Everyday Educator - Latin and Other Lessons
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.220 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:09.000 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.740 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.120 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:17.520 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.580 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.020 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:26.500 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.720 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.920 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:37.240 | But don't forget,
00:00:38.580 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:42.120 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:47.120 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:51.320 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:55.800 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to be back with you today.
00:00:59.400 | We've had six weeks of summer book club and summer reading.
00:01:04.240 | And while I have enjoyed sharing stories
00:01:07.640 | with you and your kids,
00:01:09.400 | I'm super excited to get back to interviewing people
00:01:13.600 | who can help us all grow in our understanding
00:01:17.800 | of classical education, yes,
00:01:20.940 | but also in ways of building a family culture of learning.
00:01:25.940 | How can we do this big, audacious task
00:01:32.220 | of educating the next generation together?
00:01:35.580 | And how can our families learn to love one another more
00:01:40.140 | and see Jesus more every day by learning together?
00:01:45.140 | So today I have one of my dearest friends,
00:01:49.740 | Heatherly, and she is gonna talk to us
00:01:53.520 | about building a family culture of learning
00:01:57.860 | around something that may either intimidate you
00:02:02.860 | or let's be real, not excite you very much.
00:02:10.180 | Heatherly Sylvia is the very one
00:02:12.820 | to get you more excited about Latin.
00:02:15.360 | So Heatherly, thank you for coming on today.
00:02:18.460 | - I am so excited to be here.
00:02:20.140 | Thank you, Lisa.
00:02:21.620 | - I always love to talk to you
00:02:23.300 | because I always learn something from you.
00:02:25.460 | You always have a nugget of wisdom
00:02:27.700 | that the Lord has shown you
00:02:30.380 | as you have walked this homeschooling journey
00:02:33.100 | with your children.
00:02:34.220 | And so I wanna take you way back, maybe to the beginning,
00:02:39.220 | when you guys were looking into classical conversations,
00:02:46.580 | what did you think when you discovered
00:02:50.260 | that your kids would be learning Latin
00:02:54.220 | in the challenge program?
00:02:56.140 | And when did you discover that?
00:02:58.300 | When you first found the program,
00:03:00.460 | when your kids first got into the challenge years,
00:03:05.180 | what did you think?
00:03:07.020 | - Well, I first discovered that we would be learning Latin
00:03:10.460 | when someone first handed me the foundation's guide
00:03:13.940 | in order to encourage me.
00:03:16.940 | I've shared this story before,
00:03:19.820 | but I was actually brought into classical conversations
00:03:23.700 | by a friend who had started the year before me.
00:03:26.460 | And she was able to show me
00:03:28.740 | how Cece could give me the tools I needed
00:03:31.580 | to be confident in homeschooling.
00:03:33.780 | There were some things I was just lacking
00:03:35.580 | and Cece gave me those tools.
00:03:37.900 | So when I first looked at the challenge guide,
00:03:40.060 | I saw that Latin was one of the pieces of new grammar.
00:03:44.500 | And I thought it was great.
00:03:47.660 | I'm a nerd.
00:03:49.180 | I love learning new things.
00:03:51.500 | The idea of learning Latin alongside of my kids
00:03:54.820 | at that point sounded just really fun
00:03:57.620 | because we were learning, I started in cycle three.
00:04:00.420 | So we were actually learning part of the Latin Vulgate.
00:04:03.180 | We were learning John one, one through seven.
00:04:05.820 | So I thought it was just fun.
00:04:08.060 | And I thought it was a fun party trick.
00:04:09.940 | It wasn't until the first time I looked at the Latin one,
00:04:14.940 | the Henley Latin one,
00:04:17.420 | that I started to get a little nervous.
00:04:19.380 | And thankfully I had been in Cece for three years
00:04:24.900 | at that point when I stepped into challenge.
00:04:27.260 | So I knew that Cece was gonna give me
00:04:29.180 | the tools I needed to learn
00:04:31.700 | and the tools I needed in order to teach my children.
00:04:35.060 | So it was sort of a mixture of excitement,
00:04:39.060 | enjoyment, intimidation.
00:04:41.420 | And please don't misunderstand me.
00:04:44.460 | I'm a passionate Latin student now.
00:04:47.820 | I was not a passionate Latin student
00:04:49.940 | when I first started challenge.
00:04:52.060 | It was not one of the strands I was most excited about.
00:04:55.140 | So I truly was won over.
00:04:58.180 | - I think that's awesome.
00:05:01.260 | And I love that you brought out the fact
00:05:04.340 | that your first exposure to Latin
00:05:06.820 | was not in the challenge program,
00:05:09.340 | but in the foundation years.
00:05:12.260 | That's really cool.
00:05:13.300 | So let me ask you this.
00:05:15.100 | If you were talking to a first time Cece family,
00:05:21.620 | would you be able to say that the Latin memory work
00:05:27.180 | that you did with your children in foundations
00:05:30.060 | helped you get ready for deeper Latin studies later?
00:05:35.060 | - My favorite thing is when the kids come into challenge
00:05:40.500 | and they realize that they already know
00:05:43.900 | so much of the Latin because they've memorized it
00:05:46.420 | in the form of noun declension and verb conjugations.
00:05:51.420 | And it's such a gift.
00:05:55.100 | And do they come in knowing all the details
00:05:57.580 | or understanding how it works?
00:05:59.180 | No, but when you turn in,
00:06:02.140 | I think it's week one or week two of challenge A
00:06:05.340 | and they have to memorize
00:06:07.580 | the first declension noun endings
00:06:10.260 | and anyone who's been in foundations already knows them.
00:06:14.180 | Don't let that discourage you if you come in challenge
00:06:19.180 | and you're not a foundations parent
00:06:21.820 | because you can just borrow the CD or download the app
00:06:25.700 | and quickly learn the same songs the other kids did.
00:06:28.660 | Very, very quickly.
00:06:30.660 | But I found it helpful.
00:06:32.100 | I found it really helpful to just have that
00:06:35.340 | and for my kids to very quickly be able to connect
00:06:39.660 | the foundations work.
