Everyday Educator - The Challenge of Challenge
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.020 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:08.800 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.640 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:13.620 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:16.920 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:19.760 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.200 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.280 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:27.360 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:31.600 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:35.460 | But don't forget,
00:00:36.800 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:40.240 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:45.240 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:49.520 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:54.060 | Well, listeners, I'm excited to welcome you today.
00:00:58.080 | And as we look toward the beginning
00:01:01.200 | of our fall communities,
00:01:04.680 | I've got a great guest
00:01:07.120 | who is going to usher you into thinking
00:01:09.880 | about the challenge years.
00:01:12.240 | I have with me today, Tim Knott,
00:01:15.040 | who is a lead curriculum developer
00:01:17.880 | with Classical Conversations Multimedia.
00:01:20.560 | Tim, welcome.
00:01:22.720 | - Hey, Lisa, good to be with you.
00:01:24.860 | - I always like to have times
00:01:27.020 | when we can talk and think together.
00:01:29.260 | I always learn something new
00:01:31.000 | and you always push me to think
00:01:32.960 | in a different way about something.
00:01:34.860 | So I'm looking forward to sharing that
00:01:36.700 | with our listeners today.
00:01:39.060 | I want to ask you as I just get to know you,
00:01:44.060 | when you were a little kid,
00:01:46.940 | did you like challenges?
00:01:51.740 | - I think it depended a lot
00:01:52.900 | on what kind of challenge you're talking about.
00:01:55.660 | I loved to go and play outside
00:02:00.320 | with my brother or my friends
00:02:02.040 | and we would build tree forts
00:02:04.820 | and go down and explore the woods.
00:02:08.440 | And so we would invent
00:02:09.280 | all kinds of challenges for ourselves.
00:02:11.440 | And those kinds of challenges were just the best.
00:02:14.700 | We would, too much to my mother's chagrin,
00:02:19.240 | challenge one another
00:02:20.080 | to see who could climb the tallest
00:02:21.520 | in the pine tree
00:02:22.540 | that had all the little tiny branches at the top.
00:02:24.880 | - Yes, yes, yes.
00:02:26.820 | - And I loved the challenges
00:02:28.560 | of playing board games with my dad.
00:02:32.140 | But other kinds of challenges weren't my favorite.
00:02:36.600 | I was never all that terribly motivated
00:02:39.200 | by competitive sports.
00:02:41.840 | So it kind of depended
00:02:44.840 | what kind of challenge you put in front of me.
00:02:47.000 | - Yeah, yeah, I think that's really true.
00:02:49.520 | Now, I do think that most of the little kids
00:02:52.800 | that I have known
00:02:53.920 | have loved pushing the envelope
00:02:56.320 | at one time or another.
00:02:58.400 | The kind that you're talking about, though,
00:03:01.280 | who can throw the rock the farthest,
00:03:04.200 | or yeah, who can climb the highest in the tree
00:03:07.000 | or go farthest down the path or whatever.
00:03:10.420 | And so, yeah, those kinds of challenges.
00:03:14.200 | It resonates with me, too, Tim, your experience,
00:03:17.520 | 'cause I never loved those be the fastest runner
00:03:21.920 | or the fastest swimmer.
00:03:24.680 | Those kinds of challenges did not,
00:03:27.600 | they didn't grab me.
00:03:30.800 | They didn't grab me.
00:03:31.640 | Like personal challenges sometimes did.
00:03:34.720 | Could I read all of the books
00:03:38.560 | on the third shelf of the library in one summer?
00:03:42.380 | Those kinds of challenges.
00:03:44.760 | - So think about as a student,
00:03:47.920 | and you can answer for little kid Tim
00:03:51.200 | or high school Tim or college Tim.
00:03:53.920 | As a student, what challenged you?
00:03:57.560 | - I was always excited by and challenged by new ideas,
00:04:02.560 | trying to understand what it meant and how it worked.
00:04:08.760 | That was always of great interest to me
00:04:11.880 | and a real frustration
00:04:13.520 | when someone would put something in front of me
00:04:14.920 | and I didn't understand it.
00:04:16.720 | And so then I would work hard to get it
00:04:21.280 | because I didn't like not knowing, not understanding.
00:04:24.220 | - Okay, yeah.
00:04:25.520 | - But I'd have to be honest
00:04:27.080 | that once I understood the idea of the thing,
00:04:29.880 | all the extra work that came along
00:04:31.600 | with mastering a skill set around it,
00:04:34.280 | I had no interest in those whatsoever.
00:04:36.360 | (laughing)
00:04:38.760 | So I didn't mind working to understand a new math concept.
00:04:42.640 | But when you gave me the 25 problems
00:04:45.360 | to demonstrate that I understood it,
00:04:47.880 | that was where the wheels came off for me.
00:04:50.540 | (laughing)
00:04:51.720 | - So you liked the moment of discovery,
00:04:55.040 | but the deeper, get better at it,
00:04:57.720 | you could just leave for another day, happily, huh?
00:05:00.840 | - Yeah, sadly, sometimes I think my,
00:05:03.560 | what I've received in my greatest challenge
00:05:05.620 | was how to do the least amount of that extra work
00:05:09.160 | as possible to still do well in my classes.
