I am a professional reminder-er and permission granter who moonlights as an artist, author, and speaker. I enjoy Star Wars, soft t-shirts, and brand new tubes of paint. My wife Kim and I homeschool our three weird kids and live in Wisconsin, where we eat way too many cheese curds.
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Caught Not Taught 🍎
Published 18 days ago • 4 min read
2025 Issue #11 🍎
Happy Sunday, Reader!
Greetings from Sheboygan, where we are so curious to find out who will earn the title of "Grand Shenanigator" and win a year's worth of ice cream in the Festival of Shenanigans that kicks off tomorrow. (You're already registered, right?)
Now, let's start with something controversial...
Teaching is overrated.
Oh, did that get your attention?
Good. Now let me tell you what I mean. As parents who homeschool, Kim and I have thought a lot about our role as teachers. And I’ve been fortunate to speak to thousands of educators over the years, encouraging them in a job that’s become more difficult with each passing year.
I don’t think that teachers are overrated, just one particular part of their job.
The teaching part.
I’ve made many observations over many years as a homeschooling parent. It’s clear to me that kids have no trouble learning. It’s a built-in feature. After all, you don’t have to teach a baby to crawl, talk, or walk.
And when they get older, they somehow figure out all on their own exactly what buttons to push to get what they want!
Look, I believe that a person who takes on the role of teacher in any child’s life is one of the best kinds of people. It’s just that the idea of imparting knowledge to someone else is not as useful as we might think.
Our schools may be helpful in imparting facts. But learning, in the final analysis, means a change in behavior.
Since so much of school feels boring and irrelevant, students put on a lid, closing themselves off from real learning. You can pour all the knowledge you’d like on a student, but if they’re going through life with a lid on, you’re not going to be very effective.
A teacher’s true, most important, (and most difficult!) job is getting the student to remove the lid.
Part of the reason school feels boring is because the teacher is bored.
One of my favorite teachers ever was Mr. Newland. He was a balding, middle-aged middle school teacher with giant glasses and a bigger smile. He had a downright nerdy love of history and his passion for stamp collecting. Stamp collecting! His enthusiasm was contagious. It bordered on embarrassing, but it made history come alive and piqued my curiosity. Only then was I willing to remove my lid and take in the knowledge he was trying to impart.
Children need adults like this, people who do are doing what they love.
Fred Rogers agreed when he said, “If adults can show what they love in front of kids, there’ll be some child who says, ‘I’d like to be like that!’ or ‘I’d like to do that!’” He told a story about a sculptor in a nursery school he was working in when he was getting his master’s degree in child development:
“There was a man who would come every week to sculpt in front of the kids. The director said, “I don’t want you to teach sculpting, I want you to do what you do and love it in front of the children.” During that year, clay was never used more imaginatively, before or after…. A great gift of any adult to a child, it seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child. I mean, if you love to bicycle, if you love to repair things, do that in front of the children. Let them catch the attitude that that’s fun. Because you know, attitudes are caught, not taught.”
Attitudes are caught, not taught.
My appreciation for history and geography was caught from Mr. Newland, not taught by him.
Think back to your favorite teachers or coaches. Is it not true that every single one of them loved what they were “teaching?”
How many people do you know who love what they do?
This rare quality can turn anyone into a teacher, whether you have an education degree or not.
Kim and I have shared a love for learning, reading, traveling, making, and building with our kids. Not on purpose, necessarily, but because we love these things ourselves.
Along the way, they have watched us build a business, a movement, and a community, because we did it right in front of them. Who knows how that will serve them? I don’t. But I do know they are learning from it.
“Not only does living our dreams give our family and children permission to do the same, but it also creates an energy in the family – we’re happier, more inspired, more energized. By the same token, I think it’s important for our children to witness us taking risks and reaching toward our potential. How will they ever do the same if their mamas and papas haven’t shown them it’s possible by living that very possibility into reality with their own lives?”
Teaching is a tough gig. But the hard part has nothing to do with dispensing facts.
Dream big. Take risks. Do what you love in front of others.
May we ALL be teachers.
🤔 I wonder...what teacher in your life did this article remind you of? Hit reply to share your thoughts with me, or join the conversation in the Escape Adulthood League!
Stay young and stay fun,
P.S.
Tune in Monday at 7:45 pm CT to watch the latest episode of Escape Adulthood LIVE, where we will be revealing the ridiculous list of challenges we created for the Festival of Shenanigans. 👇👇👇
Have Fun. Defeat Adultitis. Win a Year's Worth of Ice Cream!
On March 17th, we're unleashing a crazy list of 100 things to do, make, or find. You'll have seventeen days to complete as many as you can. Pride and prizes are on the line, and the person with the most points shall be declared the winner and bestowed the title of Grand Shenanigator!
I am a professional reminder-er and permission granter who moonlights as an artist, author, and speaker. I enjoy Star Wars, soft t-shirts, and brand new tubes of paint. My wife Kim and I homeschool our three weird kids and live in Wisconsin, where we eat way too many cheese curds.
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2025 Issue #12 🍽️ Happy Sunday, Reader! Greetings from Sheboygan, where we are closely monitoring the hijinks happening in the Festival of Shenanigans. We can confirm that Adultitis is getting its butt kicked. The gauntlet had been thrown down. What choice did I have? We were on a road trip...somewhere. The details don't matter, but I'm pretty sure we were rolling up to Dairy Queen for some Blizzards. Someone in my family, probably my wife, challenged me to request extra "nipkins" at the...
