool, or of homeschooling, is being able to homeschool. That's a huge advantage when it comes to customization of your child's curriculum. It is a huge advantage when it comes to involvement in your child's curriculum. And it's a huge advantage when it comes to your time as well. The thing with homeschooling that I think a lot of people overlook is that when you're homeschooling, you don't have to, and you certainly shouldn't have a six-to-seven-to-eight-hour school day. You have much more time freedom and much more flexibility, not only with when you learn and how you learn, but what you learn. And so those are some of the biggest advantages that have parents nowadays, because homeschooling has grown massively since 2020. And those are some of the biggest advantages, those are, I'd say, the top three ones, of why parents are choosing to homeschool, why parents are choosing to continue along the homeschooling path even when they don't need to, quote-unquote, "need to" anymore. Right? Because schools are open and things are operating and whatnot. Yeah.
Kumar: So, I mean, what is it that you provide? Is it coaching for the parents, or do you actually hold classes for the children that are homeschooled or both?
Kimberly: So, good question. So you're right. That would be choice C, sir. I'm hitting choice C on the Scantron there. It would be choice C. So we do provide both. I do still teach. I don't teach all the students, obviously, because I can't, especially when you're talking about highly customizable curriculum, you can't teach, and you're, I'm not too, we're not teaching 30 kids in a classroom. Right? Yeah. So, yes, we do provide teaching services, in a variety of formats. We have a couple of different programs that we have for teaching for the kids, whether that's kind of on an hourly basis, in terms of if they're needing just a little bit of help. Maybe they're in supplementary or they're in, we're a complimentary addition. So oftentimes, parents will have, you know, their kids will be in like a forest school or there'll be a, some sort of other curriculum, other independent curriculum choice as well. And so they may be with us just for, you know, an hour a week or two hours a week or whatever it might be. We cater ourselves to the needs of the family. Right? We do have some parents who just choose to be with Star Students, and so that's a much higher level program where they are with us for the entirety of their academic curriculum, which is not, which is still not a six-to-seven-to-eight-hour school day. We do it based on the family's needs and design it to the family's needs. But typically, it ends up being much, well, it always ends up being much less than the traditional school system. So our teaching packages range from those sorts of options. There are parents who wish to do it themselves who want to be able to DIY their homeschooling experience, which is totally fair because the whole idea of homeschooling is that you can have some sort of involvement with your children. Right? So if parents have the time, and they wish to do that themselves, then those are parents that typically sign up for our coaching programs where they have the time but they don't necessarily have the resources. They're not quite sure where to start. They don't know what the curriculum expectations are. But they do want to make sure that their kids are not even on par, but on a superior level to the children that are in public school. You know?
Kumar: That's great. So it's a really customized experience for not only the parents, but the students as well.
Kimberly: Yes. 100%.
Kumar: Parents, I'm assuming, you know, making a decision to homeschool is a big one for parents to make, right, because they're taking the responsibility of educating their children upon themselves. They may work. They may have, you know, they may both work. Don't know. Yeah. Don't know what the situation's like. So even though the students aren't in school eight hours a day, they still have to, I mean, the onus is on the parents to provide them with enough of an education so that they can be successful in life and maybe in college and so on and so forth. So that's the decision to make. And I assume that part of the services you provide is providing parents with that confidence to be able to do that. Can you describe sort of what does that conversation look like? I'm curious.
Kimberly: For sure. A lot of times, something that I say often to a lot of parents who are looking for coaching services and they just, they're not quite sure where to start, right, because oftentimes people, especially as parents, we don't want to reach out for help, right, because, like, the idea is that we're supposed to be able to do it all on our own. One of the biggest things that I emphasize, especially in the homeschooling community, is that you cannot do it all on your own. Well, no. I'm sorry. Let me correct that. You can do it all on your own, but you're going to burn yourself out very quickly, especially if you have multiple children in different grades that you're trying to homeschool. It gets very challenging. And so one of the things that I always tell parents is the community is super important. Support is really important. That support can look different depending on your needs, depending on where you're located, and depending on, like, how old your kids are, depending on if your spouse is involved with the homeschooling process or not. Right? Oftentimes the education portion of things typically falls to the stay-at-home parent, right, because they are the stay-at-home parent, which usually is mom, in most cases, not all the time, but oftentimes. Yeah. Yeah. And so one thing that I really stress with our coaching clients is you can do this. You are able to do this. You just need, like, you just need to be able to do things in a systemized fashion that works for you, and for every person, that's different. There are certain things you're gonna want to hit regardless, but for every family, that's gonna be different because all people are different. All families are different. Right? Sure.