00:05:12.240 | - This is so funny.
00:05:13.640 | My husband tells stories like that.
00:05:15.680 | And I remember cringing
00:05:17.520 | when he would tell our daughters that
00:05:20.120 | as they were growing up.
00:05:21.360 | It's like, okay, don't be like daddy.
00:05:23.720 | Don't do that.
00:05:25.200 | Don't figure it out.
00:05:27.920 | Don't let the light dawn on you and then think,
00:05:31.440 | okay, the fun part is over.
00:05:33.120 | I opt out of the rest of the work.
00:05:36.280 | Yeah, yeah.
00:05:37.800 | So would you say that you respond to challenges
00:05:42.800 | with enthusiasm, at least initially?
00:05:46.720 | - Yeah, generally, yes.
00:05:49.680 | There are some where the challenge is put in front of me
00:05:53.240 | and I have merely a sense of duty or obligation
00:05:57.240 | and therefore approach it
00:06:00.620 | in sort of much more sort of business-like approach.
00:06:04.200 | But if it's something that I've challenged myself to
00:06:07.440 | or that I've discovered as a challenge,
00:06:10.440 | then yeah, I tend to be pretty gung-ho,
00:06:13.880 | at least about getting started with it.
00:06:16.000 | The finishing, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
00:06:19.320 | - Yes, I was gonna ask you, as a grownup,
00:06:22.400 | how do you react to learning new things?
00:06:26.960 | This, I will be honest.
00:06:28.520 | I used to ask this question when I would go
00:06:31.720 | and speak at practicums or to small groups of parents.
00:06:36.360 | And sometimes it came up with parents who were frustrated
00:06:41.360 | with their early teenage children
00:06:46.520 | who were dragging their feet about doing this hard thing.
00:06:50.920 | And as I think about it,
00:06:53.160 | it did tend to crop up in students
00:06:56.040 | who were just entering the challenge years
00:06:58.160 | and they were going to be hitting some things
00:07:01.320 | for the first time or in new ways.
00:07:03.600 | And I would have parents who were bemoaning
00:07:07.480 | their students' attitudes.
00:07:09.280 | And so I began to ask the parents,
00:07:12.440 | how do you respond as an adult to learning new things?
00:07:17.440 | So I'm putting you under the microscope and ask you, Tim.
00:07:21.840 | - Yeah, it depends a lot on whether it's something
00:07:26.840 | that I'm looking forward to or not.
00:07:31.520 | If I want to learn about it or if someone who I trust
00:07:36.520 | or has inspired me in some way has presented it to me,
00:07:43.080 | then I'm usually enthusiastic about it.
00:07:47.800 | But if it's sort of yet another thing
00:07:51.800 | that I look at as a roadblock or again,
00:07:54.680 | sort of an obligation, like, oh, well,
00:07:57.280 | there's another thing I have to learn how to do.
00:08:00.000 | - Yes, right.
00:08:02.320 | - Then it may either never become a joy
00:08:06.520 | or it may take just some time before it finally,
00:08:10.800 | I see that there's something valuable or beautiful
00:08:15.800 | about it in its own right.
00:08:18.200 | - You know, I think it is a good reminder to all of us
00:08:25.000 | and parents, I'm looking at you.
00:08:27.880 | I had the same revelation with my own children.
00:08:32.320 | I think it's a good thing for us to stop and consider,
00:08:36.040 | how do I and how does my child react to something new,
00:08:42.000 | learning something new or facing a new challenge?
00:08:47.760 | It will help you understand how to help your student,
00:08:52.760 | how to help yourself, what kind of self-talk
00:08:56.240 | you need to produce or what kind of counsel
00:08:59.640 | and mentoring you need to give your student.
00:09:01.800 | For instance, do you or does your student react
00:09:04.760 | to new things with fear?
00:09:08.440 | Are they afraid of making a mistake?
00:09:11.360 | Do they react to new things that they don't know
00:09:14.280 | how to do with denial?
00:09:17.840 | I'm not gonna do that because I don't know
00:09:19.840 | if I'm gonna be good at it or not.
00:09:21.760 | I'm just gonna avoid it.
00:09:24.240 | Do they jump in with both feet with so much enthusiasm
00:09:29.240 | that sometimes they don't consider the initial steps
00:09:32.640 | that ought to be taken so that success will ensue?
00:09:36.200 | I think it behooves us to think about that on the front end
00:09:39.920 | so that we can help ourselves and our students
00:09:43.440 | approach learning new things more successfully.
00:09:47.560 | - That's good, Lisa.
00:09:50.880 | Introducing the new thing in a way
00:09:53.920 | that sets the student up for success, right?
00:09:57.360 | So that they're not either intimidated by it
00:10:01.680 | or think too lightly of it, either one.
00:10:04.480 | It's easier, I think you were mentioning
00:10:08.200 | how you felt like as a parent,
00:10:11.440 | you would have those moments of frustration
00:10:14.960 | with your students.
00:10:15.960 | And I wonder if it's because we look back on it
00:10:19.200 | and we think, "Oh, I can see it for what it is,"
00:10:22.840 | but they're looking forward at it
00:10:24.320 | and they don't know what we know.
