Everyday Educator - Education as a Treasure Hunt
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:06.460 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:09.140 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.940 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.100 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:17.540 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:20.380 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.820 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.980 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:28.020 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:32.180 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:35.540 | But don't forget,
00:00:37.340 | although this online community is awesome,
00:00:40.780 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:45.740 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:49.580 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:53.620 | Well, listeners, I'm super glad to have you today.
00:00:57.900 | I have, as I have looked outside at this gorgeous fall day,
00:01:02.060 | I've thought how much fun it would be
00:01:03.620 | to be outside and explore a little nature,
00:01:06.820 | take a walk, play in the yard.
00:01:08.840 | And it made me remember
00:01:11.700 | one of my daughter's favorite birthday parties, okay?
00:01:16.060 | My older daughter never had a quote-unquote
00:01:19.660 | normal birthday party that you could go to the store
00:01:22.300 | and buy the plates and cups and party hats
00:01:25.140 | all in the matching theme.
00:01:26.220 | She never picked a normal theme.
00:01:29.300 | And so for her 12th birthday,
00:01:33.220 | she said that she wanted to have a treasure hunt party.
00:01:37.700 | Yep, a treasure hunt party.
00:01:39.980 | And she's quite a bit older
00:01:42.100 | than some of your kids probably are,
00:01:43.620 | so that was a long time ago.
00:01:44.940 | And there weren't as many factory-made things back then,
00:01:49.580 | but my husband and I had a great delight
00:01:51.460 | in creating all this stuff.
00:01:52.860 | And we made poems,
00:01:56.820 | we made couplet clues for all of the places,
00:02:00.740 | and we burned the edges
00:02:02.540 | so they looked like ancient treasure maps.
00:02:04.660 | And we had a gaggle of 12-year-old girls
00:02:07.700 | running all over our property,
00:02:10.060 | looking under logs and behind bushes
00:02:14.100 | and underneath old pieces of timber
00:02:18.380 | and in hollow knots in the trees for all of these clues.
00:02:22.700 | And I think, as I look back,
00:02:25.060 | it was one of the birthday parties
00:02:26.620 | that they seemed to enjoy the most.
00:02:30.300 | And today, we are gonna talk about treasure,
00:02:33.420 | although not a birthday treasure hunt.
00:02:36.220 | We're gonna talk about the treasure
00:02:38.500 | that a classical education can be.
00:02:43.260 | Yep, the treasure of a classical education.
00:02:47.500 | And I've got one of my favorite podcast people,
00:02:50.340 | one of my best friends, through the years,
00:02:53.740 | as we have pursued classical education
00:02:55.980 | with our families together.
00:02:57.140 | I have with me today, Jennifer Courtney.
00:02:59.060 | Jennifer, thank you so much for being with us.
00:03:01.780 | - Oh, thanks for having me, Lisa.
00:03:03.060 | I always love being here with you.
00:03:04.940 | - I love it when we get to share about our families
00:03:07.820 | and we get to share about classical education.
00:03:12.820 | Let me ask you this.
00:03:14.140 | What, to you, is the best part of a treasure hunt?
00:03:21.260 | - Well, as always, I love your stories
00:03:23.940 | and I love your birthday party story.
00:03:25.620 | And I was asking, what a perfect fit for these ideas
00:03:29.940 | that we've been talking about
00:03:31.340 | with classical Christian education.
00:03:33.460 | And it's really fun to think about God Himself
00:03:37.980 | hiding these treasures for us to find
00:03:42.980 | as we study both His Word and His world together.
00:03:47.180 | And I think that He probably delights in doing that
00:03:49.940 | as much as you and David delight in hiding things.
00:03:52.860 | - I bet so.
00:03:53.700 | Yeah, yeah, I loved it.
00:03:56.980 | And, you know, we got a charge
00:03:59.260 | out of looking through the sliding glass door,
00:04:02.020 | watching these girls.
00:04:03.540 | I mean, they're 12 years old.
00:04:05.020 | These are almost teenagers running around the yard
00:04:08.300 | and finding a clue and unearthing it from the coffee can
00:04:13.300 | and pulling it out and reading it
00:04:15.260 | and arguing about what does it mean
00:04:16.900 | and where is it leading and watching them run around.
00:04:19.700 | They had the best time deciphering the clues
00:04:22.780 | and wrestling out what,
00:04:24.980 | well, your parents wouldn't do that.
00:04:26.180 | Oh, yes, they would.
00:04:27.140 | Where do you think it could be?
00:04:28.380 | We're not gonna climb that tree, are we?
00:04:30.220 | Yes, we are.
00:04:31.260 | Going through all of that.
00:04:32.580 | So to us, watching the journey was a lot of fun.
00:04:37.580 | But you know what I discovered at the end
00:04:40.820 | and afterwards when we asked them
00:04:43.300 | if they had had a good time,
00:04:45.620 | what they enjoyed the most was the finding of the treasure.
