Everyday Educator - Do Blue Books Make You Blue? - Replay
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:03.280 | - Classical Conversations is alive
00:00:05.060 | with the hustle and bustle of the season.
00:00:07.440 | As such, our host of the everyday educator podcast,
00:00:10.600 | Lisa Bailey, has chosen a special episode for you to enjoy.
00:00:15.160 | Thanks for listening.
00:00:16.200 | And as always, we hope that you continue
00:00:18.220 | to encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:20.640 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:23.280 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:26.240 | - Hey friends, welcome to this episode
00:00:29.840 | of the everyday educator podcast.
00:00:32.480 | As always, we're here to encourage one another,
00:00:35.720 | learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:40.260 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
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00:01:28.080 | Well, listeners, welcome to this episode
00:01:31.640 | of the Everyday Educator Podcast.
00:01:34.400 | We are running up on, believe it or not,
00:01:38.640 | the end of our first semester.
00:01:41.440 | I know that lots of you are looking toward the holidays,
00:01:45.680 | some of you with great longing
00:01:48.080 | because you're gonna see family and have lots of fun.
00:01:51.840 | And for students, some of them are eager to have a rest.
00:01:56.120 | And all of us know that what comes at the end
00:02:01.120 | of the semester for many parents and students
00:02:06.000 | is a little unsettling before the sweetness.
00:02:10.240 | Blue Book exams loom for many of our Challenge students.
00:02:15.080 | And for the younger Challenge students,
00:02:17.160 | it may be the first time they've ever had anything
00:02:20.800 | like a formal exam.
00:02:24.160 | So we wanna talk about Blue Books today.
00:02:28.320 | That's the whole thing.
00:02:29.160 | Do Blue Books make you blue?
00:02:31.920 | Does it make you worried or nervous or anxious or sad
00:02:36.920 | or just thoughtful when you contemplate
00:02:40.520 | creating Blue Book exams for your students?
00:02:44.200 | Or when you contemplate helping your students
00:02:47.520 | get ready for the Blue Book exams
00:02:50.240 | that they will experience in community.
00:02:53.520 | So today, I have one of my best friends,
00:02:56.680 | I got Kelly Wilt with me.
00:02:59.120 | Kelly is a great creative thinker.
00:03:03.080 | And I will tell you,
00:03:04.200 | she is a Challenge 3 tutor this fall.
00:03:08.200 | And if I could go and sit in her classroom,
00:03:11.200 | I would be happy at least once every week.
00:03:14.160 | It sounds to me, Kelly,
00:03:16.280 | like you have the best time with your students.
00:03:19.240 | And I happen to know that you're having
00:03:21.160 | at least as much fun as they are.
00:03:23.320 | - Yes, I would say that is true.
00:03:25.400 | (all laughing)
00:03:27.640 | - I thought you would be the perfect person
00:03:30.680 | to help us think about Blue Book exams
00:03:33.920 | in a way that will not leave us feeling blue.
00:03:37.200 | I know that you can give parents some insights
00:03:40.400 | on the whys and hows and how to get ready,
00:03:43.840 | and maybe offer some ideas
00:03:48.160 | that will not sound like the Blue Books
00:03:50.400 | we all loved to hate,
00:03:52.840 | and give parents a better idea
00:03:55.760 | of what this tool can really do for them
00:03:59.600 | and for their students.
00:04:01.360 | - Oh, Lisa, I'm so excited
00:04:03.080 | about the topic of this conversation,
00:04:05.400 | because as a Type A student-
00:04:08.720 | - Oh my gosh, me too.
00:04:10.160 | - I can tell you with certainty
00:04:11.960 | that there were times in my life
00:04:13.600 | where I had extreme testing anxiety
00:04:16.360 | because I wanted to do well.
00:04:18.440 | And I felt like the letter
00:04:20.600 | that would be written at the top of that test paper
00:04:23.760 | was a treatise on me as a person.
00:04:26.840 | - It was gonna define you as a student, right?
00:04:29.920 | And that's how I felt.
00:04:31.920 | It was gonna define me as a student
00:04:33.600 | in the eyes of my teacher,
00:04:35.760 | in the eyes maybe of my parents,
00:04:37.600 | certainly in my own eyes.
00:04:39.720 | And so that was a scary thing.
00:04:41.440 | That was a scary thing.
00:04:42.760 | So here's my very first question for you.
00:04:44.760 | Is assessing ever a blessing for real?
00:04:49.760 | I mean, really?
00:04:51.800 | - Well, you know, I will say this.
00:04:53.440 | I think assessment can be a blessing
00:04:56.240 | depending on our perspective
00:04:58.280 | about what the word assessing
00:05:00.600 | should mean for us as classical educators.
00:05:04.000 | - Okay, give us some perspective then,
00:05:05.640 | 'cause I think maybe you're onto something
00:05:07.880 | that will help all of us chill out.
00:05:10.440 | - Well, I'm gonna begin this conversation
00:05:12.960 | by saying I have not always done this well.
00:05:16.000 | I have distinct memories as a new challenge parent
00:05:21.000 | of seeing our eldest in his challenge A room
00:05:25.600 | on community day.
00:05:27.000 | And his sweet tutor knocked on the door
00:05:29.560 | where I was sitting, having fun,
00:05:31.760 | singing along with our younger two students
00:05:34.000 | who were still in foundations.
00:05:35.760 | And she said, "Kelly, I need you."
00:05:38.040 | And I thought, well, that's never good.
00:05:39.520 | Oh, it could be either, right?
00:05:41.800 | And I knew at that moment in time
00:05:44.120 | what my son was doing was working on his blue book exam
00:05:48.760 | because it was week 15.
00:05:50.440 | And I thought, okay, what can be going on?
00:05:53.480 | So I went to the room and I discovered that my sweet boy,
00:05:57.920 | who is wonderful and very gifted,
00:06:02.280 | was curled up in the corner of the room.
00:06:04.200 | - Oh, bless his heart.
00:06:05.840 | It was not a blessing at the moment to him.
00:06:07.680 | - It was not a blessing.
00:06:08.920 | And the rest of his friends had already been excused
00:06:11.880 | to lunch and they were all playing.
00:06:14.800 | And he was sitting in the corner of the room.
00:06:17.080 | And so I went up to him and I said,
00:06:19.320 | "Okay, you gotta tell me what's going on."
00:06:21.480 | - I was like, what is the deal?
00:06:23.480 | - And he told me, he said,
00:06:24.800 | "Mom, I just don't know everything."
00:06:27.440 | And I distinctly remember thinking to myself,
00:06:29.680 | well, I don't know everything either.
00:06:31.480 | - I know, it's like, okay, so that's not a revelation.
00:06:34.040 | So next.
00:06:35.240 | - So I looked at him and I said,
00:06:38.000 | "Okay, you don't know everything,
00:06:40.240 | "but what we're here to do today
00:06:42.680 | "is to celebrate what you do know and what you've learned."
00:06:47.680 | And this look came across his face like,
00:06:50.360 | "Wait, I'm not a failure if I don't know everything?"
00:06:55.360 | It was a step in the right direction for our family
00:06:59.880 | and for me as a future challenge director as well
00:07:03.440 | to maintain the right perspective
00:07:05.360 | about why we are assessing with blue books.