00:10:26.320 | And so they haven't yet figured out that it's valuable
00:10:29.680 | or how hard is it really gonna be?
00:10:31.840 | - Yep, that is really, it is really valuable.
00:10:36.400 | I have a real heart for helping parents
00:10:43.200 | reclaim the homeschooling journey
00:10:45.720 | as one of family relationships
00:10:48.760 | and not just the homeschooling journey
00:10:52.080 | as the acquisition of lots of knowledge for your student.
00:10:56.600 | And so any ways that we can mentor our students
00:11:02.920 | and have them, newsflash, mentor us
00:11:06.680 | as we learn together as a family,
00:11:10.040 | not just about our subjects, but about ourselves,
00:11:13.320 | about our family, about the world, about the Lord,
00:11:17.840 | I think it's a good thing.
00:11:19.800 | I think it's a good thing.
00:11:20.920 | But we have come today to talk about
00:11:24.760 | the challenge of the Challenge Program.
00:11:27.320 | And so, because moving into the Challenge Program
00:11:32.320 | from the world of foundations and essentials
00:11:36.360 | is a really big change.
00:11:38.320 | It's a change in a lot of ways for students
00:11:43.520 | and for the families of those students.
00:11:46.160 | And this time of change is really reflected
00:11:49.280 | in spiritual growth, emotional, social, and physical growth.
00:11:54.280 | There are a lot of new things to learn
00:11:58.720 | as you transition into the challenge years.
00:12:02.520 | And Tim, I know as a dad,
00:12:05.320 | you have transitioned students into the challenge years.
00:12:09.240 | I mean, you're not just a curriculum developer.
00:12:12.560 | You are also a dad who is shepherding young souls.
00:12:16.760 | So what stands out to you about that shift
00:12:21.040 | into the challenge years?
00:12:23.320 | - Yeah, you're right that it's multi-layered.
00:12:27.680 | It's multi-dimensioned.
00:12:29.640 | And it's not one size fits all.
00:12:31.560 | Every student has their own ways
00:12:35.120 | that they're gonna grow more quickly
00:12:39.000 | or in a particular way than a different student.
00:12:42.840 | We see it physically most easily, right?
00:12:48.120 | Some of those girls, they're 12,
00:12:51.440 | they suddenly hit that growth spurt
00:12:53.160 | and man, they just take off
00:12:54.680 | and they're towering over their classmates all of a sudden.
00:12:58.120 | Whereas more often the boys are still stuck
00:13:02.360 | in sort of their halfling phase.
00:13:04.080 | - Yes, yes, yes.
00:13:05.680 | - Haven't quite hit that early teen growth spurt
00:13:08.920 | as early, but it will come.
00:13:12.520 | So we see it physically, but it happens emotionally
00:13:16.040 | and intellectually and spiritually differently
00:13:19.440 | for everybody too.
00:13:21.080 | Some kids, they hit that prep for challenge A
00:13:26.080 | and they are excited and they're looking forward
00:13:30.080 | to the extra work and the added responsibility
00:13:34.680 | and the day, the whole day away from mom, perhaps.
00:13:39.280 | That's just, they're on the fast track
00:13:44.480 | in their own mind to adulthood.
00:13:46.880 | And others, they're still very much wanting
00:13:51.760 | to be snuggled up reading the Echoes books
00:13:54.800 | with mom on the couch for as long as possible
00:13:57.840 | and don't really wanna have anything to do
00:14:00.120 | with going out and doing something different
00:14:02.320 | than what they've known.
00:14:03.880 | So that transition, yeah, it requires gentleness
00:14:08.880 | and encouragement, right?
00:14:16.360 | To see where the strengths are that you can encourage
00:14:20.960 | and to see where the weaknesses or the worries are
00:14:24.360 | that you can assuage them and build confidence
00:14:29.360 | ahead of time so that that student
00:14:30.920 | who has those nervous fears about their peers
00:14:35.480 | and the way that they're gonna be treated
00:14:37.120 | or that there's this new thing, Latin,
00:14:41.160 | that they're gonna encounter.
00:14:42.280 | And I don't know how to do that,
00:14:44.000 | but you can prepare them in ways that are more important
00:14:50.080 | than doing some kind of an academic bootcamp
00:14:54.640 | the summer before a challenge starts.
00:14:56.760 | - Yes, I like that.
00:14:58.320 | So what are some of the things that you think?
00:15:01.440 | 'Cause I can feel some of our listeners thinking,
00:15:04.640 | "Okay, I know it's gonna be different.
00:15:06.240 | "I'm gonna have to transition my student
00:15:08.480 | "to taking mentoring and instruction
00:15:12.280 | "from somebody besides just mom or dad
00:15:14.760 | "because my challenge kiddos are gonna be
00:15:17.200 | "with this tutor, with this director
00:15:20.160 | "for six hours, one day a week.
00:15:22.680 | "And they're gonna need to learn
00:15:24.320 | "how to follow somebody else's directions.
00:15:26.720 | "And I really need them to know
00:15:28.520 | "how to write down their assignments
00:15:30.560 | "and schedule out their days."
00:15:33.920 | Which by the way, parents, almost every kid
00:15:36.440 | is really bad at before they get good at.
