Learner Spotlight: Grayson Ferrera-Schmidt

iLEAD Exploration kindergarten learner Grayson Ferrera-Schmidt has a joke for you!

Q: “What do you call a fly without wings?”
A: “A walk!”

Grayson will “bug” you with his jokes; he’s got a million of ’em! But, seriously, this learner and his family make a great learning-and-living-together team. When he finished kindergarten last year, he said he wanted his mom to be his teacher for every grade.

Way back when, independent studying wasn’t something the Ferrera-Schmidt family considered. By the time Grayson turned two years old, however, his mom knew she wanted to teach him, instill him with critical-thinking skills, and challenge him to look at everything from different viewpoints. Homeschooling with iLEAD Exploration does that for them. It gives them a unique environment to make choices in Grayson’s education. 

Seeking first to understand and then to be understood, Grayson is always applying this habit. Grayson always wants to fully understand anything he is talking about, no matter the subject, before he tries to weigh in on it himself. He wants to understand new information so that later he can use it himself. He is very inquisitive and blows his mom away by using what he learns correctly at a different time.

When others hear of Grayson independent studying, they often ask, “What about his social skills? Aren’t you worried he will be socially awkward?” The answer is absolutely not! Grayson is an outgoing little boy with a great sense of humor who will talk to anyone willing to listen. People who speak with him often forget he’s only six years old. His vocabulary is beyond his years, and he easily makes friends and has great conversations with everyone.

Grayson’s hobbies and interests include all things dirty and gross! He wants to learn about every new bug he can find. He could spend hours capturing bugs, butterflies, dragonflies, and lizards to examine and watch them and then release them back into nature. He loves to study about animals and all the things they can and cannot do. He also likes to practice karate moves. Although he has never taken karate classes, that does not stop his imagination from running wild. When karate studios open again, Grayson is looking forward to taking classes.

Even though this is just their second year of  independent studying together, Grayson, his mom, and sometimes his little brother Levi make a pretty good team. They could not imagine life any other way.