Kumar: Okay. So I'm wondering, so I wanted to homeschool my kids, and my kids are grown and I would not have been able to do it, you know, when I was younger raising them just because I worked, you know, ungodly hours and my wife worked. She still works, of course. Are there dual-income households where they still manage to homeschool their children?
Kimberly: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Dual-income households and even, I mean, single-income households. I would say one of the largest factors wouldn't be whether it's a single income or a dual-income household. You can always make it work regardless of your income. The challenge I find where you have both parents who are out of the home, right? And with the shift that we've made, since, you know, 2021-ish, where there's a lot more people who are looking for remote work, or who do work remotely or who have made a transition to a hybrid where they're in person and remote a little bit, for each option, there are a lot more families who are actually able to invest the time, whether it's for a homeschooling program. Like, they want a complete, you know, teaching package, or they want something that is coaching, or they want something that's kind of a mix of the two. There's a lot more flexibility if you have one parent at least that's home. Right? It does get very difficult to homeschool your children if you don't have at least one parent at home. I wouldn't say it's the income that affects it. It's the time. Yeah.
Kumar: Okay. So that's the pivot, and that's why it's blown up in popularity since COVID is because of the flexibility afforded working adults that are able to work from home and prioritize points in their day to be able to spend with their children homeschooling them on various subjects. Okay. That makes sense now because I was thinking, you know, pre-, everything seems to be now pre-COVID, post-COVID, and pre-COVID, this would be much harder. Of course, it's if the dual-income household, the people went to work, you know, people just went to work. It wasn't a question of, "Can I work from home?" That wasn't even an option in most cases. And if it was, it was, yeah, okay, you can work every second week on a Friday, you can work from home or something like that. But now with the pivot, it's much more of an option for people to consider that.
Kimberly: Yes. Well, because it's been, it's been proven, like your employer, if you work a job, you know, what, at any point, your employer no longer has the reason or the excuse per se of, "I need you at the office." Well, sir, you made it work during this time of transition when the government said it was necessary. Why can't you make it work now when I'm telling you that it's necessary, right, for the health of my family, for the benefit of my family, etcetera? Right? And I do know that a lot of employers who actually made that step, right, made that jump and they were like, "This can work." Right? Even if it's not a complete remote, it might be hybrid. Yeah.
Kumar: So, you mentioned forest schools, and, you know, there's sort of stuck in my brain. What is that?
Kimberly: So a forest school is, I mean, there are a variety of different ways of having a forest school, or doing a forest school. And a lot of people will tell you there's no one right answer, and they'd be correct because, like, it is an alternative education method. So there's no one right way to do that. But by and large, by definition, a forest school is a much smaller school. So you're thinking, like, maybe 15 to 20 kids, if that. A forest school is a much smaller school, in which most if not all of your learning takes place in the outdoors or by much more holistic or natural methods. So for example, this is a favorite that I like to use. Instead of sitting at a desk and doing a worksheet, you are outside in the yard counting pinecones for your math. Right? Something on that sort of scale is the idea of forest school.
Kumar: I love it. I wish I went to a forest school. I find that they're very good, they're very good in terms of teaching, like, basic skills. A lot of forest schools will also implement little, like, animal skills and animal life skills. So they'll have, you know, chickens, they'll have goats perhaps, they'll have, you know, dogs around the property, etcetera, because a lot of forest schools are run on farms or hobby farms or something of that sort. Yeah. So they do incorporate, like, science and animal learning that as well. But it's in the real world. So you're learning real-world skills in the real world that you can apply for the rest of your life.
