empowers parents Archives

Don’t Let School Convince You You’re Not Smart

My daughter and I spent several hours tonight studying for her math test tomorrow.

She’s neurodivergent. She struggles in math and English because of dyslexia and dyscalculia. There were a lot of tears. And at one point she said something that broke my heart:

“I wish I could just be as smart as everyone else.”

So I told her the truth.

Sweetie, everyone has hard things and easy things. Everyone.

This is your hard thing. Reading and numbers are harder for you. They just are. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t smart.

Here’s what no one tells you about school:

School is centered around reading and numbers.

Independent reading is how one adult manages thirty kids in a classroom. Tests are how large groups are measured quickly. The whole structure depends on literacy and numerical processing.

So if reading and numbers are your hard things, school will feel hard.

That doesn’t mean you’re not smart.

It means the system is built around your area of challenge.

And here’s another truth about school:

School doesn’t reward effort. It rewards output.

If math comes easily to your friend and she spends 20 relaxed minutes on a worksheet and earns a 90%, and you spend 60 grueling minutes and earn a 50% — who worked harder?

You did.

But school doesn’t measure how hard you worked.

It measures how many answers were correct.

Now imagine something different.

If school were centered around creativity…

or engineering-thinking…

or musical instinct…

or empathy and thoughtfulness…

or responsibility and trustworthiness…

You would be at the top of the class.

You would be absolutely crushing it.

But school doesn’t prioritize those traits.

But guess what? The real world does.

The real world cares that you show up on time.

That you think outside the box.

That you treat people with kindness.

That you keep going when things are hard.

The real world doesn’t care if you use a calculator to figure out a tip.

It doesn’t care if you prefer audiobooks over printed pages.

It doesn’t care how quickly you finish a worksheet.

The most powerful skill you’ll carry into adulthood isn’t mental math.

It’s perseverance.

It’s knowing how to work hard at something that doesn’t come easily.

So please — don’t let school convince you that you’re not smart just because it has a narrow definition of what counts.

Don’t let it shrink how you see yourself.

Don’t let it break your spirit.

? Lindsey

certified special-ed educator, homeschool mom, & co-founder of Schoolio

When “Bad Teacher” Comedy Isn’t a Laughing Matter

My social media feeds are full of education-related content. Lately, I’ve noticed an increase in comedians like Gerry Dee (Mr. D)—alongside a growing wave of TikTok and Instagram “former teacher” creators—who are building successful careers around the idea that being a bad teacher is funny, relatable, and ultimately harmless.

But today’s Mr. D video in my TikTok feed hit differently, as I had just finished sitting next to my daughter in the kitchen for over an hour while she painfully cried her way through an essay that an apathetic teacher assigned at the last minute as a “punishment” to the class for not paying enough attention to him- without any instruction around the skills needed for this essay. For my autistic and dyslexic child, who takes every word literally and straight to heart, and has loads of anxiety around handing in her absolute best work, this pressure and lack of support sent her into meltdown mode.

There are several comedians who’ve built entire lanes around “I was bad at my old job / the system was a joke / authority doesn’t matter” humor. My issue isn’t with comedy about work in general. It’s with ex-teachers making light of how poorly they did their jobs—and how little they cared while doing them.

That kind of humor punches down.

It celebrates apathy.

And it shows a complete lack of concern for who was harmed in the making of that joke: the vulnerable children they were responsible for.

Yes, I understand why these jokes land.

Most of us have had that teacher.

The disorganized one.

The checked-out one.

The one who survived the school day purely on sarcasm and vibes.

We’re conditioned to laugh and say, “Yep. That’s just school.”

But here’s the part that never makes it into the punchline:

For some kids—and some families—that teacher isn’t a funny memory.

They’re the reason everything fell apart.

Why “Bad Teacher” Comedy Is a Unique Problem

This is the core issue these jokes orbit around, whether intentionally or not.

Teaching is one of the only professions where:

The audience (kids) can’t leave
The harm is delayed and largely invisible
The most vulnerable are affected first
And society shrugs and says, “That’s just school.”

For neurodivergent kids in particular:

There is no buffer
No “later we’ll laugh about this”
No neutral experience

A teacher who is unstructured, dismissive, or proudly unprepared isn’t quirky—they’re destabilizing.

A chaotic classroom isn’t funny when your nervous system relies on predictability to feel safe.

Sarcasm isn’t clever when language is processed literally.

“Figure it out” isn’t empowering when executive function is already a daily battle.

So when a comedian builds a career celebrating that archetype, it doesn’t land as satire.

It lands as dismissal.

“That’s Just School” Is Not a Neutral Statement

One of the most damaging parts of this genre of humor is how effectively it reinforces the idea that bad teaching is a harmless rite of passage.

We laugh.

We relate.

We normalize it.

And in doing so, we erase the kids who couldn’t survive that environment.

