Connor Boyack discusses the problems with federally-funded education in the U.S. Is the U.S government prohibiting teachers and students from truly educating and learning? Find out on this segment of the Liberty Report.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Connor Boyack discusses the problems with federally-funded education in the U.S. Is the U.S government prohibiting teachers and students from truly educating and learning? Find out on this segment of the Liberty Report.
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
He's a young guy, younger than you, and I think he's younger than me.
But he's doing a lot of good work.
He knows what the libertarian philosophy is all about, and we want to talk to him because he's recently has written a very fascinating book on homeschool education and challenging the government education system.
His name is Connor Boyak.
And Connor, welcome to our program today.
Thank you both for having me.
Appreciate being with you.
Well, very good.
I want to congratulate you on your Libertas Institute because it's been around only a couple years, but you've put out a lot of good material and you like to write.
You've written quite a few booklets.
The most recent one is the passion-driven education, which is very fascinating.
But of course, the one that really got my attention a few years ago was the one that you did on the law.
And let me let the audience know that you write for various audience, but you've done a lot for young people, children who need to hear about this because, of course, you know, the government schools get hold of our kids now, even two and three years before first grade.
So, Connor, why don't we start off?
I think let's talk about your organization.
How long have you had it?
And was it you alone that set it up?
And how does it operate?
And what do you do besides write good books?
Yeah, thank you again for that.
The Libertas Institute, I founded it, it's been about five years ago now.
And part of it came from me trying to find my path and my place and everything.
After the Ron Paul revolution and everything, the 2012 campaign, you know, a lot of us are trying to figure out where do we go, how do we affect the most change.
And for me, that was at the state level.
I had read Tom Woods' recently published book, Nullification, about how, you know, really holding the Constitution, the government accountable, really has happened at a state level.
And so I said, you know, I want to focus my efforts there.
And so here in Utah, there was really no voice of liberty at a state level.
And so we saw a vacuum and we saw a need.
And so I started Libertis Institute.
It was just myself.
I brought several people on onto the board, onto the staff.
And we've been growing ever since.
I started doing it full.
At first, it was like a nights and weekends kind of project.
We didn't really have any money, but we found donors.
I quit my job and started doing it full-time in 2013.
So just, then we've grown, we have a staff of about seven now, all Ron Paulers here in the office.
And we've got, yeah, we were about seven, and we've changed about 20.
I was trying to count the other day.
We're at about 25 or 26 laws that we have changed in the state of Utah just by being part of the conversation, by doing a lot of advocacy.
So yeah, we publish a lot of books, and that gets our message beyond the borders of Utah.
Here in Utah, we do a lot of legal research and public education events and lobbying, trying to really change things at a state level and then working with organizations like ours in other states to change things where they live as well.
Very good.
Daniel?
No, you know, Dr. Paul, you did very well in Utah.
You know, a lot of libertarians out there.
But so that is very exciting.
And, you know, the idea that you can change things on a state level, the things are closer and you can work.
Maybe if you wouldn't mind just naming your top three or four things, a few things that you've been able to achieve in terms of which laws you were able to overturn and things of that nature.
A few success stories, and I'll just be brief on each of them.
One is civil asset forfeiture.
We've been able to do significant reforms here in the state on that issue.
For listeners who aren't familiar with that, it's a policy where the government can legally steal, you know, take, but effectively steal your property without charging you with, let alone convicting you of a crime.
So this has gotten a lot of national attention here in Utah.
We've been able to make a lot of reforms successfully on that issue.
Another one is Utah has the distinction of being the only state with law enforcement transparency so that every time there's a SWAT team deployment, every time there's a forcible entry warrant, like a no-knock warrant, our law enforcement community is required to provide significant information so that we can review how often that's happening and why.
Along with that, we've gotten a lot of civil liberties changes done relating to the war on drugs where no longer can police use these types of warrants to go after someone with a little bit possession of drugs.
We're trying to carve away bit by bit at the war on drugs.
And then another one I'll mention briefly is here in Utah we got homeschooling deregulated.
So there used to be a lot of burdens on parents in Utah, legal burdens on them exercising that parental right.
And now those are all done away with.
We partnered with a local homeschool organization a couple years ago and we're able to get that now.
So it's basically the wild, wild west for homeschoolers in Utah.
Wonderful.
That's very energetic and very successful.
Now you bring up the subject of education.
I'm going to put up a copy of the most recent book that you sent me.
And it's called Passion-Driven Education.
So anybody who would like to learn more about homeschooling and to understand how the government schools have undermined education, it's a very good book to get hold of.
