Gisele Bündchen is opening up about homeschooling.
During a recent appearance on a panel with Gaia Herbs celebrating their recent partnership, Bündchen shared why she and her ex-husband Tom Brady decided to homeschool their children, citing the then-couple's move to Florida amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here's a look at what Bündchen and a few other celebrities have said about why homeschooling was right for their family.
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Bündchen recently spoke out during a panel appearance about her decision to homeschool her two children with Brady. They initially decided to homeschool after moving to Florida in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, expecting to only be there for one year while Brady played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the 2021-22 season.
Bündchen was nervous a new school would be "too much change" for her kids, Vivian, 10, and Benjamin, 13, saying they ultimately decided to homeschool because they thought it was "going to be better."
When Brady decided not to retire, they ended up staying in Tampa longer than expected, and more homeschooling made the most sense for their family. One of the upsides she noticed from the experience was that her son and daughter became very close, saying "they were together all the time, so their relationship just blossomed."
"It was crazy," she recalled. "I was in a new city, I didn't know anyone, and everything was new. Homeschool was great for that and then luckily, we were able to get a great teacher, a great tutor that taught both of them."
Due to her busy lifestyle, Angelina Jolie decided the best choice for her family was to homeschool her six children, whom she shares with ex-husband Brad Pitt.
In a 2011 interview with The Independent, Jolie explained "the education system hasn't caught up with our children and our way of life," and she would prefer "them go to a museum and learn to play guitar and read and pick a book they love." A source close to the parents told People in December 2017 the kids "have tutors for all kinds of subjects, including different languages and instruments.
"It bothered me how little I was taught in school," Jolie explained at a screening of "First they Killed My Father" in December 2017. "I do worry about my children’s education. I homeschool partially because they are from around the world and it’s very … I didn’t want them to have the same education I had when it came to Vietnam or Cambodia."
Her children, Maddox, 22, Pax, 19, and Zahara, 18, were adopted from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia respectively, while her biological children, Shiloh, 17, and 15-year-old twins Knox and Vivienne, were born in Namibia and France.
When Jennifer Lopez's now 15-year-old twins Max and Emme were in elementary school, the singer admitted she would occasionally have to homeschool them due to her less than normal lifestyle.
Lopez told Fox 5 New York's Rosanna Scotto in June 2016, she "want[s] to be there with them" all the time and that time is going by too fast. So, rather than have them stay at home while she travels for work, she brings them with her on the road.
"They are super happy, well-adjusted, loving, caring kids, and that's the most important thing," she said at the time. "We'll get them educated. Homeschool is great for them when we have to do it. The most important thing is that they're with their mom -- that they don't feel abandoned by a parent."
"Big Bang Theory" star Mayim Bialik is very open about her decision to homeschool her two sons – Miles, 17, and Frederick, 14 – and even makes YouTube videos to answer questions about homeschooling and to erase the stigma surrounding it.
In one of her videos, Bialik explained her two sons "were late to walk and late to talk," and says if she enrolled them in traditional school they likely would have been "strongly encouraged, if not forced," to go to therapy to help them in those areas, but homeschooling allowed them to develop at their own pace.
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"Many homeschool parents, and many non-homeschooling parents have realized that optimal learning doesn't usually happen in very very crowded classes, with little time for recess, or little distribution of resources for the arts," she said in her October 2018 video. "In addition, a lot of teachers, especially in public schools, are teaching towards testing standards, and that's not necessarily the best way for kids to learn."
"Homeschooling is not elitist. It's not something you do ‘cause it’s trendy, although it is gaining more popularity than ever before," she continued. "The schedule tends to be a lot more flexible, it allows you to be with your kid more, if you want to be with your kids more, and it allows for a level of involvement in your child's learning which traditional schooling simply doesn't allow."
Actress Emma Thompson and her husband Greg Wise revealed their now 23-year-old daughter Gaia Wise chose to leave her private school in London to be homeschooled instead.
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"[Gaia] is terribly focused and hard-working, but she didn't like the sausage factory of formal education. I've no argument with that," Greg Wise told The Telegraph in February 2015. "Although I won’t be teaching her. We’ve got tutors, and I’ve built her a schoolroom in the garden."
In an interview with The Daily Mail in September 2015, Gaia revealed she made the decision to leave traditional school after her classmates began to tease her for her thoughts on climate change. She explained that after a trip to the Arctic Circle with Greenpeace, she "got a lot of people telling [her] to stop being such a hippy."
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"I tried to get people to listen," she said. "It’s ridiculous how many teenagers on their phones call you a hippy for being interested in this. You get proper stick for it. There were many reasons why I left, but that was one of them."
James Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly have been open in the past about their thoughts on homeschooling. During an appearance on "The Make Down" podcast in October 2020, Kimberly admitted to having tried a variety of homeschooling methods, including "traditional homeschooling" with tutors, as well as a "homeschool co-op at another friend's house."
The Van Der Beeks share six children, Olivia, 13, Joshua, 11, Annabel Leah, 9, Emilia, 7, Gwendolyn, 5, and Jeremiah,1. She explained she is less concerned with children reaching certain milestones in line with the timeline set by the curriculum in the school system and rather letting the child learn certain things when they are ready.
"I think way too much is put on kids. I look at school, to be honest with you, as a form of imprisonment, where they spend hours of their day being told what to care about and what to learn," Kimberly said. "We want strong children that are creative, self-sufficient, can make their own decisions, but we put them like a lineup of kids, moving them from subject to subject, activity to activity."
