Everyday Educator - Kaleidoscope: A Homeschool Experience
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:03.320 | - Welcome friends to this episode
00:00:05.600 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:00:08.460 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey,
00:00:10.320 | and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:13.600 | as we encourage one another, learn together,
00:00:16.960 | and ponder the delights and challenges
00:00:19.760 | that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.040 | Whether you're just considering
00:00:25.120 | this homeschooling possibility
00:00:27.280 | or deep into the daily delight of family learning,
00:00:31.560 | I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:35.160 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome,
00:00:40.080 | you'll find even closer support in a local CC community.
00:00:45.080 | So go to classicalconversations.com
00:00:49.840 | and find a community near you today.
00:00:54.440 | Well, listeners, welcome to this episode
00:00:57.400 | of the "Everyday Educator" podcast.
00:01:00.720 | I am excited to introduce some of my friends to you today,
00:01:04.640 | and we are going to talk
00:01:06.520 | kind of like a round table discussion,
00:01:09.160 | or you can close your eyes
00:01:10.800 | and pretend like we are all friends
00:01:13.880 | sitting around the fire with hot cocoa or hot tea.
00:01:17.240 | We are gonna talk about
00:01:19.280 | our homeschooling journeys together.
00:01:21.840 | And I have invited some friends
00:01:23.800 | who are at different spots on the homeschool journey
00:01:27.480 | so that all of our experiences can be represented.
00:01:31.280 | And I suspect that you will find a kindred spirit
00:01:35.440 | to walk along your journey with you.
00:01:40.280 | So you just enjoy the conversation
00:01:44.400 | that you can eavesdrop on with my friends.
00:01:47.320 | I have with me today,
00:01:49.200 | D'Lise, D'Lise say hello to all our friends.
00:01:52.320 | - Hey, everybody.
00:01:53.600 | - D'Lise has an adorable little guy.
00:01:57.080 | Tell us about Leo.
00:01:59.200 | - So Leo is three years old.
00:02:01.080 | He is very precocious.
00:02:03.160 | He's a curious, fun little boy
00:02:05.600 | who has a lot of questions
00:02:07.480 | and a lot of energy like little boys at his age do.
00:02:10.760 | He is so great.
00:02:12.240 | And we are just very thankful to have him.
00:02:14.360 | - Yes, and D'Lise, this is really cool.
00:02:17.160 | I wanted you to have the perspective of a mom
00:02:20.680 | who was herself homeschooled,
00:02:23.960 | who is looking toward the homeschool journey
00:02:27.000 | with her own son.
00:02:28.120 | So D'Lise, thank you so much for being with us today.
00:02:31.640 | - Thanks for having me.
00:02:32.880 | - Charity Brown is also here.
00:02:35.120 | Charity, say hello and tell us about
00:02:37.800 | your family of homeschoolers.
00:02:40.680 | - So hello to everyone from the sunny South.
00:02:43.560 | I have one daughter who is in Cincinnati, Ohio finishing,
00:02:48.880 | well, she's midway through her sophomore year
00:02:51.800 | in Bible college there and enjoying the cold and the snow.
00:02:55.720 | I also have a senior who is wrapping up
00:03:00.320 | his first semester of his senior year
00:03:02.480 | and is looking forward to joining his sister
00:03:04.640 | in Cincinnati next fall.
00:03:06.000 | So I am right at the very end
00:03:08.360 | of my active homeschool journey.
00:03:10.640 | - That is so cool.
00:03:12.080 | And so I have two daughters who have graduated
00:03:18.560 | through the challenge four program,
00:03:21.280 | have graduated college or both married.
00:03:23.720 | And I have two grandchildren and one on the way,
00:03:28.720 | one who is about six months younger than D'Lise's Leo
00:03:33.800 | and then a little, a granddaughter
00:03:35.560 | who just turned eight months.
00:03:36.800 | And so we are gonna talk about the homeschool journey
00:03:39.920 | and what it looks like through the different lenses
00:03:44.600 | at different parts of the homeschool journey.
00:03:48.160 | And we are glad that you're here with us.
00:03:50.600 | I'd like to ask both of you,
00:03:52.120 | D'Lise I'll get you to answer first.
00:03:55.240 | Your homeschool journey in an official way
00:04:00.240 | maybe hasn't started yet.
00:04:03.640 | A lot of times people, new homeschoolers say,
00:04:06.880 | well, we started homeschooling
00:04:08.880 | when our daughter was in the second grade
00:04:10.760 | and we came to homeschooling late
00:04:12.600 | and they were almost in middle school.
00:04:14.160 | Or somebody will say we've homeschooled
00:04:16.000 | from the very beginning, so from kindergarten.
00:04:18.400 | And then I have some wise friends who have said,
00:04:22.280 | oh, we started homeschooling from the beginning at birth
00:04:26.440 | because we're teaching our children the whole time.
00:04:30.640 | So I wanna ask you as a newer mom,
00:04:35.640 | what's the best outcome of homeschooling so far?
00:04:43.320 | So as you are walking through life
00:04:46.800 | with your curious questioner,
00:04:49.760 | what's the best part of it for you so far?
00:04:53.520 | - Yeah, well, I would definitely say
00:04:55.040 | I fall into the camp of those who believe
00:04:57.600 | that you homeschool from the moment
00:04:59.160 | that you receive your child.
00:05:00.560 | So I've always thought of myself as teaching him
00:05:05.240 | because that's what we do as parents.
00:05:07.000 | And I think what's been such a reassuring part of it
00:05:12.920 | teaching him so far is his healthy mind.
00:05:16.240 | I had an early childhood background
00:05:19.080 | before I became a parent
00:05:20.440 | and had a lot of neurological research that I'd done
00:05:23.840 | and things like that.
00:05:24.680 | And so I believed a lot of things about the brain
00:05:26.280 | but I hadn't got to test it every day on a child.
00:05:30.080 | It was just, you go in the classroom
00:05:31.640 | and you test it over a period of years,
00:05:33.200 | but you really don't have as much,
00:05:35.320 | I hate to use this word,
00:05:36.200 | but control over those environments.
00:05:37.760 | - Sure, sure.
