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Everyday Educator - Making More of (the) Challenge


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00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:07.240 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:09.840 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:11.640 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:15.080 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:18.480 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:21.400 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.920 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:27.200 | this homeschooling possibility or deep into
00:00:30.520 | the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:33.360 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.720 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.600 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.600 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:51.960 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:56.400 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to bring a little bit of new
00:01:01.360 | to many of you information your way today.
00:01:04.160 | We're gonna be talking about
00:01:06.520 | the Classical Conversations Challenge Plus program,
00:01:11.520 | and I have a great guest that I think
00:01:13.720 | you're really gonna enjoy getting to know today.
00:01:17.080 | Daniel Shirley is here and he's gonna be sharing with us
00:01:21.160 | the whys and hows of the CC Plus world.
00:01:26.420 | Daniel, I wanna welcome you and thank you for coming.
00:01:31.340 | Guys, this is what you need to know about Daniel.
00:01:33.340 | I have known Daniel for a really long time
00:01:36.180 | and I know he's great and he has a wealth of stuff to share.
00:01:40.560 | So I want you to make him welcome.
00:01:42.400 | And Daniel, we're really glad for you to be here.
00:01:45.900 | - Yeah, thanks, Lisa.
00:01:46.900 | I'm glad to be here as well.
00:01:48.300 | - I happen to know that you know a lot
00:01:54.260 | about the challenge program from the inside out,
00:01:59.180 | so to speak.
00:02:00.180 | Tell us, what was your life like as a student,
00:02:04.620 | as a tutor and director?
00:02:06.460 | And I also want you to share with people what you do now.
00:02:11.220 | - Yeah, for sure.
00:02:12.540 | So definitely starting Classical Conversations
00:02:17.460 | at the, I guess what, it's not a ripe young age,
00:02:21.620 | it's the opposite.
00:02:22.460 | (laughing)
00:02:24.300 | - A tender young age, let's say.
00:02:26.100 | - Yeah, there it is.
00:02:26.940 | A tender young age of seven and then having the blessing
00:02:31.940 | to move through the different levels of foundations,
00:02:35.800 | repeat all the cycles a bunch of times
00:02:38.260 | and then transition into the challenge program
00:02:41.220 | where I had just a really great,
00:02:44.100 | it was kind of like an all-star suite of challenge tutors
00:02:47.140 | that I was really grateful for, of which you won.
00:02:49.580 | And so that's fun.
00:02:51.340 | - That is fun.
00:02:52.460 | - Yeah, I mean, moving through Challenge 4, graduating,
00:02:57.860 | we didn't have the senior thesis
00:02:59.380 | when I graduated Challenge 4,
00:03:00.660 | so that's something that I'm envious of now
00:03:04.540 | for my current students.
00:03:06.300 | And so I've been directing Challenge 4
00:03:08.260 | for about four years now as well.
00:03:11.100 | And so I'm up to that at least one day a week, most weeks.
00:03:15.720 | And then we have been doing
00:03:19.180 | the Classical Conversations Plus program.
00:03:21.980 | And now for around the last two to three years,
00:03:25.260 | I've been managing that program
00:03:27.180 | and just trying to make sure
00:03:28.700 | that our students really have every opportunity
00:03:33.140 | that they can possibly have,
00:03:34.740 | that we can possibly provide them
00:03:36.980 | to enter into that kind of college portal
00:03:40.500 | and be comfortable and confident
00:03:43.500 | as they're kind of moving through that threshold, so.
00:03:48.540 | - That sounds really cool, Daniel.
00:03:50.260 | And I know that our listeners are excited.
00:03:55.100 | I'll tell you the truth.
00:03:56.460 | Whenever parents get a chance to hear from a student
00:04:01.460 | who has been through the program, they're very excited
00:04:05.460 | because all of us moms and dads, when we start out,
00:04:09.680 | we have great hopes for our kids.
00:04:11.420 | And we put a lot of faith
00:04:13.620 | in the educational path that we choose.
00:04:16.240 | And so lots of us, just like your mom, my friend, Heather,
00:04:20.920 | just like your mom, I grabbed on to Classical Conversations
00:04:25.920 | as a great vehicle for my family
00:04:30.300 | to navigate this homeschooling journey.
00:04:34.240 | And I believed that it was the right thing.
00:04:37.360 | And I believed my children would learn all of the skills
00:04:40.600 | that they needed to learn and be exposed
00:04:42.760 | to all the big ideas and great conversations
00:04:45.380 | that I really hoped for them to have.
00:04:48.600 | But you really don't know how it's gonna turn out.
00:04:51.000 | And you have to believe in it because it's a lot of years.
00:04:55.520 | You wait for 12 years and you think, okay, did this,
00:05:00.520 | did all the good stuff rub off on them?
00:05:04.280 | Was I able to help rub off all the rough edges?
00:05:09.280 | Have I prepared my student to go forth
00:05:14.600 | and be a lifelong learner,
00:05:17.760 | be a self-supporting good citizen of the world
00:05:21.640 | and of God's kingdom?
00:05:23.960 | And so, Daniel, I want you to know you're representing
00:05:28.080 | and parents are listening to you thinking,
00:05:31.440 | okay, so this is what it could turn out to look like.
00:05:34.800 | This young man sounds like he has it all together.
