Everyday Educator - Homeschooling and Beyond: A Dad’s Perspective (with David Bailey)
00:00:00.000 | (gentle music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome, friends, to this episode
00:00:07.400 | of the Everyday Educator Podcast.
00:00:10.080 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.760 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.980 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.060 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.880 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.200 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:26.340 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.440 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.120 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.360 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:41.340 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:46.340 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:50.080 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:54.080 | Well, listeners, I have a treat for you today.
00:00:58.120 | We spend a lot of time talking with homeschooling,
00:01:02.440 | mostly moms, but occasionally a dad.
00:01:06.180 | Today, I want to give you a perspective
00:01:11.180 | on homeschooling and beyond,
00:01:17.080 | but from a dad's perspective.
00:01:20.640 | I have with me today a dad of two adult daughters.
00:01:27.520 | He and his wife graduated their children
00:01:30.720 | through the Challenge 4 program of Classical Conversations.
00:01:34.860 | This dad is an educator at heart.
00:01:37.720 | He loves to learn alongside his children,
00:01:41.440 | and how do I know all this?
00:01:43.960 | Because he's my husband.
00:01:46.100 | Yes, I have recruited my own husband as a podcast guest
00:01:50.360 | because I think he has something unique to say
00:01:55.020 | to families, to parents, to homeschoolers,
00:01:59.300 | to lifelong learners, to everyday educators.
00:02:03.060 | And so I want to welcome to the podcast, my husband, David.
00:02:07.920 | - Hello.
00:02:10.280 | - I'm glad for you to get a front row seat
00:02:13.420 | for what I spend so much of my week doing every week.
00:02:16.960 | - I was getting ready to say,
00:02:17.800 | I bet you say that about all your guests,
00:02:19.840 | but then you got to the husband part,
00:02:22.100 | so you knew I was unique.
00:02:23.740 | - I only say that to you.
00:02:25.960 | Okay, so we want today to give moms and dads,
00:02:32.040 | grandmas and grandpas, maybe two,
00:02:36.080 | who are in the trenches of homeschooling their children
00:02:40.400 | an idea of what it might look like
00:02:44.940 | on the other side of the daily grind.
00:02:48.440 | When the empty nest becomes reality and not theory,
00:02:53.680 | we want to give parents an idea of what you've been doing
00:02:58.060 | all these years as a homeschooling dad,
00:03:00.660 | part of a homeschooling family, the good, the bad, the ugly,
00:03:05.660 | and what it looks like now on this side,
00:03:09.120 | your hopes, your dreams, what you wish you had done,
00:03:13.960 | and how the life of a classical educator
00:03:18.440 | has prepared you to enjoy the future with your girls, okay?
00:03:23.880 | - Sounds good.
00:03:24.720 | - So, let me ask you, David, how long did you homeschool?
00:03:29.720 | This is not a trick question.
00:03:32.180 | - We began homeschooling in, I guess,
00:03:36.180 | about 1997, something like that.
00:03:41.700 | - See, this is why I said,
00:03:43.020 | I should have said it is a trick question.
00:03:45.140 | Some people think, you know,
00:03:47.440 | I don't really remember when we started homeschooling.
00:03:50.260 | We've always just kind of been living this life
00:03:52.980 | of the mind with curious children
00:03:55.420 | and answering their questions,
00:03:57.020 | and so sometimes I tell people we've been homeschooling
00:04:00.420 | from the very beginning,
00:04:01.860 | from the day we brought our older daughter
00:04:05.060 | home from the hospital, and then sometimes I say,
00:04:08.620 | I guess we officially started
00:04:11.460 | when she would have been a kindergartner, and so, yeah.
00:04:16.460 | - About 1997, then our younger daughter graduated in 2015,
00:04:22.540 | so that's 18 years, is that the math correctly?
00:04:27.540 | - It's a long time.
00:04:29.560 | - So, you've probably told this story before,
00:04:33.520 | but when we were deciding how to educate our daughter,
00:04:38.520 | well, our daughters, I was all in favor of public school
00:04:43.860 | just because it would help us network
00:04:47.680 | with a lot of other families, and as a pastor,
00:04:49.640 | I wanted to have ways to connect with other young families,
00:04:53.940 | but you persuaded me to give homeschooling a shot,
00:04:58.940 | but one of the key moments came
00:05:04.640 | when we had a family visiting with us,
00:05:08.520 | and she and her husband homeschooled their children,
00:05:12.020 | and they asked us what we were gonna do
00:05:15.580 | with our kids' education, and when she said to you
00:05:20.580 | that you're already homeschooling now,
00:05:26.400 | you're already doing that, and I guess for you and me,
00:05:30.860 | it pretty much came naturally,
00:05:33.440 | and we didn't have to put on a teacher's hat,
00:05:36.020 | that's just kind of how we live life.
00:05:38.440 | - Yeah.
00:05:39.380 | - And so, yeah, we've been homeschooling,
00:05:42.060 | we did it for a number of years.
00:05:44.980 | - So that's the how long,
00:05:47.280 | and that's pretty much the way I remember it too,
00:05:49.820 | so that's good, but why?
00:05:53.460 | Why did you agree to step out onto the path
00:05:58.460 | of this homeschooling journey?