00:07:09.320 | So as a challenge director,
00:07:10.680 | I've done a little bit of research about this
00:07:12.440 | because my paradigm is not classical education.
00:07:16.200 | I grew up private education where,
00:07:19.240 | like we've already talked a little bit
00:07:20.560 | about extreme testing anxiety
00:07:23.600 | and feeling that a letter on a paper told me my worth
00:07:28.600 | and not only as a student, but as a person.
00:07:31.920 | And as classical educators,
00:07:34.040 | that is not the mentality that we should promote.
00:07:38.320 | So I looked up the word assessment
00:07:41.400 | and the root of that word comes from the Latin verb,
00:07:45.080 | ad sedere, which means, and get this,
00:07:48.800 | how wonderful is this?
00:07:50.440 | Not to berate or exempt
00:07:54.440 | any other negative word we could possibly fill in,
00:07:57.080 | but it means to sit near or beside
00:08:01.200 | or to give comfort or advice.
00:08:04.800 | And so when I think about assessment in that way,
00:08:09.480 | it completely changed my perspective about-
00:08:12.000 | - Wow, that is completely different
00:08:14.440 | from what most of us have ever thought of assessment
00:08:18.600 | or a test or anything like that.
00:08:21.720 | - Yes, so apparently this word was used
00:08:25.240 | during the time of the Roman Empire
00:08:26.920 | when a citizen would be called up to sit next to a judge.
00:08:30.160 | So I can imagine there probably was some testing anxiety.
00:08:33.320 | - Yes. - For instance,
00:08:34.960 | but I think if we think about assessment in this way,
00:08:38.800 | that primarily it is a time for us
00:08:41.480 | to draw near to our children, to sit with them.
00:08:46.000 | In other words, to see how they're doing
00:08:49.160 | and learn the best way that we can guide
00:08:51.640 | and encourage them,
00:08:53.600 | it completely revolutionizes what we think
00:08:56.760 | about that time of assessment.
00:08:58.280 | And for us as CC families, the time of blue books.
00:09:03.280 | - You have started this off with a bang.
00:09:06.520 | I think everybody has now, their shoulders have dropped.
00:09:10.080 | They have sat back in their chair.
00:09:13.240 | We've all heaved a big sigh of relief.
00:09:15.280 | My favorite thing that you have said so far
00:09:19.240 | is that assessment is supposed to be
00:09:23.120 | a celebration of what you know.
00:09:28.400 | Instead of a liturgy of all of the things
00:09:33.400 | that we forgot or didn't quite grasp or didn't know.
00:09:39.120 | And I absolutely love the whole,
00:09:41.720 | the mental picture that I got when you said,
00:09:46.000 | sit near or beside to give comfort, advice or encouragement.
00:09:51.000 | The mental picture of that will live with me for a long time.
00:09:55.560 | So parents, that's the kind of assessing
00:09:59.640 | that we're gonna talk about for the next several minutes.
00:10:02.800 | Okay, let me ask you this
00:10:04.880 | because now that we're not afraid of assessment anymore,
00:10:09.120 | I still want to know,
00:10:10.800 | what is it that you think we gain
00:10:14.280 | from assessing our children's understanding
00:10:18.080 | and mastery of whatever material we've covered?
00:10:22.600 | - Oh, that's such a good question.
00:10:24.640 | So I think, we can look at testing,
00:10:27.840 | we can look at exams or quizzes
00:10:30.920 | or anything that is quantitative in that way
00:10:34.720 | as a treatise on ourselves as well, right?
00:10:38.600 | Oh, I failed my child in this way.
00:10:41.240 | But the truth is, when we assess our children,
00:10:44.720 | we like we just discussed, we draw near to them.
00:10:48.360 | We learn ways that we can correct them,
00:10:51.360 | ways that we can guide them.
00:10:54.520 | Just by the proximity, the drawing close.
00:10:58.680 | I know with our family, when it is time for blue books,
00:11:03.680 | we do spend even more time side by side,
00:11:08.120 | reviewing things that we've learned and read
00:11:12.280 | and experienced during that particular semester.
00:11:16.440 | So really, we're gaining a greater knowledge
00:11:19.040 | of our children and what type of thinkers,
00:11:23.000 | what type of thinkers are we training them to be?
00:11:25.960 | How are they connecting the ideas
00:11:28.600 | that we have intentionally brought into their lives
00:11:31.720 | over the course of that semester?
00:11:33.720 | And so blue books really reveal to us
00:11:36.920 | how they're thinking, who they are as people,
00:11:39.840 | not the deficiency, but the sufficiency
00:11:43.640 | of what they've learned that semester.
00:11:46.240 | - I love that because I think that sitting near to them
00:11:49.720 | and going through the material with them
00:11:51.840 | and talking with them about the blue book
00:11:55.200 | and how to prepare and all that
00:11:57.400 | also gives us a great deal of insight
00:12:00.000 | into how our children feel about assessment
00:12:04.920 | and how they deal with the whole idea
00:12:09.640 | that they're gonna be called to account.
00:12:12.440 | Even if it's not called to account and found wanting,
00:12:16.160 | there are some students that still have test anxiety,
00:12:20.480 | even if mom and dad have given them every assurance
00:12:24.720 | that this is just a tool to measure.
00:12:27.880 | I used to tell my students, look,
00:12:29.960 | your exam or this test or this blue book
00:12:33.000 | is a tool to measure how well your study habits are working.
00:12:38.000 | That's what it is.
00:12:41.080 | But there are students
00:12:42.280 | who still get really wound up about that.
00:12:44.960 | And so I think that that coming alongside of them
00:12:47.760 | and sitting with them gives us insight into their character
00:12:51.680 | and insight into their emotions
00:12:55.200 | and the way they handle stress.
00:12:57.440 | And I think being right there with them
00:13:01.200 | allows us to minister to them
00:13:03.200 | and to give them strengthening in whatever area they need.
00:13:07.160 | I can remember that we had special snack.
00:13:10.160 | When we were, in the week that we were preparing
00:13:13.200 | for blue books, we had special snacks.
00:13:16.920 | We had, during hot chocolate coffee break time,
00:13:19.280 | we had extra goodies,
00:13:21.120 | and we might have hot chocolate more than once in a day.
00:13:25.200 | We just tried to make it a sweet and reassuring time.
00:13:28.280 | So that's really good perspective
00:13:30.720 | that you're offering there.
00:13:32.280 | - Absolutely, well, and I really,
00:13:33.760 | I like what you said about strengthening
00:13:35.880 | because isn't that our goal
00:13:37.560 | that when we have had this time with our children,
00:13:40.000 | that they feel strengthened,
00:13:41.800 | not because we are hiding any needs
00:13:46.200 | that might have presented themselves during this time
00:13:48.960 | because there may be needs.
00:13:50.680 | We may look at what they are able to independently produce,
00:13:54.640 | and we may look at it and think,
00:13:56.680 | "Wow, oh, I see that my child
00:13:59.080 | "just wrote one big long run on sentence."
00:14:01.920 | And so we look at that,
00:14:03.720 | and obviously that's something that as parents,
00:14:06.400 | we want to course correct a little bit and say,
00:14:08.400 | "You know what?