00:05:39.560 | And so with Leo, one of the things we emphasized
00:05:42.320 | really early on was just reading to him,
00:05:45.000 | long chapter books, all kinds of interesting things,
00:05:48.040 | things that I wanted to hear,
00:05:49.280 | especially when I was early in that postpartum time.
00:05:52.800 | And that has helped him to develop an extensive vocabulary,
00:05:56.720 | a really genuine curiosity and imagination.
00:05:59.600 | And it's just been fun to see the fruit of those things
00:06:02.520 | that are so basic, but really effective for him.
00:06:06.240 | We limited screen time,
00:06:07.560 | which I know is a very controversial thing these days,
00:06:11.080 | but I believe that it's really helped his brain
00:06:13.280 | to develop well.
00:06:14.280 | And so it's been fun to see
00:06:16.520 | what just putting your little boy outside can do
00:06:19.480 | for them while they're growing.
00:06:21.960 | - Yes, I agree with you so very much.
00:06:25.040 | Is it working out like you thought it would?
00:06:28.800 | - Honestly, it's working out a little better
00:06:31.400 | than I thought it would.
00:06:33.120 | I didn't, I mean, I know he's not perfect,
00:06:35.200 | he's a child and that's fine,
00:06:36.880 | but I think I underestimated
00:06:39.560 | the power of-- - What he could do.
00:06:41.200 | - Books and hanging out with sweet people
00:06:43.800 | and serving and playing
00:06:45.480 | and just those really simple things
00:06:47.120 | I think are more effective than we give them credit.
00:06:50.560 | - Oh, Delise, that's so encouraging.
00:06:53.400 | Mamas out there, you are doing enough.
00:06:57.240 | When you are reading every day with your little person
00:07:01.320 | and you are going outside and exploring
00:07:04.440 | and answering a bajillion questions
00:07:07.240 | and asking a few of your own
00:07:09.560 | and encouraging their imaginations
00:07:12.280 | and giving them opportunities
00:07:14.280 | to serve their family and their neighbors,
00:07:18.160 | you are doing a great thing
00:07:20.360 | and you are building healthy brains and healthy souls.
00:07:25.160 | Thank you, Delise, that's really good.
00:07:27.560 | Charity, I wanna ask you, you have a longer runway.
00:07:32.680 | I mean, you had a longer,
00:07:34.240 | you've got a longer flight to look back on.
00:07:37.320 | So what's the best outcome of homeschooling so far?
00:07:42.320 | - I was thinking about this question
00:07:46.840 | as Delise was talking.
00:07:48.040 | I feel like the reading aloud with the kids
00:07:52.520 | has been a huge part of what the best outcome has been.
00:07:55.440 | So our best outcome has definitely been the relationship
00:07:59.600 | that our children have with each other
00:08:01.800 | and all of the shared memories.
00:08:03.520 | And so much of that is centered around
00:08:06.280 | the books we read together.
00:08:08.120 | And when they get together, which we just did,
00:08:11.560 | our daughter was home for Thanksgiving
00:08:13.160 | and for a whole week, they got to be together,
00:08:16.400 | which is their favorite place to be.
00:08:18.120 | And they are big pals and all the shared jokes,
00:08:22.520 | the inside jokes that they share
00:08:24.720 | that come from a whole educational journey spent together,
00:08:30.360 | not separated off into other groups and other classes
00:08:34.160 | for all their waking hours.
00:08:36.520 | - Yes, yes.
00:08:37.360 | - And they just shared everything.
00:08:38.800 | And so if we did Dickens, they both did Dickens.
00:08:41.360 | And if we did Austin, they both did Austin.
00:08:43.840 | Yes, I made my son read Austin.
00:08:45.640 | - That's good for you, girlfriend.
00:08:47.240 | - I know, so they have all the shared,
00:08:49.680 | oh, he's a Willoughby.
00:08:51.400 | They have all that shared material.
00:08:56.120 | And I would say it has done wonderful things
00:08:59.240 | to build their relationship together.
00:09:01.440 | And so kudos to you, Delise,
00:09:03.360 | for reading with your little guy,
00:09:05.480 | because that is totally a huge part
00:09:08.720 | of building those relationships.
00:09:10.400 | - Oh, I love that, Charity,
00:09:12.360 | that the best thing or the best outcome so far
00:09:17.360 | for your family has been the relationships,
00:09:21.720 | the memories, the experiences, the inside jokes,
00:09:25.800 | the characterizations.
00:09:27.880 | There are times, our family read a lot
00:09:30.640 | and continues to read a lot.
00:09:32.040 | When our grown kids and their spouses
00:09:35.120 | were home last Christmas,
00:09:36.400 | we read "A Christmas Carol" aloud again.
00:09:39.920 | And I think that their husbands
00:09:42.520 | had never done that really with their families,
00:09:44.760 | but we built some great memories.
00:09:47.040 | I love the whole idea that they are sharing
00:09:50.520 | what they're learning.
00:09:52.440 | They're sharing their lives.
00:09:54.120 | They're sharing their childhoods.
00:09:57.440 | That is something special.
00:09:58.800 | You know, when we ask parents,
00:10:00.920 | what are your goals in homeschooling?
00:10:04.160 | A lot of times, many of us come to homeschooling
00:10:08.720 | with a lot of academic goals.
00:10:11.960 | Even when we say, well, we want them
00:10:15.520 | to learn as much as they can
00:10:17.160 | about as much as they're interested in
00:10:18.920 | and all that kind of thing.
00:10:20.600 | But I think the longer we homeschool,
00:10:25.080 | the more we all see the value
00:10:28.120 | in building a family culture,
00:10:31.520 | a family culture of learning,
00:10:33.360 | but a family culture of care also.
00:10:36.120 | That's really good.
00:10:37.000 | Thank you guys for bringing those things up.
00:10:39.560 | I wanna ask a get real question here,
00:10:43.760 | 'cause we try on the everyday educator
00:10:45.880 | to not let it be all hearts and flowers
00:10:48.400 | and pretty pictures that we paint,
00:10:50.280 | 'cause we all live in the real world.
00:10:52.200 | And some days we get up
00:10:53.560 | and like Lee Bordens herself says,
00:10:55.880 | we're all just little centers running around.
00:10:58.040 | And so I wanna ask you,
00:10:59.640 | what is a hard aspect of homeschooling?