I work with—and parent alongside—families whose children didn’t just dislike school.

They burned out.

They shut down.

They developed anxiety so intense they couldn’t enter the building.

These families didn’t leave school because they were anti-education.

They left because continuing would have meant sacrificing their child’s mental health.

So when we laugh at jokes about incompetence in classrooms, we’re not just laughing at a system—we’re laughing past the kids who were harmed by it.

The Line Being Crossed

This is the distinction that matters:

Comedy about systems failing = fair

Comedy about authority over powerless kids = requires responsibility

This isn’t about being unable to take a joke.

And it’s not about policing comedy.

My frustration isn’t with humor.

It’s with who the joke protects.

When the punchline is “I was terrible at my job,” the unseen collateral damage is the children who never had the option to leave, opt out, or laugh it off later.

Why This Hits Different for Our Community

For neurodivergent kids, bad teaching isn’t character-building.

It’s often the start of years of self-doubt, resistance to learning, and internalized shame.

So no—this kind of humor doesn’t feel harmless from where we’re standing.

It feels like another reminder of why so many of us chose a different path.

Why homeschooling wasn’t a lifestyle choice, but a lifeline.

Why “relatable” stories about bad teachers land very differently when you’ve seen the damage up close.

Good teaching matters.

Competent teaching matters.

Neurodivergent-aware teaching matters most of all.

And for families like ours, that truth isn’t funny at all.

Lindsey Casselman

Certified Special Ed Educator & Co-Founder, Schoolio

When Homeschooling is Healing, Not “Fixing”

This has been on my mind today…

There is a Japanese art form called kintsugi. When a bowl or cup breaks, it is not thrown away. The pieces are carefully put back together, and the cracks are filled with gold. The repair is not hidden. It is highlighted. The object becomes more valuable because it has been broken and repaired with care. The story becomes part of its beauty.

I think about that a lot when I reflect on my own life. I also think about it when I look at the families we support through homeschooling and the work we are building at Schoolio.

Too many children move through school systems quietly absorbing a message that they are broken. Not always through words, but through looks, labels, meetings, and expectations. They are told to sit still when their bodies want to move. To keep up when they need time. To fit into systems that were never designed for how they learn. Eventually, many of them begin to believe that something is wrong with them.

When those children come home, something different can happen. With patience, care, and attention, the pressure starts to lift. Confidence begins to return. Curiosity peeks back out. Learning feels possible again. Not rushed. Not forced. Just human.

But here is the part that matters most to me. Healing should never feel like hiding.

Homeschooling should not feel like punishment or retreat. It should not feel like we are sweeping children out of sight. It should feel like kintsugi. A celebration of the whole child. A recognition that learning differently does not mean learning less. It means learning in a way that honors who they are.

At schoolio, we see this every day. Children who were once labeled as struggling begin to thrive when the pressure is removed and the support is real. When learning adapts to them instead of asking them to adapt to it. When their cracks are not erased, but respected.

Every student who leaves a system that did not serve them carries an incredible story. Those cracks are not flaws. They are experiences. When they are filled with care, trust, and belief, something stronger is created. Something more meaningful than what existed before.

That is what homeschooling can be.

That is what schoolio is working toward.

Not fixing children, but honoring them.

Sathish

still learning, still unlearning

You Don’t Have to “Be the Teacher”

One of the things I hear most often from new homeschooling parents is:

“I’m worried about how to be the teacher.”

“How do I switch between being Mom and being Teacher?”

And I get it — that’s the model we were raised in. School was one thing. Home was another. Learning happened in a classroom, not the kitchen, and teachers were “official” in a way parents weren’t.

But that separation? It’s something we were taught.

And it’s one of the first things to unlearn when you start homeschooling.

The truth is, you already are your child’s most impactful and most important teacher.

You taught them to talk. To walk. To be kind. To navigate big feelings. You’ve taught them hundreds of things — without ever standing at a whiteboard or grading a paper.

Homeschooling doesn’t mean you suddenly need to transform into a formal “teacher” figure with a desk, a whistle, and a lesson plan binder.

It means you continue what you’ve always done — guiding your child through learning experiences that help them grow into capable, curious, thoughtful humans.

Let go of the image of kids sitting in desks while you lecture at the front. That’s not homeschooling. That’s school-at-home — and that’s not what your kids need.

Kids aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled with facts. They’re active participants in their own learning.

When you give your child autonomy and ownership, everything changes.

You stop being “the enforcer,” and start being their guide. Their mentor. Their teammate.

You’re not switching between roles — you’re expanding the one you’ve always had.

In real life, learning doesn’t have boundaries. It doesn’t only happen between 9 and 3, or only from someone with a degree. It happens everywhere, all the time, through curiosity and connection.

Your homeschool doesn’t need to mirror school.

It needs to mirror life.

? Lindsey

Certified Special Ed Educator & Co-Founder, Schoolio