00:04:50.620 | 'Cause honestly, y'all, I had made a treasure box.
00:04:55.060 | So there was a wooden treasure box that was buried.
00:04:57.900 | Yep, buried in the yard.
00:04:59.580 | But when they opened it up,
00:05:01.860 | I mean, it was tacky Mardi Gras necklaces
00:05:05.220 | and fake plastic rock rings
00:05:08.260 | and Hershey bar gold nuggets.
00:05:11.780 | And so it was not a big treasure.
00:05:14.820 | And they enjoyed the chocolate
00:05:16.260 | and they wore all the necklaces.
00:05:17.540 | But what they really loved the most was the journey,
00:05:21.660 | was the finding of the treasure
00:05:24.220 | and the wrestling through the clues together.
00:05:27.300 | And so we're gonna come back to that.
00:05:31.900 | I want, you guys, I want,
00:05:33.340 | Jennifer has written an amazing article
00:05:36.420 | that is gonna be linked in the show notes of this episode
00:05:41.180 | about something that sounds complicated,
00:05:45.100 | but is actually very simply beautiful.
00:05:48.940 | It's about the catechesis wheel.
00:05:51.460 | And this is the first,
00:05:52.820 | this is the beginning.
00:05:53.660 | I wanna read it 'cause I loved this quote, Jennifer.
00:05:55.420 | You did such a great job of wetting our interest.
00:05:58.500 | What if we viewed education
00:06:01.860 | as a giant treasure hunt through God's universe?
00:06:06.380 | What if we looked for all the ways
00:06:09.500 | that our academic subjects add
00:06:11.700 | to our knowledge of God's attributes?
00:06:15.100 | What if we viewed the twin goals of education
00:06:19.660 | as falling down in worship and rising up in service?
00:06:24.660 | I love that.
00:06:26.940 | That's very eloquent, my friend, very eloquent.
00:06:31.460 | How is education at its best
00:06:39.980 | supposed to be a treasure hunt?
00:06:42.740 | - Yeah, well, I think that we have this lifetime
00:06:46.460 | that God has given us to learn about who He is.
00:06:50.060 | And I always like to think about the three short years
00:06:53.700 | that the disciples had with Him
00:06:55.540 | and how He was constantly trying to teach them who He was.
00:06:59.100 | And He used the people around Him
00:07:01.980 | and the object lessons
00:07:03.820 | that they would recognize from everyday life.
00:07:06.940 | And we have a little bit longer than three years, thankfully.
00:07:11.940 | And we also have the opportunity to look for Him
00:07:15.780 | in chemistry, in geometry, in Latin,
00:07:20.380 | in biology, in history, in literature.
00:07:24.940 | And so that to me is what turned my life,
00:07:28.260 | I think, upside down.
00:07:29.300 | And you and I, years and years ago,
00:07:30.780 | used to talk about this idea at practicum.
00:07:32.660 | But the first thing,
00:07:35.340 | the first idea that's important in this treasure hunt
00:07:37.420 | is that God is at the center of education
00:07:40.020 | and not us as the students
00:07:42.580 | that we're focused in on Him
00:07:45.060 | and learning more about who He is.
00:07:47.380 | - Yes, yes, that is great.
00:07:49.980 | Okay, y'all, we see the catechesis wheel at practicum
00:07:54.980 | and we see the catechesis wheel in the catalog.
00:07:59.780 | If you don't know what I'm talking about,
00:08:03.300 | you will see a picture of it
00:08:04.740 | when you click on the link to Jennifer's blog.
00:08:07.860 | But if you have access to a catalog, it's on page eight.
00:08:12.860 | So if you go to the catalog,
00:08:16.420 | you will find the picture of the catechesis wheel
00:08:21.300 | on page eight.
00:08:22.660 | So Jennifer, you told us already
00:08:25.180 | what you think the key component is,
00:08:28.780 | what is worth noticing first.
00:08:31.780 | Reiterate that for us.
00:08:33.500 | When we look at that catechesis wheel,
00:08:35.660 | what do you want people to see first?
00:08:38.140 | - Well, I think our eyes are naturally always drawn
00:08:40.900 | to the center of an image.
00:08:42.100 | And that's good because here at the center,
00:08:44.500 | not just of our catechesis wheel,
00:08:46.900 | but of the universe itself is God.
00:08:49.860 | And it's our job for all of our studies
00:08:54.020 | to be looking for Him
00:08:55.740 | and how He is the author
00:08:58.340 | of all the things that we're learning.
00:09:01.380 | I love that, that God is the author.
00:09:04.140 | So it's not the textbook writer,
00:09:06.500 | it's not the scope and sequence creator.
00:09:10.180 | God is the author of all of that.
00:09:13.540 | And I love it that the catechesis wheel diagram
00:09:18.420 | makes that really easy for us.