00:11:04.360 | And maybe this was something
00:11:05.960 | that you anticipated being difficult,
00:11:09.400 | or maybe it was an unexpected difficulty
00:11:12.280 | that you encountered along the way.
00:11:15.040 | Charity, what's a hard aspect of homeschooling?
00:11:19.120 | For me, the hardest aspect of homeschooling
00:11:23.440 | has been doing school in the same place
00:11:27.400 | where we relax and sleep and play.
00:11:30.440 | And I know, and this is a controversial idea for sure,
00:11:36.560 | but I know lots of homeschoolers
00:11:38.360 | who the beautiful thing for them about homeschooling
00:11:40.400 | is getting to do school in their pajamas.
00:11:42.680 | And I totally understand that.
00:11:44.360 | But for us as a family,
00:11:46.000 | we have found that it has helped us immensely
00:11:48.640 | to put in artificial boundaries
00:11:51.280 | to help the children know it's time for school.
00:11:53.680 | Otherwise, it always fell apart for us.
00:11:57.680 | And so for us it was,
00:12:00.480 | yes, we are fun and we do fun things
00:12:02.520 | and we love to go outside
00:12:03.640 | and all the fun parts of homeschooling.
00:12:06.240 | But what kept our sanity
00:12:07.840 | was we started at the same time approximately every year,
00:12:11.640 | less that be hearts and flowers and not real.
00:12:15.400 | I will say, in the interest of honesty,
00:12:17.840 | we started at eight o'clock in the fall.
00:12:21.200 | By the spring, we were starting around 10.
00:12:23.400 | (both laughing)
00:12:24.720 | - There's the real, there's the real.
00:12:27.000 | - But we still were starting at the same time
00:12:29.760 | in the general context.
00:12:31.280 | And so we did school with clothes on, not pajamas.
00:12:35.040 | And as they got older and were more mature
00:12:39.320 | and more responsible, that relaxed considerably.
00:12:43.240 | But in the early years,
00:12:45.080 | we found it to be very helpful
00:12:47.000 | to keep lots of artificial boundaries
00:12:49.880 | help their brains come into a learning away from drop,
00:12:54.880 | stepping away from free play
00:12:57.240 | into a more structured learning environment.
00:12:59.840 | And so that has been the hardest thing
00:13:02.760 | to manage every year in my opinion.
00:13:05.320 | - Mm-hmm, and you know, you are right.
00:13:07.840 | It depends on the family.
00:13:09.520 | So every listener you're going to need to gauge your family,
00:13:13.840 | maybe what your family culture is,
00:13:17.600 | is the more free flowing school in your pajamas.
00:13:22.200 | And as it happens and mingled around with life,
00:13:25.920 | maybe that fits your family.
00:13:27.800 | Maybe you as the lead learner in your home
00:13:32.120 | or some or all of your children
00:13:35.080 | really need more structure, a more routine.
00:13:39.240 | I think you're wise Charity to recognize that for y'all,
00:13:42.520 | you needed those boundaries.
00:13:44.480 | I had a friend that we homeschooled our kids together
00:13:48.680 | and she had 10 children.
00:13:51.560 | And so for her, she also demanded that her kids get dressed
00:13:56.440 | but the getting 10 children dressed was such a nightmare
00:14:00.200 | that for several years, while everybody was kind of young,
00:14:03.160 | she instituted this school uniform
00:14:06.360 | and it was like t-shirts and jumpers for the girls,
00:14:10.360 | things that everybody could put on.
00:14:12.760 | It was all the same.
00:14:14.040 | We don't have to worry.
00:14:15.320 | She has my shirt, he took my socks.
00:14:17.960 | Nope, you're putting on the same thing.
00:14:20.200 | You're putting this on when we do school.
00:14:21.960 | So sometimes routines are really good.
00:14:25.120 | So let me ask you this Delise,
00:14:29.640 | as a homeschool mom, as you continue along the journey
00:14:34.640 | that you and your husband have begun with Leo,
00:14:38.760 | what is your biggest fear?
00:14:42.680 | - That is a great question.
00:14:43.880 | And I have to say,
00:14:44.720 | I was in the same structured household as well.
00:14:48.160 | And I appreciated it.
00:14:49.120 | I needed to get- - Yes, yes, yes.
00:14:51.240 | - To shake so I could learn.
00:14:53.000 | You know, so I think sometimes people think,
00:14:55.280 | oh, that's gonna feel too militant for my child.
00:14:57.480 | And it really just depends on what your family needs.
00:15:01.200 | And speaking of, depending on what your family needs,
00:15:03.840 | you know, hindsight is 20/20.
00:15:06.880 | And so I am concerned that I'm going to emphasize
00:15:12.360 | the wrong things.
00:15:13.720 | And you mentioned at the beginning of this episode,
00:15:17.160 | you know, I've been in this homeschool space
00:15:19.680 | for a long time.
00:15:20.600 | I was a child of the 90s.
00:15:22.040 | I'm in my 30s.
00:15:23.000 | I was homeschooled through high school and I'm one of four.
00:15:25.680 | And so I've seen a lot of different homeschool outcomes,
00:15:30.160 | a lot of stories.
00:15:31.440 | And I have a lot of peers who have varying perspectives
00:15:35.600 | on their homeschooling journey, just to be honest.
00:15:37.640 | And so- - Right, right.
00:15:39.360 | - I'm a little concerned that my son might
00:15:42.600 | ultimately misunderstand and maybe even regret
00:15:47.040 | some of my reasons for homeschooling him
00:15:49.160 | because I do plan to homeschool him through high school.
00:15:51.880 | And that's not something that I can control
00:15:54.160 | and I understand that. - Right, yes.
00:15:55.760 | - But it is a concern and something that my mom
00:15:58.040 | has always said about helping us to understand
00:16:02.000 | her thought pattern is that instead of explaining
00:16:05.400 | why she thinks the way she does,
00:16:07.120 | she always just exposed us to how she drew a conclusion.
00:16:12.120 | And that way, even if we disagreed with her,
00:16:15.120 | at least we knew she wasn't crazy.
00:16:17.120 | - Yes, and I know your mom.
00:16:20.280 | She's a dear, dear friend of mine.
00:16:22.400 | Shelly is not crazy.