00:06:02.120 | - That's a good question, because back in the '90s,
00:06:04.100 | this was not mainstream in any context,
00:06:09.100 | and so it was a more radical kind of endeavor,
00:06:14.820 | we didn't have, actually that was the year
00:06:17.260 | that CC began in 1997, we didn't know about it then,
00:06:22.020 | but I think that we wanted to homeschool,
00:06:26.440 | I've heard you say this, and I agree,
00:06:27.900 | that it's just so fun to see children learn things,
00:06:31.940 | we just love children anyway,
00:06:34.180 | but we love watching their eyes light up,
00:06:36.780 | and we love fielding the questions that come to mind.
00:06:41.780 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, do you think it's safe to say
00:06:45.520 | that you were willing to begin the homeschool journey,
00:06:50.520 | because I really wanted to, and we had people we trusted
00:06:56.140 | who thought we could really do this,
00:06:58.100 | but you also thought, how badly can we mess them up
00:07:01.900 | in kindergarten? (laughing)
00:07:04.300 | - I probably wasn't thinking about it that deeply,
00:07:06.700 | in terms of long-term, once we started,
00:07:11.340 | it seemed so natural to me,
00:07:12.820 | I kind of never really looked back.
00:07:15.040 | - That was what I was gonna ask you next,
00:07:17.940 | if that's why you began, just because it is fun
00:07:21.740 | to see the light bulbs come on,
00:07:23.660 | and learning alongside your kids is supernatural,
00:07:27.260 | and a lot of fun, why did you agree to continue for so long?
00:07:32.260 | After we started, do you remember thinking,
00:07:37.740 | oh, I'm gonna do this 'til they graduate,
00:07:40.620 | or not? - I was not thinking
00:07:42.260 | that far ahead. - Yeah.
00:07:43.540 | - You bore the brunt of the whole process,
00:07:50.380 | and it's not like it was a lot of work for me to be involved.
00:07:55.380 | I know that you did a lot of research
00:08:00.620 | studying educational curriculum, curricula,
00:08:05.440 | and ways to educate children, of course you had background,
00:08:10.220 | a lot of experience, particularly with preschoolers,
00:08:13.500 | and so this was kind of something close to your heart
00:08:18.500 | to study and to find what is the right way
00:08:25.940 | to educate children, and we can chuckle now,
00:08:31.220 | because young parents think there's gotta be one right way.
00:08:35.860 | - There's so many right ways.
00:08:39.020 | - Yeah, and it is a process,
00:08:42.400 | and there is grace built into it
00:08:46.040 | that a young parent may not realize.
00:08:49.740 | - Okay, listeners, I want you to hear that.
00:08:52.580 | There is grace built into homeschooling
00:08:56.840 | that you might not realize.
00:09:00.100 | You don't have to find the one right way,
00:09:07.220 | 'cause there's not one right way,
00:09:09.940 | and if you have more than one child,
00:09:11.820 | you've already internalized that whole idea,
00:09:14.780 | because the right way to teach child A to read
00:09:18.740 | is the one way that will not work for child B,
00:09:22.260 | almost guaranteed.
00:09:24.200 | There's not one right way.
00:09:26.000 | There are very few mistakes
00:09:31.000 | from which you cannot recover as a homeschooler.
00:09:34.480 | If you try one tack and it doesn't work,
00:09:38.100 | or it doesn't work well, or you just don't like it,
00:09:41.240 | you can stop, boot that to the curb,
00:09:45.660 | and try a different way, and it's okay.
00:09:48.860 | Don't be afraid that you're gonna make a mistake.
00:09:54.140 | And moms, if your husband needs to hear this,
00:09:59.140 | then stop the podcast, go find him,
00:10:02.960 | and help him listen to this dad,
00:10:05.740 | who also is saying to you,
00:10:09.240 | "Yeah, I kinda just believed you
00:10:11.620 | "when you said we could do this,
00:10:13.300 | "and I saw good things, and I trusted you."
00:10:18.300 | - Well, another thing about our relationship
00:10:23.660 | is that even before we began dating,
00:10:26.500 | we worked shoulder to shoulder with children,
00:10:29.980 | and I knew how you dealt with children,
00:10:32.060 | you knew how I dealt with children,
00:10:34.560 | and for our first married years,
00:10:37.780 | we were looking forward to the time
00:10:39.400 | when we would have our own children.
00:10:41.860 | And so we both came into parenthood
00:10:46.860 | with more experience working with children
00:10:50.840 | than maybe is typical. - There are a lot.
00:10:54.100 | - And that helped a lot. - It did.
00:10:55.860 | - I mean, it helped us get on the same page
00:10:57.360 | in terms of parenting, not just educating.
00:10:59.880 | - Right, I think that both of us tend to be learners,
00:11:04.880 | we both tend to be curious,
00:11:06.960 | we both tend to ask a lot of questions,
00:11:09.860 | we tend to be interested in a lot of different things,
00:11:15.720 | and for those reasons, I think we continued
00:11:19.860 | to be interested in homeschooling.
00:11:22.920 | I do know, I can remember when I went
00:11:25.840 | to my very first CC practicum,
00:11:29.960 | and y'all, it looked way different way back then.
00:11:32.960 | I mean, it was in one, we fit,
00:11:37.960 | I think there were 24 of us
00:11:41.400 | at the first practicum I ever attended,
00:11:43.700 | and Lee was the speaker, and we spent three days
00:11:47.700 | in a second floor, un-air-conditioned Sunday school room
00:11:55.120 | with small chairs and a big whiteboard,
00:11:59.400 | which Lee wrote madly on for six hours every day
00:12:04.400 | while she talked to us about the beauties and benefits
00:12:09.460 | of a classical Christian education.