00:09:20.060 | It's like the bullseye.
00:09:21.060 | God is the bullseye.
00:09:23.060 | That's what we are aiming for
00:09:25.460 | when we focus our energy on this.
00:09:31.580 | - So talk to us a little bit about,
00:09:35.980 | I mean, 'cause this is very different.
00:09:39.140 | The education that most of us still received,
00:09:44.140 | we're changing that, okay?
00:09:47.300 | And when I started,
00:09:48.900 | when you started with Classical Conversations 20 years ago,
00:09:53.900 | there were way fewer classically educated
00:09:58.980 | Christian homeschoolers.
00:10:00.980 | But now we've got kids
00:10:04.100 | who are tutoring their own kids in foundations,
00:10:08.500 | and it's beautiful.
00:10:09.660 | But still, for most of us,
00:10:13.100 | this diagram represents an education
00:10:16.660 | that's very different from what we had.
00:10:19.340 | So can you compare modern education
00:10:26.340 | to this catechesis view of education?
00:10:30.540 | - Yeah, absolutely.
00:10:31.460 | So the first thing would be that center again, right?
00:10:34.340 | So God is not at the center of a modern education.
00:10:38.020 | The student is.
00:10:39.540 | And around the student are an array of subjects
00:10:44.540 | that they get to choose from.
00:10:47.260 | But the whole focus usually is preparing the student
00:10:50.660 | to get into a good college so that they can get a good job.
00:10:54.180 | And so everything is focused on the student and not on God.
00:10:58.580 | And then on top of that,
00:10:59.820 | if you are looking at the diagram of the catechesis wheel,
00:11:03.140 | not only is God in the center and the subjects are around,
00:11:06.460 | but those subjects are connected to one another.
00:11:09.940 | And in a modern education,
00:11:12.180 | most of us went to a school
00:11:14.580 | where for 55 minutes, we studied math.
00:11:17.020 | And then we went to a different teacher,
00:11:18.700 | and for 55 minutes, we studied English literature.
00:11:21.220 | And then we went to another teacher,
00:11:22.860 | and for 55 minutes, we studied some branch of science.
00:11:26.380 | And that process itself made it very hard for us to connect
00:11:30.820 | those fields of knowledge to one another.
00:11:33.380 | - Yeah, it was not natural.
00:11:36.060 | I had very few history professors that talked about science
00:11:41.060 | and very few literature professors
00:11:46.100 | or teachers in high school who talked about
00:11:49.380 | what was going on in the world
00:11:51.540 | while this author was penning this novel.
00:11:56.540 | Or even if a novel was about a time period,
00:12:01.540 | we never really delved into
00:12:05.860 | what was that period of in history like
00:12:08.460 | and how does this novel give us an accurate
00:12:12.260 | or an inaccurate picture of it.
00:12:14.460 | There was really not a lot of connections made.
00:12:17.860 | - Yeah, and I remember when I first heard about this thought
00:12:21.700 | of all of knowledge being integrated,
00:12:25.020 | I felt this weight of pressure.
00:12:27.740 | Oh gosh, I have to integrate all of this
00:12:31.940 | for my children at home and for my students and community.
00:12:35.500 | I'm a little bit slow apparently.
00:12:38.020 | It took me a while to realize
00:12:39.540 | God had already connected all the things
00:12:42.140 | and that we were in a process
00:12:43.780 | of uncovering those connections, not creating them.
00:12:46.140 | And in fact, I think I was telling you the other day,
00:12:48.700 | last year I had a student who was kind of excited
00:12:51.940 | that he knew I worked on the CC curriculum.
00:12:53.940 | And so he was always excited about being in community
00:12:58.460 | where we were putting into practice the things
00:13:00.380 | that my team had worked on.
00:13:01.500 | And he said, "We had a great day of integration one day."
00:13:04.620 | And he goes, "Wow, it's almost like
00:13:06.780 | you planned for this to happen."
00:13:09.180 | And I said, "Oh, you don't need to give me
00:13:11.140 | that kind of credit."
00:13:12.260 | It's almost like this happened
00:13:14.060 | because God has placed us in a universe
00:13:18.020 | where things are connected.
00:13:19.500 | And we have gotten the delight of discovering that today.
00:13:22.820 | - That is the coolest.
00:13:24.700 | That is really cool.
00:13:25.860 | So I know that years ago and still at practicums,
00:13:30.860 | we practiced talking about some of the connections.
00:13:36.540 | Like how, like if you are looking at the catechesis wheel,
00:13:41.100 | as you said, all of the subjects are connected
00:13:44.980 | to God in the center as He's the author
00:13:48.260 | of all of the curriculum, which is the world.
00:13:53.020 | And all of those subjects point back to Him
00:13:56.660 | and will tell us something about who God is
00:13:59.660 | and what He has been up to through all history.