00:05:38.460 | So I appreciate you being transparent
00:05:43.100 | with my listeners today.
00:05:45.320 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:05:47.120 | And I think one of the things,
00:05:50.120 | I mean, I wanna kind of revisit that idea
00:05:52.160 | of the rough edges, is my student going to have
00:05:56.240 | all the rough edges sanded down, so to speak,
00:05:59.240 | when they are finished with the challenge program,
00:06:02.640 | graduating out of challenge three or ideally challenge four?
00:06:06.240 | And it's really one of those things
00:06:09.240 | where the edges are still gonna be rough every time.
00:06:13.380 | The edges are still rough in many ways.
00:06:15.320 | And so we're not finished work yet
00:06:17.900 | and we're still continuing to grow
00:06:20.860 | and face challenges beyond college and family life
00:06:25.860 | and figuring out what this kind of epic human journey is.
00:06:31.940 | But this is all part of the classical tradition, right?
00:06:33.900 | That's what we signed up for in the first place
00:06:36.340 | was this continual lifelong journey of forever approaching
00:06:40.780 | this kind of end of human beings that we see as Christ.
00:06:46.780 | And that's something that's always gonna be ongoing.
00:06:51.780 | But one of the things that I remember,
00:06:54.700 | particularly in my own experience as a student
00:06:57.020 | in the challenge program, was the first time
00:07:00.180 | that I went from foundations into challenge A.
00:07:04.300 | And I think this has relevance to parents
00:07:07.180 | that are wondering, are my kids gonna be able to engage
00:07:11.560 | with the college world after coming out
00:07:14.020 | of the challenge program?
00:07:15.260 | The first assignments that I had to pull through
00:07:20.480 | in challenge A, I remember my birthday falls
00:07:24.020 | in October each year.
00:07:26.540 | And so it was like week six or seven
00:07:31.300 | and we were doing some kind of geography assignment
00:07:33.980 | and I can't remember what continent we were drawing.
00:07:37.540 | But I remember having the challenge guide in front of me
00:07:41.260 | and looking through my assignments during that week,
00:07:43.380 | the week of my birthday.
00:07:45.300 | And for every previous school year,
00:07:48.840 | I had always gotten my birthday off.
00:07:50.860 | It's like, I didn't have to do memory work,
00:07:52.460 | I didn't have to do my math.
00:07:54.700 | But now I had this external accountability
00:07:58.140 | to my challenge director and this kind of syllabus really
00:08:02.380 | in the challenge guide.
00:08:04.380 | And in the sixth or seventh grade, sitting there,
00:08:08.700 | realizing that I still have to finish this on my birthday
00:08:12.400 | and I'm gonna move through this assignment
00:08:14.020 | and pace out my work.
00:08:15.540 | And if I do that correctly, maybe I have my birthday off.
00:08:18.540 | It was like the acquisition of responsibility.
00:08:22.900 | And I very much, when I entered into college myself,
00:08:27.900 | the experience was very similar going from foundations
00:08:31.260 | to challenge A or going from challenge four into college.
00:08:35.980 | It was like, we've kind of been doing this,
00:08:39.040 | really like this school wise.
00:08:40.860 | - I think you hit on what is a very common experience
00:08:46.940 | for families and for students who come through the program.
00:08:50.060 | That's how it was for my girls.
00:08:52.220 | They went to college and looked around them
00:08:57.220 | in the first several weeks and thought,
00:09:00.300 | "Yeah, this is what you're supposed to do."
00:09:02.140 | You get the syllabus and you look ahead
00:09:04.620 | and you plot out your course and you say,
00:09:06.580 | "Okay, there's a paper here and there's a paper here
00:09:08.500 | "and there's a project here.
00:09:09.420 | "And oh, and this class has one too."
00:09:11.260 | And so you just naturally begin thinking,
00:09:14.540 | "How am I gonna juggle this?
00:09:15.900 | "And what do I need to do when?"
00:09:18.620 | And my girls looked around and saw a lot of anxiety
00:09:22.820 | on the part of some of their suitemates and hallmates
00:09:26.500 | and realized that one of the best things
00:09:31.180 | that a classical education with classical conversations
00:09:34.700 | had done for them was to prepare them
00:09:38.420 | to be the master of their own work,
00:09:42.420 | to be the architects of how their time was gonna be spent
00:09:45.940 | and to feel competent to do that.
00:09:49.660 | And it wasn't all brand new.
00:09:52.980 | And so that's a really good insight, Daniel,
00:09:55.660 | that I think that parents who are listening
00:09:58.020 | can really put in the bank and put in their back pocket
00:10:01.500 | and think, "Okay, so I'm doing a good thing."
00:10:04.100 | And I appreciate you offering that insight.
00:10:06.940 | I don't know, would you say that that was the best part
00:10:11.540 | of the challenge program to you,
00:10:13.740 | that you were prepared to manage your own time
00:10:18.180 | and your own life?
00:10:19.020 | What would you say was the best part of challenge?
00:10:23.060 | - Yeah, I think that functionally,
00:10:26.260 | it seemed like that was the advantage
00:10:28.580 | of the challenge program.
00:10:30.620 | One of the advantages was definitely the structure
00:10:34.060 | of the one day a week in community
00:10:36.300 | and then the other days at home,
00:10:38.820 | forcing you kind of into this self-paced mode
00:10:42.820 | of sorting through your own work
00:10:45.660 | and deciding what days you were gonna do what.