00:14:09.240 | "I know that you were writing this,
00:14:10.320 | "and I love the way that you constructed your thoughts,
00:14:13.640 | "and I can really see how you're growing,
00:14:16.160 | "but let's look at one thing here.
00:14:17.680 | "Tell me, where's the punctuation?"
00:14:20.160 | (laughs)
00:14:21.320 | - Yes, it's an opportunity to call their attention
00:14:24.080 | to things they can work on next.
00:14:26.280 | - Exactly, exactly.
00:14:28.000 | And so they feel strengthened
00:14:29.480 | because they have heard you tell them
00:14:31.960 | how much you appreciate the quality of their thoughts,
00:14:34.000 | how much you like the connection,
00:14:35.720 | but yet we're also not afraid
00:14:38.320 | to be able to introduce those things
00:14:40.240 | that might need a review,
00:14:41.400 | that maybe when they were in the flow of thought,
00:14:44.440 | they were so excited about what they were thinking
00:14:47.640 | that commas and periods were--
00:14:50.040 | - Right, just had no meaning.
00:14:51.920 | (laughs)
00:14:52.760 | - That's right.
00:14:53.720 | So they should feel that strengthening
00:14:56.680 | because we are walking alongside them.
00:14:59.800 | We are encouraging them.
00:15:01.440 | We are giving them words of affirmation,
00:15:03.400 | and we're making this a time to celebrate.
00:15:05.520 | I love what you said about the hot chocolate.
00:15:07.680 | And I think that applies to parents,
00:15:10.160 | and it also applies to directors too.
00:15:12.120 | My goodness, how we need to celebrate that time,
00:15:16.760 | that closure of the semester with our students.
00:15:19.480 | - Yeah, I love that, I love that.
00:15:22.080 | I was gonna ask you,
00:15:23.120 | what do our children gain from assessment?
00:15:26.200 | But you already kind of answered that.
00:15:27.880 | They gain a chance to recognize things
00:15:32.120 | they would like to work on.
00:15:34.440 | They gain the confidence from seeing what they do
00:15:40.280 | know and how they're able to put that out there.
00:15:45.000 | I think they also gain practice
00:15:49.880 | with assessing themselves and being assessed
00:15:54.760 | so that it's not such a big, scary thing.
00:15:59.760 | I think that that is one of the things that,
00:16:03.960 | if we fail to assess,
00:16:08.760 | I've had families before who just said,
00:16:12.480 | yes, we're not gonna do blue books.
00:16:14.760 | We don't believe in blue books.
00:16:17.640 | We don't believe in assessing in community.
00:16:20.760 | We don't believe,
00:16:21.960 | well, they were pretty much saying
00:16:24.360 | they didn't believe in assessing.
00:16:26.640 | What do we lose if we don't assess?
00:16:31.640 | - Oh, that's such a good question.
00:16:34.200 | I think if we don't assess and assess rightly,
00:16:38.840 | like we've been discussing,
00:16:40.840 | I think we can lose, first of all,
00:16:43.200 | a relationship with our children
00:16:45.360 | because they are given to us.
00:16:47.320 | They are treasure given to us, royalty,
00:16:50.920 | as Lee often says, worth dying for.
00:16:54.160 | And I think our children need to see
00:16:56.400 | that relationship originating from us,
00:16:59.040 | that their learning is a priority to us,
00:17:03.080 | that the way that they are being mentored
00:17:05.520 | and the way that they are seeing this modeling
00:17:09.360 | of lifelong learning,
00:17:11.800 | there's an essence of that that is lost
00:17:14.600 | when we don't assess and when we don't,
00:17:17.840 | first of all, encourage, and then also observe.
00:17:21.640 | Because they may fill in the blanks incorrectly
00:17:25.400 | in their minds.
00:17:26.240 | - Right, and we don't ever know.
00:17:28.320 | - Exactly.
00:17:29.760 | They may think, well, I'm not worth,
00:17:31.800 | or my mother or father doesn't think I can.
00:17:35.440 | And I've found quite often
00:17:37.680 | that our children rise to the expectations
00:17:40.840 | that we set for them.
00:17:42.200 | You know, when I sit and I have conversations
00:17:44.680 | with our middle son,
00:17:45.920 | who happens to be in my Challenge 3 class this year,
00:17:50.320 | I will say to him words like,
00:17:52.760 | "I know that you've been thinking about this,
00:17:54.880 | "and I can't wait to hear
00:17:57.760 | "how you're going to compare this to this."
00:18:01.480 | Or I will say those life-giving words to him
00:18:06.480 | that spur his heart and his soul onto nobler purpose.
00:18:11.920 | Because I want him to know that I am always thinking,
00:18:16.080 | you know, there's a realization that we all are sinners.
00:18:19.520 | We are all sinners.
00:18:21.560 | But there is a pursuit of God
00:18:25.160 | that we are all taking place in as well.
00:18:29.480 | And so I want to speak words to him
00:18:32.560 | that encourage him to Christlikeness,
00:18:35.320 | that encourage him to diligence
00:18:37.760 | and excellence in what he's doing.
00:18:40.720 | And so I feel like if we say,
00:18:42.240 | "Oh, I'm not going to assess you.
00:18:44.000 | "You know, assessment is wrong."
00:18:45.800 | You know, we also have to keep in mind
00:18:47.680 | that at the end of time,
00:18:49.680 | we will also be assessed by the Lord as believers.
00:18:54.680 | And we need to be ready.
00:18:57.640 | And how do we do that? By being diligent
00:19:00.840 | with the time that he has given us.
00:19:02.800 | And so I want to model that for my children.
00:19:06.320 | And I'm certain that other parents do as well.
00:19:09.440 | You know, we should always be pointing them in a way
00:19:13.200 | that shows the glory of God to them in every possible way.
00:19:18.200 | And that even includes blue book examinations.
00:19:22.680 | - That's really, that's really good.
00:19:26.400 | Okay, I just realized,
00:19:27.800 | we've been talking about blue book exams
00:19:30.240 | and we did not define our terms.
00:19:31.960 | So there may be some listeners who are saying,
00:19:35.040 | "Okay, now what does blue have to do with assessing?
00:19:39.800 | "And what is a blue book?"
00:19:41.560 | So first of all, in a minute,
00:19:43.400 | I want you to tell what is a blue book exam.
00:19:48.400 | And then I want you to talk a little bit
00:19:50.360 | how, why we as classical educators
00:19:54.800 | choose to assess using blue book exams
00:19:58.480 | instead of the old multiple guess,
00:20:01.320 | matching, short answer essay tests
00:20:04.240 | that we used to maybe have as students ourselves.
00:20:09.080 | - We should have started with defining our terms.
00:20:11.880 | - I just was so excited to get your thoughts on this.
00:20:14.400 | I forgot.
00:20:15.320 | - Well, from what I can tell,
00:20:17.880 | historically blue books began as examinations
00:20:21.040 | that were offered on the collegiate level
00:20:24.280 | just before the Civil War era.
00:20:26.880 | And so a lot of them were just pieces of paper
00:20:30.560 | that were attached together
00:20:32.440 | and they were given to students
00:20:33.960 | and students could answer questions within the booklets.
