Everyday Educator - Educating Yourself with Heatherly Sylvia
00:00:00.000 | (gentle music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome, friends, to this episode
00:00:07.720 | of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:10.240 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.920 | and I am excited to spend some time today with you
00:00:15.640 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.840 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.840 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:25.320 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:27.360 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:29.480 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:33.580 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.680 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.680 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.840 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:52.640 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:56.900 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to welcome you
00:00:59.900 | to another episode of the Everyday Educator podcast,
00:01:03.320 | and I am especially excited to welcome
00:01:05.960 | one of my dear friends to talk about something
00:01:10.160 | that has become increasingly dear to my heart.
00:01:14.080 | We wanna talk today about educating yourself.
00:01:18.920 | We spend lots of weeks talking about
00:01:21.240 | how we can be better homeschool moms and dads
00:01:24.840 | to the children that the Lord has entrusted to us.
00:01:28.500 | But today, I wanna turn our attention
00:01:31.880 | to educating ourselves.
00:01:34.400 | What does God call us to do,
00:01:36.160 | and how would we go about that,
00:01:38.540 | even if we felt like we had the bandwidth to do it?
00:01:41.840 | So I have invited a dear friend
00:01:45.340 | who, to me, is a wonderful example
00:01:52.520 | of what a lifelong learner can become, is and can become.
00:01:57.520 | So welcome, Heatherly Sylvia, to the podcast.
00:02:02.680 | Heatherly, thanks so much for joining me today.
00:02:05.680 | - Thank you for inviting me to come back,
00:02:07.680 | and thank you for allowing me to talk about
00:02:10.880 | one of my absolutely favorite topics.
00:02:14.000 | - Well, I know that you are a lifelong learner.
00:02:18.760 | I know that it's a passion for you,
00:02:21.160 | and I really, really believe that you love it so much
00:02:26.000 | and have grown into it to such a degree
00:02:29.840 | that you're gonna be able to help all of us see,
00:02:33.040 | oh, I don't know, how we could get started,
00:02:35.400 | how we could keep going,
00:02:37.340 | and maybe what lies ahead if we press on.
00:02:40.960 | So thank you for sharing.
00:02:43.080 | Let me ask you this.
00:02:45.140 | I just wanna start off with this.
00:02:47.260 | Did you like learning back when you were a student?
00:02:52.260 | When you were formerly a student,
00:02:56.060 | when that was your main job, did you like to learn?
00:02:59.600 | - I don't know how to answer this question.
00:03:04.940 | So I was, back in my day, back in the olden times,
00:03:09.940 | we were split up in our classes
00:03:14.720 | by what the school gauged was our academic level.
00:03:18.960 | So I was always in the top level,
00:03:22.300 | the smart kids class, whatever.
00:03:24.400 | I read early, I was pretty quick, but I loved to read.
00:03:29.400 | I don't know that I loved to learn, but I loved to read,
00:03:35.220 | and I have a really strong memory.
00:03:38.620 | So I was able to coast through school
00:03:44.080 | all the way through elementary school,
00:03:46.240 | all the way through seventh grade,
00:03:48.720 | and then I got to eighth grade,
00:03:50.540 | and my science teacher expected me
00:03:52.600 | to actually know how to study.
00:03:54.420 | And the problem was that I was a smart kid
00:03:58.160 | with a good memory,
00:03:59.800 | and so I had never learned any kind of study skills.
00:04:03.120 | I had never learned how to summarize, review.
00:04:05.800 | No, I never had to.
00:04:07.520 | And so when Mr. Nickerson expected us to study our notes
00:04:12.620 | that we took in class and then pass quizzes and tests,
00:04:16.920 | I really, really struggled.
00:04:19.140 | And that was my wall, was eighth grade science.
00:04:23.020 | And after that, even though I was in honors classes,
00:04:26.300 | I did very, very well in my humanities classes,
00:04:30.640 | but no one even then stopped and said,
00:04:34.580 | "Okay, let's get you some study skills."
00:04:36.860 | My parents were both teachers,
00:04:39.480 | and neither of them noticed that I needed study skills.
00:04:42.860 | So I loved to read and I loved to learn,
00:04:47.860 | but I didn't like being a student.
00:04:51.780 | - Isn't that so interesting?
00:04:53.600 | Because I have done kind of an informal poll
00:04:57.280 | just of other homeschooling parents and friends
00:05:00.280 | that I have all over the country,
00:05:02.340 | and this comes up a lot, Heatherly.
00:05:05.340 | There were lots of us who loved to read
00:05:08.520 | and who found memorizing things really easy,
00:05:12.080 | but whose teachers, and I will be perfectly honest,
00:05:16.400 | it is possible that I had teachers
00:05:19.020 | that tried to teach me how to learn and how to study,
00:05:23.320 | and I just don't remember it.
00:05:25.060 | But I do, I also recall thinking,
00:05:29.820 | "Wait, what is this study for a test that you mentioned?"
00:05:33.060 | I've never, I don't know what that is.
00:05:35.500 | I can remember, I was in the fourth or fifth grade,
00:05:38.180 | and it had never occurred to me
00:05:39.660 | that there was a way to study for a test.