00:10:48.420 | And really, if the home is structured this way,
00:10:52.460 | the child is moving into that domain of responsibility,
00:10:56.460 | then the parent isn't maybe over-nurturing
00:10:59.500 | and structuring all of their work.
00:11:00.580 | - Right, right.
00:11:02.460 | - He's like this.
00:11:03.300 | Then the function of managing your own time,
00:11:07.700 | scheduling your own work and accomplishing the tasks,
00:11:11.220 | I felt like was very formative.
00:11:14.420 | And so those patterns of work ethic are, I think, huge.
00:11:20.100 | I mean, favorite part, definitely not,
00:11:24.260 | definitely not the development of work ethic.
00:11:26.580 | I don't think, looking back, it's like, that was good,
00:11:29.700 | but it's not fun.
00:11:30.540 | - Exactly.
00:11:31.380 | - My favorite part of the challenge program
00:11:35.660 | or the best part of the challenge program
00:11:37.540 | has got to be the development of the soul of the students
00:11:42.540 | and then the fruition of it in the challenges three,
00:11:47.620 | like challenge three and four programs.
00:11:49.900 | That's gotta be the best part.
00:11:51.260 | As a student, go ahead.
00:11:53.860 | - No, I was gonna say, so flesh that out a little bit.
00:11:57.220 | What does that look like?
00:11:58.300 | What does that feel like for the student
00:12:00.500 | and for the family that's watching the student?
00:12:03.740 | - Yes.
00:12:04.580 | So it can look, obviously, a thousand different ways,
00:12:08.660 | more than a thousand different ways,
00:12:09.980 | 'cause there's more than a thousand different students
00:12:12.580 | inside the challenge three and four programs.
00:12:14.740 | - Yes.
00:12:15.580 | - But as you grow and move through the programs
00:12:19.380 | as a student,
00:12:20.220 | the first thing that is definitely real
00:12:23.340 | inside the experience of the student
00:12:24.940 | is that that kind of hitting the age of 16 and 17 and 18,
00:12:29.940 | and the world just kind of opens up.
00:12:33.300 | And I know we live in a different world now
00:12:34.900 | than it was 12, 13 years ago,
00:12:38.100 | whenever I was in the challenge program,
00:12:41.380 | but the challenge program kind of mirrors
00:12:44.580 | this increase in activity in the life of the student,
00:12:49.060 | whether it be they take a part-time job on,
00:12:51.380 | or they're in a relationship that's all-consuming,
00:12:55.060 | or they're really into a particular hobby
00:12:57.980 | and investigating, yeah, what comes next,
00:12:59.860 | all of those things.
00:13:01.500 | The work actually kind of dials back
00:13:03.940 | in the challenge three and four years,
00:13:06.540 | as far as quantity of assignments
00:13:08.220 | and these different exercises that the students are doing,
00:13:12.940 | and it dials up in conversation.
00:13:15.580 | And so from the experience of the student,
00:13:18.460 | it was my, I enjoyed it to a certain degree
00:13:21.540 | when I was going through it,
00:13:22.500 | but now being on the other side of it
00:13:23.980 | and leading it and guiding it,
00:13:25.900 | and just watching the structure of the program
00:13:30.660 | shift and change into welcoming the opinions,
00:13:33.580 | the thoughts, the experiences of the students
00:13:36.620 | in the classroom, and having that be essentially
00:13:39.780 | the centerpiece of the challenge three and four years,
00:13:43.020 | was really, really wonderful.
00:13:45.900 | And so going through it and retrospectively,
00:13:50.900 | I think that challenges three and four
00:13:52.940 | are definitely the highlight.
00:13:55.500 | They're definitely the most fun.
00:13:57.220 | We're all philosophers at that point.
00:13:59.060 | - Yes, yes.
00:14:00.460 | I'm so glad to hear you say that.
00:14:03.740 | That's always kind of what I have heard.
00:14:06.660 | My girls enjoyed that too,
00:14:09.900 | in those same kinds of ways, Daniel,
00:14:11.780 | and as I've talked to friends who have students
00:14:15.500 | who are coming up into three and four
00:14:18.380 | and who are now graduating,
00:14:20.940 | they are echoing your sentiments.
00:14:24.460 | It is such a blessing to these students
00:14:27.420 | to who have developed these rich long-term relationships
00:14:32.420 | with friends, peers, who have wrestled
00:14:39.060 | with the same big ideas and have read
00:14:42.220 | a lot of the same things,
00:14:43.780 | but might have completely different opinions
00:14:46.540 | or thoughts about what that means
00:14:49.300 | and what should be done with what I now know.
00:14:51.980 | And I think there's so much excitement
00:14:55.860 | and so much richness and so much satisfaction
00:15:00.700 | when those students have the opportunity
00:15:03.580 | to wrestle with big ideas and agreements and disagreements.
00:15:10.220 | It is so cool, and it always made me sad,
00:15:13.620 | and it made my daughters sad too,
00:15:16.660 | for some of their friends to drop out.
00:15:20.380 | Some of your buddies did not stick all the way
00:15:24.620 | with challenge through graduation.
00:15:27.660 | Okay, I've heard lots.