00:06:41.620 | I think a lot of times our parents don't understand
00:06:44.260 | how carefully the foundations memory work was curated
00:06:48.420 | and that every bit of it is used in some way
00:06:51.740 | in one of the challenge levels, if not many of them.
00:06:55.100 | - That's really true.
00:06:57.020 | And I believe that you're right.
00:06:58.940 | I know that when our family got involved
00:07:02.540 | and it was a long time ago, admittedly,
00:07:04.700 | I did not realize how much my children would carry forward
00:07:10.620 | into the challenge program.
00:07:12.980 | And sometimes, like you were implying,
00:07:16.540 | sometimes the carry over was slight.
00:07:20.620 | But for instance, in Latin,
00:07:23.460 | it was nice for my children to go into challenge
00:07:27.380 | looking at this foreign language.
00:07:30.700 | And it was actually not completely foreign to them
00:07:34.500 | because they had been looking at these words
00:07:36.980 | and thinking about words having endings for years.
00:07:41.420 | And so that was a blessing.
00:07:43.700 | So let me ask you this.
00:07:44.820 | Did you have a Latin background?
00:07:46.740 | Did you take Latin in high school or junior high or anything?
00:07:50.540 | Did you have any kind of Latin background
00:07:52.940 | before you dipped into Latin with your kids?
00:07:56.700 | - When I was in sixth grade,
00:07:58.700 | we had a sixth grade event called Rome Day
00:08:03.180 | where we all dressed in togas
00:08:05.140 | and did the approximation of ancient Roman activities.
00:08:10.140 | And our assistant principal had either been
00:08:18.900 | in a Catholic school growing up
00:08:20.540 | or had worked at a Catholic school
00:08:22.700 | and taught us the Old Grey Mare in Latin.
00:08:26.180 | - Oh, how fun.
00:08:27.020 | - Which I remembered very badly when I actually went,
00:08:30.660 | became someone that actually cared and thought about Latin.
00:08:35.300 | And I thought about what I was singing.
00:08:37.300 | I realized I had really--
00:08:39.940 | - Butchered that.
00:08:40.780 | - Really butchered it over the years.
00:08:42.780 | I mean, sixth grade was a long time ago now,
00:08:44.860 | but that was my only exposure to Latin
00:08:48.740 | other than just as a student coming across expressions
00:08:53.740 | and realizing that they were Latin.
00:08:56.380 | But other than the fact that it sprinkled
00:08:58.500 | throughout our English writing
00:09:01.420 | and in our United States history
00:09:03.340 | and United States documents,
00:09:04.940 | I didn't have any exposure to Latin at all.
00:09:07.180 | And it actually was very exciting for me
00:09:10.220 | that I was going to learn Latin
00:09:12.780 | because I really loved the idea
00:09:16.180 | of being able to eventually read
00:09:18.900 | the original Latin documents like the Aeneid,
00:09:23.500 | being able to read that in Latin.
00:09:25.340 | I knew, and I was right, years later,
00:09:29.500 | to be able to start piecing together my own translation
00:09:33.380 | and read it for understanding.
00:09:35.060 | And I was really excited about that.
00:09:37.900 | I love that idea.
00:09:39.620 | - That is so cool.
00:09:41.140 | I will say that to some of our listeners
00:09:43.580 | that may come out as super nerdy.
00:09:46.260 | - Oh, absolutely.
00:09:47.260 | I own it, I own it.
00:09:48.300 | - I appreciate that.
00:09:50.020 | I appreciate that.
00:09:51.060 | Okay.
00:09:51.900 | So I know that we are talking to a lot of listeners
00:09:57.500 | who maybe aren't as nerdy as you or nerdy as me even.
00:10:01.540 | And so they may be sitting here thinking,
00:10:06.300 | well, great, you wanted to learn this hard thing
00:10:09.980 | and you were looking forward to, for some reason,
00:10:12.620 | translating original Latin documents.
00:10:15.020 | But I am just trying to survive homeschooling with my kids.
00:10:18.780 | And so I know we're talking to a lot of parents
00:10:22.700 | who don't have a Latin background.
00:10:24.700 | And so I'm easing us into thinking about this.
00:10:27.860 | And I want to say to parents,
00:10:31.020 | if you're listening and that's you,
00:10:33.020 | you don't have a background
00:10:34.620 | and you never really thought about wanting to do this
00:10:37.540 | and now yet here you are.
00:10:39.860 | And we feel your pain
00:10:41.660 | and there are other people who have felt your pain.
00:10:43.820 | Heatherly, what initially intimidated you
00:10:47.820 | about learning a language as an adult?
00:10:51.100 | - The first thing that intimidated me
00:10:55.020 | was the fact that I had so little of a base
00:11:00.020 | of understanding it.
00:11:02.340 | I had studied foreign language in high school,
00:11:05.940 | but not successfully.
00:11:08.100 | I didn't have to take foreign language in college
00:11:11.380 | for my degree because my degree was a Bachelor of Science
00:11:15.180 | and my university didn't require it.
00:11:17.260 | So I didn't really know how to learn a foreign language.
00:11:21.660 | I didn't know how to approach it.
00:11:24.740 | The book looked boring, everything looked scary.
00:11:27.500 | Why are there two books?
00:11:29.580 | Why are we doing the same book for three years?
00:11:31.660 | So there were a lot of things that I looked at it
00:11:33.500 | and I just got very overwhelmed, very overwhelmed.
00:11:38.260 | - Yeah, that is good.
00:11:40.380 | So-
00:11:41.580 | - It's normal, it's very normal.
00:11:43.300 | - I was gonna say, that is good to hear you say that
00:11:46.340 | because a lot of us, you get these fat books
00:11:50.620 | and you open them up and 90% of the words you can't read
00:11:55.620 | and you're supposed to figure out the language
00:11:59.460 | and the system for learning the language.
00:12:01.940 | And like you said, if you don't have any experience at all
00:12:05.460 | with learning a foreign language,
00:12:07.060 | you think I don't even know how to do this.
00:12:09.140 | It's not that I don't know this,
00:12:10.700 | I don't know how to learn this.