00:05:43.180 | I think it's interesting that your parents as teachers
00:05:48.020 | just kind of apparently thought
00:05:50.140 | that you would just grow naturally into these study skills.
00:05:55.140 | - Absolutely, and it's just a reminder to me
00:05:58.100 | that as I'm coming alongside my kiddos,
00:06:01.820 | that I, when I'm working shoulder to shoulder with them,
00:06:05.180 | that there is a lot of value in stopping
00:06:08.260 | and making sure that not only do they know
00:06:11.940 | what it is that we're talking about,
00:06:14.020 | but they also understand how I got to the answers I did,
00:06:18.260 | how to find an answer in the book, how to study.
00:06:20.380 | So I have, I didn't learn how to study
00:06:24.980 | until I was an education major in college,
00:06:27.880 | and when I had to learn how to teach kids study skills,
00:06:32.420 | that's when I learned.
00:06:33.420 | Now, obviously, the study skills that I learned
00:06:37.180 | in order to teach in a modern system
00:06:40.260 | are very different from the skills that I have gathered
00:06:43.820 | and added to my copiousness as a classical homeschooler
00:06:46.660 | and as a classical teacher.
00:06:48.180 | But that at least started me on the path.
00:06:53.060 | I was starting to regain some ground
00:06:54.860 | and realizing, oh, I can learn how to learn things.
00:06:58.780 | So I would say becoming a student
00:07:00.820 | didn't actually kick in as a pleasurable thing
00:07:04.180 | until I was a junior in college.
00:07:06.460 | - Isn't that interesting?
00:07:07.380 | And you know, it seems to me that maybe learning
00:07:10.900 | became more pleasurable for you
00:07:13.460 | when you had some of the skills
00:07:15.500 | that made it a pleasant thing.
00:07:18.500 | - That's absolutely true, yes.
00:07:20.140 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:07:21.320 | So just, this is kind of maybe an aside,
00:07:24.260 | but maybe this would be very helpful
00:07:27.340 | for us to delineate for our listeners.
00:07:31.140 | What would you say are some of the basic skills of studying
00:07:36.140 | or the basic tools of learning
00:07:39.500 | that we need to be sure that our children acquire?
00:07:44.400 | - So it'd be, the first one I would say
00:07:49.820 | is if we start when they're really little
00:07:52.100 | with the skill of narration,
00:07:54.420 | which is a classical skill and it can be done orally
00:07:58.940 | and it can be done written, in the written form.
00:08:02.640 | But if you just ask a student to tell you back
00:08:05.880 | what they just heard, that is one of the first skills,
00:08:09.020 | just being able to mimic back,
00:08:10.420 | making sure they're actually hearing you
00:08:12.660 | and that they're understanding what it is
00:08:14.420 | that they just read or what they just heard.
00:08:16.260 | So narration is an amazing skill.
00:08:18.620 | As adults, we can do this simply by writing
00:08:23.260 | a quick couple of sentences about what we just read
00:08:26.540 | or our sermon notes, writing down,
00:08:29.420 | like this is what I think the main idea of this sermon was
00:08:32.460 | or the main idea of this Bible passage were.
00:08:34.660 | - Or this paragraph that I just read.
00:08:36.940 | - Absolutely, so the second skill I would say
00:08:40.260 | is when we enter the Essentials Program,
00:08:43.940 | which is ages nine to 11 typically
00:08:46.660 | in classical conversations, you learn through the IEW
00:08:50.980 | or Institute for Excellence in Writing,
00:08:53.140 | you learn through that program how to create a K-W-O,
00:08:57.500 | which is how to take words and ideas
00:08:59.940 | and kind of minimize them
00:09:02.740 | and then expand them in your own words.
00:09:05.220 | That is an amazing study skill.
00:09:07.300 | And outlining, which you learn in IEW
00:09:11.900 | and then you learn again
00:09:13.020 | as you go through the challenge years.
00:09:15.300 | Summarizing, being able to take a lot of information
00:09:18.460 | and put it down to a small sentence
00:09:22.220 | or a small paragraph
00:09:23.260 | and then being able to memorize information.
00:09:28.260 | So whether you're memorizing vocabulary words or catechism,
00:09:32.500 | which is how we do our foundations memory work,
00:09:34.940 | where we ask a question and get an answer.
00:09:37.300 | All of those are amazing study skills
00:09:39.860 | and they're all things that our students have
00:09:43.700 | by the time that they're 12 years old.
00:09:46.460 | And many of us moms and dads are trying to recapture.
00:09:50.220 | - Yes, yes.
00:09:52.300 | I can remember when my older daughter went to college
00:09:57.300 | in one of the upper level political science classes
00:10:02.060 | she had to take.
00:10:02.940 | She came home for a break
00:10:04.380 | and was telling me all of this information
00:10:06.740 | that she had to remember.
00:10:08.660 | She was taking about the Middle East.
00:10:12.260 | It was about countries of the Middle East
00:10:14.900 | and she had to know the population
00:10:17.380 | and the gross national product
00:10:19.700 | and all of these different figures
00:10:21.380 | for about 10 or 12 different countries.
00:10:23.900 | And it was daunting to me.