So why don't you give us a brief summary of what you deal with in this book, because we do have a lot of interest in this program, our viewers, on this subject.
Yeah, thank you.
So Passion-Driven Education, it's kind of a two-part book.
The first part reviews the problems with the system.
A lot of parents just trust sending their kids to school.
They think teachers and administrators have the best interests of their children at heart.
And there are many good teachers and people in the system.
It's not to disparage any one person at all, but the system is designed to produce a certain type of output.
And parents don't understand the history generally of this education system.
They don't understand the motives of those who have co-opted it.
And so the first part of the book tries to awaken parents to the modern education system and a lot of its downsides and how this system, even though there are well-intentioned people working within it, trying to do their best, the system is designed to basically turn an individual into a commodity.
You think of your children, Dr. Paul, your grandchildren, right?
Every child is naturally curious.
Young children are in awe about the world around them.
They're always observing and soaking things in.
Children are curious.
And yet, if you look at the average output of, say, a public high school, these children are apathetic, they're indifferent, they're ignorant.
So we have to question what is it about the system that turned an inherently curious child into an indifferent and apathetic child.
So that's the first half of the book.
And then in the second, we want to look at what can we actually do about it.
It's not meant to be a depressing book.
It's actually meant to be a motivating book.
Passion-driven education is an approach that's more oriented towards homeschooling, although you can recreate it in any system or methodology.
And what it is, is it speaks to the individuality of the child.
So with my child, passion-driven education, I use his interests, my son I'll use as an example, to build a custom curriculum.
So if he's interested in Star Wars, whether I want to teach him science or philosophy or math or government, I add a twist to all of those subjects to tie them into the things that he is already interested in.
So I'm not having to teach him abstract ideas and things that he doesn't see as relevant or applicable to his life.
I'm helping him understand things he's already interested in by saying, oh, hey, why do you think those spaceships float in space?
You know, let's talk about gravity.
Or let's, you know, there's a grid of soldiers.
Let's do multiplication and figure out how many are there.
And so I can introduce these subjects to him based around an interest he already has.
And so I share a lot of stories and a lot of examples in the book talking about how when you approach education for an individual based on their interests, it honors their individuality, it fosters their uniqueness, it empowers them to find their own path in life.
Whereas the alternative in this modern education system, you're imprinting society onto them.
You're saying, here's a textbook, here's a plan, we're going to put you on the conveyor belt from beginning to end.
There is no individuality in that process.
And as you well know, that individuality is an integral part of the cause of liberty and helping them become their own unique person.
So that's what we're trying to foster is an approach that allows them to pursue their individuality throughout their life, even from a young age.
Right.
That sounds a little bit like you're taking some from the unschooling philosophy, maybe not going as far as they did, but that certainly is what the unschoolers look at.
And we've sort of followed a modified version of that ourselves.
I was really happy to see that John Taylor Gatto wrote the forward to your book.
And his book about the underground history of American education really changed my life when our kids were still very, very young.
I read it.
And we had already planned to homeschool.
But it really reinforced.
I mean, this is an unbelievable book.
So it's great that you're kind of taking from where he left off.
But it was kind of interesting.
I always love to look at the reviews of books.
And the only non-five-star review that your book got so far on Amazon, and it's still early days, but it was criticized by a teacher.
And gentle criticism wasn't too nasty, but it was kind of obvious coming from a teacher.
But one of the things that he or she pointed out was your idea that you shouldn't force kids to learn to read.
They may pick it up later on, even as late as 10, they may pick it up.
And she said, oh, that's not right.
You know, they need to learn phonics earlier.
But, you know, in our own experience, you know, with our children, it's been that case.
You know, my youngest is now eight.
And, you know, we kind of fought with her to get her to read.
You know, you got to learn to read, you got to learn to read.
And she just never wanted to.
And then all of a sudden, just in the past few months, I would guess, I'll look over and I'll see her with a book.
As a matter of fact, I caught her reading Connor's book on the law the other day, sitting there with it open.
So it's just they come to it, as Connor points out.
People are just so naturally curious, young kids are, that they'll see it and they'll pick it up.
So that's off.
Well, you know, the one thing that I've noticed in my own educational system is, you know, I came up through all the government schools, eight grades plus four, and the college was private, but it was still the same education.
Then finally, when I started reading more, being introduced to a different perspective in history and a different perspective on economic policy, all of a sudden, you know, I thought I was spending most of my time unlearning the things because when you get exposed and you hear it from all your teachers, I can remember in the 40s about how wonderful the United Nations was.