00:12:13.140 | Had other people made Latin seem like a hard,
00:12:17.620 | scary mountain to climb?
00:12:19.700 | - I have to think about that.
00:12:23.460 | I don't think so.
00:12:25.620 | Our community was pretty young when I stepped into Latin.
00:12:30.580 | And so there had been a few people that had gone before me.
00:12:35.020 | I am a support representative,
00:12:37.420 | which means that I support challenge tutors
00:12:40.580 | and I was supporting challenge tutors before I became one.
00:12:44.420 | And they were not overwhelmed by it.
00:12:48.740 | They talked about how it was hard work in the beginning
00:12:52.780 | just to get into a rhythm and into a routine
00:12:55.380 | and for them to remember how to memorize vocabulary
00:13:00.300 | and things like that.
00:13:01.140 | But no, I actually had a lot of encouragement.
00:13:05.540 | I also had a, I assigned myself as an SR,
00:13:10.540 | I assigned myself a challenge mentor.
00:13:13.020 | And that is my good friend, Jennifer Deverex,
00:13:16.700 | who now is a certified Latin apprentice through Circe.
00:13:21.700 | So I had a good mentor to just go ahead of me and say,
00:13:28.100 | read the book, like actually read the Henley One book,
00:13:32.580 | because if you try to skip and just do the exercises,
00:13:35.780 | but you haven't read what Father Henley is saying,
00:13:38.540 | it doesn't make any sense.
00:13:40.300 | - Right, right.
00:13:41.140 | - But actually just take a few minutes
00:13:43.540 | and read what he's saying.
00:13:46.420 | It's actually very logical.
00:13:48.980 | - Oh, that's good.
00:13:49.820 | - And so that was the best piece of encouragement,
00:13:52.180 | the best piece of advice I was given.
00:13:54.140 | Just read the book.
00:13:57.340 | - I love that.
00:13:58.420 | You know, here's the thing, parents,
00:14:00.660 | your students are not inclined to read the book.
00:14:04.940 | You know, you're teenagers,
00:14:06.660 | they are inclined to find the exercises
00:14:09.340 | and do the best they can with what they saw in class.
00:14:13.620 | They don't want to read the book.
00:14:15.460 | So don't be like your students, read the book.
00:14:18.380 | That's really, that's really,
00:14:19.700 | and then you'll be able to help them
00:14:22.500 | because you will have read the book.
00:14:25.260 | - So it sounds like what you're saying, Heather Lee,
00:14:28.860 | is that we as parents really need to become
00:14:33.860 | the lead learner in our home for Latin studies.
00:14:38.940 | I mean, I know that there are probably
00:14:40.620 | lots of parents out there who were hoping
00:14:44.180 | that we were going to say,
00:14:45.740 | "Oh, you don't really need to be the,
00:14:47.820 | you don't need to learn it along with your kids.
00:14:49.860 | You just help them read the syllabus, read the guide,
00:14:53.300 | make a plan, crack the whip over their flashcards
00:14:56.980 | and their exercise production, and it'll all be fine."
00:15:00.260 | But it sounds like you were saying,
00:15:01.940 | "Mm, the better way is to be the lead learner."
00:15:06.140 | - I tell my parents in my area frequently
00:15:11.140 | that the classical education does not happen
00:15:15.020 | instantaneously, it's not guaranteed
00:15:18.300 | just by checking the boxes in the challenge guide
00:15:20.860 | and getting the work done.
00:15:22.220 | If you're handing your children the work to do
00:15:25.180 | and they're doing it, even if they're doing it really well,
00:15:28.740 | that's not where the classical education is happening.
00:15:31.660 | That's where the good content is happening.
00:15:34.300 | But the classical education,
00:15:36.220 | the idea of the mentor leading the student,
00:15:41.220 | the practicing of the tools, the Socratic dialogues,
00:15:45.860 | the mimetic lessons, all of those classical tools
00:15:50.780 | that make this a classical education
00:15:53.260 | as opposed to just really well-curated good content,
00:15:58.260 | that happens at the table, shoulder to shoulder.
00:16:02.780 | And if you are not, at least in some capacity,
00:16:07.780 | sitting shoulder to shoulder with your students,
00:16:11.660 | then you are missing out on the best parts
00:16:16.100 | of having a classical education.
00:16:20.060 | - Oh my goodness, I feel like, okay, all you listeners,
00:16:23.100 | you need to stop the tape and roll it back just a minute
00:16:27.980 | and listen to all of that again.
00:16:29.780 | That is, I suspect that will be the gem from this podcast
00:16:34.780 | that you can give your student the content
00:16:40.260 | of a classical education if you turn them loose
00:16:44.460 | with the guide and all of the resources.
00:16:48.140 | You cannot give them a classical education
00:16:51.420 | if you don't sit and learn together,
00:16:55.300 | if you don't mentor them, if there's no relationship.
00:16:59.180 | A classical education is a relationship education.
00:17:04.180 | That's so good, Heather Lee.
00:17:07.140 | Okay, so let's do it this way.
00:17:08.980 | Lots of our parents who are listening
00:17:12.660 | have been through IEW with their children
00:17:17.660 | with their essentials kids,
00:17:19.740 | and some of them have been through lost tools of writing.
00:17:23.580 | And more of us know how to write an essay
00:17:27.500 | than know how to speak Latin.
00:17:30.020 | So let's do this.
00:17:32.260 | Pretend that I ask you to write a persuasive essay
00:17:37.260 | about learning Latin with your kids.
00:17:41.900 | What would your exhortium be?
00:17:44.340 | I mean, how are you gonna go about
00:17:46.860 | grabbing a hold of parents
00:17:49.100 | so that they listen to what you have to say?
00:17:52.900 | - So one of the types of exhortia that we learn about
00:17:57.260 | in lost tools of writing is a quote.
00:18:00.260 | And I actually have two quotes that I would use.
00:18:03.300 | So my first would be from Deuteronomy six,
00:18:07.180 | and it would be verse seven, which is right in the middle.
00:18:10.140 | So please go read Deuteronomy six for the context.