00:16:23.960 | - She is not crazy.
00:16:25.400 | And so I'm hopeful that that will be the same case
00:16:29.200 | with my son, that if I show him how I drew my conclusion,
00:16:32.440 | at least he'll understand that I loved him and I meant well.
00:16:36.080 | But I do anticipate making a lot of mistakes
00:16:38.360 | along with having a lot of successes.
00:16:40.120 | So we'll see if I emphasize the right things over time.
00:16:43.760 | - It's so interesting.
00:16:44.920 | I think, Delise, that everybody worries about that.
00:16:48.960 | Like, will I leave out the one thing
00:16:52.280 | that my child really needed to learn?
00:16:55.200 | And here's what I will tell you, Delise,
00:16:59.520 | 'cause I'm looking back at the journey where you are now.
00:17:04.680 | You will leave out something.
00:17:07.200 | You will, all of us here,
00:17:09.560 | everybody within the sound of my voice,
00:17:12.320 | just go ahead and accept it.
00:17:13.920 | You will leave out something.
00:17:16.480 | You will overemphasize something that was important to you
00:17:21.480 | that ends up not being important to your kid.
00:17:24.120 | And you will underemphasize something
00:17:27.960 | that they would probably have benefited
00:17:31.200 | from having more of.
00:17:32.840 | And we're all going to make those kinds of mistakes.
00:17:36.000 | But here is the absolute beauty of a classical education.
00:17:41.000 | You will have equipped your child to recoup his losses.
00:17:46.800 | He will know how to go about learning
00:17:51.480 | whatever you didn't teach enough of.
00:17:54.960 | Or he will know how to go about learning
00:17:58.520 | what he develops an interest in
00:18:01.400 | after he leaves your tutelage.
00:18:04.720 | The beauty of a classical education
00:18:06.680 | is that we equip them to stay learners.
00:18:11.640 | And that is awesome.
00:18:13.360 | That is awesome.
00:18:14.200 | Charity, did you have any big fears as a homeschooling mom?
00:18:17.880 | Do you still have big fears?
00:18:21.000 | - Do we all, don't we all have big fears, right?
00:18:23.560 | - Yes.
00:18:25.120 | - When I was really young and just starting out,
00:18:28.000 | my biggest fear was that I would not be enough
00:18:31.200 | to quote unquote cover the subjects.
00:18:34.240 | At some point along the way,
00:18:36.960 | I realized that you can deep dive an entire lifetime
00:18:41.000 | in any one subject.
00:18:43.120 | And so we never cover the subject.
00:18:46.240 | And I feel like that for me was freeing
00:18:47.960 | to know that no, I can't 100% cover anything
00:18:51.040 | with my children.
00:18:52.600 | And instead of making that my goal,
00:18:58.040 | that we must thoroughly cover the subject,
00:19:00.760 | it was more of a, let's not,
00:19:03.880 | like I turned my fear into,
00:19:05.400 | okay, I don't wanna turn off their wonder for a subject
00:19:07.960 | by being too rigid.
00:19:09.640 | 'Cause I am prone to rigidity in structure
00:19:12.880 | as by my personality.
00:19:15.040 | And now as I watch my children and they're finishing,
00:19:20.040 | Alex is finishing his senior year,
00:19:21.960 | Catherine is in college.
00:19:24.960 | I want them to understand that the education they had at home
00:19:29.720 | was just the beginning of education.
00:19:31.520 | It wasn't the end of education.
00:19:34.040 | Mom didn't cover everything.
00:19:35.520 | Mom wasn't supposed to cover everything
00:19:37.920 | that you've learned for a lifetime.
00:19:39.560 | And so at this point,
00:19:40.760 | now that I'm less involved in the hands-on
00:19:43.200 | educating of my children,
00:19:44.600 | I think one of the things that we're giving them
00:19:47.360 | is they go downstairs and they see their dad
00:19:49.560 | is watching a video on quantum mechanics
00:19:51.640 | because it interests him.
00:19:53.160 | - Yes.
00:19:54.320 | - He's a nerd, you know, I love him.
00:19:56.160 | Or they see me doing something else that I'm learning.
00:19:58.800 | And just to be modeling that, we learn for life.
00:20:02.200 | And to let go of that fear that somehow I'm gonna stunt them
00:20:07.160 | because I didn't cover it all.
00:20:09.120 | You won't, you absolutely will not cover it all.
00:20:11.960 | And that's a good thing.
00:20:13.240 | And so-- - Yes.
00:20:14.840 | - Yeah, so now my fear is I just don't wanna shut them down
00:20:18.080 | on a subject because I got too rigid.
00:20:20.360 | - Yeah.
00:20:21.600 | - So my fears have changed.
00:20:23.200 | - Isn't that interesting?
00:20:24.520 | Your fears have changed just like a kaleidoscope changes
00:20:28.000 | by just you turn it and oh, there's something else.
00:20:30.600 | There's another picture.
00:20:32.000 | Oh, I didn't notice that.
00:20:33.200 | Oh, there's a different color.
00:20:34.720 | Yeah, I think you're right.
00:20:37.920 | The things that I feared in the early days
00:20:41.400 | are not what I feared as they headed toward graduation.
00:20:46.400 | And we all grew, we all grew.
00:20:49.800 | Guys, we've talked about and I mentioned
00:20:52.520 | just a few minutes ago that what we strive to do
00:20:56.240 | in classical education is give our children the,
00:21:00.680 | we give them the skills to learn anything.
00:21:07.840 | And that is what a classical education seeks to do.
00:21:13.600 | Teach our children how to learn anything
00:21:18.400 | that they're interested in or anything
00:21:20.400 | that they need to know for life.
00:21:23.440 | Whether or not a mentor appears.
00:21:26.440 | What's classical education to you, Delise?
00:21:29.800 | - I love this question, especially because I work here
00:21:35.240 | at Classical Conversations.
00:21:36.440 | - Yeah, yeah.
00:21:37.280 | - No one ever asks me what I think about it.
00:21:40.320 | (laughing)
00:21:41.160 | And so I love pondering it from a personal perspective.
00:21:46.000 | Right now, at the early stage,
00:21:49.040 | I would say I have two perspectives of classical education
00:21:53.320 | or two goals for my son.