00:10:26.340 | And I said, how are you able to do this?
00:10:30.940 | This was just one class she was taking one test.
00:10:33.500 | And she said, oh, it is so great
00:10:36.380 | because of all the memorizing that we did
00:10:39.660 | when we were little in foundations.
00:10:42.020 | She said, I have figured out what it takes my brain
00:10:47.180 | to memorize material quickly and hold on to it.
00:10:52.020 | And I thought, wow, what a gift we are giving our children
00:10:55.820 | when we teach them to memorize.
00:10:57.420 | - And it's wonderful because that's not a skill
00:11:01.180 | that ends in foundations.
00:11:02.660 | - Yes, you keep going.
00:11:04.620 | - All through challenge.
00:11:05.460 | In fact, I am this year tutoring challenge four
00:11:08.940 | which is our capstone year.
00:11:11.260 | And my students have a memorized exposition speech
00:11:14.780 | that they'll be presenting this coming week.
00:11:17.420 | So we continue to practice, like your daughter said,
00:11:22.140 | figuring out how do you memorize
00:11:25.540 | so that you can have that large amount of information
00:11:28.740 | at your fingertips.
00:11:29.860 | - Yeah, it's great.
00:11:30.940 | And that's just one of the skills
00:11:33.020 | that we will give our children as adults.
00:11:35.900 | 'Cause that's what I wanted to ask you about.
00:11:37.500 | How do you feel now about learning as an adult?
00:11:42.740 | And does this seem like necessary?
00:11:45.180 | Does it seem necessary to you
00:11:47.500 | to keep on learning as a grownup?
00:11:49.740 | And what helps you to be a grownup learner?
00:11:53.740 | - I started reclaiming my education
00:11:58.460 | after I became a homeschooler.
00:12:02.740 | So by the time I became a classical homeschooler in 2014,
00:12:07.260 | I was just so hungry to know everything.
00:12:12.060 | And so the things that have...
00:12:15.020 | First of all, yes, I see it as necessary.
00:12:17.500 | It's not just my job as a challenge for a director
00:12:22.500 | to make sure that I am continuing to learn
00:12:26.780 | and that I'm helping the parents
00:12:28.180 | know how to teach their kiddos.
00:12:30.260 | But it's also my job.
00:12:32.860 | I started an organization with my friends, Tim and Sarah.
00:12:37.180 | And our whole purpose is to encourage and equip
00:12:42.100 | lifelong learners.
00:12:43.580 | So even when you're done homeschooling,
00:12:45.500 | or even if you aren't a homeschooler,
00:12:47.940 | how do you become a lifelong learner?
00:12:49.700 | So I see it as necessary.
00:12:51.420 | It's actually my passion.
00:12:53.100 | So how do I feel about it?
00:12:55.100 | I love it.
00:12:55.940 | It's my favorite thing in the world to learn new things,
00:13:00.060 | to talk about them with my friends, to have discussions,
00:13:05.260 | to be able to help somebody else learn something new.
00:13:09.380 | These are all things that I am just passionate about.
00:13:13.180 | I think that part of the reason I'm so passionate about it
00:13:16.740 | is because I left high school,
00:13:20.420 | having been told by my physics teacher
00:13:23.940 | that I was the dumb kid in the smart class.
00:13:27.140 | And then I really struggled my first few years of college.
00:13:31.300 | So I really feel like I'm making up ground.
00:13:34.140 | And I know lots of other homeschool moms and dads
00:13:37.300 | that feel the same way.
00:13:38.300 | We feel like we're making ground.
00:13:39.940 | So I do think it's necessary.
00:13:43.260 | The first homeschool mentor icon that I met
00:13:47.900 | was Charlotte Mason through her writings.
00:13:51.140 | And she talks about the mother culture
00:13:54.300 | and the idea that a part of the mother culture
00:13:57.980 | is always being a little bit ahead of your students
00:14:02.540 | so that you could teach them well.
00:14:05.020 | And I took that very seriously.
00:14:07.660 | And that lacking, that not knowing how to be
00:14:11.860 | a couple of steps ahead in certain areas
00:14:15.140 | is actually what directly led to me joining
00:14:17.740 | a classical conversations community.
00:14:20.100 | I was really struggling with helping my students
00:14:22.260 | to memorize because at that point,
00:14:24.420 | I hadn't learned how to memorize.
00:14:27.220 | I just knew, I just have such a good memory
00:14:29.500 | I didn't have to.
00:14:31.260 | So teaching my kids how to, that led to me joining CC,
00:14:35.940 | which led to me learning about the great books movement,
00:14:40.380 | which led to me learning about Plato and Socrates
00:14:43.660 | and Aristotle, which led to me learning about
00:14:47.700 | all of these different works of literature
00:14:50.180 | that even in my time as an English major
00:14:53.540 | and as a theater major, I had never encountered.
00:14:56.620 | So I had a passion for Shakespeare,
00:14:59.380 | but all of the other greats somehow missed.
00:15:03.900 | So I do think it's necessary.
00:15:07.980 | I don't think it's always necessary to do all the things,
00:15:12.340 | but I do think it's always necessary for us
00:15:14.740 | to have something that we're learning.
