Designing Our Homeschool Curriculum

One of the questions people ask almost immediately when they hear that we homeschool is about curriculum.

“What curriculum do you follow?”

Most people assume that homeschooling simply means taking school subjects and teaching them at home. Mathematics, science, history, language — the same textbooks, just in a different setting.

That was not what I had in mind.

When we decided to homeschool, I was quite clear about one thing. I did not want to recreate school at home. Buying the textbooks for a particular grade and teaching them chapter by chapter did not make sense to me. I was not homeschooling to save money, and I was not trying to replicate the school structure inside our house.

The main reason we chose homeschooling was much simpler. I wanted the children to have the freedom to pursue their interests. If the goal was curiosity and exploration, then copying the school curriculum did not seem like the right starting point.

So I rejected that option fairly early.

That decision, however, created another problem. If we were not following the school curriculum, then what exactly would we follow?

The answer did not appear immediately. It was not something I found ready-made. It emerged slowly through reading, thinking, and trying things out.

Two ideas influenced my thinking during that period.

The first came from a question that Jeff Bezos once wrote about in one of his shareholder letters. He asked a simple question: What will not change in the next ten years?

The point of the question is that the future is difficult to predict. But some things remain valuable regardless of how the world changes. If we focus on those things, we are less likely to be wrong.

Around the same time, I was also thinking about something Sir Ken Robinson often said about education. Children enter school and spend nearly twenty years in the system, but no one really knows what the world will look like when they graduate.

If the future is uncertain, then perhaps the focus should not be on memorizing subjects, but on developing abilities that will remain useful for a long time.

The second influence was a book that had shaped my own life many years earlier: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I read it in my twenties, and it left a strong impression on me. In fact, if I look back, there are only two books that changed my life in a meaningful way. One is the Bible. The other is that book.

Covey describes three stages of maturity. A person begins in a dependent state. Over time they become independent. Eventually they learn to become interdependent, working with others to achieve things that cannot be done alone.

That progression made sense to me. When I thought about my children, I realized that what I wanted for them was not simply intelligence or academic success. I wanted them to become effective people — people who could think, act responsibly, and work well with others.

So I began asking a different question. What kind of experiences would help them develop those qualities?

During that time I also explored Howard Gardner’s idea of multiple intelligences. His framework suggests that intelligence is not just academic ability. It includes linguistic intelligence, musical intelligence, physical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and several others.

For a while I thought that might be the foundation for the curriculum. It recognized that children have different strengths, and that learning can happen in many ways.

But as I looked into it more closely, I felt something important was missing. It did not address areas that seemed essential to me — particularly understanding money and building relationships in the real world.

So the search continued.

Then one day I realized that I had already been using a framework that might work.

A few years before we started homeschooling, I had been coaching some of my professional colleagues. The topic was something people often describe as gravitas or executive presence. In simple terms, it is the ability to carry weight in a room — the sense that others trust your judgment.

While working with them I had developed a simple framework to explain how that kind of influence develops over time. I called it WINS.

The letters stand for Wealth, Insights, Network, and Self.

People can begin at different points. Some start with resources or opportunities that give them financial stability. Others begin with deep knowledge in a particular field. Some build strong relationships early in their careers. But over time these four elements tend to reinforce each other.

I often describe it as a flywheel.

Wealth, in this framework, does not mean luxury or expensive possessions. I borrow a definition from Dr. Alan Weiss, who describes wealth as discretionary time. In other words, the ability to control your calendar. The freedom to decide how you spend your time.

Insights refer to the ability to understand complex situations and form useful judgments. It is more than knowledge. It is the ability to synthesize information and see patterns that others might miss.

Network refers not to a large number of contacts but to a circle of trusted relationships — people who help each other grow and solve problems.

Self refers to personal development. This includes health, discipline, emotional maturity, and spiritual growth.

Over time these four elements strengthen one another. Insights can create opportunities that lead to wealth. Wealth can create time to learn and develop deeper insights. Both can expand your network. And none of this works without continuous personal growth.

When I looked at this framework again with the perspective of homeschooling, I realised that. It might also work as a way to think about education.

Instead of organizing learning around school subjects, I could organize it around these four areas: wealth, insights, network, and self.

That idea became the anchor for our homeschool curriculum.

At first I thought this solved the problem. But when I began explaining the idea to the children and trying to apply it in practice, it quickly became clear that the framework was too abstract. There were too many moving parts. It was difficult for them to see how everything connected.

Another thing I had decided early on was that I did not want to teach most things directly. I did not want to sit down and explain concepts the way a classroom teacher might. Instead, I wanted them to discover things through real activities.

So I looked for something practical that could bring these ideas together.

The answer turned out to be something many people would not immediately associate with children: stock market investing.

At first it might sound unusual. But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit.

Investing naturally introduces children to different industries. When they look at companies, they begin asking questions. How is an airline different from a software company? Why do chemical companies operate differently from retail businesses?

They start learning what happens inside an organization. What does management do? What is revenue? What is profit? How do marketing and operations fit together?

Soon numbers appear as well. They begin to work with ratios, growth rates, and comparisons between companies. Mathematics becomes useful because it helps answer real questions.

Investing also touches the idea of wealth in a practical way. Children see how money grows over time and how decisions affect outcomes.

Perhaps most importantly, it teaches discipline. Markets move up and down. People react emotionally. A good investor must learn patience and self-control.

Warren Buffett once said that an investor should be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. That kind of thinking requires calm judgment.

When I looked at it through that lens, investing seemed to bring together many of the elements I wanted the children to experience: understanding industries, working with numbers, thinking independently, and developing patience.

Of course, that was not the entire curriculum.

We also added other elements where needed. For example, the children learned music through a guitar teacher. Music develops a different kind of intelligence and discipline.

We also visited industries whenever possible. Seeing how real businesses operate helped connect ideas with reality.

Over time a loose structure began to emerge. Stock market investing became a central activity, supported by industry visits and other learning experiences like music.

From the outside it may look somewhat messy, and in truth it often is.

Children go through seasons. At different times they become curious about different things. A rigid curriculum would force those interests into a narrow structure. In some ways that reminds me of the old Greek story of Procrustes, who forced travelers to fit his bed by stretching them or cutting their limbs.

I did not want the curriculum to become that kind of bed.

So we keep the structure flexible. About once a year we revisit what we are doing and make adjustments.

There is always some uncertainty in this approach, and I have learned to be comfortable with that.

This is the curriculum we gradually arrived at, and it is the approach we have been following for the past few years.

In the next chapter, I will describe how this actually works in practice — what it looks like in our daily routines and how the children engage with it.