00:21:55.400 | The first one would be to teach him
00:21:57.320 | how to think methodically through a topic
00:22:00.840 | and to progress and to realize that he is progressing
00:22:04.760 | from grammar through dialectic and then to rhetoric.
00:22:09.480 | So that, I think sometimes when we're learning
00:22:11.320 | about something, we feel a little bit disoriented.
00:22:13.120 | And I know that those different stages
00:22:15.960 | are often melded together.
00:22:17.760 | - Uh-huh.
00:22:18.680 | - Helping yourself to think in categories
00:22:22.920 | and say, "Hey, I need to define this.
00:22:24.600 | "My problem is actually a definitions issue.
00:22:26.520 | "Let's go back to grammar really quickly."
00:22:29.640 | I think just causes a person to learn more effectively.
00:22:33.640 | And so I would love for him to be able to see the world
00:22:36.200 | through those eyes.
00:22:37.920 | And then secondarily, I really want him
00:22:41.640 | to have a framework for the integration of subjects.
00:22:44.720 | I think that's gonna be more important
00:22:46.560 | than it ever has been in the world that we have
00:22:50.000 | just because a lot of people don't understand
00:22:53.560 | how agriculture works together
00:22:56.360 | with something like history or geography.
00:22:59.720 | And so for him to look at the world and say,
00:23:02.840 | "Hey, all of these different subjects
00:23:04.280 | "are not actually isolated.
00:23:06.360 | "They are interacting with each other in real time,
00:23:10.480 | "affecting one another.
00:23:11.440 | "And if I can understand math, I can understand history."
00:23:14.880 | Those types of perspectives,
00:23:16.880 | I think are really gonna help him in life.
00:23:18.840 | And I hope he gains that from a classical education.
00:23:21.360 | - Oh, what a lucky little boy Leo is.
00:23:23.840 | That's beautiful.
00:23:25.840 | That is beautiful, Delyse.
00:23:27.400 | And I think that that will really help him.
00:23:29.320 | Charity, what would you say?
00:23:30.720 | What's classical education to you?
00:23:33.760 | - Classical education is, in my mind, at this stage,
00:23:40.360 | it's a natural way.
00:23:41.640 | It uses God-given natural ways we learn
00:23:44.600 | to move from wonder to exploring and thinking well,
00:23:48.920 | as Delyse was talking about,
00:23:50.520 | thinking well and reasoning well
00:23:51.840 | about those things that we're wondering about,
00:23:54.040 | to then expressing those thoughts well enough
00:23:56.240 | to actually inspire wonder in others.
00:23:58.240 | And I think it is not only from,
00:24:01.940 | not only does it incorporate the natural way we learn,
00:24:07.360 | but it also is a beautiful way to prepare our children
00:24:10.880 | to share the most important thing, the gospel,
00:24:13.300 | to teach them the wonder of Christ,
00:24:16.680 | and then to think well and reason well
00:24:18.880 | on theology and logic and philosophy,
00:24:21.200 | and then to be able to spread that message to others.
00:24:23.920 | I think that it is the perfect setup
00:24:27.720 | to building strong communicators for Christ in the world.
00:24:32.720 | - That's great.
00:24:34.760 | That is great.
00:24:35.600 | Building strong communicators for Christ in the world.
00:24:38.800 | That is a wonderful goal for us as parents.
00:24:43.680 | And NCC, we talk about classical Christian community
00:24:47.880 | and how important that is to you.
00:24:51.400 | Charity, what is it that makes what you do at home
00:24:55.760 | with your family as you learn?
00:24:57.680 | What makes that a Christian education?
00:25:00.100 | - The Christian part is the thing
00:25:04.520 | that ties everything else together at our house.
00:25:07.560 | Having come up through public school,
00:25:10.080 | I didn't have the privilege of being homeschooled.
00:25:12.920 | Coming through public school,
00:25:15.160 | religious beliefs or creeds or practices
00:25:18.500 | were kept in a box, and they were outside of the classroom.
00:25:22.240 | And I remember the first time I ever entered
00:25:24.460 | a Christian classroom in college,
00:25:26.760 | I went to a Christian college
00:25:28.460 | for the beginning of my education,
00:25:29.960 | and the professor opened the class with prayer.
00:25:34.040 | And I remember thinking,
00:25:35.500 | even though I'm a Christian, this feels wrong.
00:25:38.720 | It felt-
00:25:40.880 | - So different, so different for you.
00:25:42.200 | - Yeah, it felt like someone had put a square peg
00:25:44.840 | into a round hole in my mind.
00:25:46.520 | And it took a number of years for that
00:25:49.280 | to kind of detox out of my system.
00:25:52.320 | And now, the ability to seek Christ
00:25:56.040 | in the different subjects,
00:25:57.240 | to showcase Christ in all the subjects that we learn,
00:26:00.800 | to practice the two great commandments,
00:26:02.800 | loving God and loving others
00:26:04.120 | in your own built-in safe place every day,
00:26:06.920 | is a beautiful thing.
00:26:09.160 | And I think it's an opportunity that's second to none.
00:26:11.920 | So yes, the integration of Christ
00:26:15.960 | as central to all the subjects
00:26:18.200 | has been the Christian part of the education for us.
00:26:21.840 | - That's great.
00:26:22.760 | What a great thing for you to be able to realize
00:26:27.080 | for yourself and then to promote to your children.
00:26:32.100 | So it's really interesting,
00:26:33.320 | your children probably have never seen
00:26:36.400 | learning apart from the Lord.
00:26:39.760 | - That is true.
00:26:42.640 | My daughter is at a Christian college
00:26:46.360 | and it's such a privilege,
00:26:49.280 | such a privilege to view learning
00:26:52.520 | through the lens of scripture,
00:26:54.120 | through the lens of truth.
00:26:55.880 | And I know they recently,
00:26:58.000 | my son recently had to go and take the SAT
00:27:01.560 | for college entrance and stuff.
00:27:04.020 | And that was his first time to step into a public school
00:27:06.940 | and be around an education environment
00:27:09.720 | where God was not present.
00:27:12.560 | And it was a very unusual experience for him.
00:27:15.260 | So yeah, they've never experienced an education
00:27:22.120 | apart from Jesus in the room.