00:18:13.580 | It says, you shall teach them diligently to your children,
00:18:17.180 | meaning the words of God,
00:18:19.860 | and shall talk of them when you sit in your house
00:18:22.700 | and when you walk by the way,
00:18:24.540 | when you lie down and when you rise.
00:18:27.540 | And we know that that doesn't mean
00:18:29.500 | just in those four times.
00:18:30.980 | We know that that encompasses,
00:18:32.780 | that means everything that happens in between
00:18:37.780 | sitting in your house and walking by the way
00:18:40.180 | and lying down and rising.
00:18:41.660 | So you're supposed to teach them diligently always.
00:18:44.140 | So I would use that quote.
00:18:46.540 | We need to teach the things of God.
00:18:50.460 | And of course the refutation of that people would say,
00:18:53.180 | well, Latin isn't the things of God.
00:18:55.460 | Latin is created by man.
00:18:58.220 | And as I'll talk about later in C,
00:19:03.220 | when I'm giving my proofs,
00:19:08.380 | I believe that studying Latin
00:19:11.940 | will help us to think thoughts after God.
00:19:15.860 | - Lovely.
00:19:19.340 | That's really good.
00:19:20.460 | That's a great exhortium.
00:19:21.900 | Who among us as parents
00:19:26.100 | don't want to have more conversations
00:19:30.180 | with our children about the Lord?
00:19:34.340 | And there are probably few of us
00:19:38.580 | who automatically associate studying Latin
00:19:42.820 | with talking about Jesus.
00:19:44.460 | So that's really cool.
00:19:46.180 | I like that.
00:19:47.580 | All right, what would your thesis be?
00:19:50.140 | What's your thesis?
00:19:51.100 | Why is it so important to learn Latin alongside our kids?
00:19:56.100 | - My thesis, so for three reasons,
00:20:01.620 | a parent should learn Latin alongside of their child
00:20:04.780 | for three reasons.
00:20:06.340 | First, if a parent does it,
00:20:09.460 | it shows the student that you believe it's valuable.
00:20:12.220 | Second, studying Latin improves the way you think.
00:20:16.940 | And third, studying hard things is a natural way
00:20:21.220 | to build a relationship with your child
00:20:23.660 | and to increase your discipleship opportunities.
00:20:27.540 | - Ooh, I love that.
00:20:31.620 | So I mean, I could definitely pontificate on each of those.
00:20:36.620 | So the first, if a parent does it,
00:20:40.340 | it shows that you think it's valuable.
00:20:42.020 | I grew up in a home, and I think I'm Gen X,
00:20:45.540 | I'm a little bit older now,
00:20:48.020 | but I definitely grew up in a time
00:20:50.780 | when parents said, I say jump, you say how high, right?
00:20:55.260 | It was do what I say and not necessarily what I do.
00:21:01.140 | And the way our culture often says is do what I say,
00:21:06.140 | but not what I'm not willing to do.
00:21:09.260 | You do it because it's good for you,
00:21:11.620 | but I'm not gonna do it because I don't want to.
00:21:15.060 | And the other piece of that is that our culture says,
00:21:20.060 | you do you, you do what makes you happy, find your identity.
00:21:25.300 | And when you are doing this alongside of your children,
00:21:30.300 | when you are learning, even if you only learn 10%
00:21:35.100 | of what they end up learning over their six years of Latin,
00:21:38.580 | what you're doing in that shoulder-to-shoulder time
00:21:40.980 | learning Latin together is you are adding
00:21:43.860 | to your family culture.
00:21:45.380 | There are things that you are learning
00:21:47.620 | that are going to become inside jokes.
00:21:52.780 | They're gonna become things that you can refer back to.
00:21:55.500 | It just, and you are showing them by doing that,
00:22:00.180 | you're showing them this is important.
00:22:02.900 | It's valuable to me.
00:22:04.660 | My friend Naomi used to say her daughter
00:22:08.220 | would sometimes maybe not have all of the Latin done
00:22:12.220 | that she was expected to do.
00:22:13.940 | And Naomi would say, I know that you had the time
00:22:18.940 | because I made the time for you.
00:22:22.700 | So that's something that we need to do,
00:22:25.020 | that Latin cannot be the thing that just gets shoved
00:22:28.300 | at the end of the day and the kids do if they have time.
00:22:31.980 | We need to show them that it is valuable.
00:22:34.340 | We're gonna make time.
00:22:35.860 | We're gonna carve time out of our schedule.
00:22:38.420 | And don't misunderstand me.
00:22:39.740 | I am not saying that four days a week for an hour
00:22:42.700 | that you're sitting and doing Latin shoulder-to-shoulder.
00:22:45.660 | I understand that many of us,
00:22:47.180 | our schedules don't allow for that,
00:22:48.620 | or just the makeup of our family,
00:22:51.540 | the age of our other children,
00:22:53.260 | how many children we have doesn't always allow for that.
00:22:56.420 | But if you are carving out some time regularly,
00:23:00.100 | that is going to show more than you telling them,
00:23:06.140 | it's gonna show them that this is something
00:23:09.020 | that I see as valuable.
00:23:11.300 | And honestly, if you are a parent listening
00:23:14.580 | and you're like, but Heather Lee,
00:23:16.060 | I don't think Latin is valuable.
00:23:17.980 | I don't understand.
00:23:19.460 | I don't agree.
00:23:20.620 | I think we should be doing something different.
00:23:22.980 | That's okay.
00:23:24.740 | But would you pray to have an open mind about it?
00:23:29.860 | Because there is a reason that Latin has been studied
00:23:34.460 | since the medieval time.
00:23:35.860 | There is a reason that this was one
00:23:37.740 | of the classical languages that was carried forth.
00:23:42.340 | There's a reason why it's important
00:23:45.700 | and that so many classical curricula
00:23:47.980 | use Latin as their language.
00:23:50.380 | Ask God to show you, pray with your student
00:23:53.900 | and say, show us why this is valuable.
00:23:56.740 | Show us why this is important.
00:23:58.820 | And then have a teachable spirit.