00:15:17.220 | And I don't think it necessarily
00:15:18.900 | has to be strictly academic.
00:15:21.300 | I think that those mamas that are learning to cook
00:15:26.700 | and really exploring baking, or if there's a dad
00:15:31.180 | that has a hobby that they're really spending
00:15:33.100 | a lot of time learning about and pouring their time into,
00:15:36.900 | I think that that is just as important
00:15:39.060 | as reading the greats.
00:15:42.100 | - Yep.
00:15:43.340 | Yes, I think it's necessary
00:15:47.380 | for everybody who's alive to learn.
00:15:52.260 | Because for me, it's a way to participate in life,
00:15:57.260 | to move through life and be curious and ask questions
00:16:02.420 | and not know the answer and figure out
00:16:06.580 | how to find the answer.
00:16:08.580 | And I love that you said it doesn't have
00:16:12.980 | to just be academics because some of the things
00:16:17.820 | that I'm learning now are not academic.
00:16:21.260 | I'm gonna tell you this, I have not told many people this.
00:16:24.180 | I am learning to play the drums.
00:16:28.380 | - Oh, that's so fun.
00:16:29.700 | - That is not the most hilarious thing you've ever heard.
00:16:32.460 | I can remember when I was in the fifth grade,
00:16:34.540 | I really wanted to learn to play the drums
00:16:36.420 | and my fifth grade band teacher said,
00:16:39.220 | I promise you he said this,
00:16:40.900 | "The drums are just for the boys."
00:16:43.780 | - I feel like your band teacher and my physics teacher
00:16:46.340 | need to go hang out.
00:16:47.780 | - I think they need to not be in education anymore.
00:16:49.940 | - Time out. (laughs)
00:16:52.100 | - And so I have started learning that.
00:16:55.100 | Now I will tell you at the ripe old age that I am,
00:16:59.700 | my muscles are gonna have to get a lot of memory
00:17:02.060 | before I can be good at this.
00:17:04.020 | But I'm curious and I am eager and I'm determined
00:17:09.020 | and I'm interested.
00:17:11.260 | And so those are all the things that are necessary
00:17:16.260 | to be a learner.
00:17:17.660 | You just have to be curious.
00:17:20.020 | You just have to ask a question
00:17:21.660 | and you have to be willing to be really bad at it
00:17:25.300 | before you can be good at it.
00:17:27.540 | So I feel like learning is necessary for grownups
00:17:31.020 | because that's how you know you're alive.
00:17:33.580 | You're still asking questions.
00:17:35.660 | - We talk about in the challenge program
00:17:38.660 | that everything that we're doing is pointing towards virtue.
00:17:42.740 | It's pointing towards becoming a more complete Imago Dei.
00:17:47.740 | So if we want to become more like the God that we love
00:17:53.300 | and are knowing and making known,
00:17:56.300 | we need to be curious about his creation.
00:17:58.620 | And his creation is not just the trees and the birds.
00:18:02.420 | His creation is also rhythm and order
00:18:06.300 | and the science of baking and cooking
00:18:09.980 | and just all of the things that make us
00:18:13.460 | a more complete human being in the image of God.
00:18:17.580 | And I think that there's,
00:18:19.900 | we just, especially in classical circles,
00:18:23.700 | I think that when people are new to it,
00:18:26.420 | they are intimidated because they think,
00:18:28.820 | oh, I could never read Shakespeare.
00:18:30.420 | I hate Shakespeare.
00:18:31.260 | I could never read Plato.
00:18:32.660 | I'm too intimidated by these things.
00:18:35.620 | And that that's not what we're talking about necessarily
00:18:39.660 | when we're talking about becoming a lifelong learner.
00:18:41.900 | We're talking about baby steps.
00:18:44.580 | We're talking about just being curious about something
00:18:47.940 | and learning about it and allowing that
00:18:50.580 | to make you a more complete human being.
00:18:53.580 | And I tell my challenge students all the time,
00:18:56.980 | I don't just want you to be bright.
00:19:01.220 | I want you to be wise and I want you to be interesting.
00:19:06.940 | So I think it's really important
00:19:09.740 | that we all just stay on that journey.
00:19:12.940 | We stay on that path.
00:19:14.260 | And we get to do that as homeschoolers.
00:19:16.900 | We have that opportunity built in, right?
00:19:19.300 | Because we're sitting shoulder to shoulder.
00:19:22.380 | I was sharing that I'm reading "The Scarlet Letter"
00:19:26.420 | right now with my daughter who's in challenge one.
00:19:29.300 | And we're reading it aloud together.
00:19:32.500 | We're reading three chapters a day
00:19:34.580 | and we're just sitting next to each other
00:19:36.500 | and reading the book and discussing it
00:19:38.900 | and thinking about it and kind of laughing a little bit
00:19:42.460 | because it's a very funny book
00:19:45.140 | if you actually take the time to read the language.
00:19:48.540 | And thank you, Stephanie, for those lovely footnotes
00:19:51.140 | that are helpful to reading it.
00:19:53.180 | But I had never read "The Scarlet Letter"
00:19:56.900 | until I started homeschooling my kids
00:19:59.900 | and needed to read it in order to teach them.