00:15:40.760 | Making their own schedule is a huge step.
00:15:44.320 | But what I hear you saying, Tim,
00:15:48.400 | is that there are some really more intangible ways
00:15:54.720 | that we as parents can prepare our students
00:15:59.040 | for this adjustment.
00:16:00.520 | - Yeah, I think it's easy for us
00:16:03.120 | to impose our view of ourselves onto our students,
00:16:08.120 | what our fears are, what our fears are for them.
00:16:14.480 | And we put those on the student.
00:16:16.400 | So we think, well, I'm afraid that they won't do well
00:16:21.520 | with having their own schedule and keeping to it.
00:16:25.360 | But that might not be the student's worry at all.
00:16:30.320 | Our children, the child might think,
00:16:32.120 | "Oh, no, this is great, I've got no trouble with that."
00:16:34.720 | - Right, right.
00:16:35.720 | Whether or not that's true, that might not be their worry.
00:16:38.720 | Yeah. - Yeah.
00:16:39.720 | Or it might be that actually what we're doing
00:16:41.880 | is we're worried that we're the ones
00:16:46.360 | that are gonna have a hard time keeping up
00:16:48.120 | with that challenge A student.
00:16:50.280 | And so we sort of secondhand worry on their behalf
00:16:54.040 | when really it's our worry, it's our fear.
00:16:57.520 | So I think we're talking about that challenge preparation.
00:17:02.520 | I think being prepared for yourself as a parent
00:17:08.160 | to allow the transition to take time
00:17:14.320 | and some unusual dimensions and turns and directions
00:17:19.360 | that you're not expecting is also very important.
00:17:24.200 | That we don't think that we,
00:17:26.280 | because we're the parent or the teacher
00:17:28.400 | or older and wiser have all the answers
00:17:32.120 | that we can make it perfect for our child because we can't.
00:17:36.880 | But what we can do is walk along with them through it
00:17:40.600 | and help them see where they can do better
00:17:43.320 | and where we can do better with them.
00:17:45.960 | - I like that, I like that.
00:17:47.640 | And that requires conversation
00:17:52.280 | and a lot of, and sometimes quietness
00:17:57.880 | where we just have to sit with the student
00:18:00.320 | and talk about what are you looking forward to
00:18:03.960 | in this new year?
00:18:06.120 | What do you think is going to be your favorite part?
00:18:11.120 | Is there anything that you know you want help with
00:18:14.600 | at the beginning?
00:18:17.520 | What are you excited to try?
00:18:21.200 | Those kinds of questions open up really great conversations.
00:18:26.200 | What are some of the challenges
00:18:28.680 | that you have seen for students?
00:18:33.120 | Either your own kids, not calling them out by name
00:18:37.040 | or students that you've tutored
00:18:38.680 | 'cause I know that you have served
00:18:40.480 | as challenge tutor before as well.
00:18:43.320 | So what are some of the biggest challenges
00:18:45.320 | that you've seen for students moving into challenge?
00:18:49.320 | - Yeah, I mean, students will,
00:18:53.600 | different students will struggle
00:18:54.800 | with different content areas
00:18:57.560 | and that's to be expected, right?
00:18:59.280 | Some will thrive in math and others will struggle
00:19:02.680 | and some will thrive in reading the literature
00:19:05.920 | and others will sort of plod their way through it
00:19:08.920 | and that's okay.
00:19:11.240 | - Yes, it is.
00:19:13.040 | - And making sure that they know that is an important step.
00:19:16.880 | But I think that the biggest challenge of challenge
00:19:21.880 | for both parent and student
00:19:25.640 | is the fact that students are really on a journey
00:19:28.960 | toward becoming mature.
00:19:32.200 | And as a parent, we have a hard time
00:19:35.040 | both letting our student become mature at times
00:19:40.920 | and also sometimes knowing how best to help them
00:19:45.760 | on that path.
00:19:46.880 | And for students, they too have a hard time
00:19:52.280 | because they think that they've arrived in some areas.
00:19:55.880 | The student who is like,
00:19:57.960 | "I don't need your help with Latin, I got it."
00:20:01.240 | And you're like, "Oh, good, that's wonderful."
00:20:04.200 | But then you go and after a week or so,
00:20:06.280 | you look at all the Latin they've done for the last week
00:20:08.760 | and you're like, "This is a bunch of nonsense
00:20:11.000 | "that you've done here."
00:20:12.760 | - Right.
00:20:13.600 | - "I don't think 'gada' means what you think it means."
00:20:16.560 | So, and then you end up with usually some soul-searching
00:20:21.560 | and a little bit of attitude wrangling on both sides
00:20:28.680 | that you have to work out where did the problem come
00:20:34.000 | and when should it have been addressed
00:20:35.760 | and should they have come to you?
00:20:40.000 | Should you have gone to them?
00:20:41.880 | Do you need to check their work every day
00:20:44.760 | or can once a week be an okay check-in?
00:20:47.560 | Those negotiations are super uncomfortable
00:20:51.880 | for parent and student.
00:20:54.080 | But that's what growing toward maturity really looks like.
00:21:00.320 | It's not just some system.
00:21:03.280 | There's not a method that says if you,
00:21:06.200 | in challenge A, you check in daily
00:21:08.320 | and then in challenge B, you check every other day.