00:20:38.960 | And then the booklets will be given back
00:20:40.320 | to the professor or the teacher
00:20:41.720 | and they would be examined and marked.
00:20:44.960 | So that's the history of what originally
00:20:49.160 | a blue book was intended to be.
00:20:50.840 | But, you know, within classical conversations,
00:20:54.120 | we do assess in the way that we've been discussing.
00:20:57.840 | We look for growth.
00:20:59.920 | We would never dream of looking at our children's blue book,
00:21:04.360 | their book of pages with questions
00:21:07.440 | and writing an F or a D or a C, you know, on that essay.
00:21:12.440 | So when we look at blue books,
00:21:16.920 | the thing that we remember about them
00:21:19.240 | is that we are gleaning our children's thoughts
00:21:22.440 | about important topics or conversations
00:21:24.760 | that they've encountered during that semester
00:21:27.960 | within their challenge classes.
00:21:29.560 | So foundations parents, essentials parents,
00:21:32.240 | you know, blue books are not a reality for them,
00:21:34.440 | although they should still be having these conversations
00:21:38.720 | with their children at home throughout the week.
00:21:41.280 | This period of assessment, at least in this manner,
00:21:44.360 | doesn't really come into play
00:21:46.000 | until your student is in challenge A
00:21:48.360 | and it continues all the way through challenge four.
00:21:51.160 | - Good, good.
00:21:55.280 | All right, and we use the blue book format
00:22:00.160 | because it is more like having a conversation, you know?
00:22:05.040 | It's sort of like the student,
00:22:07.320 | as they're answering the big prompt,
00:22:11.520 | the big question posed by their tutor or by you.
00:22:17.880 | If you choose to give a blue book exam at some point,
00:22:21.240 | they are actually responding to that question
00:22:26.240 | with the conversation about what they've learned.
00:22:30.240 | And so it gives them a chance to say
00:22:33.240 | everything they want to say.
00:22:35.120 | I always hated, well, first of all,
00:22:39.360 | I didn't love matching
00:22:41.520 | because it just seemed like such a waste.
00:22:43.960 | I know so much more than just these labels.
00:22:46.680 | I hated multiple, I call them multiple guess
00:22:50.200 | because there were always some
00:22:52.160 | that were designed to trick you, okay?
00:22:54.840 | When we're doing assessment,
00:22:56.040 | we're not trying to trick our students.
00:22:58.840 | We're actually trying to have a good conversation
00:23:01.280 | about deep ideas and turn them over in our minds,
00:23:04.720 | not trick you into picking the wrong answer.
00:23:08.920 | So I hated that.
00:23:10.440 | And even the short answer did not sometimes
00:23:14.000 | give me the scope to tell everything I knew
00:23:16.720 | or actually sometimes I don't know exactly
00:23:19.960 | what you're asking me,
00:23:20.880 | but I know a whole lot of other stuff.
00:23:23.000 | And so I could really impress you
00:23:25.600 | with all the other stuff I knew
00:23:27.880 | if you would just give me a little more scope
00:23:30.080 | for my imagination.
00:23:31.480 | Anyway, that's why we use blue books
00:23:33.520 | instead of the old ways.
00:23:35.400 | Now, here comes a good question
00:23:38.040 | that I know you're gonna shine at
00:23:39.800 | 'cause I've heard some of your ideas already.
00:23:42.840 | So tutors, directors, if you're listening,
00:23:46.920 | Kelly is going to give you some ideas
00:23:50.320 | on how to make blue book exams fun,
00:23:53.880 | illuminating adventures.
00:23:56.760 | - Oh my goodness.
00:23:57.720 | I love the thought of surprising the students
00:24:01.680 | that are in my challenge class
00:24:04.040 | because I think that they,
00:24:06.160 | regardless of how we have these conversations
00:24:08.800 | about assessment,
00:24:10.080 | always carry a little bit of dread
00:24:12.520 | because they want to not be found wanting.
00:24:17.520 | And so one thing that I have done with my class
00:24:21.120 | as a director that has just reaped tremendous benefits,
00:24:26.120 | not only for me, but my students,
00:24:28.960 | is that at the beginning of the year,
00:24:30.360 | I gift each of them a journal.
00:24:33.640 | They bring this journal to class
00:24:36.040 | and they are told that it must not leave the table
00:24:40.320 | the entire time on community day.
00:24:43.200 | - Yes.
00:24:44.040 | - They know when I say clean the table,
00:24:46.440 | that that means that this journal,
00:24:48.440 | which also happens to be blue this year, ironically.
00:24:51.160 | - How funny.
00:24:52.000 | - Stays on the table.
00:24:52.840 | So I'll tell them, get out your blue books.
00:24:55.760 | And I really didn't intend it to be an association,
00:24:58.720 | but what I've told them is this is your treasure chest.
00:25:03.320 | This is your treasure chest to fill with wisdom
00:25:07.240 | and knowledge that you glean throughout the year.
00:25:09.920 | So we're having a conversation on Julius Caesar
00:25:14.280 | and an amazing thought comes to you.
00:25:16.800 | You need to whip out that journal
00:25:18.760 | and you need to jot it down.
00:25:20.880 | And it has been so heartening to me as a director this year,
00:25:25.480 | as in challenge three,
00:25:27.240 | students quite often get the opportunity
00:25:29.320 | to lead on community day,
00:25:31.480 | to see the young men and women in our class
00:25:35.240 | pull out that journal
00:25:36.160 | and they have these Pentecost aha moments.
00:25:39.840 | And they're just writing furiously.
00:25:42.640 | And I don't try to micromanage those moments,
00:25:47.640 | but one thing that I do for them at the end of the day
00:25:53.240 | is I'll set aside 10 minutes to reflect
00:25:56.600 | at the end of the day.
00:25:57.720 | And I think that in the past,
00:26:00.800 | they very much were of the mindset,
00:26:02.800 | we're just gonna put all of our things away
00:26:05.160 | and we're just gonna roll on here.
00:26:07.400 | - Right, right.
00:26:08.840 | - I told them, I said at the end of the day,
00:26:11.880 | it's time for you to reflect on what the information,
00:26:15.440 | the experiences that you have encountered on community day.
00:26:19.040 | And so I get them to pull out that blue book journal
00:26:22.160 | one more time.
00:26:23.400 | And I write three words on the whiteboard.
00:26:27.320 | The three words are collect, connect and create.
00:26:32.320 | And so the first week that I wrote those three words
00:26:35.840 | that they were copying those words into their journal.
00:26:39.040 | And then one of the young men in my class said,
00:26:41.560 | "Okay, well, I'll see you next week."
00:26:43.520 | And I said, "Not so fast."
00:26:45.960 | I said, "You need to write three sentences
00:26:48.240 | "next to these three words.
00:26:50.880 | "One sentence to collect is a sentence of something new
00:26:55.120 | "that you learned today.
00:26:57.100 | "Maybe you learned that Eratosthenes was a librarian
00:27:01.000 | "who measured the circumference of the earth
00:27:03.200 | "using a well and an obelisk."
00:27:05.400 | (laughs)
00:27:06.800 | Pretty cool.