00:20:02.900 | So what a beautiful way to fill in the things
00:20:05.900 | that I see as gaps in my education.
00:20:08.420 | - I think that's so good.
00:20:09.460 | And I was gonna say, talk a little bit
00:20:12.300 | about the benefits of learning alongside our children.
00:20:15.860 | And you've just mentioned it.
00:20:16.980 | We do get to fill in the gaps of things that we missed
00:20:21.620 | or we skipped over or we skirted around in many cases.
00:20:26.620 | We get to revisit those or be introduced to it
00:20:30.580 | when we learn with our kids.
00:20:32.980 | - I got to sit with my son this morning
00:20:35.740 | who is 17 and if he was in the school,
00:20:40.620 | we would call him a senior in high school.
00:20:42.220 | And we're reading a book about the ancients
00:20:47.220 | because we're about to start studying the Iliad.
00:20:50.940 | And he had an absolutely earth-shattering,
00:20:54.620 | paradigm-shifting moment when we were reading today
00:20:58.100 | where he had to stop and put down the book
00:20:59.900 | and he just silently had to think.
00:21:04.980 | And I could just see the wheels turning
00:21:07.740 | and I started laughing and I said, "Buddy, are you okay?"
00:21:12.540 | And he's like, "I have so many thoughts right now."
00:21:17.180 | - Don't you love that?
00:21:18.860 | - It was amazing.
00:21:19.860 | And if I had just, and please don't misunderstand me,
00:21:23.860 | I am not saying that every parent
00:21:26.580 | needs to read everything with their children.
00:21:29.340 | I only have two children.
00:21:31.900 | We enjoy reading together.
00:21:33.980 | It's great for them, it's great for me,
00:21:36.340 | it's great quality time.
00:21:38.260 | I understand that not every homeschool
00:21:39.980 | can function that way.
00:21:41.380 | But if I wasn't learning alongside of him,
00:21:46.180 | I would have missed that moment.
00:21:49.900 | And it was such a delightful, delicious moment
00:21:53.940 | to just watch his little brain explode,
00:21:57.820 | realizing a couple of things about the way
00:22:01.860 | that the ancients and biblical literature
00:22:04.660 | connect to our current political state.
00:22:07.140 | - Wow, seeing those insights come across their face
00:22:11.860 | is one of the true blessings of homeschooling.
00:22:15.420 | And you know, I did some of that too, Heather Lee.
00:22:18.660 | I didn't read every book along with both of my kids
00:22:22.580 | and I didn't do every subject.
00:22:23.980 | We picked things, I did all of chemistry
00:22:27.860 | with Sarah and man, we both were sanctified by that.
00:22:32.060 | That is work chemistry and I remember from high school,
00:22:36.020 | I learned many lessons and taught many lessons
00:22:38.700 | about humility while we did that together.
00:22:42.660 | But there were times when I would be reading something
00:22:45.980 | with one or the other of them and they would have
00:22:49.420 | such a profound insight that my mouth would hang open.
00:22:53.700 | And I would frequently say to them,
00:22:56.100 | would you wait while I write that down?
00:22:58.420 | Because that is a thought I've never had
00:23:01.260 | and now I'm gonna need to think about that.
00:23:03.580 | Or we might stop right there and I would say,
00:23:05.540 | okay, help me see that, how did you get that
00:23:08.780 | and what does that mean to you?
00:23:10.300 | And there's just such a benefit of being able to
00:23:15.300 | enter into a great conversation, it is a great benefit.
00:23:20.060 | I love it.
00:23:22.300 | - I will never be able to pass on my Challenge Four books
00:23:25.240 | to future Challenge Four tutors in my community,
00:23:28.880 | sorry guys, because they are littered with annotations
00:23:33.000 | and marginalia of things that Luke has said.
00:23:37.200 | It's almost like whatever the senior year version
00:23:40.500 | of a baby book is, just looking at his thoughts developing,
00:23:43.860 | looking at his ideas and it's been great
00:23:47.680 | because I have always loved literature
00:23:50.480 | and I've always loved reading and he has not.
00:23:52.920 | So is he going to walk away from this experience
00:23:57.360 | loving reading books?
00:23:58.940 | I don't know, but I do know that we have learned together
00:24:03.540 | and we are closer because we're having these experiences.
00:24:08.380 | So I would say that's a definite benefit
00:24:10.380 | to learning alongside of our children.
00:24:13.060 | I also think there's a real benefit
00:24:15.860 | to us learning differently or learning different things
00:24:20.020 | than our students are learning.
00:24:21.400 | - Yes, talk about that.
00:24:23.420 | - So I think the best example of this
00:24:26.000 | is actually advice that I have heard
00:24:31.860 | my friend Tim give to someone else
00:24:36.300 | and it was shared with me anecdotally.
00:24:38.620 | And he said that one of the best things we can do
00:24:41.600 | for our students is to sit and read something for ourself
00:24:46.600 | that has nothing to do with school
00:24:49.660 | and nothing to do with work for 10 to 15 minutes a day.
00:24:54.020 | That if they see us reading
00:24:57.160 | and it doesn't have to be high-brow literature.