Kimberly: Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. They work, those types of schools I find work very well up until about grade 5, grade 6. Yeah.
Kumar: Yeah, they're for sure. I am all for forest schools. We have quite a few families that are forest schools for some of their education, and then they're with us for other parts.
Kimberly: Okay. When you homeschool, you can mix and match. Sure. Yeah.
Kumar: So what happens at grade 5 or 6? Why is it no longer available?
Kimberly: It's not that it's no longer valid. Not that it's no longer valid. It just becomes very difficult to teach certain concepts using, like, more holistic methods, right? It is possible to do it on an individualized basis, but it becomes very difficult to teach, say, higher level math concepts. Sure. Using, like, your pinecones and stuff. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It becomes very difficult to teach things like writing or literacy, which is a very, like, hands-on pen and paper skill, if you're outside, right, or you're trying to do that a little bit more holistically. Yeah.
Kumar: I suppose you could do it, but it would be to your point very individualistic. I mean, you know, write a paper on your trip through this National Park and describe the things that you saw and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. That would be sort of a writing assignment. And maybe math would be something where they're using algebra or whatever to create, I don't know, a model of something real. But to your point, that would be hard to do with a large group of students. So I, yeah. And 15 to 20 kids. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Okay. One of the things that I've always wondered, you know, about homeschooling is, and, again, this is just a maybe an impression or an assumption that I make that, well, how can they gain social skills? Because they're home all the time. They're not with other children. And so can you take a minute and kill that assumption of mine?
Kimberly: For sure. I just, I'm not laughing at you. I'm just chuckling over here because it is the first thing that 95% of people who oppose homeschooling, not saying you're in that crowd, but 95% of people who oppose homeschooling, that's exactly the first thing that they say. "How will my children be socialized? How are you going to socialize your children?" My goodness. It is a valid question. It is a valid question. And I think that where that idea comes from of that your children will be socialized, that idea comes from the concept of homeschooling mimicking traditional school where you're sitting down for six to seven to eight hours a day with a textbook in front of you or a, you know, whatever in front of you and the teacher at the front of the classroom, right, a very traditional setting, homeschooling should not be and I don't, none of our clients and we don't teach this way. Like, it should not be a full six to seven to eight hours a day. Even if you're talking about high school, it should not be that long. Ever. And you should not be sitting at a desk with a textbook or at the kitchen table with your textbook for that long either. The homeschooling is much more flexible and you don't actually need to do all that much school. There was a study done, and I wish I could remember the name and the source, but I can maybe find it for you and send it to you. There was a study done that showed that teachers in public schools for the seven hours, on average, it's about seven hours that kids are in school, are only actually doing about two and a half hours of academic teaching per day. Per day.
Kumar: Yeah.
Kimberly: So when you look at that sort of, like, they're not actually learning for a total of seven hours. Right? The rest of the time is, like, classroom management, is recess, is lunch, is behavior, etcetera, etcetera. The other thing with socialization in schools now, I would argue, this might be a little bit controversial. I would argue that schools are not for socialization because are you really allowed to socialize that much in a traditional school? Right? It's sit down, be quiet, listen to the lesson, only allowed to talk at certain times. You can only do things at certain times. You must ask to use the washroom. That's another one that I don't agree with. You have to do all of these things in a very regimented order. To me, that's not socialization. That's indoctrination into the workforce. That is my personal opinion.