00:12:12.200 | And I came home from that one of the very first days,
00:12:15.760 | and we went out to eat, and I was talking to you about math,
00:12:20.760 | and the glory of math, which was not my favorite subject
00:12:24.520 | growing up, okay, and the glory of math,
00:12:26.780 | and how you could see God in math,
00:12:28.320 | and I was drawing these little diagrams
00:12:30.740 | on beverage napkins, and you looked at me and said,
00:12:34.520 | "Who are you, and what has happened to you?"
00:12:37.880 | And I was so excited about education at that point
00:12:42.880 | that I think, we had been homeschooling
00:12:45.560 | for several years by then.
00:12:47.880 | When our girls jumped into the foundations program,
00:12:51.120 | one was in the fifth grade, and one was in the second grade,
00:12:53.720 | so we had some years of homeschooling under our belt,
00:12:57.380 | but it was at the point where I discovered
00:13:01.340 | classical conversations that I really had confidence
00:13:05.960 | in the long view that we could stay the course,
00:13:10.900 | and I remember one of the things that appealed
00:13:14.040 | to you the most was looking at the challenge,
00:13:16.880 | scope, and sequence.
00:13:18.200 | - I don't even remember that.
00:13:21.440 | - Isn't that funny?
00:13:22.600 | - What I do remember is you coming home,
00:13:24.120 | and you were excited about math,
00:13:27.120 | and you were teaching me all these things,
00:13:29.680 | and I thought, wow, this really has lit your fire.
00:13:34.000 | It's grasped your imagination and your enthusiasm,
00:13:39.000 | and so that was a selling point to me.
00:13:45.000 | Of course, at that point, we, as you said,
00:13:48.560 | had been homeschooling for nine years,
00:13:50.680 | and we were not considering stopping homeschooling,
00:13:54.480 | but we were wondering if we could throw in
00:13:57.000 | with this new organization, new to us organization,
00:14:00.480 | that some friends had kind of recruited you for.
00:14:04.680 | - True.
00:14:05.800 | - And when it seemed to be a real fit for you
00:14:10.800 | as a mom and a teacher, it seemed like something
00:14:19.000 | really worth pursuing.
00:14:20.840 | - Yeah, yeah, I really loved becoming involved
00:14:25.480 | as a challenge tutor, director at the very beginning,
00:14:29.600 | because I loved seeing where the foundation's work
00:14:33.560 | was going to take these children,
00:14:36.920 | that we really were giving them so much good stuff
00:14:40.600 | to think about that when they were old enough
00:14:43.560 | to think deeper thoughts, they would have some ammunition.
00:14:47.240 | They would have some stuff to think about.
00:14:49.960 | And I liked the plan that was laid out.
00:14:54.480 | - Well, you had done enough research
00:14:56.280 | before you ever went to that practicum
00:14:58.360 | about classical education.
00:15:00.720 | You knew what you were looking for.
00:15:02.800 | You were kind of in the process of inventing the wheel
00:15:06.680 | on how that would work in a day-to-day child's curriculum.
00:15:10.400 | And when you found that somebody else was a few years ahead
00:15:14.160 | in inventing this wheel, it just was a natural fit.
00:15:19.000 | - Absolutely, because you know what?
00:15:20.720 | If you've ever tried to do it, man,
00:15:23.960 | September and October go great.
00:15:26.400 | And November is kind of fun.
00:15:28.000 | In December, you can do a lot of holiday stuff,
00:15:30.040 | but January comes and man, the doldrums set in
00:15:33.640 | and creating a classical Christian curriculum
00:15:38.640 | for your children, especially as they mature and grow
00:15:43.920 | and their skills develop and they're ready
00:15:46.040 | for new adventures, man, that was hard.
00:15:48.640 | Writing all of that on my own was really hard.
00:15:52.600 | And so while we still loved exploring the world together,
00:15:57.600 | it was really awesome to have somebody
00:16:00.360 | who was setting out a blueprint for us of how to do that.
00:16:04.440 | And that made it possible for us
00:16:06.560 | to look forward to continuing.
00:16:09.360 | - Well, our older daughter particularly seemed very curious,
00:16:14.360 | but so logical, and this seemed like a good curriculum
00:16:20.040 | for her, we felt like, especially by then,
00:16:24.240 | we felt if she went to the public school system,
00:16:27.160 | she would just be bored and probably end up
00:16:29.680 | causing trouble.
00:16:30.520 | - Disruptive, shall we say.
00:16:31.840 | - And so this seemed like a good curriculum
00:16:34.680 | where she could really be challenged.
00:16:37.960 | - And enjoy learning.
00:16:41.320 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:16:43.000 | So did you enjoy learning alongside them as they grew up?
00:16:48.000 | - I did enjoy it.
00:16:52.320 | I wish I had plugged into it more.
00:16:55.020 | They were being exposed to a lot
00:17:01.320 | that I never was exposed to in my education.
00:17:04.440 | And I've kind of felt like I was an outsider.
00:17:08.260 | I was behind because the three of you knew all this stuff
00:17:11.360 | and I didn't.
00:17:13.640 | - I do remember the year after Sarah finished Challenge B,
00:17:18.640 | so three of us had been through multiple years
00:17:22.440 | of formal logic by then, and you were the only person
00:17:25.700 | who had not taken the logic course,
00:17:28.000 | which is ironic since probably by nature,
00:17:30.780 | you were the most logical person of the four of us.
00:17:33.680 | - Oh, maybe.
00:17:35.000 | - That's really fun.
00:17:36.760 | So what was the best thing about homeschooling?