00:27:07.640 | Then next to the word connect,
00:27:11.040 | you need to think about something
00:27:13.560 | that you heard discussed today
00:27:15.840 | and how that relates to something that you already knew.
00:27:20.120 | So maybe you already knew that pi equals 3.14,
00:27:25.120 | but today we used pi in a way that you had never used it
00:27:29.720 | before in your law studies.
00:27:32.320 | So you knew something
00:27:33.700 | and you connected new information to that.
00:27:35.960 | But I think the third word to me
00:27:38.800 | is the word that has produced the most fruit, create.
00:27:42.520 | And this comes back to,
00:27:44.160 | hearkens back to that thinking about coming alongside.
00:27:48.240 | I tell them next to the word create,
00:27:50.740 | write something that you learned today
00:27:53.280 | and how it will change who you are as a person.
00:27:58.280 | Because really, when we think about assessment,
00:28:00.600 | we want to think about,
00:28:02.620 | we have eternal souls that have been given into our care.
00:28:06.360 | What are they encountering
00:28:07.620 | that's going to change them for eternity?
00:28:10.680 | And so they will write next to the word create
00:28:14.160 | that new idea, that new thing.
00:28:16.880 | And occasionally from time to time,
00:28:19.460 | I'll say before you go,
00:28:20.560 | I'd love to hear your create from today.
00:28:23.240 | And it is interesting to me to see,
00:28:25.720 | rather than us packing up all of our bags
00:28:28.840 | and squealing our wheels as we're leaving on community day,
00:28:33.080 | that they leave in a time of thoughtful reflection
00:28:38.080 | about what they have encountered during the day.
00:28:41.700 | So as a director, what I plan to do
00:28:44.540 | and what I have done in the past is to,
00:28:47.340 | as we're having these great conversations on community day,
00:28:50.660 | I've been jotting them down
00:28:52.860 | so that when we get to the end of this semester
00:28:55.700 | I'm thinking what would be the most effective questions
00:29:00.000 | for me to answer?
00:29:00.840 | It's not those fill in the blank,
00:29:03.600 | matching the A, B, A not B, A and B.
00:29:08.600 | (laughing)
00:29:09.960 | Types of questions.
00:29:11.320 | But instead it's questions about,
00:29:14.400 | for example, what did you, what play,
00:29:18.400 | for example, for challenge three,
00:29:19.800 | we learn to read Shakespeare.
00:29:22.880 | So it would be me asking a question about,
00:29:26.220 | for instance, when we read "Much Ado About Nothing,"
00:29:29.620 | when your friend led the conversation in community
00:29:33.120 | about loyalty and trust in marriage,
00:29:36.020 | what did you determine as a guiding principle
00:29:39.320 | to take with you as you look
00:29:41.920 | for a marriage partner for life?
00:29:43.820 | You know, and here, you know, and I'll say,
00:29:45.860 | you know, give references, play to support your position.
00:29:51.340 | And so it's this moment of not only thinking about,
00:29:55.900 | okay, who was the author of the play?
00:29:57.600 | Who were the characters in the play?
00:29:58.840 | All of the trivia.
00:29:59.880 | Yes.
00:30:01.080 | But you're connecting it to something in their lives,
00:30:03.640 | which is what is going to make that memorable for life.
00:30:07.800 | Because now it's part of their own experience
00:30:10.320 | and their own hopes and dreams.
00:30:12.200 | Exactly.
00:30:13.200 | And how much more meaning, you know,
00:30:14.920 | does that have to them?
00:30:17.280 | Because they are connecting it.
00:30:19.680 | Choices that they're going to have to make
00:30:21.540 | and challenge consequences that are going to come
00:30:23.720 | from those choices that show, you know,
00:30:26.900 | their pursuit of God,
00:30:28.020 | their pursuit of His will for their life,
00:30:30.940 | that growth that goes so far beyond just matching A, B, C, D.
00:30:35.940 | It really is a reflection of who they are and their souls.
00:30:41.800 | And to me, that is some valuable assessment.
00:30:45.940 | That is good.
00:30:47.260 | And, you know, that would be a much more illuminating
00:30:50.780 | question to answer, I think,
00:30:54.660 | because it would call upon your students
00:30:58.340 | to remember what they've studied, what they've read,
00:31:01.820 | what y'all have discussed,
00:31:03.800 | but also put it into a frame that they intend
00:31:08.800 | to use later on in life.
00:31:13.060 | That's very illuminating.
00:31:14.740 | And I think it would be more fun, too.
00:31:17.420 | What have you done to make Blue Books fun in the past?
00:31:20.660 | Or what preview can we give your students
00:31:23.740 | of how you're going to make it fun?
00:31:26.360 | Oh, goodness.
00:31:27.200 | I have, I try to come up with some crazy idea
00:31:30.660 | for every weekend.
00:31:33.760 | So I have brought in fun snacks.
00:31:36.660 | We have done our Blue Books, you know,
00:31:39.920 | in different places in the building where we currently meet.
00:31:44.140 | I remember one year,
00:31:45.140 | this probably wasn't the wisest decision,
00:31:47.540 | but I brought in cans of Mountain Dew,
00:31:50.300 | and I gave one to each of them,
00:31:51.580 | and I said, "You can do this."
00:31:54.580 | Oh, my word.
00:31:56.420 | And I told them they couldn't drink it
00:31:57.540 | until they were done with their Blue Books.
00:31:59.700 | Well, that's good.
00:32:00.540 | And then you can send them home all hyped up
00:32:02.700 | on the sugar from Mountain Dew.
00:32:04.820 | That's perfect.
00:32:05.660 | You know, I try really hard
00:32:08.900 | to create an atmosphere of celebration.
00:32:10.980 | So we are planning, you know, those fun snacks.
00:32:14.420 | We're planning lots of time to stretch legs,
00:32:16.980 | and to take away some of the testing anxiety.
00:32:20.020 | One of the things that I always offer to my students
00:32:22.620 | is the fact that they may not have enough time
00:32:24.620 | on community day to be able to express their thoughts,
00:32:28.720 | because they're having to put together their thoughts,
00:32:30.960 | they're having to get information together,
00:32:32.700 | and then to be able to write that and articulate that.
00:32:35.380 | Sometimes there are obstacles to that being done
00:32:37.740 | to the extent they would like.
00:32:39.540 | And so what I have asked them to do for me is this.
00:32:43.100 | I say, "Choose one color of ink for community day.
00:32:46.260 | Then you're going to take your Blue Book home,
00:32:48.300 | and you're going to show it to your family.
00:32:50.220 | And if you feel at that point,
00:32:51.620 | there's more that you want to express,
00:32:54.000 | change the color of ink or pencil that you were using,
00:32:57.780 | and keep on writing, keep on expressing."
00:33:00.420 | Because really, this is supposed to be,
00:33:03.740 | to us as parents, a coming alongside.
00:33:06.980 | If I'm looking at my son's or my daughter's Blue Book,
00:33:10.740 | and I see that they have very little written
00:33:15.420 | in the time that they were given,
00:33:17.460 | well, I might want to know more.
00:33:19.220 | And maybe there was something else that happened.
00:33:21.260 | Maybe they were late getting back from lunch,
00:33:24.420 | or maybe in the case of teenagers, they were hungry.