00:14:04.340 | But there are also, like you said,
00:14:06.300 | arrows that connect each subject.
00:14:09.500 | So I'm gonna put you on the spot
00:14:11.780 | because I know that's really hard to do.
00:14:14.020 | And because you're really, really practiced at this,
00:14:18.740 | make a connection for us between one of those
00:14:23.740 | in modern education, cloistered subjects and another one.
00:14:28.740 | - Okay.
00:14:30.380 | Yeah, I'll give an example of my...
00:14:32.820 | And this example is very near and dear to my heart
00:14:35.940 | because it came from my own quietest child at home.
00:14:40.700 | And so I tried to pay attention,
00:14:43.540 | especially those last few years at home,
00:14:45.260 | I tried to pay attention to the things that she said
00:14:47.940 | and offered up because they were fewer
00:14:51.100 | and farther between than some of her siblings.
00:14:53.100 | And so I had her in my challenge three community
00:14:57.260 | and I had asked them to bring a word
00:15:01.340 | from the gospel of John in Latin that caught their attention
00:15:05.100 | or caused them to see a scripture in a different way.
00:15:08.300 | And she was the first one to respond that day,
00:15:10.900 | which was extremely unusual.
00:15:12.700 | And she said, "Well, I was surprised
00:15:14.660 | "to find the word ratio in scripture."
00:15:17.980 | And so we talked about how it probably was pronounced
00:15:20.380 | ratio in Latin.
00:15:23.260 | And so we looked it up in our dictionaries
00:15:25.980 | and discovered that it's a third declension noun,
00:15:28.220 | meaning reason.
00:15:30.380 | And the Holy Spirit descended on our class that day.
00:15:34.540 | And we looked at ratios in math.
00:15:39.020 | And then of course we looked at ratios in chemistry.
00:15:44.580 | - Yes, yes.
00:15:45.980 | - Hard not to do that.
00:15:47.420 | And then we looked at the relationships
00:15:49.860 | or ratios between notes in our music theory.
00:15:54.180 | And then we talked about how that word also
00:15:56.580 | is the root of reason as in man's ability to reason.
00:16:02.100 | And so lo and behold, we saw in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
00:16:06.220 | that he describes man as being noble in reason.
00:16:10.220 | - Oh, yes.
00:16:11.860 | - And then we talked about how we were comparing
00:16:15.820 | the French Revolution and the American Revolution.
00:16:18.300 | And we were talking about how during the French Revolution,
00:16:20.740 | they took down the religious statues in the cathedrals
00:16:25.300 | and they put up statues to the goddess of reason.
00:16:27.820 | And by the way, that did not go well for them
00:16:30.420 | to either to disconnect reason and faith
00:16:34.540 | or to elevate reason over faith.
00:16:37.540 | And so it just was a day when the Holy Spirit descended
00:16:41.060 | and we got to see that one idea,
00:16:43.460 | that one word that I wrote on the board
00:16:45.740 | to honor the contribution of my quiet girl.
00:16:49.180 | And then we got to see it all day long in every subject.
00:16:53.500 | - That is so cool.
00:16:54.660 | So you basically had an all day,
00:17:00.500 | conversation about this one idea.
00:17:05.500 | That is perfect because I wanted to ask you,
00:17:08.700 | what does catechesis even mean?
00:17:12.580 | We talk about that wheel.
00:17:14.220 | And you know, I remember when we first started sharing
00:17:16.580 | about this in practicum years ago,
00:17:19.460 | that was a weird word for most people.
00:17:22.620 | We didn't really know, why are we talking about this?
00:17:25.740 | And why are you putting this education stuff
00:17:28.020 | you want me to understand in words that I do not relate to?
00:17:32.380 | But something that your story just reminded me
00:17:36.580 | about the meaning of catechesis.
00:17:38.380 | So share us, what does catechesis mean?
00:17:41.900 | - So it's a Greek word
00:17:43.460 | and normally we associate it with church instruction.
00:17:48.060 | So a lot of people are familiar with catechism classes
00:17:52.220 | in different faith traditions.
00:17:54.340 | And you have a teacher who asks a question
00:17:58.100 | and the student responds with a memorized response.
00:18:00.780 | And the whole goal of that is to prepare the student
00:18:03.740 | for membership in the church.
00:18:06.140 | So they are memorizing points of doctrine
00:18:11.020 | and the instructor is making sure that they do that well.
00:18:14.740 | And a lot of times they're doing that together.
00:18:17.700 | So if you think about responsive reading in church,
00:18:20.260 | the pastor might read a line
00:18:22.980 | and then the congregation reads some lines back together.
00:18:26.260 | So I have lately been thinking of a few ways
00:18:31.260 | this applies to what we're doing in classical education.
00:18:36.020 | One that you and I talk about a lot
00:18:37.780 | is the idea of instructing through conversation.