And, you know, it was coming into being.
And so they were expressing the daily beliefs at the time.
But I believe I spent a lot of time.
And I think people have to recognize that.
And that's why I think there's times when you do move a little gently.
Because, you know, if you just walk in and say, everything you've ever learned is wrong, so that doesn't work.
But I think you're just introducing them.
The earlier the age, the better.
This is what's so great about this, and this is what's so great about homeschooling, is I think that the sooner they get introduced to the ideas of liberty and sound economic policy, I think the better.
Dr. Paul, I think you're exactly right.
I think we're at a disadvantage in trying to persuade adults, right?
With your presidential campaigns, with work like ours at La Bericus Institute, we're having to persuade adults to unlearn what they've been taught for decades and then learn something new.
And that's a hard psychological barrier to overcome.
We spend a lot of time, a lot of money.
So imagine if we can educate the rising generation, we can compete for their minds with the other curriculum and pro-government narratives that they're going to be exposed to.
And so you guys have mentioned the book based on the law, the Tuttle Twins.
So the idea behind this series is exactly that.
I was amazed that when my children were a little bit younger, I was looking on Amazon trying to find books that taught them pro-liberty ideas, and there was literally nothing.
Whereas you take the other side of the narrative and there was an abundance of material.
And so my friend and I, Elijah, who's the illustrator of the books, wanted to say, look, we need to make an offering so that, you know, yeah, with passion-driven education, we'll talk to the parents and we'll empower them to say, here's how you can respect the individuality of your children, how you can inspire them to grow and learn and really self-teach along the way.
But then with this other series, I don't know if you've seen the other books.
We've got four in the series now.
So we've got one based on iPencil that teaches about the free market.
We've got one based on The Creature from Jekyll Island that teaches about the Fed and money.
We've got one based on Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
And we're working right now on our fifth based on Hayek's Road to Serfdom.
And that'll come out in November.
And we're going to keep going from there.
And it's so great to see the feedback that we get from parents because they feel like I felt, like there's been nothing, and I don't know how to boil down these ideas of Austrian economics or property rights to my children.
And now kids from a young age are getting this foundation of freedom so that they can understand these ideas from a very young age.
I think the movement in the future, we have a lot of positive direction to go, but it's a lot easier to educate young children, I think, than it is to try and win over the minds of adults.
And so that's why we're trying to provide some material to do that so that the cause of liberty going forward has a lot more outreach and growth than it might otherwise have.
We were talking about the food truck fiasco earlier.
Yeah, let me tell you that short story.
Connor will like this.
He held this book up briefly.
But this was one, it was called the Food Truck Fiasco.
I have a son-in-law, and he and my daughter have a large family.
So he wanted to teach them a little bit about business.
So they went out and the dad bought a food truck.
And they did, and they ran it for a year or so.
And they all worked together, and they had a lot of fun.
But they were in three or four or maybe five different cities and three counties.
Everyone had different rules and regulations.
So he was talking to me about that.
It was just so ornery.
It wasn't like, I'm going to sell hot dogs and I can go to the beach and sell hot dogs or stay on the corner and sell them hot dogs.
I mean, it was unbelievable.
So to make a long story short, they don't have the truck anymore.
You know, but it's a good business lesson.
They learned that over-regulation harms the economy.
And it's so hard for parents to come up with these ideas on their own.
But kids can understand.
The interesting thing for me was when we took Bastiat's The Law and tried to distill it down to the very core ideas so that young children like age five to ten could understand.
This was an experiment.
Like it had never been done before.
We tried it with our kids and had them kind of test read it.
We did it with a few other families.
And in all honesty, I've been blown away by how these young children can understand these concepts that, you know, like you said, we have to de-educate adults before we educate them.
They get it.
And these ideas of justice and fairness and competition resonate with these young kids.
It gives me a lot of hope.
I mean, I think a lot of people in our movement can be pretty pessimistic about the world around us and the condition and the status of the cause of liberty.
Working with the young kids and seeing their response to stuff like this, it gives me a lot of hope for the future.
Connor, I really like in your title you talk about passion and passion driven because that really has been our own experience in homeschooling.
You know, I have a 16-year-old who's now going into a second year of the Ron Paul curriculum.
And to be honest with you, it almost becomes a little bit annoying because he can't stop talking about what he's learning that day in the Ron Paul curriculum.
You mean he doesn't show up to do his chores?
He's endlessly talking about these things.
And it's great and it's wonderful to see the passion.
You know, he dominates the conversation.
But, you know, occasionally when we do, you know, get together, we see some kids that have gone through the public system.