00:33:29.420 | - Right.
00:33:30.860 | Absolutely fantastic.
00:33:34.060 | There are actually some children that for whatever reason,
00:33:38.260 | the question, the way it was posed,
00:33:40.700 | didn't resonate with them or did not call forth from them.
00:33:44.620 | I know one of my daughters, I was surprised.
00:33:48.940 | Like you said, you read the question,
00:33:51.460 | and then you see this tiny little response.
00:33:54.180 | And because we have sat next to them,
00:33:57.060 | and we do know what they know,
00:33:58.580 | and we have had the deep conversations,
00:34:00.860 | we know that's not all there is
00:34:02.460 | inside your head about that.
00:34:04.220 | And so I was able to reframe the question sometimes,
00:34:07.460 | and she's like, "Oh, well, yes."
00:34:10.220 | And this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this.
00:34:12.860 | And so sometimes as parents,
00:34:16.020 | it is a kindness to come home and reframe
00:34:20.180 | and allow that student to realize
00:34:22.660 | that they did know a lot more
00:34:24.660 | than they were able to write down in that moment.
00:34:27.140 | That is a fantastic suggestion, Kelly.
00:34:30.420 | I love it.
00:34:31.420 | One other thing that I'm offering to parents as well,
00:34:35.060 | prior to Blue Books,
00:34:36.300 | this is the first time that I've tried this,
00:34:38.500 | but just offering this in the spirit of sharing
00:34:40.660 | with other directors who may be in the same boat.
00:34:43.140 | I have been accumulating these questions and thoughts
00:34:46.020 | throughout the semester,
00:34:47.420 | and I am planning to email that list to the parents
00:34:51.820 | of the students in my class so they can see
00:34:54.020 | these are the conversations that we're having.
00:34:56.380 | And I try to do that on a weekly basis
00:34:58.540 | as I communicate with them by email,
00:35:00.580 | just giving them, "Here's some suggested questions
00:35:02.980 | "to continue the conversation
00:35:04.300 | "with your student at home this week."
00:35:06.940 | Yeah, because they're not in the classroom all the time.
00:35:09.500 | Some parents are, but other parents have littles,
00:35:12.900 | or they need to be somewhere else on community day,
00:35:15.540 | serving as a director, perhaps in another group,
00:35:19.060 | or as an essentials tutor.
00:35:20.820 | Just quite often, they're not able to be in the room.
00:35:23.020 | So I want them to feel
00:35:24.100 | that even if they're not there physically,
00:35:26.100 | that mentally they know exactly
00:35:28.300 | the things that we're discussing.
00:35:30.020 | But I am planning to take that list,
00:35:32.620 | email it to each of my parents and say,
00:35:35.740 | "I would like to know which questions
00:35:37.700 | "you would like to prioritize for your student,"
00:35:41.060 | because it individualizes what they want to hear
00:35:44.820 | and what they want to know
00:35:46.260 | based on the conversations they've been having at home.
00:35:50.180 | And so I'm hoping that that gives
00:35:52.060 | an even more well-rounded Blue Book experience
00:35:56.180 | to the students that are in my Challenge 3 class this year,
00:35:59.380 | because I want, first of all,
00:36:02.140 | parents to feel that connection to what we're discussing
00:36:05.580 | and to the ideas that we're coming across.
00:36:07.460 | But I also want the students to understand
00:36:09.500 | this is a partnership between me and them and their families.
00:36:14.500 | And hopefully it will be able to model that relationship
00:36:19.220 | even to the next level for them in Blue Book assessment.
00:36:24.060 | - It's a great suggestion.
00:36:25.620 | It's a really good idea.
00:36:26.940 | Directors, I hope you picked up on that.
00:36:28.500 | It's a really good idea to be giving parents the heads up
00:36:33.220 | about the conversations
00:36:34.740 | and how they might be represented in a Blue Book exam.
00:36:38.740 | That really helped.
00:36:39.860 | That leads me to this question.
00:36:41.700 | How can parents help their student prepare for Blue Books?
00:36:46.700 | Okay, now, as lifelong learners
00:36:51.620 | and just natural teachers, Kelly,
00:36:53.260 | I know both you and I want to say,
00:36:56.220 | how can parents help their students prepare for Blue Books
00:37:00.020 | during the semester?
00:37:02.140 | Because it's not a good paradigm
00:37:05.540 | to wait and cram right before.
00:37:08.460 | So we don't want to encourage parents
00:37:10.620 | to only help right at the end.
00:37:13.180 | I mean, we do want them to help at the end of the semester
00:37:15.860 | as assessment approaches.
00:37:17.580 | So give us some suggestions for both times.
00:37:19.460 | How can parents help their students
00:37:21.780 | prepare for Blue Book exams,
00:37:23.420 | both during the semester and then at the end
00:37:27.500 | as assessment approaches?
00:37:29.460 | Oh, okay.
00:37:30.300 | So I would say during the semester,
00:37:33.220 | make sure that you are dropping off your student,
00:37:36.660 | but you're not dropping out of conversations.
00:37:39.580 | I know it can be easy to just let your student
00:37:44.580 | become more independent and to relish that
00:37:48.780 | because that is the goal.
00:37:49.980 | We want them to be independently thinking and learning
00:37:54.020 | for the rest of their lives.
00:37:55.460 | However, at this point, as their guides
00:37:59.420 | who are coming alongside them,
00:38:01.580 | we need to be keeping tabs on what their thoughts are
00:38:05.460 | behind what they're thinking, what they're learning,
00:38:08.380 | what they're experiencing.
00:38:09.700 | So I would recommend to parents, take time each week,
00:38:12.860 | even if your student is just the most independent student
00:38:18.060 | who can sit there and do all of their work
00:38:20.020 | without even making a peep.
00:38:22.460 | We are classical conversations,
00:38:24.580 | not only for the conversations we have on community day,
00:38:27.060 | but for the conversations that those experiences produce
00:38:30.740 | within the home.
00:38:32.140 | And so talk to your student about what they're learning.
00:38:36.460 | And it can be something as simple as, for example,
00:38:40.260 | I know my examples are all challenge three right now.
00:38:42.620 | That's the land that I'm living in this year.
00:38:45.300 | But, you know, as we're reading Patriots history,
00:38:48.300 | I will sit down with my son and I will say,
00:38:51.020 | so tell me, you know, the chapter that you read this week,
00:38:54.100 | what was one thing that surprised you?
00:38:56.740 | Or what is something that, you know,
00:38:59.260 | if you lived during that time,
00:39:01.780 | how do you think you would have felt
00:39:03.900 | about, you know, what was going on?
00:39:06.380 | Or, you know, I mean, my son right now began the year
00:39:10.380 | with a fear and a dread of reading the Gallic Wars.
00:39:15.100 | - Yes, okay, I can understand that.
00:39:17.780 | - And it has turned into the most fun opportunity
00:39:22.340 | for the two of us to get together and talk about Caesar
00:39:25.700 | and his plans and his military strategies.
00:39:28.620 | And so I will ask my son,
00:39:31.140 | so was Caesar a good military general
00:39:33.180 | at this point in the game?
00:39:34.100 | Why or why not?