00:27:24.600 | And I feel like that is a gift
00:27:26.880 | that we've been privileged to offer our children.
00:27:30.520 | - It's beautiful.
00:27:31.400 | I know that for so many of us,
00:27:34.600 | we did not, we're not as lucky as Delise.
00:27:37.540 | We did not come from a homeschool environment
00:27:40.960 | where our parents could always put Jesus in the room
00:27:45.480 | and that Christ was always central
00:27:48.280 | and integrated into everything that we learned.
00:27:51.400 | Our children are blessed
00:27:53.080 | with a different kind of education.
00:27:54.960 | And I think it's gonna take a generation or so
00:27:57.720 | for us to realize what a blessing that was.
00:28:01.860 | Delise, how do you make what you do at home
00:28:06.220 | with Leo Christian?
00:28:07.700 | - Hmm, that's a good question.
00:28:09.820 | Well, you know, I am at the stage of parenting
00:28:13.100 | where, and maybe this never goes away
00:28:15.200 | and I just don't know it yet,
00:28:16.660 | where everything is a character conversation.
00:28:20.620 | You know, it's all about character.
00:28:22.820 | And early on in my upbringing,
00:28:27.060 | this was also the stage where my mom
00:28:29.060 | just poured in Bible verse songs
00:28:30.940 | like a maniac in the best way.
00:28:33.280 | And so all of those songs
00:28:35.580 | are very much flooding back to my mind,
00:28:37.140 | but it's helpful to give your child
00:28:40.700 | something good to think about
00:28:42.100 | while you're trying to redirect them.
00:28:46.080 | And what better to give them than the truth?
00:28:48.420 | So while we're exploring,
00:28:50.340 | of course we're talking about,
00:28:51.580 | you know, and God made those birds.
00:28:53.100 | The other day we were feeding our chickens
00:28:55.700 | and Leo said, "You know, God made those chickens."
00:28:58.820 | - Yes, yes.
00:29:00.100 | - He made you too, you know?
00:29:01.620 | So we talk about him all day,
00:29:03.220 | but we're also very much focusing
00:29:05.460 | on just learning the word of God
00:29:07.540 | and hiding it in our hearts.
00:29:08.980 | - Oh, that was beautiful.
00:29:10.860 | - Yeah, when I read this verse,
00:29:12.380 | or when I read this question,
00:29:13.740 | I thought of the verse Romans 11, 36.
00:29:17.140 | "For from him and through him and to him
00:29:20.300 | "are all things and to him be the glory."
00:29:22.700 | And I think that's really the essence
00:29:24.500 | of a robust education is understanding
00:29:27.700 | that it's all about God,
00:29:28.820 | kind of like what you were just saying, Charity.
00:29:30.680 | - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, that's so lovely.
00:29:33.740 | That's so lovely.
00:29:34.580 | So we got the classical, we got the Christian.
00:29:37.220 | What kind of community are you guys looking for?
00:29:40.900 | What kind of community do you want or need?
00:29:44.780 | And is it different at every age?
00:29:48.060 | Now, Delise, you might not be able to answer,
00:29:50.580 | is it different at every age yet?
00:29:52.260 | 'Cause you only know this age.
00:29:54.580 | But what kind of community are you hoping for
00:29:59.140 | or building for you and Leo,
00:30:01.780 | for your family to learn with?
00:30:03.960 | - Well, I'm hoping for and pursuing two types of community.
00:30:10.380 | I would say probably the latter
00:30:12.700 | a little bit more than this first one.
00:30:15.140 | So first, I really do love moms who understand my values.
00:30:20.860 | I do have a slightly unconventional approach
00:30:23.620 | and perspective on young childhood development.
00:30:27.660 | And especially I've mentioned screens,
00:30:30.180 | but physical play and even messy learning,
00:30:32.460 | just the fact that sometimes you need to make a mess
00:30:35.620 | and that's kind of the point.
00:30:37.480 | And they learn as they make a mess
00:30:39.480 | and cover themselves and whatever it is.
00:30:41.220 | And you can clean that up.
00:30:42.540 | You can teach them that lesson or whatever that thing is
00:30:45.780 | without giving them a chance to interact
00:30:47.500 | with the material. - Oh, my word, yes.
00:30:49.620 | - Which is fun and the aftermath is a different story.
00:30:53.480 | - Yes, but we can just always deal with that.
00:30:56.660 | - Yeah, we can always deal with that.
00:30:58.060 | And I'm not saying every day I'm excited about the mess,
00:31:01.100 | but it's nice to be around other moms who understand that
00:31:05.620 | and who are pursuing those same goals.
00:31:08.260 | But I will say what matters even more to me
00:31:11.980 | than people agreeing with me
00:31:13.820 | is being around people who have been there
00:31:16.540 | and are truly looking in the rear view.
00:31:18.660 | So my friends who have children in college
00:31:21.180 | are the ones I'm really budding up next to right now,
00:31:25.500 | just because I think I'm in the crucial years,
00:31:28.940 | you know, the zero to five foundational years.
00:31:31.600 | And they have a lot of wisdom to share
00:31:35.220 | and I don't know what I'm doing.
00:31:36.580 | And so I need somebody who's been there before
00:31:39.420 | who can kind of at least say,
00:31:40.660 | yeah, keep going in that direction or you're not crazy,
00:31:42.820 | that's a problem, keep addressing it.
00:31:44.260 | - Right, exactly.
00:31:47.220 | - Oh my word, I remember in those early days,
00:31:50.820 | and that's what, I loved practicum
00:31:53.300 | because I could go and I could hear moms
00:31:56.340 | who, like you said, were a little ahead of me on the journey
00:31:59.740 | and they could say, oh yeah, girl, that's fine.
00:32:02.940 | That's not the problem you think it is
00:32:05.660 | or that's getting ready to resolve
00:32:07.940 | or here's what you could try or, you know,
00:32:11.640 | count your blessings, that's not so bad.
00:32:13.820 | And I could look and see that perseverance,
00:32:18.460 | what perseverance did in their family
00:32:20.760 | was to mold their children, like they kept on doing it.
00:32:26.580 | And so I agree, I want people who are ahead of me
00:32:30.140 | on the journey who can give me some mentoring advice.