00:24:00.300 | Be willing to have your mind changed
00:24:03.580 | because when you do that,
00:24:05.300 | God will show you his purpose for you in this.
00:24:09.700 | And there are plenty of articles out there
00:24:13.380 | on the reasons that we should study Latin.
00:24:17.180 | And I know that this is not an apology
00:24:20.580 | for why we study Latin.
00:24:21.740 | We're not giving you our reasons
00:24:23.340 | why we should study Latin.
00:24:24.660 | We're gonna assume you know that.
00:24:26.380 | But if you don't know that, if you're not convinced,
00:24:29.660 | pray and ask God to show you 'cause he will.
00:24:32.900 | There's some cool nuggets in there.
00:24:35.300 | - That's really good.
00:24:36.540 | I love your first reason.
00:24:39.980 | And you're right.
00:24:42.420 | If a parent makes time to do this shoulder to shoulder
00:24:47.420 | with their student, the parent is illustrating,
00:24:53.220 | not just saying, but illustrating
00:24:56.260 | that this is a valuable study endeavor.
00:25:00.940 | And it might be valuable for a lot of reasons.
00:25:03.460 | It might be valuable because we'll all have Latin mastered
00:25:08.460 | in six years.
00:25:10.260 | It might be valuable because we will spend hours
00:25:15.260 | and hours and hours, shoulder to shoulder,
00:25:19.220 | studying and excelling together over six years.
00:25:24.220 | But the nugget for me is that great truth
00:25:29.580 | that we make time for what is important.
00:25:34.940 | And if we carve out time with our student,
00:25:38.740 | for Latin, we are illustrating to them this,
00:25:43.580 | this is one of the important things
00:25:46.020 | that our family will stand on together.
00:25:48.460 | And I like that.
00:25:49.540 | Very good, very good.
00:25:51.100 | All right, so talk to us about that second reason
00:25:54.860 | that studying Latin actually improves our thinking.
00:25:59.060 | - So Latin is a very methodical, logical language.
00:26:04.060 | It is very precise.
00:26:07.780 | And I think better
00:26:12.500 | because I have learned to be more careful
00:26:17.300 | in the things that I write because of my study of Latin.
00:26:21.740 | English is just such a difficult language
00:26:27.100 | because it is such a mixture of so many languages.
00:26:30.060 | But in Latin, you learn precision, you learn conciseness.
00:26:36.860 | And it is more precise than English
00:26:39.580 | in almost every situation.
00:26:42.060 | Also, and this is something that I've talked about a lot
00:26:46.820 | with Jennifer who started out as my Latin mentor
00:26:49.580 | and now is my Latin teacher.
00:26:50.940 | I actually have, I'm taking a class with her
00:26:53.620 | 'cause I wanna be a better Latin student.
00:26:56.220 | But she has emphasized that language is tied
00:26:59.980 | to the worldview of the native speaker.
00:27:02.980 | So it gives us a different perspective.
00:27:06.900 | When you read Latin, and we start in challenge two,
00:27:10.980 | we start reading original writings.
00:27:13.940 | We read Caesar, we read Cicero, we read Virgil.
00:27:17.980 | And you learn so much about their culture
00:27:22.140 | and their worldview and where they were coming from
00:27:25.140 | when you read the way that they wrote.
00:27:28.500 | Learning about the way that the Latins talked about time.
00:27:31.860 | They spoke of time so differently than we do in America.
00:27:35.180 | And even that alone just helps you to just think differently
00:27:39.500 | to expand your understanding, to think about other cultures
00:27:42.940 | and the fact that the way that you or your family
00:27:45.940 | or your region or your country does things
00:27:49.500 | is not the only way.
00:27:51.580 | And also we're improving our thinking
00:27:56.180 | because so much of America is a result
00:27:58.980 | of how the Romans thought.
00:28:01.060 | So you will better understand American politics,
00:28:04.260 | American history, if you understand the Romans.
00:28:08.820 | And the best way to study the Romans
00:28:11.420 | is to read what the Romans wrote
00:28:13.940 | and to understand what the Romans wrote.
00:28:16.460 | If you wanna know why we are a republic
00:28:20.580 | and not a democracy, then you need to read
00:28:25.100 | the writings of the Romans as they talk about the republic.
00:28:31.140 | So if you wanna avoid having a dictator, read the Romans
00:28:36.020 | and see what happens when they had emperors.
00:28:39.820 | So it's a really important piece.
00:28:42.140 | So it both helps you with your thinking with content,
00:28:45.420 | like it's actually filling you with this content
00:28:48.060 | that helps you to just think through a broader lens,
00:28:53.060 | but it also just because it is such a methodical,
00:28:56.180 | precise language, it just makes you a better thinker,
00:28:59.540 | a better speaker, a better writer, a better communicator.
00:29:03.460 | - I like that.
00:29:04.820 | I like that.
00:29:05.660 | I don't know if I've ever heard anyone articulate
00:29:09.460 | that Latin will help us to be better communicators,
00:29:13.620 | both better writers and better speakers
00:29:16.500 | because it encourages us to use precise language
00:29:21.500 | and concise language so that we can say exactly
00:29:27.300 | what we mean and not too much of it
00:29:30.620 | so that we leave people with our exact thoughts
00:29:37.340 | and reasons and space to think about it.
00:29:43.020 | I like that.
00:29:44.100 | It's really good.
00:29:45.100 | So the third reason that Latin with our children
00:29:50.100 | is that it's a discipleship opportunity.
00:29:56.860 | - It is.
00:29:57.860 | I believe that every piece of homeschooling
00:30:02.100 | is a discipleship opportunity.
00:30:03.940 | I take discipleship and mentorship very seriously.
00:30:08.860 | In my life, Titus 2 is one of the most important sections
00:30:13.660 | of scripture for me as a leader, as a parent, as a friend.
00:30:18.660 | And in Titus 2, they talk about how the older women
00:30:24.580 | should train the younger women and the older men
00:30:26.860 | should teach the younger men.