00:39:35.700 | And it has launched the best conversations.
00:39:39.660 | Just asking them what they think, what they feel,
00:39:43.580 | what they have experienced,
00:39:45.540 | validates the fact that they are putting in hard work
00:39:48.860 | to take in this information and to assimilate it
00:39:52.060 | and to be able to articulate, you know,
00:39:56.180 | these really crucial, important pieces of history
00:40:00.580 | and science and math and language.
00:40:04.180 | So, you know, I think one of the things
00:40:05.900 | that he looks forward to right now,
00:40:08.180 | I'll go sit in a rocking chair on our front porch
00:40:10.700 | and I'll text him and I'll say,
00:40:12.300 | "Five-minute conversation on the front porch."
00:40:14.860 | And so he'll come out and I'll ask,
00:40:18.540 | he'll say, "What do you wanna know?
00:40:19.580 | "What do you wanna know?"
00:40:20.740 | And I'll ask him, you know, a question like,
00:40:22.540 | "What'd you do about nothing?
00:40:23.980 | "Would you marry someone like Beatrice?
00:40:25.780 | "Why or why not?"
00:40:27.140 | - Right, right.
00:40:28.860 | - He just, you know, he will launch into way more dialect
00:40:32.820 | than I probably would expect, you know,
00:40:34.660 | any high school junior to have an opinion about Shakespeare.
00:40:38.220 | But because I'm asking him a question
00:40:40.900 | that directly correlates to who he is
00:40:43.500 | and the decisions that he makes,
00:40:45.580 | he's more interested and he wants to express his opinion
00:40:48.980 | because he is becoming truly rhetorical
00:40:52.960 | in what we've exposed him to
00:40:55.460 | and to all the pieces that he's put together in his mind
00:40:59.500 | and hopefully in his soul
00:41:01.700 | that will help him to continue to pursue Christ
00:41:04.100 | for the rest of his life.
00:41:05.620 | - Yeah, that's great.
00:41:06.980 | Those are some really good suggestions, Kelly.
00:41:09.940 | I think it boils down to,
00:41:11.780 | I feel like in every podcast that I've done
00:41:14.300 | over the last six weeks, it's been about family learning.
00:41:17.900 | The refrain, the common refrain has been,
00:41:20.820 | "Ask good questions.
00:41:22.260 | "Ask your student good questions.
00:41:23.900 | "Have good conversations."
00:41:25.380 | So there's a thread running through here, listeners.
00:41:29.100 | Yes, we are still talking about asking good questions
00:41:31.900 | and starting good conversations
00:41:34.280 | because that is both how our students learn
00:41:39.060 | and how they retain what they've learned
00:41:42.180 | when we contextually, in the context of conversation,
00:41:47.020 | connect it to other things that they really, really enjoy
00:41:52.020 | or that are important to them.
00:41:56.180 | All right, Kelly, we're almost out of time,
00:41:58.080 | but I wanna ask you,
00:42:00.100 | I want you to think about exams that you have taken.
00:42:04.180 | - Right.
00:42:05.020 | - It could be when you were a little kid
00:42:07.300 | or when you were a college student,
00:42:08.740 | or I don't know, maybe it was your driver's test.
00:42:11.180 | I don't know.
00:42:12.000 | Think about an exam you've taken.
00:42:14.240 | What was the best learning experience a test ever gave you?
00:42:19.240 | Okay, now that might be a loaded question.
00:42:23.260 | What was the best learning experience
00:42:26.500 | that a test ever gave you?
00:42:29.300 | And then what was the worst experience you had?
00:42:32.700 | Maybe it's because the test didn't teach you anything
00:42:35.580 | or didn't cement anything for you.
00:42:37.820 | All right, the best learning experience
00:42:39.260 | a test ever gave you
00:42:40.680 | and the worst experience you ever had.
00:42:43.380 | - Oh my goodness, Lisa,
00:42:44.720 | I'm gonna have to think for just a moment.
00:42:46.260 | Let me think.
00:42:47.100 | The best experience, what immediately comes to mind
00:42:51.500 | is really not an exam, but kind of an assessment.
00:42:55.420 | I was an early reader and always loved to spell.
00:43:00.340 | I have always been a speller
00:43:02.620 | and in kindergarten, my teacher noticed that.
00:43:06.380 | And so she began training me,
00:43:08.800 | sitting side by side with me,
00:43:11.420 | helping me to practice for the county spelling bee.
00:43:14.620 | And I remember that I got to the spelling bee
00:43:18.740 | and oh my goodness,
00:43:20.020 | there were students from all over our county
00:43:22.340 | and it was probably my first experience
00:43:25.740 | ever standing on a platform and articulate.
00:43:28.500 | - I bet so.
00:43:30.500 | - But I remember, I kept seeing students get eliminated
00:43:34.300 | and I just thought, well, I felt badly for them
00:43:38.500 | because I needed them to do well.
00:43:40.880 | And so at the end of this kindergarten spelling bee,
00:43:43.960 | there was one other little boy and me.
00:43:47.420 | And I remember they gave him a word
00:43:50.220 | and my father still says that the moment that I realized
00:43:54.740 | he misspelled the word,
00:43:56.620 | that I got this look over my face like,
00:43:58.860 | oh my goodness.
00:44:00.060 | - It's like, oh my gosh, I've stolen me.
00:44:03.100 | - They gave me my final word in the spelling bee
00:44:06.940 | and I was the winner of the spelling bee.
00:44:08.940 | - Oh, yay.
00:44:09.780 | - Such a good memory.
00:44:12.240 | I still have the little trophy and everything.
00:44:14.340 | - That's awesome.
00:44:15.860 | - But it was an assessment for me
00:44:18.380 | of that time that the teacher had sat side by side with me.
00:44:22.820 | I prioritized rightly that we had done things well
00:44:26.700 | and praise the Lord.
00:44:28.140 | That had a positive impact on me.
00:44:30.500 | Now, the worst assessment probably followed the year after.
00:44:35.500 | So I, you know, I'm resting on my laurels in first grade.
00:44:40.480 | My teacher said, well, Kelly's gonna do the spelling bee
00:44:43.740 | again, she did such a great job last year.
00:44:46.920 | So I thought, oh, this will be a piece of cake.
00:44:50.220 | I won in kindergarten, so I did not prepare.
00:44:54.100 | I did not prepare.
00:44:55.420 | And I'm going to show up and I remember,
00:44:59.660 | talk about a humbling.
00:45:01.260 | I remember when they called out,
00:45:03.060 | and this is so shameful for me to even admit,
00:45:05.140 | but I was in first grade, so you have to cut me some slack.
00:45:06.820 | - Right, so you've grown a lot since then.
00:45:08.820 | So there you go.
00:45:10.040 | - I remember the moderator called out the word wash
00:45:13.980 | and immediately from my mouth came W-H,
00:45:17.520 | just like W-H at the beginning of whale.
00:45:20.740 | You know, we had been learning about the graphs
00:45:23.060 | and the sounds that they make.
00:45:24.520 | And as soon as it came out, I wished I could take it back
00:45:27.500 | because I knew it was wrong.
00:45:29.020 | But it was that one mistake that cost me everything.