00:18:40.780 | So, and then there's this communal aspect, right?
00:18:45.780 | 'Cause you're giving back responses
00:18:51.300 | that are universal to the community that is your church.
00:18:56.020 | And so that's true for us in classical education too.
00:18:59.100 | We're responding together in community.
00:19:02.100 | And then the goal is to worship.
00:19:05.900 | And so that is the end goal of the catechesis will as well.
00:19:10.620 | And I think that the church,
00:19:14.900 | if we talk about traditional catechesis
00:19:17.460 | as ushering people into church membership,
00:19:20.500 | this idea of catechesis in a classical Christian education
00:19:23.740 | is to usher our kids into full Christian living.
00:19:28.740 | - You know what?
00:19:29.580 | I love that.
00:19:30.420 | Usher our kids into full,
00:19:31.780 | I'm writing it down 'cause I loved it that much.
00:19:33.900 | Usher our kids into full Christian living.
00:19:37.980 | As parents, we all have different goals
00:19:42.500 | when we begin the homeschooling journey.
00:19:44.700 | And for a lot of us at the very beginning,
00:19:47.100 | it was something simple like teach my child to read
00:19:51.540 | or make sure they can add and subtract
00:19:57.420 | and make change at the store
00:20:00.900 | or know how to find places on a map.
00:20:05.900 | A lot of us began with very educational goals
00:20:11.380 | and then alongside of them were spiritual goals.
00:20:15.100 | I want to teach my children at home
00:20:19.020 | because I want to have their character formed
00:20:24.020 | in the faith tradition that our family celebrates
00:20:28.020 | and believes.
00:20:29.140 | And so for a lot of people at the beginning,
00:20:32.900 | those goals are separate.
00:20:34.700 | And as the Lord works on our hearts
00:20:36.540 | and illuminates our understanding,
00:20:39.740 | we begin to see, like you said at the beginning,
00:20:42.460 | how connected everything is.
00:20:45.060 | And we realize that the education,
00:20:48.220 | the academics that we were pursuing
00:20:51.420 | are all tied up with the author of our curriculum,
00:20:55.860 | the world, God's world.
00:20:58.780 | And the best way to achieve all of our goals
00:21:02.660 | is to unify our efforts,
00:21:04.340 | to know God by what He says in His word
00:21:08.180 | and by what He's done and is doing in His world.
00:21:11.860 | So I love that.
00:21:12.700 | You made lots of good points for catechesis.
00:21:15.100 | And I wrote them down because I want to ask you about them.
00:21:18.220 | I think that catechesis, you're right,
00:21:21.420 | this is a great way to look at the education
00:21:26.420 | that we want to give our children.
00:21:29.820 | And it highlights, this whole idea of catechesis
00:21:33.180 | highlights some of the most important things
00:21:35.860 | that we've come to believe about education.
00:21:38.380 | One, it should be conversational.
00:21:41.900 | It should be conversational, why?
00:21:44.100 | I know that you and I agree on that.
00:21:46.020 | So I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.
00:21:48.420 | Why is it important for the education
00:21:52.220 | that we pursue with our families to be conversational?
00:21:56.580 | - Well, I mean, I think that that has a lot to do
00:22:01.580 | with communal education.
00:22:05.460 | So there have been in the last few years,
00:22:08.340 | really since COVID there has been a huge proliferation
00:22:11.740 | of online education.
00:22:14.140 | But one thing we know is that we are in soul bodies,
00:22:19.140 | CS Lewis would say, and that the physical world matters.
00:22:25.060 | And so by our very nature,
00:22:28.380 | being together every week in community matters.
00:22:32.180 | Having an adult who is a tutor
00:22:35.860 | in classical conversations community,
00:22:38.140 | being physically present in the room
00:22:40.780 | for these conversations matters.
00:22:43.060 | That is how God designed us to be, right?
00:22:46.900 | He did not have the technology for this obviously,
00:22:51.300 | but Jesus was with those 12 disciples,
00:22:55.380 | day in and day out for those three years.
00:22:57.900 | And that was the teaching that really embodied
00:23:01.060 | what we learned in Deuteronomy about,
00:23:02.540 | teach them when you sit down and when you rise up
00:23:05.220 | and when you're at home and when you walk along the road
00:23:07.820 | that we have, because we are in this physical body,
00:23:11.740 | the physical things matter
00:23:12.980 | and being together in community matters.
00:23:15.140 | I was listening to Lee the other day and she said,
00:23:17.980 | everyone accepts the idea
00:23:20.940 | that the students imitate their masters.
00:23:25.500 | What happens when that master is a computer screen?
00:23:28.660 | - Oh, wow, that's really, that's deep.
00:23:31.820 | If you stop and think about it, I like that.
00:23:35.180 | I think it's really, really important
00:23:38.300 | to teach as you live.