00:15:32.660 | As I traveled as a practicum speaker
00:15:34.860 | and as I have lived a lot of years
00:15:38.100 | as a challenge director, I have heard all kinds of reasons
00:15:42.860 | for families and students not sticking it out
00:15:46.220 | through challenge three and four.
00:15:48.180 | What have you heard from families who leave
00:15:50.820 | after a year or two of challenge?
00:15:53.580 | Yeah, I think one of the common,
00:15:56.460 | there are two really common things that I hear.
00:15:58.940 | The first one is, I think a little bit of an illusion.
00:16:02.420 | It's not quite accurate, but they think that challenge two
00:16:05.460 | was such a difficult year workload-wise,
00:16:08.500 | that if things just continue to ramp up past that point,
00:16:12.060 | which they assume it will, like it'll get harder
00:16:14.420 | and harder in 12th grade, then they leave.
00:16:18.660 | Because they're like, if challenge two is this hard,
00:16:21.060 | then there's no way we can do the rest of it.
00:16:23.660 | And that's what I wanted to mention
00:16:25.540 | a little bit earlier too, is that it actually,
00:16:27.940 | the workload scales back.
00:16:29.860 | Like the students do less project-oriented assignments,
00:16:34.100 | even though they're still there.
00:16:35.980 | The emphasis really changes into that
00:16:37.860 | more discussion-oriented student leadership element
00:16:41.620 | of the challenge program.
00:16:43.260 | And so that's one reason.
00:16:46.220 | They think it's gonna get a lot harder,
00:16:47.700 | and it actually gets a lot easier.
00:16:49.460 | So that's something-
00:16:51.700 | Preparation-wise.
00:16:53.100 | Yeah, because so much has gone into preparing the mind
00:16:56.780 | of the student, that by three and four,
00:17:00.340 | they don't have as much to prepare ahead of time.
00:17:03.900 | It's all the beauty and the glory of the conversation.
00:17:07.940 | Yeah, yeah, exactly.
00:17:10.180 | So that's the first reason
00:17:12.140 | that I've heard of families heading out.
00:17:15.020 | The other reason is intimidation by the content usually.
00:17:20.020 | And so as you get into challenge three,
00:17:22.980 | you've got the introduction into chemistry,
00:17:25.860 | which a lot of parents will feel intimidated by,
00:17:28.980 | a lot of homeschool teachers will feel intimidated by.
00:17:31.980 | You're engaging in literature that's more complex
00:17:34.460 | with Shakespeare in challenge three,
00:17:36.380 | and then the "Alien," the "Odyssey,"
00:17:38.580 | and the "Aeneid" in challenge four.
00:17:41.780 | You're dealing with larger history books,
00:17:44.420 | the "Discoverers" and "Patriot's History,"
00:17:46.460 | and you're dealing with just more complex material
00:17:50.780 | all the way around.
00:17:52.420 | I think that if you recognize
00:17:57.260 | that that material doesn't have to be easily approachable
00:18:02.260 | your first time through,
00:18:04.500 | you don't even really have to understand it.
00:18:06.580 | Mark notes are okay,
00:18:08.420 | and that however you can participate in the discussion
00:18:12.060 | is the emphasis, that's the goal and the direction,
00:18:15.380 | not total mastery of the content.
00:18:17.940 | 'Cause like I said, we're gonna be rough
00:18:19.380 | around the edges for a long time.
00:18:21.300 | If you want to be a perfect interpreter of the "Iliad,"
00:18:24.540 | you're gonna have to read that book 100 times,
00:18:26.900 | and you're not gonna do that
00:18:28.580 | by the time you're 17 most likely.
00:18:30.140 | And so recognizing that patience
00:18:35.140 | and just abiding in and attending to the things
00:18:38.980 | that have been placed before us are important,
00:18:41.940 | and so not to leave that too hastily
00:18:45.100 | because we're assuming that we need mastery over the content.
00:18:50.100 | I think those two things are the reasons
00:18:53.780 | that people tend to leave.
00:18:54.660 | They think it's gonna get a lot harder
00:18:55.980 | after challenge two, and it doesn't.
00:18:57.780 | And then challenges three and four
00:19:00.500 | seem to have the most complex content,
00:19:02.860 | but it's there for us to attend to, not to master.
00:19:06.860 | - That is a great insight and a wonderful encouragement.
00:19:12.020 | I love that it's there for us to participate in,
00:19:15.700 | not necessarily to master.
00:19:17.380 | And it's a really good reminder, Daniel,
00:19:20.660 | to all of us that there's no way
00:19:24.380 | that we are going to master everything that we touch fully
00:19:29.380 | by the time we're 17 or 18 years old.
00:19:32.740 | And, you know, a classical education,
00:19:36.340 | if we really believe the classical model,
00:19:39.340 | we should always remember that it is repetition
00:19:44.340 | that is gonna bring greater and growing understanding.
00:19:49.020 | And so it's really encouraging to hear you say,
00:19:53.260 | just read the Iliad, read the Odyssey,
00:19:56.700 | sit through your calculus class,
00:19:59.940 | watch the physics experiments
00:20:02.100 | and immerse yourself in the experience.
00:20:06.020 | Something is bound to linger and to last with you.
00:20:10.540 | And, hey, if you really want to master this,
00:20:13.860 | you're gonna have to read it more than once anyway.
00:20:17.340 | I love that, I love that.