00:21:10.440 | And then it doesn't work that way.
00:21:13.840 | Sometimes you have to check once a week for this semester
00:21:18.040 | and next semester you find out you gotta check every day.
00:21:20.800 | - Or for this subject strand or for this assignment, yes.
00:21:25.800 | - So to me, the big struggle is it's managing
00:21:31.960 | helping students to learn to manage themself,
00:21:36.560 | to be self-controlled, to be self-aware.
00:21:40.760 | And frankly, as adults,
00:21:44.640 | we're often not too great at that either.
00:21:46.800 | - Yeah, I was gonna say, man, that's a continuing struggle
00:21:49.720 | when it's the blind leading the blind some days.
00:21:52.280 | - It is, but we need to walk it along with them
00:21:55.560 | and be humble as we admit that these are things
00:22:00.760 | that we still work on too.
00:22:02.240 | - And you know, that actually teaches a better lesson
00:22:07.760 | than any they'll ever get from a book
00:22:10.240 | because this is a living, breathing human person
00:22:13.880 | that they're living with and watching.
00:22:16.280 | And when they see us extend grace to ourselves
00:22:21.280 | and to others within the family,
00:22:24.040 | they learn what it's like to receive and extend grace
00:22:29.800 | and to be merciful and to be patient with yourself
00:22:33.880 | and to see maturity as a journey, not as,
00:22:38.880 | you know, it's not like "I Dream of Jeannie"
00:22:43.400 | where you could just immediately blink your eyes
00:22:45.800 | and pop to a whole new place.
00:22:47.960 | I'm going to go from immature to perfectly mature
00:22:51.800 | in one blink of the eye or one shake of the head.
00:22:55.320 | No, it is a journey and you get better and then you regress
00:22:59.720 | and then you go a little farther and then you regress.
00:23:02.640 | And it's a growth, it's growth.
00:23:05.000 | I think that's the challenge of challenge
00:23:07.960 | is that our students are entering a new period of growth
00:23:12.640 | but it doesn't signify arrival, hardly at any point.
00:23:18.600 | - Yeah, it's constant, right?
00:23:19.880 | It's constant growth at different rates,
00:23:22.760 | but constant growth.
00:23:24.680 | - Yes, yes, yes.
00:23:27.160 | So give some, I want you to think of your own experience
00:23:31.120 | both as a parent and as a tutor.
00:23:35.560 | What are some ways that we as parents
00:23:39.760 | can help our students adjust
00:23:43.240 | sometimes to the more mundane changes
00:23:47.040 | like that there are external due dates
00:23:51.280 | that mom doesn't necessarily set all of them
00:23:54.960 | because you do need to finish reading this book
00:23:57.920 | before community day
00:24:00.000 | in order to participate in the conversation.
00:24:02.800 | So what are some ways that we as parents
00:24:06.400 | can help our students adjust maybe to the workload,
00:24:09.880 | maybe to different kinds of responsibilities, whatever?
00:24:14.000 | - Yeah, that's a topic we could talk about for a long time.
00:24:19.640 | - For a long time, I was going to say this will not,
00:24:22.560 | I was going to give the disclaimer of
00:24:24.560 | this will not be an exhaustive list.
00:24:26.800 | - Yeah, no, one of the things that first comes to my mind
00:24:32.640 | is St. Augustine talked about the Christian life
00:24:37.880 | has a constant pursuit of ordering our loves
00:24:44.680 | to make sure that first things are first.
00:24:47.880 | And as adults, we should have a better perspective on life
00:24:52.880 | than our students.
00:24:55.520 | They're young, they haven't lived enough yet.
00:24:57.400 | They haven't had enough experiences or heard enough
00:24:59.800 | or been through the hard times
00:25:03.480 | to come through the other side the way that we have.
00:25:06.080 | And so we should be constantly helping them to assess
00:25:12.120 | what is of first importance
00:25:16.200 | so that those things can be done,
00:25:18.080 | so those things can be tackled first and done best.
00:25:22.560 | And then the things that fall farther and farther down
00:25:25.760 | that list of less important,
00:25:28.920 | those are the things that you learn to say,
00:25:30.560 | I can't get to that, or I'll do enough of that,
00:25:34.960 | but I need to give my energy somewhere else.
00:25:38.560 | As Christian homeschooling parents,
00:25:46.120 | our church and our Christian faith and our walk
00:25:51.120 | has to be the top of that pile.
00:25:55.320 | And so if we don't help our students to see
00:26:00.320 | that church attendance and loving your neighbor
00:26:08.120 | and spending time in the word of God and prayer,
00:26:14.240 | if we don't show them that those things are important,
00:26:16.640 | but instead demand of them academic work all the time,
00:26:21.120 | we're training them toward a life
00:26:26.720 | that's disordered in its loves.
00:26:29.160 | If you mentioned reading the book
00:26:32.160 | in time to have the community conversation,
00:26:34.520 | that may not be where the student wants to spend their time.
00:26:37.800 | They may really love their math studies
00:26:40.120 | and really wanna do all the math problems
00:26:42.120 | because it brings them joy
00:26:43.480 | and they feel like they're good at it.