00:30:29.940 | And it talks about loving your husbands,
00:30:33.780 | for the women specifically,
00:30:35.620 | it talks about training the young women
00:30:37.500 | to love their husbands and children,
00:30:39.540 | to be self-controlled and pure, working at home,
00:30:42.700 | being kind and submissive to their own husbands,
00:30:45.220 | that the word of God may not be reviled.
00:30:47.060 | That's Titus 2, verses four and five.
00:30:53.060 | I believe that a lot of times, the background work,
00:30:58.060 | the hard things that we do outside of loving our husbands
00:31:03.380 | and loving our children and following God,
00:31:07.380 | I believe that the hard things that we do,
00:31:09.540 | even if we cannot see them as connected
00:31:12.460 | to those bigger picture callings that we all have,
00:31:17.220 | I see that all as developing piety.
00:31:21.100 | So in the classical tradition,
00:31:24.260 | piety is having your loves properly ordered.
00:31:28.140 | It's knowing that it's loving God,
00:31:31.420 | then loving others, and then loving yourself.
00:31:33.940 | It's knowing that we have a responsibility
00:31:36.580 | to be faithful spouses and to be parents
00:31:39.220 | that train our children in the fear and admonition
00:31:42.060 | of the Lord and give them all that they need
00:31:46.260 | and all the instruction and wisdom of the Lord
00:31:49.860 | without driving them to exasperation.
00:31:53.100 | And that's Ephesians six.
00:31:55.580 | And I believe that when we sit shoulder to shoulder
00:32:00.140 | and we look at our student
00:32:01.700 | and they're frustrated with Latin or they don't understand,
00:32:05.740 | I believe we can model the fruit of the spirit.
00:32:07.980 | I believe we can model doing hard things,
00:32:10.020 | that we can build resilience in them, perseverance,
00:32:13.140 | that we can teach them to do the things
00:32:14.900 | that they don't want to do on a small scale,
00:32:18.380 | because a lot of the Christian life is sacrifice.
00:32:22.100 | A lot of the Christian life is doing the right thing,
00:32:24.540 | even when it's not the thing that you want to be doing.
00:32:27.540 | We have to die to self all the time.
00:32:30.020 | And I know that it sounds dramatic
00:32:31.900 | to say that studying Latin is dying to self, but isn't it?
00:32:36.900 | When you're taking a half an hour
00:32:39.540 | and sitting with your child shoulder to shoulder
00:32:41.860 | and reading through these exercises,
00:32:44.380 | or studying the vocabulary,
00:32:46.580 | when we're setting aside our own desires
00:32:49.180 | in order to show our kids that this is important,
00:32:53.580 | and it's not just important
00:32:54.940 | because someday you'll get to read the Aeneid,
00:32:57.420 | it's important because when we have self-control
00:33:02.420 | over our bodies, when we are able to train ourselves
00:33:06.540 | to do the things that we're asked to do,
00:33:08.740 | even when we don't like them,
00:33:10.100 | especially when we don't like them,
00:33:12.420 | that that's honoring to God.
00:33:13.740 | It's honoring to our neighbor.
00:33:15.260 | We're honoring our classmates.
00:33:16.580 | We're honoring our tutor.
00:33:17.980 | We're honoring each other in this.
00:33:20.380 | And it's okay to say this is hard,
00:33:23.220 | but the joy when it starts to click,
00:33:29.820 | either for you or for your student,
00:33:32.060 | the excitement that comes from that.
00:33:34.980 | When my daughter was in challenge B,
00:33:38.500 | she suddenly realized that she actually liked Latin.
00:33:42.300 | And we came to a passage that Father Henley included
00:33:48.020 | in the Henley One textbook on Pearl Harbor,
00:33:52.820 | remembering that Father Henley wrote this textbook
00:33:57.460 | right at World War II hadn't yet ended
00:34:00.380 | when it was published.
00:34:01.740 | And so it was talking in past tense
00:34:04.420 | about what the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor,
00:34:07.100 | which she knew about from foundation's memory work.
00:34:09.940 | And then suddenly it turns to the present tense
00:34:12.940 | and it's talking about our sailors and our soldiers
00:34:16.260 | and how brave they are.
00:34:18.780 | And what a joy it was to just sit and talk about that
00:34:22.100 | and talk about what it must have felt like
00:34:23.940 | to be a student reading about Pearl Harbor
00:34:27.260 | and knowing that your neighbors or your family members
00:34:30.620 | might be overseas fighting in that war.
00:34:33.740 | It was a joy.
00:34:36.100 | It was an absolute joy.
00:34:37.260 | And so that began her kind of taking her Latin
00:34:42.260 | to the next level and her taking ownership of it
00:34:45.260 | and actually enjoying it because it had meaning.
00:34:49.100 | For me, that meaning came the first time
00:34:52.420 | that I walked through Henley One
00:34:55.860 | with a Challenge One class.
00:34:57.500 | And we came to this reading on the Trinity.
00:35:01.980 | And I did not grow up in a Christian home.
00:35:05.540 | All of the Christian teachings are things that I learned
00:35:10.180 | between the ages of 15 and now at 46.
00:35:13.980 | And I had never heard the Trinity explained
00:35:18.380 | the way Father Henley explains it in Latin.
00:35:22.380 | And the joy of hearing that there are not three gods,
00:35:27.380 | there is one God.
00:35:29.620 | And there is one Father and one Son and one Holy Spirit.
00:35:34.060 | But for some reason, reading it in Latin
00:35:38.100 | and understanding it from the Latin
00:35:41.220 | just brought a new depth to my understanding of the Trinity
00:35:46.140 | that didn't come from reading theology textbooks
00:35:48.980 | or from debating the Trinity
00:35:50.900 | from my non-Trinitarian friends.
00:35:54.140 | Just reading it in Latin made me stop
00:35:58.580 | and think about it differently.
00:36:00.060 | It got into my bones in a different way.
00:36:03.500 | And I will always love it.
00:36:06.660 | And for those of you that have your Henley One book
00:36:09.220 | sitting on the shelf, it's reading number 28.
00:36:12.340 | I encourage you to go read it.