00:20:19.540 | I know that some of the families
00:20:23.300 | that I have served as a mentor to,
00:20:27.460 | as they approach these upper challenge years,
00:20:32.460 | many of them began to say things like,
00:20:36.820 | well, we're gonna do the upper challenges,
00:20:40.500 | but not fully because we wanna do some dual enrollment.
00:20:45.780 | We just feel like for a lot of different reasons,
00:20:50.340 | they were interested in dabbling in the college experience
00:20:55.340 | while their student was still in high school.
00:20:59.580 | And like I said, lots of reasons.
00:21:01.180 | I had some parents who said, you know,
00:21:03.500 | I want my child to have a little bit of college
00:21:05.740 | under their belt while they're still living at home with me.
00:21:09.860 | And I'm still there to talk about big ideas
00:21:12.980 | and potential scary ideas and first-time ideas with them.
00:21:17.980 | And then some people were just saying, you know what?
00:21:21.580 | Our family financial concerns are a concern.
00:21:26.500 | And so we need our children to do dual enrollment
00:21:29.700 | so that we don't have such a big college built.
00:21:32.540 | There are just tons of reasons.
00:21:34.220 | Tell us, tell my listeners about CC+
00:21:40.300 | and how that could address family's needs or desires.
00:21:45.300 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:48.900 | You know, CC+ has been around for a long time.
00:21:53.700 | And so I actually, I did CC+
00:21:56.260 | when I was in the challenge program.
00:21:57.980 | And so it's been around- - Did you?
00:21:59.860 | - I did, yeah.
00:22:00.900 | It was very different, way worse than it is now.
00:22:08.700 | - Well, everything that we start new,
00:22:10.820 | we're not good at yet.
00:22:12.220 | So we're figuring it out. - Exactly.
00:22:13.380 | - So you were in the, let's figure this out position.
00:22:16.540 | - Yes, 100%.
00:22:18.380 | And so the iteration of CC+ that I was in,
00:22:23.140 | whatever, 13 or 14 years ago,
00:22:24.980 | it was the American History Strand in challenge three.
00:22:28.020 | And it was aligned to the curriculum to some extent,
00:22:33.620 | but we had to sit in a college class,
00:22:38.940 | like online before online classes were really a thing.
00:22:42.860 | - Oh gosh.
00:22:43.700 | - It was a chat room.
00:22:45.020 | Like, I don't know if you remember like-
00:22:47.020 | - Oh wow, yes.
00:22:47.860 | - (indistinct) and that kind of thing, old school.
00:22:51.980 | It was like that, but for an hour and a half
00:22:54.620 | and the professor would type things
00:22:56.780 | and then the class would type back
00:22:58.780 | and the text was all colorful.
00:23:01.380 | - Oh gosh.
00:23:02.460 | - That's how CC+ kind of started.
00:23:04.700 | And since then it's had a lot of development,
00:23:08.340 | especially in the last couple of years.
00:23:10.300 | But the way that CC+ works really at the vision of CC+
00:23:15.900 | is to equip homeschool families
00:23:19.980 | and open kind of open college doors for homeschool families,
00:23:24.460 | particularly classical conversations families.
00:23:27.580 | And it does this by partnering with,
00:23:31.300 | regionally accredited universities,
00:23:33.980 | designing courses with them that overlap
00:23:37.820 | with our challenge curriculum
00:23:39.820 | so that students can participate
00:23:41.460 | in this quote unquote dual enrollment strategy,
00:23:44.780 | gain college credit,
00:23:46.780 | while not having to sacrifice the attention
00:23:49.860 | that I was just talking about,
00:23:51.140 | that you should pay to these Shakespeare texts
00:23:54.820 | or ancient literature or Patriot's history,
00:23:58.940 | some of these things.
00:24:02.780 | - So our CC+ now actually uses
00:24:07.780 | classical conversations challenge material
00:24:12.580 | to get college credit
00:24:14.220 | for what our students are doing already?
00:24:17.260 | - Yes, that is true.
00:24:18.900 | It functions, the term that we use
00:24:22.820 | and we're trying to get more clear with this
00:24:24.620 | in the CC+ program,
00:24:25.820 | 'cause there's actually several programs
00:24:27.980 | that fall underneath the domain of CC+.
00:24:30.220 | And so the quote unquote concurrent enrollment program
00:24:35.220 | is the program where Southeastern University
00:24:40.380 | has basically looked at our challenge content
00:24:43.260 | and said, you're meeting these objectives
00:24:46.940 | for these college courses, these college credits.
00:24:50.580 | And so we will step in and vouch for you essentially
00:24:55.580 | to accredit these challenge courses.
00:24:58.620 | If students are willing to opt into that kind of,
00:25:02.300 | to the CC+ concurrent enrollment program,
00:25:04.780 | SEU basically grants them credit
00:25:07.780 | for completing their challenge work.
00:25:10.020 | - Wow, okay.
00:25:11.460 | And that's concurrent enrollment, gotcha.
00:25:15.220 | - Yeah, concurrent enrollment is the term.
00:25:17.340 | I do wanna say that the overlap is not a 100% overlap,
00:25:24.060 | meaning that students don't complete everything
00:25:27.940 | in the challenge guide to get college credit
00:25:30.780 | from Southeastern University.