00:26:45.840 | And they don't wanna read the book
00:26:47.280 | and they'll use the math as an excuse
00:26:50.360 | to not get the book read.
00:26:51.880 | And there's nothing wrong with doing the math,
00:26:54.920 | it's a good thing.
00:26:56.240 | But if they're giving all their energy there
00:27:00.280 | and none of it is the thing that's gonna love their neighbor
00:27:02.360 | by being prepared for the conversation community,
00:27:05.720 | we've let them err, we've let them be foolish in that.
00:27:10.960 | So again, it's a question of wisdom,
00:27:13.280 | which is always a really hard thing.
00:27:15.440 | That's hard for us as parents.
00:27:17.640 | It's hard for them,
00:27:18.680 | but to walk through this process with them in it
00:27:23.360 | is the training ground for them to grow in that wisdom
00:27:27.080 | by seeing how we approach those choices,
00:27:30.040 | how we help them approach those choices.
00:27:31.920 | And then ultimately,
00:27:33.240 | when they start making more of the choices on their own,
00:27:36.400 | how we help them to assess the choices
00:27:38.280 | that they've already made
00:27:39.880 | and to learn from where they erred.
00:27:42.240 | - That's really good.
00:27:47.040 | What I'm sensing from you
00:27:49.960 | is that one of your best tips for parents
00:27:54.960 | would be a constant conversation with your student
00:27:59.240 | about family, well, about sharing family expectations.
00:28:04.240 | What's important to our family?
00:28:08.440 | What do I, as your parent,
00:28:11.120 | think is the most important thing for our family to do?
00:28:15.360 | Maybe it's not do 40 pages of Latin translation.
00:28:20.360 | Maybe it is, like you said,
00:28:23.880 | spending time with the Lord,
00:28:28.680 | supporting our family mission,
00:28:32.160 | loving our church and community,
00:28:34.200 | and loving our neighbor while we do the assignments
00:28:38.520 | that are set out for us for the week.
00:28:42.480 | I love the whole idea of, as parents,
00:28:47.960 | we are mentoring and growing these children
00:28:51.240 | to be better humans, virtuous humans who love God.
00:28:56.240 | We're not raising students, right?
00:29:01.400 | We're not raising students.
00:29:03.000 | We don't want our children to grow up necessarily
00:29:06.360 | to be lifelong students,
00:29:08.440 | but we do want our children to grow up
00:29:10.600 | to be lovers of God and lovers of the church
00:29:15.160 | and lovers of their family and their community.
00:29:18.120 | - Yeah, and those are really the lifelong skills, right?
00:29:23.160 | - Yes.
00:29:24.000 | - The challenge years are,
00:29:27.960 | they're the practice gym, right?
00:29:31.640 | The training gym for life,
00:29:33.640 | and there's a lot in them, like the challenge years
00:29:37.920 | have a lot of different things,
00:29:40.760 | but all of them are like different equipment for training.
00:29:44.240 | No one of those strands is the most important strand.
00:29:50.880 | No one of those strands can teach you
00:29:52.440 | everything you need to know.
00:29:54.600 | They all work together in different ways
00:29:56.680 | to help you to learn and grow.
00:30:01.200 | - But no one of them is all of it.
00:30:03.600 | - Right, so I'm picking up on what you just said.
00:30:08.600 | So none of the strands is the most important strand.
00:30:14.120 | And what I feel like you're saying
00:30:16.120 | is that the academic stuff,
00:30:19.840 | just knowing how to graph a line
00:30:24.360 | or balance a chemical equation
00:30:27.720 | or write a refutation in a paper,
00:30:31.160 | those things are not the most important.
00:30:33.600 | So what are the important life skills
00:30:38.120 | that we hope our students are learning
00:30:42.160 | as they practice on this great content?
00:30:46.160 | - So,
00:30:47.000 | I was, we're in the middle of the Olympics right now, right?
00:30:51.720 | - Yes, and I am loving it, yes.
00:30:54.680 | - Yeah, and I, you know, I would love in some sense
00:30:59.680 | to have the time to watch all of the--
00:31:02.120 | - I know.
00:31:02.960 | - All the events and of course you can't,
00:31:06.280 | though these days they make it amazingly available.
00:31:09.560 | But I heard a comment
00:31:14.480 | during one of the track and field events just this week
00:31:18.200 | where the commentator is pointing out
00:31:21.160 | that it wasn't too long ago
00:31:23.640 | that the best sprinters
00:31:27.360 | would also have been the athletes
00:31:29.960 | that would have dominated events like the hurdles
00:31:32.640 | and the long jump.
00:31:34.240 | And he was saying these days you rarely see
00:31:40.600 | these sort of multi-discipline athletes at the Olympics.
00:31:45.920 | And he said part of that is the fact
00:31:48.320 | that the level of competition
00:31:50.360 | has just ratcheted up to be so high
00:31:53.040 | that you have to sort of be a specialist
00:31:55.280 | at whatever it is that you do.
00:31:57.240 | But there was something in what he said
00:31:59.760 | that really resonated with me
00:32:01.320 | that the core sort of competencies,
00:32:06.320 | the most important things about being a sprinter
00:32:10.760 | or a high jumper or a long jumper or a hurdle runner
00:32:14.320 | are all really the same things.