My kids are almost astonished because there is, as you point out, this sort of listlessness.
They're not interested in any of the topics.
They don't want to talk about that stuff.
They want to get on some computer game or something.
It's just, you know, dealing with homeschoolers in public schoolers, it's just such a different world.
Yes.
You know, Connor, you mentioned very briefly a little bit about how you moved into the libertarian philosophy.
But why don't you expand just a little bit on that because we will be finishing up soon.
But when did you first know you were a libertarian or you really got serious about thinking about this?
Did your parents have a lot to do with that?
Or is it something that you sort of just accepted for a long, long time?
Or was there a time when you worked your way through and said, you know, the libertarian philosophy is what I'm all about?
So it's a funny story to share with a person like you.
I was a college student.
I was a senior here in Utah at Brigham Young University.
In my household, we were generally conservative.
We were a little political.
My mom had run for local office and won.
And so we were involved, you know, community service type of thing, but we weren't super political, definitely not philosophical.
I didn't have that foundation.
So I was invited to a private screening of a documentary that had just come out, I believe in 2006, called America Freedom to Fascism, produced by the late Aaron Rousseau.
And I was there with a couple of friends.
We watched the documentary.
And the thought I had come away from that was, there was that one guy in that that made a whole lot of sense.
Who is he?
And so that, of course, was you.
I went and got a copy of your speeches and read them.
And that was my first exposure.
Started reading a lot from Judge Napolitano, later from Tom Woods, from Rothbard, and really reading these types of books, everyone, including yourself, would recommend other books.
And so it was kind of like Alice Down the Rabbit Hole, where I read and I read and I read.
Now what's interesting, folding this back into passion-driven education, is that this all happened basically once I got out of the system.
You know, I was never exposed to it.
I didn't have the time or mental energy for it.
Passion-Driven Education Awakening00:03:33
But once I graduated, I had time and mental energy to read what interested me.
And that turned into a brand new profession.
I went to school to become a web developer and I did that for well over a decade.
And so now I'm running a political think tank, having a ton of success, and I've written 10 books.
I look back and I say, I found my life path, you know, in my mid-20s after I graduated.
What would my life be like?
What would the world around me be like had I found that life path a decade earlier?
What would it be like for my children if I made them wait to focus on the things that interested them until they got through the system?
What if instead I could help them find their path from a young age and allow them the time and the freedom and the flexibility to pursue that path?
I get excited thinking about the world ahead when that freedom is afforded to my children.
And I want that for other families too.
So that's why I wrote passion driven education.
But to the long story short, honestly, Dr. Paul, you were my first exposure into the liberty movement.
And from there, it was just reading and consuming a whole bunch of material.
And I quickly, you know, I think I had fertile soil.
I didn't really struggle with too many issues.
It was more just everything clicked.
And I was so appreciative to find finally something that made sense, that resonated, you know, with my ethics and what I thought was right.
And so very appreciative to you and to many others who have contributed.
And then, of course, for every person that you impact, you impact me.
I impact thousands of other people.
And it becomes this great web in the cause of liberty that's a great honor to be a part of.
Well, thank you, Connor.
Thank you also for being with us today.
And I wanted to just address for a minute, but we do appreciate your presence here.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
Good.
And I would just like to mention to our viewing audience that this is an example of what an individual can do.
Because so often after I had finished speeches around the country, especially in the last six, eight years or so, the young people were enthusiastic.
They got the message of what to do, but then they said, what should I do?
What should I do?
And, you know, I was a little bit flippant about it.
And I always answered, do whatever you want to do.
You know, I can't tell you what to do.
Everybody has a role.
And obviously, Connor had something to do, and he did it, and he's doing it.
But he also makes the point that people say, well, should I do all education or should I just go and run for Congress?
I say, well, if you just want to run for Congress and that was your goal in life to be Congress, be in Congress, don't do it.
That's the wrong thing to do.
But if you get involved, it should be education.
And certainly Connor has been involved in education and teaching young people about the ideas of liberty.
But he also obviously believes in political action by working with the state legislature and taking these ideas and getting people to change the law.
So being involved in politics from my viewpoint is a worthwhile venture if you're there for the right reasons.
Others who say I don't want to have anything to do with politics, that doesn't bother me too much.
If they sit on their hands and do nothing, that bothers me a little bit.
But if they don't disturb me, that doesn't bother me as much.
But for education, if people want to be in education alone, that's okay too.
But Connor, I think you have set a perfect example of both getting involved in education and political action to change the world as we see it today.