00:25:32.900 | And students don't only complete the listed assignments
00:25:36.900 | in the challenge guide to get college credit from SEU.
00:25:40.140 | And so there's a fun back and forth here.
00:25:42.380 | The CC+ classes are always quote unquote less work
00:25:46.860 | than what's actually in the challenge guide.
00:25:49.580 | There are fewer assignments to complete
00:25:52.380 | 'cause we don't need everything in the challenge guide even.
00:25:54.980 | - Right, yeah, that's a very ambitious program
00:25:58.660 | of activity and thinking.
00:26:00.580 | - Yes, it is.
00:26:01.420 | And so, but at the same time,
00:26:06.860 | in order to satisfy some college requirements
00:26:09.900 | and regulations, all the very,
00:26:12.260 | the fun stuff, the bureaucracy,
00:26:14.140 | there are certain assignments that are not exactly imitated
00:26:20.540 | in the challenge guide, but they are in spirit similar
00:26:25.540 | to the assignments that students are already doing.
00:26:28.420 | So for example, in the challenge two composition one course
00:26:33.420 | that we have with CC+, where students opt in
00:26:37.060 | to turn their British literature essays in
00:26:38.740 | for college credit, we have a timed writing assignment
00:26:43.380 | on week eight, and the university says,
00:26:47.340 | you have to do this timed writing assignment.
00:26:49.140 | All comp courses have to have this timed writing assignment
00:26:51.820 | in this section of the course.
00:26:54.100 | And we say, that's not in our challenge guide,
00:26:57.300 | but students do a blue book.
00:27:00.100 | They'll do a blue book at the end of the semester.
00:27:03.900 | So we encourage families to say, hey, pay attention to
00:27:08.220 | and look at the assignments for the CC+ courses
00:27:11.540 | of which you can find all of the assignments pre laid out
00:27:16.500 | for you to evaluate whether or not you think this overlaps
00:27:20.020 | with the way that you're engaging
00:27:21.380 | with the challenge program.
00:27:23.060 | Those are all on our student information portal.
00:27:26.100 | All that information is available, course codes, titles,
00:27:28.940 | assignments, it's all there.
00:27:30.980 | But the spirit of that is that students are doing
00:27:35.740 | a blue book, which is a timed essay already.
00:27:39.340 | And so we're just saying, think of that
00:27:42.460 | as being bumped up seven weeks.
00:27:45.860 | And then do the, it's a blue book exam
00:27:48.260 | that you're taking just a little bit out of step
00:27:51.100 | with the rest of the program.
00:27:53.980 | But that's a lot of detail.
00:27:56.140 | So I don't know if it's helpful or not, but.
00:27:58.900 | - Yeah, I think that detail is great.
00:28:03.180 | And a lot of our listeners are gonna be interested
00:28:06.940 | in the detail.
00:28:07.980 | And so if they want to revisit
00:28:10.980 | and they don't wanna listen
00:28:11.820 | to the whole podcast again, Daniel,
00:28:13.580 | where can they go?
00:28:16.060 | Where can families go to find out more
00:28:19.180 | of this information about concurrent enrollment
00:28:22.980 | and other ways of participating in CC+?
00:28:27.500 | - Yeah, so that would be classicalconversationsplus.com.
00:28:31.700 | We just did a new website and so that's fun.
00:28:34.860 | You can see our four programs
00:28:36.540 | across the top of the page there.
00:28:38.420 | We've got something for CC students in challenge.
00:28:42.060 | We've got something for challenge graduates.
00:28:43.900 | We've got something for parents.
00:28:45.220 | We've got gap year programs.
00:28:47.460 | So check that out for sure.
00:28:49.460 | The concurrent enrollment program,
00:28:53.260 | if you click the get started button on the website,
00:28:55.540 | there's a page that it takes you to
00:28:58.460 | and a student information portal
00:29:00.500 | that's linked on that page.
00:29:03.100 | It has 29 course descriptions
00:29:06.100 | for the CC+ concurrent enrollment program
00:29:09.020 | where you can go in and get a full roadmap
00:29:12.180 | of what these courses look like
00:29:14.420 | before signing up for them even.
00:29:16.980 | So I would highly encourage families
00:29:19.140 | to go in and check some of that out.
00:29:21.340 | - Okay, that's great.
00:29:22.540 | So classicalconversationsplus.com
00:29:25.780 | and you will be able to see all four
00:29:28.900 | of the types of programs that CC+ offers
00:29:33.300 | and find out the details so that you can evaluate.
00:29:36.940 | For instance, if this concurrent program,
00:29:41.940 | the concurrent enrollment might work
00:29:44.540 | for your family's goals for your student.
00:29:47.380 | Okay, so tell us what are the advantages
00:29:51.140 | of being part of CC+?
00:29:53.700 | What are the advantages for students
00:29:55.660 | and maybe what might a parent think of as the advantages?
00:30:00.460 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:01.580 | So one of the things that's very fun
00:30:03.940 | is that we have this relationship
00:30:06.500 | with Southeastern University called directed mission.
00:30:09.740 | And so one of the common quote on like anxieties
00:30:13.340 | that parents will have is my student's
00:30:16.180 | not a good test taker.
00:30:17.740 | They're not good at ACT, SAT, CLT,
00:30:21.220 | any of the acronym tests.