00:32:18.480 | That there's strength and endurance
00:32:22.440 | and agility and quickness
00:32:26.280 | and flexibility.
00:32:29.480 | And that ultimately the little differences between them
00:32:34.600 | that are timing your paces to get over the hurdle
00:32:39.440 | or lifting your body high up off the ground
00:32:43.760 | and twisting to get over the bar,
00:32:46.440 | those are sort of micro skills
00:32:49.560 | compared to the macro skills
00:32:52.840 | that are being in control of your body
00:32:56.640 | and being strong the way
00:32:58.960 | that the track and field athlete has to be.
00:33:01.800 | And so as I was thinking about that
00:33:04.600 | and this discussion that we're gonna have today,
00:33:08.240 | I think that the strands for challenge
00:33:15.680 | they're like that allegory I was just sharing,
00:33:19.440 | like the gym,
00:33:21.080 | that you go and you work out
00:33:23.560 | and you work out different parts of your body
00:33:27.280 | at different exercise stations.
00:33:31.280 | But ultimately the goal is not that you have strong biceps
00:33:35.840 | or that you have strong quadriceps,
00:33:38.440 | but it's that your body is fit,
00:33:42.040 | that you're an all around strong,
00:33:46.080 | flexible, fast athlete
00:33:48.760 | if you're that kind of an Olympic athlete.
00:33:51.320 | For us, looking at challenge,
00:33:54.640 | we're looking at it saying,
00:33:56.080 | well, we don't practice math
00:33:59.440 | just so we can be good mathematicians.
00:34:03.320 | We practice math because it helps us think
00:34:06.600 | about the world around us in some particular ways.
00:34:10.080 | It helps us to hone some certain kinds of thinking
00:34:14.040 | that make us better thinkers about all kinds of things
00:34:16.960 | and not just numbers.
00:34:18.600 | We read good books,
00:34:21.400 | not just because we need to be good readers,
00:34:23.360 | though that's a good thing on its own.
00:34:25.920 | We read those good books
00:34:27.120 | because they give us a broad perspective
00:34:29.600 | and access to knowledge from past generations
00:34:32.920 | and places that we've never been and may never go
00:34:36.160 | from the inside of people's heads
00:34:38.040 | that we can't otherwise get to.
00:34:40.560 | And as we think about that,
00:34:43.080 | we learn empathy and moral imagination.
00:34:48.080 | And there's things in there
00:34:49.200 | that we can't learn from mathematics.
00:34:52.000 | And so all of them together work to strengthen us,
00:34:57.000 | to not make us just a good sprinter or a good high jumper
00:35:04.480 | or a good mathematician or a good essay writer,
00:35:08.920 | but they make us a whole person, a whole thinker,
00:35:13.920 | a whole experiencer of life
00:35:17.880 | who can make connections quickly
00:35:20.680 | between all the things that they're experiencing
00:35:22.400 | 'cause we live in a whole, we live in a cosmos
00:35:24.600 | that that's one reality that we're encountering
00:35:27.600 | in various and different ways.
00:35:31.080 | - Wow, I love this so very much.
00:35:34.720 | And parents, if you came thinking
00:35:37.760 | that this was gonna be how to set your student's schedule
00:35:42.640 | or what books to buy for the different challenge level,
00:35:47.440 | I want you to know there are places to find that.
00:35:50.880 | You can look in the bookstore,
00:35:52.560 | you can talk to your product sales specialist
00:35:55.560 | or to your challenge director,
00:35:58.160 | and they will make sure that you know all of the resources.
00:36:01.360 | And guess what?
00:36:02.560 | You have got experienced parents in your community
00:36:05.800 | that will love to talk to you about 30 different ways
00:36:09.000 | to make a challenge student's schedule work for your family.
00:36:14.000 | But what Tim has offered us today is a real perspective
00:36:18.600 | on the challenge of the challenge program.
00:36:22.600 | The fact that the real big challenge
00:36:26.760 | is that we are leading these young people
00:36:31.720 | to become mature humans who can manage themselves,
00:36:36.720 | who are self-aware and who are developing self-control,
00:36:42.800 | who are learning to be empathetic
00:36:48.240 | and to recognize and exercise their moral imagination,
00:36:54.280 | to hone the skills of precision
00:36:57.480 | and recognition of big ideas and connector of big ideas.
00:37:02.480 | And that's the real challenge of challenge,
00:37:07.800 | to realize that it's a journey of discovery
00:37:13.720 | and maturing that we are taking with our students.
00:37:17.720 | I just really appreciate your thoughts, Tim.
00:37:21.880 | - That's a really important one is the community piece.
00:37:26.520 | We've spent a lot of time talking about the academics of it
00:37:29.120 | and parent and student,
00:37:31.080 | but navigating life in community,
00:37:35.640 | that takes a degree of maturity far beyond
00:37:41.040 | just managing the academics.
00:37:43.760 | Any of us who have been in churches where there was trouble
00:37:49.560 | or been at the family dinner table around Thanksgiving time,
00:37:54.560 | we know that there are fraught relationships
00:37:59.600 | and there are right ways and wrong ways to deal with people
00:38:02.600 | and our children need our help
00:38:06.760 | in learning to navigate conflict.