00:25:02.600 | It could just be something that you enjoy.
00:25:06.100 | It will change the dynamic of our home.
00:25:08.240 | It will make our learning environment more hospitable.
00:25:11.500 | So I don't think that every parent needs to read
00:25:14.300 | every book alongside their student.
00:25:16.160 | They don't have to learn everything
00:25:19.220 | but we do need to learn enough
00:25:21.780 | that we can at least ask them the questions
00:25:25.040 | to get them in the right direction if they get lost.
00:25:28.680 | And they would benefit from us modeling for them
00:25:33.680 | what it looks like to be a lifelong learner.
00:25:39.060 | And even if that means,
00:25:40.960 | "Hey guys, I'm going to a class tonight
00:25:43.140 | "so that I can learn more about different sourdough starters
00:25:47.760 | "then that will benefit them."
00:25:50.700 | They can see that learning is not just for school
00:25:54.160 | but it is for life.
00:25:55.300 | - Yeah, one of the best compliments our kids ever paid us
00:25:59.040 | was explaining to one of their friends that,
00:26:02.800 | "Oh yeah," 'cause they saw my husband
00:26:06.560 | had his Greek New Testament out
00:26:08.340 | and he took Greek as a seminary student
00:26:11.140 | but hadn't really kept current on his studies.
00:26:13.760 | And so he had it out brushing up on something
00:26:17.020 | and so for my daughter just to say,
00:26:21.520 | "Oh yeah, my dad is working on that."
00:26:24.560 | Or, "Oh yeah, my mom is learning
00:26:26.880 | "about medicinal uses of flowers."
00:26:30.480 | We learn, that's just what we do.
00:26:32.840 | Our family just learns.
00:26:34.400 | And to realize that they had internalized that idea
00:26:39.400 | that learning is what we do not because we're in school
00:26:46.360 | but because we're alive and because we're curious
00:26:50.100 | and because we want to keep knowing and growing.
00:26:53.820 | That's really cool.
00:26:55.140 | So here's what, 'cause I think we've answered the question,
00:27:00.820 | should we keep learning
00:27:02.760 | even though we're not in school anymore?
00:27:05.600 | But look, would you encourage people,
00:27:08.320 | and I think I know the answer to this already,
00:27:11.740 | do you think that we need to keep learning
00:27:14.620 | even after our kids leave home?
00:27:17.020 | I mean, I understand setting the example
00:27:21.360 | of reading some every day or working on some new skill
00:27:26.140 | so that we are modeling for them and learning with them
00:27:29.760 | so that we can be their mentor.
00:27:31.200 | But what about after they're gone
00:27:34.180 | and we're finally empty nesters?
00:27:36.640 | - And you finally have time to read.
00:27:38.840 | - Yes, so how important is it to keep learning
00:27:44.120 | when the kids aren't watching anymore?
00:27:46.560 | - I think that as humans in the image of God,
00:27:52.560 | we need to keep learning about God, about his creation,
00:27:56.720 | and about our fellow man.
00:27:58.060 | And so I think that it is incredibly important
00:28:03.760 | that we keep learning because it's not just about
00:28:06.680 | being a model and a mentor for our children.
00:28:09.240 | We are called, all Christian men and women are called
00:28:13.180 | to be Titus II men and women.
00:28:15.480 | And we are called to mentor.
00:28:17.040 | And even though it may not be the season
00:28:19.560 | where we have children in our home,
00:28:21.600 | God is always gonna put someone in your path
00:28:24.240 | that you are a step ahead of them
00:28:25.880 | and where you can be someone that fills in a gap for them
00:28:30.880 | and mentors them.
00:28:32.960 | And again, it may not be Shakespeare or Plato.
00:28:36.600 | It may be the best ways to get a stain out of a shirt.
00:28:41.600 | And it may be the best ways to manage your time
00:28:46.600 | when you're just starting homeschooling.
00:28:48.640 | There's so many things that we have the opportunity to teach.
00:28:52.480 | And I think as Christians, we also always have
00:28:55.000 | the responsibility of being students of the word
00:28:58.400 | and being in the Bible on a regular basis.
00:29:02.920 | And I have found, I'm someone that fell in love
00:29:06.680 | with the word early.
00:29:09.000 | My early mentors as a young Christian in my teens
00:29:13.200 | were passionate about the Bible and Bible study.
00:29:17.760 | And then my favorite college professors
00:29:20.560 | were just so excited about scripture.
00:29:24.640 | I have found the greatest growth in my study of scripture
00:29:29.640 | and my enjoyment of scripture has come as a result
00:29:33.720 | of my classical studies.
00:29:35.960 | I enjoy scripture more because now I understand analogies.
00:29:40.440 | I under scripture more because now I have
00:29:42.760 | a very different understanding of not just genre,
00:29:46.400 | which I learned in high school English,
00:29:48.440 | but ancient genres.
00:29:50.880 | So I think as believers, I think we always
00:29:55.360 | have to keep learning, always.
00:29:58.000 | - Yeah, I love that, I love that.
00:30:00.840 | And you've mentioned, we've talked about scripture
00:30:03.080 | and we've talked about a lot of ways that we can,
00:30:06.560 | as grownups, educate ourselves.