00:17:40.080 | As you look back, because okay, spirit of full disclosure,
00:17:43.840 | both of our girls are grown.
00:17:46.000 | They're both married.
00:17:47.840 | We have a grandson now.
00:17:49.560 | So we are looking beyond homeschooling.
00:17:54.000 | So this is homeschooling and beyond a dad's perspective.
00:17:58.040 | It is way beyond homeschooling.
00:18:01.640 | So let me ask you this.
00:18:03.000 | What was the best thing about homeschooling
00:18:05.760 | as you look back?
00:18:07.280 | - I think just being in touch with my children.
00:18:10.680 | - Oh, yeah.
00:18:12.000 | - And public school then wasn't as bad as maybe--
00:18:15.680 | - It seems to be now.
00:18:17.160 | - Yes, it seems to be now, just based on news reports.
00:18:21.480 | But I was never concerned about what my children
00:18:26.280 | might be learning in school.
00:18:29.360 | And I knew who they were learning with,
00:18:34.160 | not just you, their mom,
00:18:36.800 | but also their peers and their families.
00:18:41.200 | But I just enjoy their company.
00:18:45.480 | - Yeah.
00:18:46.320 | - And that's such a blessing,
00:18:49.280 | just to be able to enjoy your being together as a family.
00:18:53.280 | And we still enjoy that.
00:18:54.520 | It's a lot different now, but we still enjoy it.
00:18:57.040 | - Right.
00:18:57.880 | So I think that was one of the great joys.
00:19:02.520 | And it was also fun having them tell me stuff
00:19:05.640 | that they were learning.
00:19:06.600 | - Oh, I like that.
00:19:07.840 | I used to love to listen to them rattle off
00:19:10.400 | the things that they knew.
00:19:11.920 | Or I liked watching them impress you
00:19:15.720 | with something that they knew that you were surprised
00:19:19.000 | to find that they knew.
00:19:21.400 | - Yes, the timeline stands out.
00:19:23.920 | - Oh yeah, oh yeah.
00:19:25.640 | I like that.
00:19:26.480 | - I like that you said that your favorite part
00:19:29.880 | or the best thing about homeschooling
00:19:31.800 | was spending time with your girls.
00:19:33.720 | - Oh yeah.
00:19:34.560 | - So dads, treasure that, treasure that.
00:19:40.320 | - And I didn't, one of the regrets I have
00:19:44.600 | is that there were times when I could have been with them
00:19:47.320 | in community, in foundations,
00:19:50.000 | but I felt like I was too busy.
00:19:52.400 | I did have a flexible schedule.
00:19:53.880 | I could have made it work, but I didn't.
00:19:56.320 | - Right, okay, so that's a cautionary tale, parents.
00:20:00.200 | Realize you don't get a second chance at some of this.
00:20:06.040 | Now maybe we'll be able to go to foundations
00:20:08.640 | with our grandson in a few years.
00:20:12.440 | That's good, okay.
00:20:13.800 | So that was one of the best things about homeschooling.
00:20:17.240 | What was one of the hardest things about homeschooling?
00:20:25.880 | - Well, again, you were the one
00:20:28.200 | mostly bearing the burden of it.
00:20:30.640 | I think for me, when you became frustrated,
00:20:35.640 | that was hard for me.
00:20:37.720 | When you didn't know how to help them write this paper
00:20:43.800 | or I know that you had to kind of relearn
00:20:49.160 | or learn for the first time stuff like chemistry
00:20:55.280 | and physics. - Oh, my.
00:20:56.280 | Some of the math of chemistry was utterly beyond
00:20:59.360 | what I could remember. - Yeah, and so that was hard
00:21:01.380 | for me to see you so frustrated.
00:21:03.000 | And although I have a math background,
00:21:05.840 | I couldn't jump in and go, oh, yeah, sure,
00:21:07.940 | I can show you how this works.
00:21:10.160 | - Well, 'cause a lot of learning, you guys, is sequential.
00:21:13.360 | And as parents, if you don't keep up,
00:21:15.920 | as your child goes from easy to complex,
00:21:19.760 | you can't just easily jump in at complex
00:21:23.000 | and make it all turn out right.
00:21:24.760 | And so that's another cautionary tale.
00:21:27.200 | If there's a subject with which you are utterly unfamiliar,
00:21:32.200 | logic and mock trial come to mind,
00:21:36.700 | then you probably need to be in on it,
00:21:40.740 | sort of from the get-go, or you won't be as much help
00:21:44.280 | to your children as you hoped to be
00:21:46.440 | when they hit a hard patch.
00:21:47.600 | - And you did learn along with them.
00:21:49.160 | - Oh, gosh, yeah.
00:21:50.000 | - And I was kind of a bystander.
00:21:53.000 | - Okay, okay.
00:21:54.560 | - But yeah, cheerleader, maybe, hopefully.
00:21:57.080 | So that, I do remember some angst
00:22:03.260 | and tears shed over science projects and--
00:22:10.200 | - Oh, my word, yes. - Stuff like that.
00:22:12.040 | - Last minute, you know what?
00:22:14.240 | One of the hardest things to teach children
00:22:18.000 | is not necessarily academic in nature,
00:22:21.040 | it's more life skills in nature.
00:22:23.560 | And so when your child fails to plan
00:22:28.560 | or does not have a realistic view of how long things take,
00:22:33.700 | then that bites not just the child,
00:22:37.200 | but the homeschooling parents as well,
00:22:41.280 | and those can be hard times.