00:36:14.180 | Most of it, if you have any understanding of Christianity,
00:36:17.700 | even with no understanding of Latin,
00:36:20.220 | you'll be able to figure out most of it.
00:36:22.340 | And it's just a beautiful, soothing reading.
00:36:26.740 | - That's lovely.
00:36:29.940 | What a great testimony.
00:36:32.940 | And I love that you and your daughter
00:36:35.900 | were drawn in to conversation
00:36:39.740 | about something that was not Latin
00:36:43.540 | because you were studying how to read this passage in Latin.
00:36:48.380 | I love it that your Latin studies gave you opportunity
00:36:53.380 | to discuss something deeply meaningful to Americans.
00:36:58.820 | That's really neat.
00:37:00.180 | I love that.
00:37:01.140 | I know in a persuasive essay,
00:37:03.020 | we always have to acknowledge the real objections
00:37:08.020 | that someone might have to our position
00:37:11.100 | and your position that we should study Latin
00:37:15.340 | alongside our students.
00:37:17.500 | What objections have you heard?
00:37:21.940 | And how would you,
00:37:24.460 | I want you to offer your refutations too, of course,
00:37:28.060 | but what objections have you heard
00:37:30.940 | that we can sympathize with
00:37:33.780 | and yet urge people to overcome?
00:37:36.340 | - The most common objection that I hear
00:37:40.940 | is from parents that maybe didn't get this message
00:37:45.060 | into them before they started Challenge A
00:37:47.140 | with their student.
00:37:48.340 | So now their student has done some Latin independently.
00:37:53.340 | And the biggest objection I hear from those parents
00:37:56.300 | is they are doing just fine without me.
00:37:59.580 | And this is a perfect time for us to remember
00:38:04.860 | that we do not put our kids in CC only
00:38:09.860 | for an academically excellent education.
00:38:14.860 | We do not classically educate our kids
00:38:17.380 | for an academically excellent education.
00:38:20.300 | We put them in a classical program
00:38:25.020 | because it is a virtuous education.
00:38:27.660 | It makes us more like the man, capital M, Jesus.
00:38:32.660 | It makes us more like the ideal
00:38:37.980 | of who we were meant to be before the fall.
00:38:41.420 | And we do that through obedience
00:38:44.060 | and through working out our sanctification.
00:38:46.500 | So patience, love, joy, peace,
00:38:49.340 | kindness, goodness, self-control, right?
00:38:53.380 | And C.S. Lewis says that when we put the first things first,
00:38:58.380 | meaning a virtuous education,
00:39:00.500 | we want our kids to have an education
00:39:03.020 | filled with the fruit of the spirit and moral excellence.
00:39:07.660 | And in our family, that includes having a strong work ethic
00:39:11.740 | and being resilient.
00:39:13.180 | When we put those first things first,
00:39:16.780 | the second things get thrown in automatically, right?
00:39:20.180 | So we aim for virtue and academic excellence gets thrown in
00:39:25.180 | because when you have a student that is working diligently
00:39:29.500 | and being obedient and self-controlled
00:39:31.540 | and finding joy and love
00:39:34.060 | and pondering God's thoughts after him,
00:39:37.420 | you end up with an academically excellent education.
00:39:44.220 | So your student may be getting all the vocabulary right.
00:39:48.740 | Your student may be doing all of the exercises,
00:39:53.020 | getting them 100%,
00:39:55.060 | and they may still not understand the value
00:39:58.580 | of the virtue that can be developed in studying Latin.
00:40:03.580 | They maybe have checked the boxes,
00:40:07.140 | but they haven't become classically educated.
00:40:12.140 | They haven't become virtuously educated in the process.
00:40:17.700 | And so I would say you can have an A student
00:40:20.180 | and that A student still would benefit
00:40:24.140 | from sitting shoulder to shoulder with their parent
00:40:26.300 | and building that relationship
00:40:27.660 | and building that discipleship and learning together.
00:40:31.380 | Because even an A student still has areas
00:40:33.940 | where they can improve.
00:40:35.020 | And you, as the person with more life experience is going,
00:40:40.020 | that person, that parent is going to pull out nuggets
00:40:44.740 | from the text or have a perspective
00:40:47.740 | that that 14, 15, 16 year old
00:40:50.660 | just has not come across in their young life.
00:40:54.100 | - Right.
00:40:55.180 | - So that's my first.
00:40:56.020 | My first is it doesn't matter
00:40:58.420 | if your child is doing really well without you.
00:41:02.380 | We still want better for you and for them.
00:41:05.740 | And of course, the second is I just don't have time.
00:41:09.780 | Well, I would encourage you to figure out
00:41:13.700 | where you can find time.
00:41:16.500 | I have one acquaintance that she and her daughter,
00:41:21.340 | her daughter was really not enjoying Latin.
00:41:23.740 | So once a week, they would go to Starbucks.
00:41:27.020 | She would buy her like the treatiest treat
00:41:31.660 | that the daughter wanted from the drink menu.
00:41:35.860 | And then they would study Latin together.
00:41:37.820 | And even though the daughter didn't necessarily
00:41:40.220 | fall in love with Latin,
00:41:42.940 | she fell in love with that time that they had together.
00:41:45.820 | And it was an hour and a half out of the mom's week.
00:41:49.900 | They got quality time together.
00:41:51.980 | They had that time together in the car there and back.
00:41:55.340 | And it was just uninterrupted time.
00:41:57.420 | You can find ways creatively.
00:42:02.180 | And if you truly don't think that you have time,
00:42:04.700 | I have friends with many children
00:42:07.140 | that are working jobs that have busy schedules.
00:42:09.300 | It is legitimately difficult to find that time.
00:42:13.220 | Again, I'm gonna encourage you, pray and ask God,
00:42:17.580 | what should this time look like?
00:42:21.020 | Is it 15 minutes where you just sit down
00:42:23.660 | and maybe you don't work on the vocab
00:42:25.820 | or the exercises together.
00:42:27.460 | Maybe you just do the reading for that week together
00:42:30.100 | and you read about Jesus or you read about American history.
00:42:34.660 | 'Cause those are the two things covered in Henley One.