00:30:24.460 | And with the CC+ program,
00:30:28.780 | you actually end up being able to kind of sidestep
00:30:31.620 | those standardized tests through this term
00:30:35.700 | that we call directed mission.
00:30:38.020 | And you can look it up.
00:30:38.860 | There are colleges all over the place.
00:30:40.700 | They're starting to formulate these directed mission
00:30:44.500 | agreements with different institutions.
00:30:48.300 | But if you're a CC family, a parent or student,
00:30:52.180 | and you apply to Southeastern University,
00:30:55.420 | indicating that you're a CC family,
00:30:57.220 | again, that's an important step.
00:30:58.980 | - Right, right.
00:31:01.420 | - You are directly admitted into the institution.
00:31:04.060 | And so you're accepted automatically.
00:31:06.700 | That's a big deal.
00:31:10.060 | And so one of the other benefits,
00:31:13.740 | I talked to my students in challenge four
00:31:17.300 | when they're doing their senior thesis.
00:31:19.460 | Say if you sign up for a CC+ course,
00:31:21.500 | you get access to a university level library.
00:31:24.900 | And so you can actually-- - Oh, that's cool.
00:31:27.420 | - Yeah, dive in and do the research that you wanna do,
00:31:31.180 | really fortify your arguments and your ideas
00:31:33.860 | with scholarly sources and dig in in a way
00:31:37.660 | that otherwise it can be kind of hard to do
00:31:39.740 | if you're trying to dance around
00:31:42.020 | and pull abstracts off of Google Scholar
00:31:44.500 | and that kind of stuff.
00:31:46.260 | Yeah, we've all been there, but--
00:31:48.620 | - Absolutely.
00:31:50.060 | - Yeah.
00:31:50.900 | And then the other thing in general,
00:31:54.820 | we've done this more recently,
00:31:57.060 | but we launched this undergraduate program
00:32:01.540 | with Southeastern University.
00:32:03.660 | This undergraduate program really embodies
00:32:07.020 | the spirit of CC+ is opening college doors
00:32:10.260 | for homeschool families,
00:32:11.900 | because this is one of our programs
00:32:14.460 | that's open to both students that have graduated
00:32:18.300 | from challenge four,
00:32:20.020 | as well as classical conversations parents
00:32:23.380 | at any point during their classical conversations journey,
00:32:26.740 | where you can get a up through a bachelor's degree
00:32:31.220 | with Southeastern online.
00:32:33.620 | And the tuition is just, is crazy low.
00:32:37.860 | I think it ends up being about $3,000 a semester.
00:32:41.100 | And so, like trying to equip,
00:32:44.900 | I know we've had the master's program
00:32:46.500 | for a little while now,
00:32:48.140 | but I've had questions come in from people like,
00:32:51.660 | well, what if I don't have my bachelor's degree yet,
00:32:54.340 | but I still want to do this program?
00:32:56.820 | And so we've been pulling this together
00:32:59.380 | for the last little while.
00:33:00.500 | And so I'm really excited about it.
00:33:02.580 | And I hope more and more families will continue
00:33:05.500 | to take advantage of the opportunity
00:33:07.060 | to finish out a bachelor's degree,
00:33:09.740 | to kind of check that box so they can pursue either our EMA
00:33:14.740 | or whatever other program they're excited to do.
00:33:18.900 | - Yeah, that is such an advantage for families
00:33:23.180 | because I'll tell you, Daniel,
00:33:25.140 | there are a lot of moms and some dads out there as well,
00:33:29.020 | who when they begin,
00:33:30.380 | they feel like God's led them to homeschooling,
00:33:33.620 | but in the back of their mind is the strike
00:33:37.660 | that they didn't finish college
00:33:39.380 | or they didn't go to college.
00:33:40.780 | And who am I to be doing this with my children?
00:33:43.860 | And even after they begin to redeem their own education
00:33:49.140 | and they really understand
00:33:52.100 | that it is about the classical tools of learning
00:33:55.660 | that are approachable by everybody
00:33:58.100 | and they are doing the work,
00:34:00.340 | there's still in the back of their minds,
00:34:02.820 | this little seed that says, but you don't have your degree.
00:34:06.780 | And so this is huge for families
00:34:09.660 | who are all about lifelong learning,
00:34:14.180 | but would love to have that degree in hand.
00:34:17.060 | What a blessing.
00:34:18.460 | That's awesome.
00:34:20.300 | That is awesome.
00:34:21.780 | - It's very exciting.
00:34:23.260 | And really, again, it's there for families to use
00:34:28.100 | however is helpful to them.
00:34:30.180 | And so really there's not a right or a wrong way
00:34:34.180 | to use CC+, the concurrent enrollment program,
00:34:38.700 | undergraduate program, master's program.
00:34:41.140 | They're there for families
00:34:44.700 | to be able to enter into this college space
00:34:47.900 | in whatever way kind of suits them best.
00:34:49.580 | So we try to make things as open and flexible as possible.
00:34:53.340 | We try to preserve families' attention,
00:34:55.340 | preserve families' finances.
00:34:57.500 | And so through our partnership with SEU,
00:35:01.460 | they've really made this possible.
00:35:03.500 | And I like to encourage families like check it out,
00:35:07.340 | hop on board, see what you think,
00:35:10.500 | at least learn a little bit more about it
00:35:12.780 | because this relationship with Southeastern University
00:35:16.180 | is super, super cool.