00:22:42.840 | Those are hard lessons.
00:22:44.440 | Good lessons are sometimes hard to learn.
00:22:49.080 | And the thing about being a homeschooling family
00:22:51.480 | is that, you know what, it hardly ever just bites
00:22:55.080 | the one who causes it.
00:22:57.200 | The problem bites all of us because we live in community
00:23:01.160 | and we love each other and we're trying to help each other.
00:23:04.060 | And so, child A's botched science fair board bites us all
00:23:09.060 | because we're all scrambling to figure out
00:23:14.200 | how to fix it at the 11th hour.
00:23:16.800 | - Well, and just the angst of,
00:23:17.880 | "Oh, I wish I hadn't chosen this project."
00:23:20.240 | It's like, well, you did. - Three weeks ago.
00:23:21.960 | - Right.
00:23:22.800 | - So that was one example of a frustration.
00:23:28.800 | - Okay, you've mentioned a couple of things.
00:23:31.160 | I've heard you say a couple of things
00:23:32.720 | that you wish you had done differently.
00:23:35.780 | I want to ask you about those things.
00:23:38.420 | What would you do differently?
00:23:40.440 | And they can be little practical things
00:23:43.160 | or big philosophical things.
00:23:45.920 | - Well, I had an advantage and a disadvantage
00:23:50.880 | all rolled into one and that is that you're so good at this
00:23:54.200 | that I didn't feel like I needed to be micromanaging
00:23:59.080 | or even all that tuned into,
00:24:03.880 | 'cause I knew that they were gonna be fine
00:24:05.740 | 'cause you could take care of it.
00:24:07.720 | And so that's a great advantage
00:24:09.680 | in that you were able to be a good homeschool teacher,
00:24:12.560 | but it's a disadvantage in that I was more hands off
00:24:17.560 | than I might have been
00:24:22.120 | if you were not so competent and capable,
00:24:25.880 | then I could have rolled up my sleeves a little bit more
00:24:30.880 | with the whole process.
00:24:33.300 | And so that's not something I've,
00:24:36.560 | I guess what I could have done differently
00:24:38.280 | is just been more dialed in to what you're actually studying
00:24:43.280 | and the frustrations and maybe some of that learning
00:24:51.200 | along with them, I could have--
00:24:53.440 | - Yes, yes, you could have memorized the timeline
00:24:57.080 | with that. - Yeah, that's right.
00:24:58.600 | - That would have been a great thing.
00:25:00.400 | I think that having regrets is just part of what we do.
00:25:06.860 | - Oh, it's part of life.
00:25:08.700 | - And I'm asking you these questions
00:25:11.260 | because you have the long view
00:25:13.340 | because this is in the rear view mirror.
00:25:16.300 | We're looking at homeschooling and beyond
00:25:18.900 | because you're past some of it.
00:25:20.960 | But I do want to remind you of a thing that you did.
00:25:25.960 | You became a director yourself.
00:25:30.900 | You became a lead learner, not just in our home,
00:25:36.020 | but in our CC community where you had multiple years
00:25:41.020 | where you led a challenge one community.
00:25:44.580 | And so you did practice the classical model
00:25:48.460 | in front of children, both your own and other people's.
00:25:52.380 | And you did know what it was to dig in
00:25:55.300 | and learn something new or learn something old in a new way.
00:25:59.760 | And so parents who are listening, I would encourage you,
00:26:05.660 | if you want to be involved in a classical education
00:26:10.460 | and you don't mind learning in front of other people,
00:26:16.900 | then becoming a director is awesome.
00:26:20.360 | You will learn twice as much
00:26:23.060 | when you are trying to learn it
00:26:26.260 | in order to explain it to somebody else
00:26:29.300 | as you ever learned when you were reading it
00:26:31.920 | for your own edification.
00:26:34.220 | And so that is the thing I want to tell you
00:26:36.020 | that you did really well.
00:26:37.900 | You modeled lifelong learning for your girls.
00:26:42.900 | - And it was fun, I had both of them in the challenge one.
00:26:46.020 | - Yeah, and I have heard both of them tell people
00:26:50.020 | when they didn't know we were listening
00:26:52.000 | that learning is just what we do in our family.
00:26:55.900 | And they have always watched you
00:26:57.580 | be willing to learn something.
00:26:59.260 | So that is a good, good thing.
00:27:01.740 | - Okay, so when the empty nest came several years ago
00:27:06.740 | for us now, what was the most surprising thing
00:27:11.900 | to you about the empty nest?
00:27:15.360 | - The most surprising thing?
00:27:18.380 | Well, maybe the most surprising thing
00:27:23.380 | as I think about it today is probably
00:27:26.180 | that it did not bother me more.
00:27:31.940 | Because I've told this story so many times
00:27:34.460 | when we took our first daughter to college,
00:27:36.420 | that was easy, taking her to college was no problem at all.
00:27:39.420 | What was hard was leaving her there
00:27:41.260 | and coming home without her.
00:27:43.700 | And that, I was not prepared for that.
00:27:46.600 | That just really hit me hard emotionally.
00:27:51.520 | And maybe that's part of what prepared me then
00:27:55.020 | for the empty nest.
00:27:55.860 | Of course it helped that our nest became empty
00:27:58.920 | when our younger daughter went to college,
00:28:02.240 | but the school was like half an hour from our house.
00:28:05.680 | - So we could go see her if we really needed a fix.
00:28:08.120 | - Yeah, and so I do feel some sympathy
00:28:12.560 | for parents who send their kids halfway across the country
00:28:16.480 | or somewhere, that would be really hard.