00:30:09.080 | We can read along with our students.
00:30:12.920 | We can read academic things and non-academic things.
00:30:17.120 | We can chase our interests.
00:30:20.400 | We can pursue a hobby.
00:30:23.000 | We can find a mentor.
00:30:25.360 | What are other ways that you have found
00:30:28.400 | to educate yourself?
00:30:30.640 | - I have surrounded myself with other lifelong learners.
00:30:35.640 | I have collected a group of friends who love nothing more
00:30:41.360 | than to talk about what we are learning.
00:30:46.120 | And again, it's not always highbrow literature
00:30:49.840 | or the classics.
00:30:50.960 | Sometimes it's, look at this cool tip or trick I learned.
00:30:54.560 | But almost everyone that I've talked to
00:30:58.120 | but almost everyone that I spend any amount
00:31:02.840 | of my extracurricular time, which is very limited,
00:31:07.840 | almost all of it is spent with people that love to learn.
00:31:13.640 | And whether they love to learn scripture
00:31:15.720 | or they love to travel
00:31:17.520 | or they love to just talk about books,
00:31:20.400 | they are the people that have educated me.
00:31:23.040 | We are educating each other.
00:31:24.600 | So I think that one of the best things you can do
00:31:27.520 | is find people to learn alongside.
00:31:30.680 | You can do that in CC by finding a couple of other moms
00:31:35.080 | or dads that maybe just wanna read a book together.
00:31:38.080 | No pressure. - Right, read together.
00:31:39.520 | Absolutely. - Just read together
00:31:40.920 | and be humble enough to say,
00:31:43.080 | I have no idea what he just said.
00:31:45.640 | I don't get it.
00:31:46.480 | Can you please tell me what you think this means
00:31:48.880 | or how can we figure out what he was saying
00:31:52.120 | to his original audience?
00:31:54.960 | - There are also lots of classical resources
00:31:58.280 | where you can continue to educate yourself
00:32:01.520 | in a more formal way.
00:32:02.880 | There are webinars that are done by our friends
00:32:05.920 | at CRC and at Classical Academic Press.
00:32:09.720 | I help run an organization
00:32:12.640 | called the New England Consortium of Classical Educators.
00:32:15.800 | There's lots of groups out there
00:32:18.360 | where very low cost and very low impact,
00:32:23.360 | meaning you don't have to put yourself out there necessarily
00:32:26.280 | and be super vulnerable where you can learn.
00:32:30.120 | So right before we finished,
00:32:32.680 | right before we started recording this podcast,
00:32:34.920 | I was taking a Latin class with lifelong learners
00:32:39.920 | just learning Latin a little bit differently,
00:32:43.440 | getting a different layer than what I've had so far
00:32:45.960 | as a challenge tutor and challenge parent.
00:32:48.440 | So I think there's a lot of different ways
00:32:50.400 | to educate yourself.
00:32:51.680 | If you are more of an introvert
00:32:54.200 | and you just wanna learn on your own,
00:32:56.440 | there are kind of self-directed classes
00:33:00.840 | that you can take through many different organizations
00:33:05.240 | and you can take them, some of them are for free
00:33:07.720 | and some of them are very low cost.
00:33:10.040 | So finding something you're interested in
00:33:12.720 | and finding other people,
00:33:14.120 | whether they're online or in person
00:33:16.040 | that are also interested that will walk alongside you.
00:33:19.320 | It's so much easier to do when you have friends
00:33:21.960 | because when you get discouraged,
00:33:23.840 | they are there to help translate Shakespeare for you
00:33:27.960 | or they're there to encourage you
00:33:29.880 | or to give you a different recommendation.
00:33:32.600 | - I always think thoughts when I am in community
00:33:36.520 | that I'm pretty sure I would not think on my own
00:33:40.000 | because somebody says something that spurs me on
00:33:43.520 | to think about something in a way
00:33:45.440 | that I've never thought of it.
00:33:47.000 | From an angle I've never considered it before
00:33:50.080 | and it stretches me and every time I'm stretched,
00:33:53.520 | I learn a little bit.
00:33:54.960 | I love the emphasis that you placed on community
00:33:59.440 | and how community really does encourage lifelong learners.
00:34:04.440 | One of the easiest ways to learn things
00:34:08.520 | that you never were really interested in before
00:34:12.400 | is to surround yourself with people
00:34:15.320 | who aren't exactly like you.
00:34:18.400 | Surround yourself with people
00:34:21.680 | who are interested in different things,
00:34:24.560 | who've had different experiences
00:34:26.520 | and that way you learn together to appreciate things
00:34:31.520 | that you yourself never came in contact with.
00:34:34.920 | - And if we are as classical students ourselves,
00:34:39.120 | if we're learning how to ask questions well
00:34:43.080 | and how to listen well,
00:34:45.480 | we are gonna learn so much from those community members
00:34:48.680 | because it's no longer about let me ask you this question
00:34:52.120 | so I can tell you what I think.
00:34:54.040 | It's just humbly saying, tell me what you know about this,
00:34:57.640 | tell me about what you do for a job,
00:34:59.720 | tell me about your hobby, tell me about your trip
00:35:01.920 | and just listening and learning from them.