00:23:42.180 | I mean, some of the best lessons
00:23:44.220 | that I ever passed on to my children
00:23:47.460 | were not in my lesson plan.
00:23:50.180 | They weren't in my book.
00:23:51.500 | It wasn't in the syllabus.
00:23:54.540 | It wasn't in the challenge guide.
00:23:58.100 | It wasn't in the foundation's curriculum.
00:24:01.220 | It wasn't necessarily planned.
00:24:04.260 | They were lessons that we learned together,
00:24:07.860 | a lot of times, that we discovered together
00:24:12.380 | as we were living life.
00:24:16.220 | And sometimes they were, sometimes,
00:24:20.300 | Jennifer, I can look back and think,
00:24:23.060 | yeah, some of the most important lessons
00:24:25.540 | that my children learned,
00:24:28.180 | the academic part of it
00:24:31.100 | was just kind of along for the ride.
00:24:33.980 | I mean, it was in the context.
00:24:36.900 | I keep going back to one of the lessons
00:24:39.300 | that my younger daughter learned
00:24:41.300 | through an absolutely mortifying experience for me
00:24:47.860 | as a classical educator.
00:24:49.980 | At the time, I spent a lot of my time
00:24:54.020 | talking to other people's groups.
00:24:57.300 | I mean, I talked to, I was a practicum speaker
00:25:00.060 | and I was telling parents.
00:25:02.180 | I was modeling.
00:25:03.220 | I was mentoring them on how to live out
00:25:06.380 | this classical education journey
00:25:08.300 | in a beautiful way at home.
00:25:10.020 | And one of the most mortifying experiences of my life
00:25:13.420 | was working on chemistry with my younger daughter.
00:25:17.980 | Now, I liked chemistry in high school,
00:25:19.700 | but let me share with you that the chemistry we did in CC
00:25:23.140 | with my children was way more chemistry
00:25:25.220 | than I had ever done in high school.
00:25:27.180 | And it required me to remember math concepts
00:25:30.940 | that I had safely put away in cotton wool
00:25:34.900 | and thought I would never have to look at again.
00:25:37.060 | And so I can remember one day sitting side by side
00:25:41.180 | 'cause I usually picked one subject to do a deep dive
00:25:45.540 | with each girl each semester.
00:25:47.380 | And so chemistry was what I was doing with this child.
00:25:50.300 | And we sat down and I guess it was a very harried week
00:25:54.300 | for me and I had a lot of other balls
00:25:56.220 | that I was trying to juggle.
00:25:57.980 | And she was having trouble with this stoichiometry problem.
00:26:01.940 | And I frankly had not really read the module.
00:26:05.540 | And so I got really frustrated and I just looked at her
00:26:07.900 | and I said, "I don't understand.
00:26:09.420 | You went to class.
00:26:10.860 | It was yesterday.
00:26:12.020 | You went to community day.
00:26:13.780 | And I know that Ms. Carey introduced this in class.
00:26:17.340 | Where are your notes?
00:26:18.740 | What did she tell you?"
00:26:20.180 | I'm certain she said, "I wrote everything down, Mama.
00:26:22.860 | I wrote everything down."
00:26:24.140 | And I said, "Look, if you had written everything down,
00:26:27.340 | it would be here.
00:26:29.420 | Where is it?
00:26:30.260 | It is Ms. Carey's job to have told you this
00:26:32.900 | and it's your job to have written it down."
00:26:35.140 | And I was just going to town
00:26:37.620 | and I all of a sudden heard what I was saying.
00:26:40.380 | I had actually said to her,
00:26:42.580 | "It is Ms. Carey's job to teach you
00:26:45.220 | and it is your job to write it down."
00:26:47.580 | And I thought, "Oh my gosh."
00:26:50.460 | And so I had to take a minute and I said,
00:26:52.220 | "Okay, I'm really sorry.
00:26:54.380 | I have told you two untrue things.
00:26:56.460 | Well, one for sure.
00:26:58.660 | I have told you that it was Ms. Carey's job to teach you
00:27:01.060 | and it's not.
00:27:01.900 | It's Mama's job to teach you.
00:27:03.740 | And it's your job to learn.
00:27:05.500 | And it's our job to struggle on through this together."
00:27:09.060 | I said, "So here's what the problem is.
00:27:10.540 | The problem is math.
00:27:11.860 | I don't remember.
00:27:12.820 | Daddy remembers.
00:27:13.940 | You don't want Daddy to show you
00:27:15.340 | because you get confused.
00:27:16.380 | So I will go and Daddy will teach me
00:27:19.420 | and I will come back and I will teach you.
00:27:22.060 | And I'm sorry.
00:27:23.860 | You have done everything fine
00:27:26.740 | except for maybe write down what you could have.
00:27:29.620 | And now we're gonna be back on track."
