BEN GROOM
his homeschool. They are mainly from 9th to 12th grade, but Ben has now taught kids from a broad range of ages. Over the last 11 years, Ben has taught about one hundred children in homeschool and many more in his tutoring business. His students have pursued college, welding school, real estate school, and the medical field. “I’ve been blessed. I’ve never run one advertisement. All of my students from day one have been from word of mouth,” Ben says. Ben has stayed so busy with the business that he had to slow down the tutoring because he was teaching all day and then tutoring from about 5:00-9:00p.m. The students in the home school take modules and online classes. They attend year round from about 8:30a.m. till 12:30 a.m., and they only attend two days a week during the summer. Ben has found that year-round school helps with retention, and at his homeschool, he is focused on what is best for kids and their learning environment. A lot of Ben’s students are students with special needs or learning disabilities that would hinder them in the fastpaced classrooms of public school. “I believe that all students can and should learn,” Ben says. “I just tell them, ‘Hey, not everyone is Einstein and not everyone learns the same way, but if you don’t ever try, you aren’t going to learn anything.’ I really believe that students today are scared of making mistakes, but they’ve got to learn not to fear failure. I am by no means a perfect parent, but I do wish that more parents would just let their kids be kids and make mistakes.” Though Ben purchases a lot of his materials from Alpha Omega, a program available through the Baptist Book Store, his classroom does not have a religious focus. “I am a born again Christian,” Ben says, “but I don’t want the pastors teaching or the teachers preaching. I have students from all religious backgrounds. We all have some similar foundational beliefs, but I’m not here to teach the Bible. I believe that is something that is done in the home.” Besides doing school work, Ben requires his students to learn life skills. He teaches them household skills, and he stresses the importance of hard work. He teaches them how to cook and how to buy groceries. He points out the prices of items at the store and nutritional information. “I want to teach them how to do things with their hands besides just play games,” Ben says. “I tell them they need to learn how to be ready for the real world. They can’t just live on Hot Pockets the rest of their lives. I want them to know there is more to life, even as a child, than just school.” The other aspect that makes Ben’s homeschool unique is the individual touch he is able to offer every student. Ben explains that while public school teachers have to have a certain number of grades and teachers have to cover a certain number of pages in the book, Ben makes sure that the student has mastered the material before
014 ALT Magazine | November 2018
moving on. “In public school, they say that special needs children have to have modifications, but my passing score is 90. I don’t modify my tests. A student may take it five to six times, but they learn what’s on that test,” Ben says. “In the end, it’s not about the tests. I want that child to learn, and I do not accept mediocrity. We are going to keep at it until we get the best that we can, and then we are going to move on. The best part of teaching is that ‘eureka moment’ that they always talked about in college. When the light comes on, it makes it all worthwhile.” When Ben isn’t teaching or tutoring, he is taking care of his bucking bulls and getting back into what he calls “the cowboy life,” but Ben says the kids keep him young and that he has no plans to retire any time soon. “I’m always amazed at what the kids do and say, and it keeps me in touch with society in general,” Ben says. “They are just mirrors of what they see out there. I don’t need Facebook; I can just sit around a bunch of kids and they will tell me what’s going on. But I want kids to be engaged. It seems like it’s harder to get kids engaged in things these days. I tell them not to live their lives vicariously through a computer; go out and actually see it.” Ben says that the biggest concern he sees with homeschooling is the fear that a child will not be socialized like they will in public education; however, Ben argues that socialization starts at home. “I see so many parents and kids on their phones at restaurants. I’m just always shocked,” Ben says. “I’m really big about trying to educate parents as much as kids about helping kids get off the phone and computer. I tell them, ‘Get in here and be a part of your child’s life, teach them and be part of it. Be a parent. Don’t be a buddy.’”