Kumar: No, it's a valid point, and I would say it matches my experience in school. I never had a good relationship with school, whether it was grade school or high school or middle school or college. It didn't matter. It just didn't match the way I needed to learn. You know, I, it doesn't really make me, I'm sure most people are this way. People, humans learn by doing and not by sitting. And it's a style that I've used in my own, I teach, but not kids. I teach adults, you know, in my line of work in agile and coaching and lean coaching and things like that. I prepare lessons and teach them how to collaborate better with their coworkers or how to implement agile techniques for their team and so on and so forth. And it would be incredibly boring if they just sat there and heard me drone on for eight hours about these things. And so what I try to do is create engaging, immersive experiences where they're doing something and learning from what they're doing. And I imagine that, you know, I never, my classes are typically, I try to do a more of a two-hour session and more than that with some exercises than to try in the workplace. And we meet again in a week and try some more exercises. So it's sort of this asynchronous, synchronous model of learning. And I assume, I don't know, you can educate me and the rest of the public, is that sort of the way you coach your parents to teach their children? And I'll just stop there.
Kimberly: Yes, in a way, yes, I think that, you know, you mentioned with adults. So, yeah, you have to teach adults in a certain way because you recognize that if you sit there and drone on for eight hours, even if you sat there and droned on for four hours, people would probably lose their patience a little bit. Right?
Kumar: Mine would wander. Yeah. Or even 20 minutes would be too much. I mean, I tend to, yeah, you need engagement. You need creativity. And, yeah, you need to, like, be doing something. Right? That is of interest to you, or maybe if it's not of interest to you, at least are able to recognize that it's something that's necessary for you to do. Right? Perseverance, the skill of perseverance. We don't always get to do things we enjoy. But even you as a coach of adults who can recognize that, yes, we take a similar approach with our students because we don't want to just be teaching, right? We don't want to just, and I've been teaching in the sense of the traditional form of I am the teacher, you are the student, and you're going to sit there and listen to me. Right? That is what's known as the banking method of education where you just assume that you're assumed as a blank slate and you're just depositing knowledge into their heads. Don't know about you, but I don't learn best that way when someone's just telling me a bunch of stuff. Yeah. Right? You learn best through experience. You learn best through doing research. You learn best through talking to other people, right, discussion-related opportunities. People learn in different ways. I'm sure you would notice having dealt with many adults. People learn in different ways. Adults learn in different ways. Why would we expect kids to be any different? Yeah. Right? And so helping them to find how they best learn and then running with that is a much better alternative than just like, alright, you're gonna sit there and listen to me talk for however long, and then I can check this box on my checklist to say that you've learned this concept. Right?
Kumar: Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And I think, I think that I, I don't know this to be true, but I think that, at least my opinion is that the educational system needs to kind of revamp how they operate, how they teach students in general. And I agree, seven hours in a classroom, eight hours in a classroom in school, it's, when I was, you know, a child growing up, I looked forward to going to school for certain things, you know, hanging out with my friends and so on and so forth, but the actual learning part, I can't say that I learned all that much. I learned much more through other activities. Right. Yeah. Are you aware of any public education programs or systems that are more in line with what you do with your homeschooling parents?
Kimberly: I'm not aware of any public ones. I do know a whole lot of private ones. And when I say public versus private, understand that when I say public, I mean, like, government-funded. Yes. When I say private, I mean, like, private businesses or companies. The reason being because if you are within the public system, you are subject to certain requirements. Right? Like in Ontario, it's the Ministry of Education, all across Canada, and the US, it's some form of the Ministry of Education or the Department of Education or whatever. And so you're subject to certain requirements, but you're also subject to certain rules that you have to comply with. Right? You don't necessarily get a choice about class sizes. You don't necessarily get a choice about what curriculum you're teaching. And if you have those two things taken away from you, then how are you supposed to effectively educate when you have a classroom of 30 kids? And you've got curriculum that, like, half of them are not understanding. Right? With homeschooling and whether you're doing it yourself or you're doing it with, you know, private education or what have you, you're able to meet those same sorts of standards, but in ways that are much more conducive to the child learning or to the small group of children that are learning, right, rather than having to cater to a large majority, and then half of them are missing it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kumar: That makes a lot of sense. I want to go back to the notion of, not the notion, but the question I asked earlier about the social skills and things like that. What are some things that you do to help your parents foster effective communication, independence, emotional intelligence, things that are, I feel that in the adults that I coach are in some ways lacking, especially on the EQ side? Are there things you do with parents or that you coach?