00:27:32.260 | And so I learned that lesson and I was mortified
00:27:34.620 | and I apologized and she forgave me and we went on.
00:27:37.700 | Years later, probably two, maybe three years later,
00:27:42.060 | she's in college and she calls home and she says,
00:27:45.580 | "I am having trouble with this photography class."
00:27:48.180 | And I said, "That is an elective that you have chosen.
00:27:51.100 | Why is this a problem?"
00:27:52.580 | She said, "Well, I'm in this such and such level."
00:27:56.100 | And I said, "Why?
00:27:56.940 | That is not beginner level."
00:27:58.180 | "Well, my advisor said I would be fine."
00:28:01.100 | And I said, "Oh my word, you are not fine.
00:28:04.860 | There's only one day till the drop ad.
00:28:06.820 | You need to take care of this.
00:28:08.380 | You need the prerequisite class."
00:28:10.220 | And so she said, "Okay, I'll take care of it."
00:28:12.540 | So I didn't ask about it for several weeks.
00:28:14.700 | And then I got on her Moodle or whatever you call her
00:28:19.060 | and looked and she was still in that class.
00:28:21.340 | And I said, "Honey, what is the deal?"
00:28:23.660 | And she just said, "Mom, I could tell what it was
00:28:28.060 | that I didn't know."
00:28:29.500 | It was some grammar.
00:28:30.900 | I didn't understand some of the basic stuff,
00:28:33.700 | but I could tell what it was that I didn't know.
00:28:37.100 | And so I went online and I figured out what it was
00:28:40.740 | and I found what I needed to know and I learned that.
00:28:44.180 | And I just, I caught up.
00:28:46.060 | She said, "It's my job to learn it and I know how."
00:28:49.460 | So I did.
00:28:50.940 | - Oh, nice.
00:28:51.780 | - And I was floored.
00:28:53.540 | I didn't know what to say to her.
00:28:54.540 | And I thought, "Oh my gosh."
00:28:56.020 | So that is the lesson of a classical education.
00:29:00.500 | And it happened while we were living life together.
00:29:04.220 | And I thought I was teaching her chemistry,
00:29:07.860 | that what she was learning is to take responsibility
00:29:12.020 | for her learning.
00:29:12.860 | And that is a way that it has paid dividends
00:29:16.100 | 'cause she has children of her own now.
00:29:19.100 | And I see her teaching her two-year-old
00:29:24.060 | about his responsibility for things.
00:29:26.980 | If you make this choice, this will happen.
00:29:29.860 | It's up to you.
00:29:31.260 | And I just, I'm so, I'm so happy
00:29:35.700 | that we had that real life lesson from learning.
00:29:39.060 | And it required a mentor who, you know,
00:29:42.100 | hadn't finished learning yet, obviously, me.
00:29:47.220 | But it was a great lesson
00:29:49.900 | and it was a lesson learned as we lived.
00:29:54.540 | - Yeah, I think that's so good.
00:29:56.260 | And I think you've highlighted in this episode
00:29:58.260 | a couple of things that probably our listeners
00:30:00.980 | are wondering about.
00:30:02.740 | And one is just, I'm gonna go back to your history,
00:30:07.580 | your English teacher that you talked about
00:30:09.100 | how they didn't really give lessons in history.
00:30:11.900 | They didn't have a way.
00:30:13.740 | And so we've talked a lot in this episode
00:30:15.820 | about, you know, being together,
00:30:17.740 | both at home and on the community day,
00:30:20.500 | having one to be with the kids for all the subjects.
00:30:23.540 | And so these conversations and these life lessons
00:30:26.740 | naturally happen because of the amount of time
00:30:30.740 | that either the challenge tutor or the parent is spending.
00:30:33.980 | And then the other thing that you illustrated
00:30:36.060 | is that even though chemistry
00:30:37.820 | wasn't the focus of your story,
00:30:40.220 | over the years of you working with your girls,
00:30:43.100 | you did recover that knowledge for yourself.
00:30:45.140 | And so I like to think about this idea
00:30:50.140 | of both being the home educating parent at home
00:30:52.740 | or the challenge tutor in community
00:30:54.700 | allows us over time to become master teachers
00:30:58.500 | in a lot of things and not a master teacher in one thing.
00:31:03.380 | And that also ties into us being able to find
00:31:06.500 | all those treasures and to celebrate.
00:31:10.180 | And it can take, you know, it can take however long
00:31:13.780 | the Lord needs it, it can take your whole lifetime.
00:31:16.540 | But so I would encourage our listeners
00:31:20.460 | not to try to fight off all the subjects at once,
00:31:23.940 | but I think you and I learned over the years
00:31:25.700 | to just take, like you said,
00:31:27.020 | take one a year and just dive 'cause you have time.
00:31:30.660 | - You do have time and the joy,
00:31:34.140 | remember the treasure hunt, the joy is in the journey
00:31:39.100 | and you cannot imagine the riches
00:31:42.380 | you will find along the way.