00:35:18.100 | I don't exactly know how the Lord has placed us
00:35:21.500 | in this spot to have this relationship
00:35:24.900 | with this institution, but check it out
00:35:27.620 | because it's definitely a unique opportunity.
00:35:31.380 | If you want to look up average tuition for college in 2024
00:35:37.260 | and then compare with some of the numbers,
00:35:42.660 | I can tell you, but it really doesn't do it justice
00:35:46.060 | unless you kind of do the research yourself
00:35:48.340 | and figure it out, but just compare it a little bit.
00:35:51.940 | And I think you'll probably come to the same conclusion
00:35:56.940 | that I have, which is just that it's a huge,
00:36:01.740 | huge opportunity for as long as it lasts.
00:36:04.460 | And so just really grateful for it.
00:36:06.980 | - This has been so exciting to me, Daniel.
00:36:11.180 | And I will confess to you that what I thought
00:36:15.700 | that I really wanted to know about
00:36:17.860 | was more the concurrent enrollment.
00:36:21.780 | And actually, I think I might want to have you come back
00:36:25.180 | in a few weeks to talk about,
00:36:27.820 | or maybe sometime this summer,
00:36:29.660 | as families really begin to consider
00:36:32.700 | if they would like to do a concurrent enrollment
00:36:36.100 | with some of their older challenge students,
00:36:38.020 | 'cause I'd love to talk specifics about that,
00:36:41.020 | but what I think this has been as a surprise to me
00:36:46.020 | was how much more CC+ is
00:36:51.700 | than just that concurrent enrollment avenue.
00:36:56.220 | And the biggest mind-blowing blessing to me
00:36:59.620 | is just what a blessing CC+ can be to families
00:37:04.620 | with students at every level.
00:37:10.300 | Like you said, current challenge students,
00:37:12.540 | challenge graduates, parents,
00:37:16.660 | people who are looking for a gap year program.
00:37:19.900 | What I want to suggest to our listeners today,
00:37:23.180 | what I want to suggest to you guys is go check it out.
00:37:26.740 | Go to classicalconversationsplus.com
00:37:30.660 | and find out what's out there for you
00:37:33.820 | and see, like I have seen today,
00:37:37.180 | that there's a whole lot more than maybe we ever considered
00:37:42.180 | and that this might be what God is calling your family into,
00:37:46.460 | and we didn't even know.
00:37:47.980 | We found it on the way to something else.
00:37:50.340 | And so thank you, Daniel, for bringing that up.
00:37:53.340 | And will you come back and talk to me again
00:37:55.940 | about the concurrent enrollment program?
00:37:58.780 | - Yeah, absolutely, I'd love to.
00:38:00.820 | It's been a great time.
00:38:02.460 | I've enjoyed your hospitality.
00:38:04.140 | - That will be great.
00:38:06.580 | So listeners, Daniel and I will get together
00:38:09.580 | and we'll try in the next several weeks to roll this out
00:38:13.700 | because I feel like a lot of you may be thinking,
00:38:16.700 | hey, this might be just the thing
00:38:18.900 | for my overachiever challenge student
00:38:22.180 | or for our family to see how college
00:38:26.580 | and this student match up well.
00:38:29.860 | So you stay tuned
00:38:31.820 | and we'll get you more information on that.
00:38:34.380 | One other piece of information that I wanna share with you
00:38:37.700 | about something that is out now,
00:38:41.060 | you guys have heard me talk a lot
00:38:42.620 | about the Copper Lodge Library books
00:38:45.900 | that Classical Conversations Multimedia put out.
00:38:50.180 | We have a new edition of the Copper Lodge Library
00:38:54.660 | called English Epic Poetry.
00:38:58.980 | It's a collection of English poetry.
00:39:02.060 | It does include a lot of the poetry
00:39:07.060 | that your student will read in the challenge program.
00:39:14.300 | It has Sir Gawain and the Grey Knight,
00:39:17.140 | selections from Canterbury Tales,
00:39:19.500 | there are parts of Paradise Lost in there.
00:39:22.260 | The cool thing about our editions
00:39:25.340 | is that the collection includes an introduction
00:39:29.580 | that gives you historical context for the pieces
00:39:33.220 | as well as tips for reading epic poetry.
00:39:37.020 | And there are a lot of footnotes
00:39:38.460 | that will help you with hard parts of the text.
00:39:41.820 | They're also, the books are really beautiful
00:39:44.380 | and they're bound so that they're really wide,
00:39:47.020 | nice wide margins, which encourages our students
00:39:51.060 | and all of us as readers to take notes
00:39:53.580 | and really be having a conversation with the book
00:39:56.500 | and with the author as you read along.
00:39:58.820 | So if you are interested in this new edition
00:40:02.300 | from the Copper Lodge Library,
00:40:04.820 | go to copperlodgelibrary.com
00:40:08.180 | and you can find out how to get a copy
00:40:10.140 | and see what other titles are available.
00:40:13.860 | So thanks for being with me today, guys.
00:40:17.180 | Daniel, thank you again,
00:40:18.580 | and I'm already looking forward to our next conversation.
00:40:22.420 | - Until then.
00:40:23.260 | - All right, bye-bye.
00:40:26.060 | (gentle music)
00:40:28.660 | you
00:40:30.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]