Kimberly: Yeah, for sure. So you asked actually about, yeah, socialization. And I know we chatted a little bit about it. The difference with, like, whether your child is in public school or whether your child is homeschooled and or privately educated, whatever it may be, is just that, yeah, the onus is on you as the parent to socialize that. Right? Because they're not in school. They're not seeing people to their age, etcetera. So, yes, that's a big conversation between myself and other parents that we serve. And it's one of the biggest questions is how do I, how do I make this work, right, because the onus is on you as a parent. And that's why I mentioned that it's very difficult to homeschool your children and give them a complete well-rounded educational experience if both parents are out of the home. Sure.
Kumar: I wanted to actually dig in a little deeper into that and talk specifically about things like emotional intelligence, independence, cultivating a confident young person that can, you know, face the challenges of tomorrow, right? So your onus is on parents, and yes, I understand the whole two-income thing. It's more about the time that the parent is able to spend with their children and all that, but it seems like that's such a big part of the social education of a child. How do you coach the parents to provide that kind of support and guidance to their children?
Kimberly: So that's another reason why I say that you cannot do homeschooling alone. Right? You have to be in a community, and I don't mean just like a community for you as the parent, I mean a community for your children. Right? If you think about the way that people used to live back in, before my time, back in the 1950s, maybe even a little bit earlier, actually, when it was a far more agrarian lifestyle, right, where people lived much closer together, people were much more social in that aspect. Kids were always outside. They were always doing things. Right? It's very, very important for children to be around other children, not just other children of their age, but also children who are, like, a little bit older than them, who are a little bit younger than them, and to be around other adults. One thing that I have noticed with the socialization processes, if you will, if you will, if you want to call them that, with homeschooled children, they are far more comfortable, like a 150%. I see this all the time. They are 150% more comfortable speaking to adults about anything and everything than their public school peers that are the same age. And I think a large portion of that, I believe a large portion of that is because of the fact that when you do homeschooling correctly and you socialize your kids to be around people of all ages, including adults, they're much more comfortable having conversations because they've grown up in that sort of lifestyle. They're used to talking to adults. Right? Yes. Absolutely.
Kumar: And, I mean, provided you have your children around emotionally intelligent adults, they will pick up on those sorts of things. Right?
Kimberly: Is another thing that I really caution parents with is to be careful about who you let your children around, other kids as well as other adults.
Kumar: Interesting. Very interesting. Yeah. It's a fascinating discussion. I remember growing up in India and the school system there. This is, you know, ages ago because I'm pretty old. Well, but going to school there was a different experience in going to school here in the US. I'm sure. You know, and I think a lot of it is just because of the society there. It was a much closer-knit community. And this was, again, ages ago, like 40 years ago, 50 years ago, whatever it was, that I went to grade school back in India, primal, even more than that. And there was as much time spent outside of school with community, you know, relate, cousins and friends and stuff from the neighborhood, playing sports together or whatever, or doing your homework together or whatever. And the school was pretty strict. It was pretty hierarchical in terms of what you were allowed to say or do. And so, that didn't change much. But just the fact that the community was much stronger 50 years ago, I think, especially in India, that probably is now even. Right? Because things have progressed. You know, people are off working and the community has, community bonds have become less strong than they used to be. And so this seems like a really great way to rebuild those bonds in the community, the larger community, and provide education, not just the, not just the academic education that kids need, but also the social education that kids need on how to talk to other children and, you know, whether they're older than them or younger than them, and how to speak to adults and how to just basically conduct life, the business of life. Really fascinating to me.
Kimberly: Yeah. Alright. So I'm asking a lot of questions. What have I not asked you that you are dying to tell our viewers?
Kumar: Goodness. Good question. I don't know. I mean, I think you've asked quite a few. You even hit on the, you hit on the socialization one. See, this would be my opportunity to talk about socialization if you hadn't mentioned it already. One thing that people typically like, people will usually ask, is like, what's your number one tip to, like, to be a successful homeschooler and whatnot, but even that, we touched on. Right?