00:31:45.260 | The things that you will learn
00:31:47.580 | when you're pursuing something else are beautiful.
00:31:52.580 | There's a lot of joy to be found in knowing your children
00:31:58.260 | and in having them know you
00:32:01.540 | and in having them know one another.
00:32:03.780 | There's a lot of beauty in creating family memories together
00:32:11.820 | as you study together, as you redeem your education
00:32:16.060 | 'cause parents, you're gonna redeem your education
00:32:18.020 | alongside your children.
00:32:19.620 | And that's another beautiful way
00:32:23.620 | that the catechesis wheel works.
00:32:25.780 | We never fully arrive.
00:32:27.460 | You know the beauty of a circle
00:32:29.620 | in this illustration, right?
00:32:31.420 | It's that you keep going around.
00:32:35.980 | There's not an out.
00:32:38.140 | You learn and you build a base of knowledge
00:32:42.820 | and then you grow in your understanding
00:32:45.700 | and then you get really good.
00:32:47.140 | So good at understanding what you know
00:32:50.380 | that you're able to use it.
00:32:52.260 | And then what that does is it moves you,
00:32:56.660 | like Jennifer said at the beginning, to celebrate.
00:32:59.660 | It moves you to worship
00:33:02.420 | and your worship propels you right back
00:33:06.460 | into learning more.
00:33:08.060 | And that's a beautiful, eternal circle of learning.
00:33:14.260 | - Yeah, and right at the top of that circle
00:33:16.540 | it says the words Christian, echo, and celebration.
00:33:21.900 | So you're right that that learning to echo
00:33:24.100 | and celebration of who God is
00:33:26.100 | is the culmination of learning something
00:33:28.780 | but it's also what whets our appetite
00:33:31.180 | to learn the next thing
00:33:32.220 | so that we can circle back around
00:33:34.780 | and echo and celebration again.
00:33:37.020 | - Yes, and I love that.
00:33:38.660 | And that is the beauty of the circle for this model.
00:33:43.300 | It really is a picture
00:33:45.580 | of what God has designed fellowship
00:33:50.140 | and community and education
00:33:53.220 | to be a continual echo and celebration.
00:33:58.220 | Jennifer, thank you so much
00:34:00.900 | for unpacking the catechesis wheel a little bit
00:34:03.980 | with us today.
00:34:04.940 | I really appreciate your stories and your insights.
00:34:08.540 | - Oh, you too, Lisa, it was fun.
00:34:10.940 | - And listeners, remember,
00:34:12.340 | we are gonna link this blog post
00:34:15.260 | to Jennifer's article on the catechesis wheel for you
00:34:20.180 | in the show notes.
00:34:21.260 | And so you can go there and read the full article.
00:34:24.700 | And then if you need a visual to look at
00:34:28.140 | and to explore more,
00:34:29.900 | maybe you'll even talk about it with your family at home,
00:34:33.060 | the catalog, page eight,
00:34:35.460 | is where you will find the picture
00:34:39.500 | of the catechesis wheel
00:34:42.580 | and the reminder
00:34:45.580 | that what we're all about in the CC journey
00:34:48.340 | is to know God and to make Him known.
00:34:51.620 | Now, if you are listening to this podcast
00:34:54.300 | and you're not a member
00:34:56.300 | of a Classical Conversations community
00:34:58.380 | and you've never been to a practicum
00:35:00.180 | and you really don't know a lot
00:35:01.660 | about classical homeschooling,
00:35:04.260 | if you're just interested in homeschooling
00:35:07.380 | or in what makes CC unique,
00:35:11.180 | there's a way for you to discover
00:35:12.900 | our Christ-centered classical approach to education.
00:35:17.380 | You can be connected with experienced CC parents
00:35:20.980 | and get answers, immediate answers,
00:35:23.940 | to your most asked questions.
00:35:26.580 | You can find an information meeting near you
00:35:31.260 | or online, okay?
00:35:33.500 | You can have an in-person information meeting
00:35:35.860 | or an online information meeting
00:35:38.100 | if you will go to classicalconversations.com/events,
00:35:43.100 | all right, classicalconversations.com/events,
00:35:50.860 | and that will give you information
00:35:53.900 | that you need to chew on to make a great decision
00:35:57.580 | about the education you're pursuing
00:36:00.060 | with your beloved family.
00:36:01.740 | Jennifer, thank you again.
00:36:03.900 | Listeners, I've enjoyed this.
00:36:06.140 | I hope that it has helped you think more deeply
00:36:10.420 | about the treasure that education is supposed to be
00:36:14.460 | in our families.
00:36:15.580 | See you next time.
00:36:17.260 | (gentle music)
00:36:19.860 | (music fades)
00:36:22.360 | [BLANK_AUDIO]