Homeschooled From Kindergarten, Alberta Dad Now Leads Parents to Teach Their Own Children

Simon Noster, the principal of Wisdom Home Schooling in Derwent, Alberta. Courtesy of Simon Noster/ Designed by The Epoch Times

Alberta resident Simon Noster’s total seclusion from public schooling began with the not-so-private boredom of one girl in elementary school. She announced to her parents one day that she'd quit school and was going to drop out of third grade.

That girl was Noster’s big sister, TobyLauren.

It’s not that she was a poor student, Noster tells The Epoch Times, but she was an early-budding reader who was bored to tears with having to wait for her peers who weren’t at her level. So, Noster’s dad, Kenneth, not only pulled her out of school, convinced he could take charge of his child’s learning, but saw to it that her brother would never see kindergarten when his time came.

Nor did Noster see elementary school, or junior or senior high school.

“I was thrilled,” Noster said, adding that he'd felt lonely when TobyLauren first left him at home for the classroom, but then things changed. “It was a very positive experience to get to do school with my sister in that one-room schoolhouse-type environment.”

(Left) Simon Noster's parents and siblings on their rural homestead in east central Alberta in 1994; (Right) Simon Noster hits the books at home as a child in 1992. Courtesy of Simon Noster

There were no gymnasium assemblies, no smoking in the boys’ locker room, no chasing girls at recess.

The Noster kids hammered out their schoolwork in the mornings and afterward played music or helped out on the family’s farm in east central Alberta. Though secluded, Noster had no shortage of friends. Some attended public schools. “I never actually had a moment where I thought I was missing out on something,” he said.

“They’re having to hop on a bus and ride for an hour in Alberta, so they weren’t getting home till 4:30 when it’s dark in wintertime,” he said. In the tiny town of Dewent, you drove tens of kilometres to get anywhere.

The rock upon which Noster’s father built his homeschool was classical. They engaged in the greats—Homer, Chesterton, C.S. Lewis—and Socratic dialogue instead of dictation. The goal was to spark love of learning and foster young minds to be critical thinkers rather than factory workers. And after several years, this homeschool expanded beyond the Nosters to include students in the area.

Except for his sister TobyLauren, who reached third grade and then was homeschooled thereafter, all of Simon Noster's other siblings and Noster himself never attended public school but were educated in their rural home in east central Alberta. Courtesy of Simon Noster

Noster’s seclusion from public schooling wasn’t permanent. After graduating from Thomas Aquinas College in California—a Catholic school to match his father’s classical education ideals—he taught in Alberta Catholic public schools to check firsthand if what he’d heard was true. Although the teachers were “wonderful people with hearts of gold,” he says he saw a system fraught with “social distractions” that herded kids into one mould that wasn’t tailored to each individual.

Today, Noster is the principal of the institute his father founded, Wisdom Home Schooling. A schoolhouse for homeschoolers sounds contradictory but serves a purpose. In Alberta, parents who want to homeschool require facilitators to approve what’s taught. Noster leads certified teachers, former homeschoolers themselves, who approve plans and support parents. At Wisdom, schooling is unique, he said, as it sees parents as “a friend and ally” and teaches classical education; students like TobyLauren don’t feel bored to tears because parents—who he says “know their kids best”—steer their learning where they shine.

“Everybody is different and each will have their own path,” said Noster, citing alumni who went on to Oxford or started their own businesses.

Students hard at work at Wisdom Home Schooling. Courtesy of Simon Noster

Simon Noster's children being schooled at home. Courtesy of Simon Noster

But he’s also heard naysayers. Some say homeschoolers are weird, unsocialized, and have no academic skills. A few of Noster’s students have friends or relatives who aired scathing views. However, most don’t stay naysayers for long. “The fruit is the proof: very happy, healthy, well-adjusted, successful graduates,” he said. “As a good example of that, we have a growing number of second-generation homeschoolers.”

Then he added: “It is considered a viable, normal choice in Alberta.”

That proves even more true of late. During the pandemic, government-mandated lockdowns helped reshape views about education. “Our numbers grew quite significantly during COVID,” Noster said. “People who had never really thought about [homeschooling], or just knew it on the periphery, were forced into it.”

Suddenly, the next-door neighbour who homeschooled wasn’t weird. She was a genius.

“It’s no longer something that’s considered fringe,” he said, “or for people who are trying to hide from the world.”

Simon Noster operates an organic farm, the same farm he grew up on near Dewent, where he and his wife now live and raise children of their own. Courtesy of Simon Noster

‘Freedom and Responsibility’

Wisdom Home Schooling is a provincially funded school in Alberta, which is the only province that supports charter schools. Where does freedom enter into its equation?

“I don’t believe in all freedom at all costs, but I believe very deeply in freedom for parents to teach what they believe in and to pass on their worldview to their children,” Noster said.

“The way we do that best is by being the entity who understands both freedom and responsibility,” he said. “We help families maximize their freedom while still being accountable to upper education.”

Homeschooling is booming in Alberta. With steady growth anticipated into the future and a glowing, new reputation shaping up, the one big question bothering Noster is this: “Whether we decide to cap our numbers at some point, we want to make sure we’re maintaining that quality,” he said, “or find a way to scale so we can continue to keep up with the growth.”