Shaped by Good Experiences
Scott and Tali homeschooled their four children for 20 years. This was a challenging but rewarding endeavor. Homeschooling is not for everyone. The stress at some points was nearly overwhelming.
Their homeschool decision was based on benefits for the direct parent-child relationship, flexibility to teach any subject at any depth, and the flexibility to accelerate subjects based on individual student readiness. Homeschooling removes the systematic tendency to underestimate and hold back talented kids. It also decreases the risks of negative peer pressures like bullying and drugs. It removes completely the risk of woke political agendas.
Self-custody of their kids’ education begins with their own education. Scott and Tali have never stopped learning. They continually read and study money, education and other subjects. They have invested thousands of hours in self-study and regularly pursue conferences, courses, books, podcasts or any other resource they can find.
Scott and Tali recommend to others, regardless of their schooling choice, to check curriculum for themselves. Don’t trust. Verify. Many school curricula are watered-down to the point of being pointless. Or they serve as propaganda for political agendas. This is not just K-12. The same harmful attributes are prevalent through colleges and universities.
Shaped by Painful Experiences
Scott and Tali are passionate about is money. Like all parents, they want the best for their family. Experiencing the loss of a job in 2009 with high student loan debt and a mortgage was painful. In fact, they lost their house in the great recession. They never want to go through such an experience again. Nor did they want others, especially their kids, to go through such an experience.
Scott and Tali realized they were not alone. Our country is in trouble with inflation, excessive money printing and an accelerating debt spiral. While the U.S. dollar is the global reserve currency, the global money system remains based on a system of fiat money, i.e., money not-backed by hard assets like gold.
The combination of the painful first-hand experience of a debt-driven culture and being homeschoolers led Scott and Tali to deep dive how money works. What was immediately obvious was how few money concepts are covered by education programs, public or private. Those few institutions who do broach the subject are skewed by the disastrous Keynesian framework central banks and bloated governments love. Scott and Tali found an alternative not covered in schools, not even business schools … Austrian Economics. This is a sound money point of view centered upon free and open markets, not big government, “too big to fail” bailouts or infinity money printing.
Shaped by Service
Scott memorized General MacArthur’s “Duty, Honor, Country” passage as part plebe knowledge at West Point. At 18 years of age, he did not appreciate the significance of those words. He also learned “no excuse” as one of four permissible plebe responses. At the time, he did not fully appreciate how rare the value of taking personal responsibility was. He naively expected everyone would do the harder right over the easier wrong.
Fast forward to today, the concept of taking action and serving others has crystalized for Scott. He cares deeply about individual freedoms, the Constitution which protects those freedoms, and free markets. We owe it to those who have served, to ourselves and to the next generation to protect these ideals. Gone is the expectation others will do the right thing. In fact, it is even worse. There are bad actors attacking our freedoms from internal and external.
But how can someone in operations with no generational wealth to pull from help others? These are massive challenges we face. The answer is you give what you have. Scott and Tali leverage their educational experiences. They continue to invest time and energy to summarize lessons learned and valuable resources to share with others.
They also strive to make teaching fun. Scott has a love of games so it was natural to incorporate them into their homeschooling curriculum. Tabletop games rank higher on the education effectiveness pyramid than traditional learning methods because they combine social interaction with all the senses. (Fun foods on game night help with taste and smell associations!) Games offer fellowship while taking a break from ever-present screen time temptations. In short, games are a creative – and fun – way to boost learning for everyone, not just kids.
These three passions are the fuel for Scott and Tali’s mission. Free Market Kids’ purpose is to give the next generation the knowledge and tools to maximize their chances for freedom, success and happiness. They make it easy and fun to introduce money concepts to kids through tabletop games, courses, lesson plans and trusted resources.
If you have ideas, questions or want to help too, reach out directly at scott@freemarketkids.com or use the form below.