00:28:19.000 | - One thing I think that helped us
00:28:21.660 | is that when our personal homeschool nest emptied,
00:28:26.460 | we were both still tutoring.
00:28:28.100 | So we both still, we were both still investing
00:28:32.120 | in young people.
00:28:33.200 | - Right, it kind of scratched that itch.
00:28:35.200 | - Yeah, it did, it really did.
00:28:37.420 | So the nest was not completely empty.
00:28:41.040 | What did you miss about home?
00:28:43.280 | Was there anything that you missed
00:28:44.860 | about homeschooling at home?
00:28:48.180 | - When our nest became empty?
00:28:50.000 | - Yeah, when the girls were gone.
00:28:51.720 | Was there anything about homeschooling that you missed?
00:28:55.720 | - I can't think of anything that I suddenly began to miss
00:29:00.420 | because it seemed like our children
00:29:05.420 | were headed in the right direction.
00:29:07.120 | They were taking the next steps that they needed to.
00:29:09.620 | And other than just not having children living at home,
00:29:16.280 | I don't really think I missed anything.
00:29:24.320 | - I remember you saying that one of the things you missed
00:29:28.800 | when the girls were gone is being in touch
00:29:33.800 | with current popular teen culture.
00:29:38.400 | Like we didn't know the music anymore.
00:29:40.600 | We didn't know the slang words anymore.
00:29:43.360 | - That's true.
00:29:44.200 | I mean, when we would take our children,
00:29:46.640 | take them wherever they needed to go.
00:29:50.400 | A lot of times we were driving
00:29:51.640 | and they would have a playlist that they could play music.
00:29:56.440 | So yeah, I miss being able to know
00:29:59.480 | what the hot new artists are and that kind of thing.
00:30:03.000 | - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:04.620 | The cultural stuff.
00:30:05.460 | - I do remember joking with them
00:30:06.640 | that our music is a whole lot better than today's music.
00:30:09.700 | - Yeah, and you were right.
00:30:11.440 | Okay, so empty nest, your children have grown and gone.
00:30:18.040 | How have your interactions with your children changed?
00:30:22.880 | - I think it's been a gradual process because we,
00:30:27.680 | and as parents, you learn this on the job, on the fly.
00:30:33.360 | And that is the way you interact with your children
00:30:36.040 | has to evolve over time.
00:30:40.480 | And our goal was to invest more and more independence
00:30:46.080 | in them and overall, I think,
00:30:51.080 | well, we could ask them what they think,
00:30:52.980 | but I think that we were able to give them
00:30:56.840 | appropriate amounts of independence at appropriate times.
00:31:00.640 | And so the way we interact with our children
00:31:03.300 | didn't take a sudden turn.
00:31:06.120 | I guess when they moved out of the house,
00:31:07.320 | it took a sudden turn and that we didn't know
00:31:09.100 | how class went today necessarily, that kind of thing.
00:31:12.760 | But overall, I think that we just adjusted
00:31:16.820 | our role in their lives gradually over time.
00:31:21.820 | It didn't seem like a big change,
00:31:25.720 | big point of inflection somehow,
00:31:30.480 | oh, now it's all different.
00:31:32.080 | 'Cause it was always becoming different the whole time.
00:31:34.640 | - And that's pretty awesome if you think about it
00:31:36.840 | because they were able to gradually take up the reins
00:31:41.940 | of independence as we gradually relinquished
00:31:46.900 | the reins of being in charge,
00:31:49.380 | or at least having a hand, a lead rope, as it were.
00:31:54.180 | And so, yeah, that's really pretty cool
00:31:58.200 | when you realize that your children are able
00:32:01.140 | to make really good decisions when they're on their own,
00:32:06.060 | because they learned to make good decisions
00:32:08.400 | while they were still at home with you.
00:32:10.640 | - And for the most part, they were level-headed
00:32:13.860 | and responsible, we didn't have a real rebellious child.
00:32:18.860 | But for both of our children, they did make some choices
00:32:23.920 | we thought were probably not the most wise.
00:32:27.460 | - Right.
00:32:28.940 | - But we were able to hold on to the relationship
00:32:37.160 | as primary instead of them doing what we want them to do
00:32:40.920 | as primary.
00:32:41.900 | - Right, that's really good, that's really good.
00:32:44.800 | What do you appreciate the most about your grown-up kids?
00:32:49.800 | - Watching them make good decisions.
00:32:54.920 | And one of the most rewarding things of parenthood
00:32:59.920 | is seeing your children live out and speak out
00:33:06.120 | the things that we have been instilling in them.
00:33:09.760 | Because when you're teenagers and you're telling them
00:33:12.920 | some of the wisdom of life, it just seems not to take.
00:33:19.240 | It seems like they're just rolling their eyes
00:33:23.860 | and saying, "Yeah, what do you know?"
00:33:25.640 | - Right, right.
00:33:26.720 | - One of the memories I have is with one of our daughters
00:33:31.720 | I kept telling her about various things.
00:33:36.720 | This is a life skill, you need to be able to do this.
00:33:41.780 | And then when she was in college,
00:33:44.160 | she was telling her roommate who had been more sheltered
00:33:48.480 | than our daughter, she would tell her roommate,
00:33:51.240 | "This is a life skill, you need to be able to do this."
00:33:54.000 | - You felt vindicated, I'm sure.
00:33:55.960 | - I was kind of surprised that it sank in
00:33:59.320 | more than I had thought it.