Kimberly: Yeah. One of the most important things is the community. You cannot do it up by yourself. Right? I'm sorry. You can, but you're gonna be looking at burnout real quick. Right? Right. And realistically, realistically, like we have just talked about with community, and thank you for sharing a little bit about your upbringing in India. I was finding it fascinating to hear the stories that other people have of where they grew up, particularly if it's different countries, if it wasn't like Canada or the USA. Right? Yeah. But, yeah, that is one thing that I really think is important is the value of community. And that's really been undermined, I think, in the last 50 to 70 years, the value of community has, the value of community has not decreased, but the awareness of the value of community has decreased because you're right. Everybody is busy running here, busy running there, working here, working there.
Kumar: Yeah. We can, as a global society, homeschooling and alternative education is an absolutely feasible thing to do. What do you think people did before public school came around? Of course. Right? Like, they homeschooled. Right? They sent their kids to the neighbors to learn about this or they did it themselves or whatever. That is a doable thing, especially with so many people working from home now.
Kimberly: No, I totally agree. I think it's just the awareness level, that I always like to stress, right, which is why I like doing things like this because you'll never know who will be encouraged or who will be inspired to do their own, their own homeschooling journey or start their own alternative education journey?
Kumar: No, that makes a lot of sense. And then and it's totally, I mean, I grew up in many different countries. So I went to school in India and Africa and Sweden and here in the US. And you know, as I got older, you know, I came to the US when I was in middle school. So I was in middle school and high school here and college, and I'd say that the experience got less and less pleasant as I got older and older.
Kimberly: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not surprised.
Kumar: Yeah. It's a thing you bring up history, you know, before the industrial revolution, you know, what did kids do? And how did they learn? And community was much, much stronger then. And you know, since the industrial revolution, you know, education has become just another industry. It seems like, you know, kids are shepherded into schools and almost like a factory system. You go through this regimen system. You come out the other end, you know, a fully fledged adult, you know, with your high school diploma and not quite an adult, young adult, ready for, you know, your post-graduate, the post-high school studies. Right? And, I don't know. Maybe that model just needs to be rethunk if that's a word. I'm sure lots of people have been doing lots of thinking about it besides me, lots of people that are much more knowledgeable about these things. And so we'll leave it for them to sort of pontificate, but my sense is that what you're doing is a great service to kids and parents around the world. I don't know where, what you call your home base, if you will, where you serve parents? Is it all over the country, the world? Or?
Kimberly: Yeah. So all over, we are, because we are all digital. Right? We are all virtual. For the most part, we serve Canada and the US. We are a little bit in the UK as well, just because we want to be familiar with, like, the services that we're providing. So in terms of knowing the actual education system, that is something that we have to be able to do, obviously, to provide superior services. So Canada, the US. Hey, and then a little bit in the UK as well.
Kumar: Okay. Excellent. Well, Kimberly, it's been really a pleasure to get to have you on the show, learn more about what you do. How would people contact you to get more information?
Kimberly: Yeah. That's a great question. Thank you for asking. First of all, it has been an absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you. I always enjoy our conversations. If people are wanting to get in touch with me, online is obviously one of the fastest ways to get a hold of me being that we work online. So the website is www.starstudents with an s.co not .com. co. And that would have all the contact information there. That would have everything there for you whether you prefer to do an email or you prefer to phone call, whatever your choice. I try to be flexible.
Kumar: That's great. So I'll put the link on the show notes here on this episode so people can contact you. And, of course, you're available on LinkedIn and, you know, all the other social media as well.
Kimberly: I'm all over social media. Yeah. You can type in Star Students anywhere in a search engine, and you'll find me. Or you could type my name in, and you'll find me there too most likely.
Kumar: Excellent. Excellent. Well, Kimberly, you are a star teacher, a star human. I enjoyed talking to you, and I hope, I'm sure my audience here has enjoyed listening to the things that you do and the way you provide value to the world. So thanks again for being here.
Kimberly: Thank you for having me. Bye, everyone.