00:35:04.480 | That is gonna educate you
00:35:06.400 | because you're gonna end up with a list of things
00:35:09.720 | you've never thought about before, never experienced.
00:35:13.560 | In our home, in my challenge classes,
00:35:16.400 | we call it our wonder list.
00:35:18.800 | They're things that we're curious about learning about
00:35:21.720 | or doing someday and we just write them down
00:35:26.080 | so that we don't forget and sometimes I'll talk to someone
00:35:29.360 | and they'll be like, oh yeah,
00:35:30.440 | I did this thing in this place
00:35:33.000 | and I've never done that thing
00:35:34.400 | and I've never been to that place
00:35:35.960 | and so I put them on my list and I just,
00:35:38.560 | I read a book about them or I listen to a podcast about it.
00:35:42.280 | - That is so great.
00:35:44.280 | That is really great.
00:35:45.280 | I love that that also is a great way
00:35:50.280 | to love our neighbor well.
00:35:53.720 | To be interested in what our neighbor is passionate about
00:35:58.720 | is a way to love our neighbor well
00:36:01.080 | and to celebrate what God has made of them
00:36:05.280 | and what God has placed in their heart.
00:36:08.160 | And when we can participate with them in that curiosity
00:36:12.800 | and in that wonder, we love them well and I love that.
00:36:16.840 | I love that.
00:36:18.200 | This has been great, Heatherly.
00:36:19.960 | I've enjoyed picking your brain
00:36:22.400 | about how we can educate ourselves,
00:36:25.280 | not just why should we do this,
00:36:27.680 | but how and what the pleasures and the benefits are.
00:36:32.680 | This has been great.
00:36:33.600 | I have one final question for you and it's not a hard one.
00:36:37.760 | It is a very personal one
00:36:39.360 | that I've started asking all my guests.
00:36:41.840 | I want to know what makes you an everyday educator?
00:36:46.840 | - I am an everyday educator because I love to learn
00:36:55.440 | and I love to share what I've learned
00:36:57.720 | and I am constantly asking questions about things
00:37:03.040 | so that I can get that next layer.
00:37:05.920 | I'm constantly looking for the next book to read
00:37:10.080 | or the next person to talk to or the next class to take.
00:37:14.280 | And so, because I am, as you said, a curious student,
00:37:20.320 | I'm constantly adding to my own copiousness
00:37:24.560 | and my own body of knowledge.
00:37:26.160 | I then become a more interesting teacher
00:37:31.160 | and a more interesting teacher to my students,
00:37:34.040 | a more interesting teacher to my friends.
00:37:37.120 | I have a varied experience so I can mentor
00:37:41.880 | the people that God has brought into my path.
00:37:44.760 | - I love that.
00:37:45.960 | I love that, my friend.
00:37:47.200 | And I look forward to being able to sit down,
00:37:50.600 | maybe someday soon, face to face with you.
00:37:54.480 | I know, that'd be so awesome for us to be able
00:37:57.040 | to learn something together or just to talk about
00:38:00.200 | what each of us has learned most recently.
00:38:02.880 | That would be awesome.
00:38:04.240 | Listeners, I hope that you have enjoyed this
00:38:07.720 | as much as I have.
00:38:10.320 | I want to tell you about one thing
00:38:13.080 | that you might want to pursue as you are looking
00:38:17.960 | for something to talk about with your whole family together.
00:38:22.560 | I want to tell you about a movie that's coming out
00:38:25.760 | at the end of October called Miracle in East Texas.
00:38:30.280 | It is a very encouraging, heartwarming movie.
00:38:33.200 | It's about doing what's right and it is a movie
00:38:37.360 | that your whole family can enjoy together.
00:38:41.280 | It's directed by Kevin Sorbo and it tells the true story.
00:38:46.120 | So this is a true story, a traumatized version
00:38:51.120 | of a true story about the biggest oil strike
00:38:55.080 | in the history of the world.
00:38:57.880 | All right, did that get your interest?
00:38:59.520 | That happened right at the dawn of the Great Depression
00:39:02.440 | and it actually follows the story of two con men
00:39:07.000 | who convince investors to invest in what they believe
00:39:11.040 | is worthless oil rigs which turn out to not be
00:39:15.600 | so worthless after all.
00:39:17.920 | Anyhow, it's coming to a theater near you on October 29th
00:39:22.760 | and if you want to find out where or even get tickets now
00:39:26.520 | and start looking forward to it with your family,
00:39:29.080 | you can visit sorbostudios.com.
00:39:33.280 | That's S-O-R-B-O studios.com
00:39:38.280 | and find out more about Miracle in East Texas.
00:39:42.960 | Maybe you would be motivated to learn about oil rigs
00:39:46.840 | or the Great Depression or about doing what's right,
00:39:51.560 | something you can talk about with your whole family.
00:39:54.320 | So Heatherly, thank you one more time
00:39:57.040 | for being with me today and listeners,
00:40:00.240 | go and be lifelong learners.
00:40:03.800 | (gentle music)
00:40:06.400 | you
00:40:08.460 | [BLANK_AUDIO]