00:42:38.500 | Maybe you don't learn a lot of Latin,
00:42:43.260 | but you learn enough to be able to have that conversation
00:42:46.420 | alongside of your student.
00:42:48.860 | Maybe you're sitting there with your answer key open
00:42:52.380 | and you're letting your student teach you.
00:42:55.500 | Either way, what beautiful humility that shows,
00:43:00.900 | what diligence that shows,
00:43:03.180 | what that shows your child in just,
00:43:06.300 | mom only has 20 minutes,
00:43:08.740 | but she's making that 20 minute count.
00:43:10.660 | - She's giving it to me.
00:43:11.500 | - Yeah, and she's giving it to me
00:43:12.660 | and she's giving it to me with Latin.
00:43:14.180 | And I understand,
00:43:16.460 | I truly understand some of my closest friends,
00:43:19.620 | I've had this conversation with them
00:43:23.420 | and they're like, I don't want to, I don't want to.
00:43:26.940 | And what I honestly have said is,
00:43:30.060 | for me, it's not Latin.
00:43:31.180 | For me, Latin has not been the strand that I don't want to.
00:43:35.020 | I will not tell you what they are
00:43:37.580 | because my people will come at me,
00:43:39.180 | but there are sections of the challenge curriculum
00:43:43.060 | that are very difficult for me and I don't want to.
00:43:46.740 | And I recognize that it's not about me.
00:43:50.740 | It is about me doing what's best for my student,
00:43:55.420 | doing what's best for our family,
00:43:57.380 | doing what's best for our community and our class,
00:44:00.100 | honoring my kid's tutor
00:44:03.140 | by helping my student to be as prepared
00:44:05.700 | for class as possible.
00:44:07.900 | And so I understand that you might not want to
00:44:11.580 | because I feel that way about other areas.
00:44:14.140 | But as members of a classical Christian community,
00:44:20.860 | let's endeavor for those things we don't want to do,
00:44:25.180 | for those things that are hard,
00:44:26.500 | for those things that we just don't see the value in,
00:44:29.740 | can you commit to praying and asking God
00:44:34.060 | to show you where the value is,
00:44:35.860 | to show you where the discipleship is,
00:44:38.100 | to show you where the benefit is in you doing this?
00:44:43.100 | He will.
00:44:45.020 | He may not make you fall in love with Latin,
00:44:50.140 | but he might have you fall in love
00:44:51.580 | with your time with your student.
00:44:53.500 | He may not make you fall in love with Latin,
00:44:55.420 | but he is going to show you
00:44:57.940 | why he's called you to do this.
00:45:01.180 | Because he's a good God
00:45:02.700 | and he gives wisdom without finding fault, James 1.
00:45:06.460 | So even I'm not going to try to convince you,
00:45:11.460 | hopefully a few people will hear some of the things
00:45:14.300 | that I've shared and they'll be like,
00:45:15.260 | "Okay, you've convinced me."
00:45:16.940 | But if I haven't convinced you, that's okay.
00:45:20.140 | The only thing I really want to convince you of
00:45:22.420 | is that it is there for a reason.
00:45:26.460 | Classical educators have put Latin
00:45:31.820 | as one of the central pieces of what they do,
00:45:35.100 | of what makes it classical, as opposed to just good.
00:45:39.900 | And I'm asking you to ask God to show you,
00:45:44.740 | you the value for you, for your family.
00:45:48.780 | - That is so awesome.
00:45:50.220 | I feel like we have not so much had a treatise
00:45:55.220 | on why study Latin as it is what God wants to do.
00:46:00.340 | And it is get ahold of your heart
00:46:03.100 | and give you his heart for your children,
00:46:08.100 | your family, your community, your world.
00:46:12.940 | I love all of this, Heatherly.
00:46:16.860 | And I appreciate you prayerfully offering to us
00:46:21.860 | these great reasons to study Latin alongside our children.
00:46:26.700 | Not to agree that Latin is good
00:46:29.380 | for our classically educated family,
00:46:32.140 | but to study shoulder to shoulder,
00:46:35.180 | to mentor your student and to love them
00:46:40.180 | as you lovingly study a subject together.
00:46:46.740 | Thank you so much for your insights.
00:46:48.660 | I really appreciate your time.
00:46:50.620 | - You are so welcome.
00:46:52.900 | - This has been great.
00:46:54.060 | And you know, I suspect, parents,
00:46:57.960 | that you will find a lot of blessing
00:47:02.300 | from spending that time with your student.
00:47:06.460 | You may never love Latin any more than you do now,
00:47:11.460 | but I bet you will love your student
00:47:14.580 | more than you ever have
00:47:16.900 | when you spend that discipling time with them.
00:47:19.780 | You know, we wanna know what your communities are doing
00:47:26.660 | and we wanna know what you and your family
00:47:30.300 | have to celebrate together.
00:47:32.980 | We really wanna know when your student
00:47:35.420 | or your community has done something noteworthy.
00:47:40.220 | We are collecting stories of accomplishments and events
00:47:45.220 | so that we can celebrate together
00:47:49.220 | and share the excitement of homeschooling.
00:47:52.140 | So if you want to share a success story,
00:47:56.300 | if you want somebody to celebrate with,
00:47:59.540 | we want you to provide us as much information as possible
00:48:03.940 | so that you completely tell the story.
00:48:07.140 | If you want to share, go to classicalconversations.com/celebrate-together.
00:48:12.140 | So that last part is all one word
00:48:20.540 | just with a dash in the middle.
00:48:22.740 | Classicalconversations.com/celebrate-together.
00:48:27.740 | And we want to hear some stories
00:48:35.780 | of families celebrating togetherness as they study Latin
00:48:40.780 | and as they experience the Lord's love
00:48:45.900 | in their learning culture together.
00:48:49.500 | So thanks again, Heather Lee.
00:48:51.660 | I appreciate you, friend.
00:48:53.700 | And listeners, I'll see you next time.
00:48:56.260 | Thanks.
00:48:57.380 | (gentle music)
00:48:59.980 | you
00:49:02.040 | you