00:32:35.140 | Hearing you, Delisa, makes me wish that you
00:32:37.980 | and my daughter, Sarah, lived closer together
00:32:39.860 | because those are the kinds of things
00:32:42.460 | that she likes to do, experiences they don't watch.
00:32:46.580 | They don't watch screens, he listens to a lot of music.
00:32:49.980 | And so he has very eclectic musical taste.
00:32:53.180 | When Gideon was a baby,
00:32:54.820 | what soothed him the most was Handel's "Messiah."
00:32:58.340 | - Oh, thank you, exactly.
00:33:00.420 | - Oh my gosh, that is so fun.
00:33:02.620 | And so when he comes to my house, he gets out of the car
00:33:06.620 | and the first thing he wants to do is dig
00:33:08.980 | because one day he found a trowel
00:33:11.120 | and that was one of his early big words, a trowel.
00:33:13.700 | I need the trowel, Lolly, the trowel.
00:33:16.640 | And so the only way he can learn about the trowel
00:33:19.060 | is to really get it the dirt under his fingers
00:33:21.140 | and so he does it.
00:33:22.340 | So that's really cool.
00:33:24.660 | Charity, what kind of community did you seek for your kids
00:33:29.260 | as they were older, you know?
00:33:31.940 | What kind of community did they need
00:33:33.940 | and was it the same thing that you needed?
00:33:36.660 | - So I think what you want and what you get
00:33:39.660 | are sometimes two different things.
00:33:40.940 | And for our family, that just happened
00:33:43.160 | to be the way it turned out.
00:33:44.560 | One of the things that I have focused on with the kids
00:33:48.300 | as communities came and went over the years,
00:33:50.580 | or we moved actually,
00:33:51.820 | and so then you have a whole different world,
00:33:54.340 | is that in the same way that Christostom is known
00:33:56.820 | for saying that a home should be a little church
00:34:00.180 | and the best churches are those where it's a combination
00:34:04.180 | of all the little churches.
00:34:05.240 | And unless church is happening in the home,
00:34:07.900 | church as a body is stunted, right?
00:34:11.980 | And so what we try to teach our children,
00:34:15.140 | because we did have such a flux in formal community
00:34:18.780 | as we moved, is that what we have at home
00:34:22.740 | is the little community.
00:34:24.660 | And in the years where the larger community wasn't present
00:34:28.940 | or wasn't ideal, we could still have our little community.
00:34:32.460 | And so the best communities out there, in my opinion,
00:34:35.760 | especially CC communities, are those that are combination
00:34:39.380 | of people doing community with their families.
00:34:42.480 | And if they're loving one another well in the home,
00:34:45.460 | then they will love and learn well together
00:34:47.160 | in the community.
00:34:48.380 | And so for our children, what we have saw
00:34:51.380 | as they have gotten older is more and more and more
00:34:54.420 | understanding the importance of the most local community,
00:34:58.580 | which is the home, that can spill over
00:35:01.300 | into the other communities that we put them into.
00:35:04.220 | And so that's been our emphasis in the last number of years.
00:35:08.120 | - Oh, that's very wise.
00:35:09.500 | And probably is very encouraging to listeners
00:35:12.780 | who maybe find themselves without an outside-the-home
00:35:17.540 | community right now, or who are not
00:35:21.060 | sure that the outside-their-home community that they have found
00:35:24.700 | completely fits them.
00:35:25.940 | That gives us a different perspective, Charity,
00:35:28.900 | and I appreciate that.
00:35:30.540 | That is awesome.
00:35:32.900 | All right, guys, I have some light-hearted questions
00:35:35.740 | for you, because we've been serious for a few minutes.
00:35:38.540 | So I feel like we need to stretch our muscles
00:35:40.740 | a little bit.
00:35:41.540 | What-- Delise, I want to ask you this.
00:35:44.180 | What, so far, has been your funniest homeschool moment?
00:35:52.420 | - OK.
00:35:53.740 | I wasn't sure if I was going to share the story,
00:35:55.960 | but you're asking the question, so here we are.
00:35:59.300 | So Leo is very interested right now in learning Spanish.
00:36:05.020 | And you want to encourage your child's curiosity
00:36:08.340 | and feed that.
00:36:09.780 | And so we were in the very beginning stages--
00:36:12.460 | still are-- of teaching him some Spanish words.
00:36:15.140 | - Oh, that's cool.
00:36:16.320 | - We went to the grocery store, and the cashier
00:36:19.700 | had a Spanish accent.
00:36:21.660 | I have no idea where she was from.
00:36:23.420 | And Leo was convinced that this woman was speaking Spanish.
00:36:27.500 | So he starts talking to her, and he says,
00:36:29.740 | why is she speaking Spanish to me?
00:36:31.460 | I said, well, honey, she's not speaking Spanish.
00:36:33.420 | She's speaking English.
00:36:34.380 | And he says, yeah, she is speaking Spanish.
00:36:36.100 | And then she starts to talk to him.
00:36:37.220 | She said, no, I'm speaking English.
00:36:38.620 | You know, she's being very sweet to him.
00:36:40.300 | And he starts speaking back to her, of course,
00:36:42.300 | because she is speaking in English.
00:36:44.300 | Yes, Laura is speaking Spanish.
00:36:45.900 | Do you get it or not?
00:36:46.860 | And then he starts to try out words
00:36:48.540 | that he thinks are Spanish--
00:36:50.340 | "tito" and things like that.
00:36:52.300 | And it was just--
00:36:53.960 | it was one of those moments where you think to yourself,
00:36:56.300 | I'm so glad that I taught this child to ask questions.
00:36:59.300 | And I need you to stop right now.
00:37:02.140 | Yes.
00:37:03.220 | Yes.
00:37:04.900 | That is so funny.
00:37:08.660 | You spend all these years just waiting for your child
00:37:11.460 | to be able to talk and communicate these thoughts
00:37:14.700 | that you can tell that they have.
00:37:16.180 | And then they begin to speak.
00:37:18.020 | And they sometimes don't stop.
00:37:20.140 | And you think, wow, I prayed for this.
00:37:22.820 | And now I really got it.
00:37:25.420 | That's great.
00:37:26.580 | That's great.
00:37:27.860 | Let me ask you this, Charity.
00:37:29.420 | Are you fun mom or sergeant mom?