00:38:10.000 | And when that girl is mean or that boy is rough
00:38:16.760 | or that kid comes in unprepared and he's on my debate team
00:38:21.760 | or that one always likes to show off and talk all the time
00:38:26.240 | and won't shut up, what do I do?
00:38:27.840 | That piece of community can be the most frustrating part
00:38:36.760 | and maybe leads more people to throw their hands up
00:38:40.520 | about loving their neighbor than anything else.
00:38:45.240 | But how we walk with our children
00:38:48.400 | through dealing with difficult social relationships,
00:38:53.400 | social settings, I mean, you look at the world around us
00:38:58.000 | today and we desperately need that as a society,
00:39:01.760 | people who can bear with other people
00:39:04.680 | who they have disagreements with
00:39:06.480 | or find even someone that you don't wanna be with,
00:39:13.280 | but you need to like a neighbor, right?
00:39:18.280 | But to help our students grow through those means,
00:39:23.440 | bearing with those struggles in community
00:39:28.160 | and not just giving up on it the first time
00:39:30.200 | that things get hard any more than we give up
00:39:33.160 | on challenge A because Latin seems insurmountable this year
00:39:38.160 | or on challenge B because mock trial or whatever,
00:39:42.920 | those struggles are, don't give up,
00:39:46.280 | the lesson that we teach them when we give up on things
00:39:50.320 | is maybe a more powerful and worse lesson
00:39:55.320 | than when we let them fail at some academics
00:40:02.760 | from time to time.
00:40:04.120 | - Very wise, I appreciate those words.
00:40:09.480 | I really do, I think this is great.
00:40:11.280 | Thank you for sharing with us today.
00:40:13.720 | Parents, I hope that this is helping you wrap your mind
00:40:17.680 | around preparing for the challenge years
00:40:20.200 | and for the community year that's now at hand.
00:40:24.320 | I know you probably are looking for things like notebooks
00:40:28.240 | and backpacks and books, and those are good things too.
00:40:32.720 | And Tim, you can actually speak to this.
00:40:34.600 | One thing that I wanted to mention to our families
00:40:37.840 | as they look for the resources, the books
00:40:41.360 | that they're gonna need
00:40:42.400 | for their different challenge classes this year,
00:40:45.920 | we have the Copper Lodge Library,
00:40:48.040 | which is Classical Conversations multimedia imprint.
00:40:53.040 | It's a book series that preserves and presents
00:40:58.060 | all these timeless stories from the past.
00:41:01.400 | And a lot of these are books that are used
00:41:05.800 | in your students' challenge exposition strand.
00:41:10.320 | We've got new to the Copper Lodge Library this year,
00:41:14.200 | Pride and Prejudice, The Secret Garden,
00:41:17.320 | and English Epic Poetry.
00:41:19.640 | Tim, you work with the content developers
00:41:23.080 | who put some of these Copper Lodge Library titles together.
00:41:26.520 | What's so great about them?
00:41:27.840 | Why should families look at Copper Lodge Library
00:41:30.840 | instead of some used bookstore to find some of these books?
00:41:34.560 | - So as classical Christian educators,
00:41:37.360 | we believe in the true, the good, and the beautiful,
00:41:40.560 | and these books are really all three things.
00:41:43.840 | They point us with introductions and forwards
00:41:48.840 | and footnotes toward true ways to understand the text
00:41:52.780 | when we need some help.
00:41:54.480 | They're beautiful additions.
00:41:56.000 | Our designers have done a wonderful job
00:41:58.360 | putting them together and putting clothes on the words
00:42:01.920 | that make them so attractive to us.
00:42:04.840 | And they're just good.
00:42:05.720 | They're good for, they're useful to us.
00:42:08.440 | It's great when our students have all the same versions
00:42:11.400 | and community so that they can literally
00:42:13.160 | be on the same page together
00:42:15.000 | instead of scrambling, looking for,
00:42:17.240 | wait, what page is that in your version?
00:42:19.120 | Where's that in mine?
00:42:20.040 | I can't find where we are.
00:42:21.320 | - Yeah.
00:42:22.160 | That's really good.
00:42:26.880 | That's really good.
00:42:27.720 | So you guys go and look for these
00:42:30.060 | if you are interested in just finding out
00:42:33.040 | more about Copper Lodge Library
00:42:36.360 | and what other titles are available,
00:42:38.560 | you can go
00:42:39.960 | to
00:42:42.160 | copperlodgelibrary.com
00:42:46.000 | and find more about this.
00:42:49.120 | Also, you can find out about Copper Lodge Library selections
00:42:53.240 | on our bookstore site.
00:42:54.800 | So you guys go, prepare,
00:42:58.060 | and we will pray that the Lord brings you the best year ever
00:43:02.380 | as you and your students meet the challenge of challenge.
00:43:07.380 | Thanks, Tim.
00:43:08.420 | I appreciate you being here.
00:43:10.100 | Listeners, I'll see you next time.
00:43:12.380 | All right?
00:43:13.660 | Bye-bye.
00:43:14.500 | (gentle music)
00:43:18.840 | you
00:43:20.900 | you