00:45:34.020 | And I remember I came down off the platform,
00:45:37.420 | ashamed and embarrassed, not that I had misspelled a word,
00:45:41.860 | but because I knew that my preparation ahead of time
00:45:46.140 | had spoiled it.
00:45:47.620 | Yes, yes.
00:45:49.300 | And so I think the thing that I learned from that assessment
00:45:53.580 | was that we do need to take time to prepare adequately,
00:45:58.580 | to think, to reason.
00:46:02.500 | And so that was the thing that I learned.
00:46:04.780 | And in thinking about that,
00:46:06.340 | I think there are a lot of lessons
00:46:08.380 | for me as a homeschooling parent.
00:46:10.060 | First of all, just like that kindergarten experience
00:46:14.220 | that was so positive.
00:46:15.580 | If I take the time to sit next to my child
00:46:20.420 | and to have those conversations and to keep a gauge on
00:46:24.420 | where is their mind?
00:46:26.460 | Where are their thoughts?
00:46:27.980 | Where is their heart?
00:46:29.600 | What are their struggles?
00:46:30.700 | What are their times of rejoicing
00:46:33.100 | that they've experienced this semester?
00:46:35.620 | There will be no surprises when we get to that week 15
00:46:39.980 | and that blue book opportunity.
00:46:41.420 | But equally, if we are like my poor little first grade self,
00:46:48.700 | if we do not make that time, we decide to withdraw,
00:46:53.340 | we prioritize other things
00:46:55.280 | rather than spending that time in conversation
00:46:57.980 | to prepare for assessments rightly,
00:47:00.460 | then we will not see the fruit
00:47:02.900 | that could have been produced.
00:47:05.100 | And so, CC parents who are listening to this today,
00:47:09.700 | I would say the greatest thing to take from this podcast
00:47:12.720 | is assessment is a time for you to draw near to your child,
00:47:16.420 | to be able to strengthen, comfort your child,
00:47:19.540 | be together, devote yourself to one another,
00:47:23.460 | and to make it a time of assessment and celebration
00:47:26.380 | and rejoicing rather than regret, which I experienced.
00:47:31.380 | You know, prioritize rightly
00:47:33.740 | because you want to be able to spend that time
00:47:37.780 | in preparation for more than just the answers
00:47:40.860 | that will be written in that blue book of stapled papers.
00:47:44.960 | You want to be able to keep your finger on the pulse
00:47:48.620 | of your child's spiritual growth.
00:47:51.700 | How are they assimilating the books that they're reading
00:47:54.420 | and the things that they're experiencing
00:47:56.420 | into who they are, you know, as a person,
00:48:00.340 | as an eternal soul,
00:48:01.980 | because that is infinitely more important
00:48:03.940 | than, say, a Spelling Bee trophy.
00:48:07.020 | - Right, right, absolutely.
00:48:09.860 | Oh, this has just been such a sweet time, Kellie.
00:48:14.540 | I really appreciate you letting me pick your brain.
00:48:17.260 | I appreciate your transparency.
00:48:20.380 | I appreciate you giving away some of your best ideas.
00:48:25.100 | Parents, I hope that this conversation
00:48:29.100 | has been a blessing to you
00:48:32.540 | and that it will become a blessing for your family
00:48:37.540 | as you're able to act on some of these suggestions
00:48:41.700 | as we draw near to the end of our first semester
00:48:45.660 | and a time of assessing.
00:48:47.020 | I want to leave you with a question
00:48:50.380 | that is sort of a challenge, okay?
00:48:55.140 | How can the blue book
00:48:58.460 | become not the end of the semester's learning
00:49:04.460 | but a new beginning?
00:49:07.720 | I want you to ponder that.
00:49:12.020 | As you go forth and lead your family,
00:49:15.740 | having great conversations
00:49:17.580 | by asking some really good leading questions,
00:49:20.900 | and as you all prepare for the assessment
00:49:24.500 | that will spur you on to greater thinking.
00:49:28.700 | Kellie, thank you so much for your time.
00:49:30.580 | I really appreciate you being here with us today.
00:49:34.100 | I always love to talk to you,
00:49:35.420 | and we could talk for another hour,
00:49:36.980 | but I know that we've given people a lot to think about,
00:49:40.700 | and so we'll put a pen in it for now,
00:49:43.460 | and we'll just hope to talk together again another time,
00:49:46.020 | okay?
00:49:46.860 | - Absolutely.
00:49:47.680 | Thank you, Lisa.
00:49:48.520 | - Parents, I also want to take just one more minute
00:49:53.380 | to talk to you again about Homeschool Families on Mission.
00:49:57.860 | I think I've talked to you about this before
00:50:00.460 | several months ago.
00:50:01.460 | It's a program through the nonprofit organization,
00:50:05.100 | the Classical Conversations Foundation.
00:50:08.220 | And through this group, Homeschool Families on Mission,
00:50:12.820 | the foundation supports homeschool students
00:50:15.500 | who want to participate in some short-term mission trips.
00:50:18.980 | So I wanted to give you kind of a progress report.
00:50:21.940 | This year, the foundation was able to provide grants
00:50:25.780 | to 55 homeschool students
00:50:28.300 | who went on mission trips all over the world,
00:50:31.300 | South Africa, Uganda, the Czech Republic,
00:50:35.020 | Peru, and the Middle East.
00:50:37.260 | Now, you can help.
00:50:40.020 | If you would like to help these students,
00:50:42.340 | help these families,
00:50:43.820 | you can join the John 1-1 Mission Partnership Campaign
00:50:48.620 | and donate a dollar and 10 cents.
00:50:52.380 | Get it, 1-1, okay?
00:50:54.020 | And by doing that, you can help fund mission trips
00:50:56.840 | for homeschool students to spread the good news of Christ,
00:51:00.220 | to make Him known, okay?
00:51:03.100 | You can help people come to know the truth of John 1-1
00:51:07.060 | in the beginning was the Word,
00:51:09.460 | and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
00:51:13.060 | So if you want to become a mission partner
00:51:15.060 | and donate just $1.10 toward this cause,
00:51:19.940 | visit classicalconversationsfoundation.org
00:51:24.340 | and head over to the Mission Partner page, okay?
00:51:29.340 | After donating, you'll also get a free ebook
00:51:32.620 | written by our own Brian Gilpin,
00:51:34.620 | Journey Through Providence,
00:51:36.460 | A Guide to Understanding God's Will, all right?
00:51:39.780 | And hey, if you make a donation,
00:51:42.340 | make sure to mention which CC community you're a member of
00:51:46.500 | to help Classical Conversations Licensed
00:51:49.660 | reach its goal of receiving at least one donation
00:51:54.780 | from every licensed community by the end of 2022.
00:51:58.540 | So go to classicalconversationsfoundation.org,
00:52:03.780 | head over to the Mission Partner page
00:52:06.060 | to donate your $1.10 and be sure you tell them
00:52:10.860 | which local community you belong to, all right?
00:52:14.860 | Every contribution makes a difference.
00:52:17.300 | Thank you for considering helping others know God
00:52:21.180 | and make Him known.
00:52:22.740 | See you next time.
00:52:24.260 | (gentle music)
00:52:26.860 | you
00:52:28.920 | you