00:34:00.920 | And so parents can take heart knowing that you may feel
00:34:05.920 | like you're just talking till you're blue in the face
00:34:08.120 | and they're, "They're not getting any of this."
00:34:10.040 | But they are probably getting more than they're letting on.
00:34:14.120 | - They are probably internalizing more
00:34:16.640 | than you ever remember giving out.
00:34:19.100 | - Well, that's true 'cause they're watching our example
00:34:22.540 | as well as our words.
00:34:24.080 | - Yes, that's a cautionary tale there too.
00:34:26.440 | They're watching and they will emulate the good, the bad
00:34:29.560 | and the ugly, but you just have to deal with that.
00:34:34.080 | - And that's one of the most frustrating things
00:34:35.540 | of parenthood is seeing your child do that thing
00:34:38.400 | that you set the example for that is not really helpful.
00:34:43.400 | And so then you're not just annoyed with them,
00:34:47.000 | but you're mad at yourself.
00:34:48.280 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:34:50.400 | Well, let me ask you this as we come to the end of our time,
00:34:53.080 | how can you see the fruits of a classical Christian education
00:34:58.200 | in the women your girls have become?
00:35:01.060 | - They seem to be willing to embrace challenge.
00:35:08.160 | - Oh, that's great.
00:35:09.600 | - And they are not afraid of being stretched.
00:35:14.600 | - Yes, I can agree.
00:35:17.120 | - And they feel like they have the tools that they need
00:35:23.480 | to figure out a situation and admittedly they have tools
00:35:28.480 | that we couldn't conceive of when our children were little.
00:35:38.640 | - True, but they wield them with confidence
00:35:41.560 | that we perhaps did not have either.
00:35:43.620 | - Right, I'm just saying that they can pull out their phones
00:35:47.920 | and Google something to get an answer,
00:35:49.960 | which was a luxury that we had when they were little,
00:35:53.800 | but they can approach life with some confidence,
00:35:58.800 | not feeling concerned that they're going to be
00:36:02.940 | taken advantage of in a business deal, for example.
00:36:06.740 | But they still ask for our wisdom and input,
00:36:11.120 | which is nice to be able to offer that when requested.
00:36:17.760 | But classical education has given them tools
00:36:20.960 | to not just read a book and write a paper,
00:36:25.480 | it's given them tools to approach any task
00:36:30.480 | or situation or difficulty with a general roadmap
00:36:36.900 | that can move them through learning what they need to learn,
00:36:45.120 | assessing the situation and moving to action.
00:36:48.320 | - I would agree, I love that.
00:36:51.300 | I think when I look at the girls,
00:36:54.160 | I can see the fruits of the classical education in them.
00:36:58.320 | They have learned to ask good, incisive questions.
00:37:03.240 | They have learned to break tasks down into smaller pieces
00:37:09.440 | and work the plan.
00:37:13.240 | They have learned to listen intently
00:37:17.400 | to arguments that are not their own
00:37:22.240 | and view with grace and mercy and respect
00:37:29.220 | people who hold a different position.
00:37:32.760 | - And they're willing to listen
00:37:33.640 | to other people's points of view.
00:37:35.040 | - Yes.
00:37:35.880 | - And they're not crystallized in their understanding
00:37:39.320 | of life in the world.
00:37:41.600 | - Right.
00:37:42.960 | - They have a basis, a solid foundation,
00:37:47.680 | but they don't dismiss out of hand other points of view.
00:37:52.680 | They're willing to evaluate and consider,
00:37:58.320 | and even if they're not persuaded by those arguments,
00:38:02.600 | they can be gracious toward those who hold--
00:38:07.200 | - They know how to love their neighbor,
00:38:09.320 | even if their neighbor is not like them.
00:38:12.800 | And I appreciate that.
00:38:14.200 | Well, let me ask you this.
00:38:15.840 | How can you see the fruits of a classical education
00:38:20.840 | in yourself, can you?
00:38:23.900 | - I do feel like I can take a task
00:38:28.800 | and break it down into smaller steps.
00:38:42.040 | I feel like I have some confidence
00:38:44.760 | that I can take on something new.
00:38:49.680 | - Yeah.
00:38:50.520 | - Which I'm doing now.
00:38:53.920 | - Right.
00:38:54.760 | - So as a farmer, and so that's a whole other world
00:39:00.800 | from a lot of things that we're more familiar with.
00:39:10.200 | It's kind of a lost art.
00:39:12.040 | And so I am realizing that there's just so much grammar
00:39:17.040 | that I need to have in agriculture and horticulture.
00:39:26.080 | And every time I read something
00:39:31.880 | or hear a podcast about gardening or farming,
00:39:35.800 | and they're throwing around terms that I don't know,
00:39:37.960 | I realize, oh, that's vocabulary that I need to investigate.
00:39:42.280 | - Yeah.
00:39:43.120 | - And it all builds just like any discipline.
00:39:49.760 | It's all, you add things on top of previous knowledge.
00:39:54.760 | And clearly with something like farming,
00:40:02.000 | it's a practical,
00:40:06.080 | the rhetoric of it is actually doing something
00:40:10.380 | with plants and animals and soil and trees
00:40:15.160 | and actually working it out and doing things.
00:40:20.160 | - Cool, very cool.
00:40:23.180 | I appreciate you sharing that.
00:40:24.860 | Okay, I have one last question.
00:40:26.600 | I ask this of every guest, so you get it too.
00:40:30.520 | How are you, David, an everyday educator?
00:40:35.520 | - Well, there are two elements to that.
00:40:40.520 | One of the elements is first learning.
00:40:45.280 | And I always love learning stuff.
00:40:47.240 | I'm constantly listening to podcasts and reading books.
00:40:51.200 | I've been working lately on reading more literature
00:40:54.960 | instead of just nonfiction.
00:40:56.320 | But then the other element besides learning stuff
00:41:04.180 | is sharing stuff.
00:41:05.560 | And so I've got various groups
00:41:08.420 | of where I'm able to do Bible studies and so forth
00:41:13.420 | that give me opportunity to invest in people's lives.
00:41:20.000 | But even as our children are adults,
00:41:24.060 | I still like teaching them stuff.
00:41:25.580 | - And they still like learning stuff.
00:41:26.800 | - Yeah, and our sons-in-law a lot of times
00:41:30.120 | will ask our take on something, our opinion about something,
00:41:35.120 | ask for advice sometimes.
00:41:38.540 | And so it's nice to be able to share those things.
00:41:42.700 | So I think that you and I are just wired as educators anyway.
00:41:47.700 | - Yeah, true.
00:41:51.980 | - Sometimes our children would ask you something
00:41:56.320 | and I would think, "Why didn't you ask me?"
00:41:59.060 | And the answer is, "I didn't want to know that much."
00:42:00.980 | (laughing)
00:42:02.200 | - That's true.
00:42:03.200 | Do I want daddy amount of information
00:42:05.240 | or mama amount of information?
00:42:07.180 | Yeah, that's true.
00:42:08.520 | Well, I really appreciate you sharing
00:42:11.540 | with the listeners today your perspective
00:42:15.740 | of homeschooling and beyond.
00:42:18.800 | It is really refreshing a lot of times
00:42:21.240 | to hear a dad's view of homeschooling
00:42:25.280 | and what made it great, what made it scary,
00:42:29.220 | especially if you can look in the rear-view mirror
00:42:33.080 | and see what it gave you and your family.
00:42:35.220 | So thanks for sharing today.
00:42:37.080 | - Well, I'm glad you said that
00:42:37.920 | about seeing it in the rear-view mirror.
00:42:40.300 | I recently heard somebody talk about in Exodus 34,
00:42:45.300 | I think it's a passage where Moses sees God.
00:42:49.300 | But if you recall, God puts Moses
00:42:54.600 | in a cleft of the rock, covers him up,
00:42:57.120 | and God passes by while he proclaims his name.
00:43:00.920 | But then he removes his hand,
00:43:03.200 | and Moses sees God from the back.
00:43:05.440 | That's how we can see God in life, is looking back,
00:43:11.440 | and we see God's hand at work.
00:43:14.680 | And we want to see God moving forward,
00:43:16.720 | and I think in a lot of ways by faith we do that.
00:43:19.720 | But sometimes the sight is so much more clear
00:43:22.960 | as we look back on life's experiences,
00:43:27.960 | and some of the things that break our hearts the most
00:43:31.080 | are so often the things that God uses the most
00:43:35.200 | to develop us into better disciples of Jesus
00:43:40.200 | and people who love God and love people more.
00:43:43.480 | - That might be the best thing
00:43:44.480 | that you've said this whole podcast.
00:43:46.100 | That's a great way to end it.
00:43:47.440 | Thank you so very much.
00:43:49.440 | Families, I hope that you have enjoyed hearing
00:43:52.680 | about homeschooling and beyond a dad's perspective.
00:43:56.040 | I have one more thing to, well, maybe it's a reminder
00:43:59.800 | for you, maybe it's the first time you've heard
00:44:01.960 | about the Math Map.
00:44:03.680 | It is an all-new Foundations Through Challenge
00:44:07.880 | for Math curriculum that our CC founder, Lee Bortons,
00:44:11.960 | is developing.
00:44:13.080 | It's called the Math Map, and it is specifically designed
00:44:18.040 | to teach homeschool parents the language of math.
00:44:22.120 | Just like a foreign language, math has a specific vocabulary
00:44:26.560 | and concepts and notation that are often unfamiliar at first.
00:44:30.480 | So if we spend some time discovering
00:44:33.640 | and becoming more familiar with this language of math,
00:44:37.360 | we will have an easier, more exciting,
00:44:41.320 | more thoroughly delightful time
00:44:43.420 | acquainting our children with this.
00:44:46.000 | Right now, Classical Conversations members
00:44:49.580 | can access an exclusive sneak peek of the Math Map.
00:44:54.580 | It's called Naturals, and it's on CC Connected.
00:44:58.860 | If you want to find out what the Math Map is all about,
00:45:03.360 | you need to hop on it, because the beta release
00:45:06.080 | of Math Map Naturals will not stick around
00:45:09.020 | on CC Connected forever, so be sure that you work through it
00:45:14.020 | while it's still available.
00:45:15.300 | To get to these materials, log on
00:45:17.920 | to your CC Connected account, navigate
00:45:20.900 | to the Learning Center, it should be on the left toolbar,
00:45:24.840 | and search for the Math Map, okay?
00:45:28.880 | It can be a delightful turn on your homeschool journey.
00:45:32.660 | All right, well, it has been great to be with you guys
00:45:36.260 | this afternoon, I appreciate you spending
00:45:38.900 | a little bit of time with us, and I will see you next week.
00:45:42.520 | Bye bye.
00:45:43.560 | (gentle music)
00:45:46.140 | you
00:45:48.200 | [BLANK_AUDIO]