00:37:35.780 | Well, can I say I'm both?
00:37:39.700 | Yes, you can.
00:37:40.820 | I was going to say, I would-- if I were you,
00:37:43.020 | I'd cheat at this question.
00:37:44.340 | I'm going to cheat at this question.
00:37:45.860 | I would say I'm both.
00:37:46.860 | And the reason is that I would say
00:37:49.540 | I'm sergeant mom in the sense that I personally--
00:37:54.820 | aside from my children, I personally
00:37:56.780 | need lots of structure in my world.
00:37:59.300 | I get up at the same time every day.
00:38:01.980 | I go on the walk at the same park every day.
00:38:04.500 | I just need structure because it helps clear my head.
00:38:07.140 | It helps keep me focused.
00:38:10.020 | And I would say that I'm--
00:38:11.660 | this is kind of an irony.
00:38:14.500 | People have said to me, well, you're
00:38:15.900 | so structured and so disciplined.
00:38:17.300 | You must be a strong person.
00:38:18.660 | I would say that I'm structured and disciplined
00:38:20.580 | because I'm a weak person.
00:38:22.140 | If you take away the structure, I may become, like,
00:38:25.340 | I don't know, completely chaotic.
00:38:26.820 | So I'm a sergeant in that way.
00:38:29.980 | But I'm definitely a sergeant first to myself.
00:38:31.940 | And then that trickled over into the structure
00:38:33.860 | in the homeschool.
00:38:35.020 | But I'm also the mom who is going to do lots of outdoor,
00:38:40.260 | lots of hiking, lots of--
00:38:43.020 | of course, you can take off your shoes
00:38:44.580 | and wade in the stream out in the middle of the park.
00:38:48.080 | And then, of course, you're going
00:38:49.500 | to walk in your nasty, gritty socks
00:38:51.140 | and complain all the way back to the car
00:38:52.860 | because your mom didn't think that through first.
00:38:55.820 | Yes, yes.
00:38:57.500 | But, yeah, I would say I'm a combo.
00:38:59.820 | I'm a combo of those two things.
00:39:03.060 | That's cool.
00:39:03.780 | And your children probably are the better
00:39:06.980 | for you being both of those things
00:39:09.740 | because they now know how to keep a schedule
00:39:13.140 | and how to break a schedule.
00:39:15.180 | So that's a good thing.
00:39:16.460 | Delise, what about you?
00:39:18.700 | Yeah, Delise, are you fun mom, sergeant mom, or a combo?
00:39:24.260 | Oh, yeah, I was definitely going to cheat, too.
00:39:26.220 | I was not going to be trapped into these boxes.
00:39:30.740 | Yeah, I would say I'm some of both.
00:39:32.740 | Again, these early years are about structure.
00:39:36.460 | But I agree with you, Charity.
00:39:37.700 | I mean, I need the structure just to think straight.
00:39:40.820 | And I mean, not everything has to be structured.
00:39:43.020 | But I would say about 85% is going to really help me out.
00:39:47.180 | And then there's freedom in that.
00:39:49.540 | I'm a very creative person.
00:39:50.980 | And having constraints breeds creativity.
00:39:55.140 | And so I've found that to be helpful even in just saying,
00:39:58.740 | like, hey, we're just going to do our structured learning
00:40:01.180 | in the morning.
00:40:02.340 | And so then I just tell myself, all right,
00:40:04.740 | we did what we were going to do.
00:40:05.820 | And everything else is a bonus.
00:40:07.100 | You know, then we have all these ideas of things
00:40:09.780 | that we want to do and structure and learn.
00:40:11.860 | But this is where we got the early stuff out.
00:40:14.980 | And so, yeah, I'm a little bit of both right now.
00:40:18.300 | And we will see if that continues to be the case.
00:40:20.740 | Yeah.
00:40:21.740 | I bet that it will, Delise.
00:40:23.820 | I bet that it will.
00:40:24.660 | I think I was some of both, too.
00:40:27.220 | I'm also very--
00:40:28.660 | I always have a plan.
00:40:30.260 | And I like to have a plan.
00:40:31.540 | And if you don't have a plan, I probably have one for you
00:40:34.020 | already.
00:40:34.900 | And so we did, especially in the younger years,
00:40:40.740 | our homeschool day was more structured.
00:40:43.180 | Now, it wasn't rigid.
00:40:44.340 | We didn't do things from 11 to 1110 and from 1120 to 1145.
00:40:50.180 | But we did things in the same order, basically, every day.
00:40:54.620 | There was a rhythm and a pattern to our days.
00:40:58.420 | And for little children, I will say that for young children,
00:41:02.900 | structure and rhythm and pattern are very comforting.
00:41:07.260 | They actually prefer to know what is going to happen.
00:41:11.980 | And they know enough about themselves
00:41:14.020 | to not actually want to be in charge of all their choices.
00:41:18.220 | It feels safe.
00:41:20.020 | And it breeds security for them to have a predictable routine.
00:41:25.900 | But yeah, I like to be in the fun mom who could just say,
00:41:29.420 | yep, OK, we're going to do math upstairs.
00:41:31.860 | We're doing fractions.
00:41:32.860 | And so we're going to bake.
00:41:34.020 | We're going to learn fractions by baking.
00:41:37.260 | Or, OK, we're going to go do our memory work by kicking
00:41:40.580 | the soccer ball back and forth to each other.
00:41:43.460 | So it is fun to be the fun mom.
00:41:47.180 | I also actually happen to think that you can be the fun mom
00:41:51.540 | more often if there's a little bit of structure in your life.
00:41:55.180 | But that might just be me.
00:41:58.340 | Let me ask you this.
00:41:59.420 | This is one of the last questions
00:42:01.140 | that I want to ask you.
00:42:02.380 | But it's very profound.
00:42:06.500 | And it's something, I will be honest,
00:42:08.620 | I did not realize early on.
00:42:12.260 | I thought I was doing this great—I
00:42:14.780 | was making this great commitment to homeschool my children,
00:42:17.540 | to follow God, what I thought the Lord was asking us.
00:42:20.580 | My husband and I both felt like the Lord is saying,
00:42:23.620 | do this homeschool thing.
00:42:24.940 | And I felt like I was doing this great thing for the Lord
00:42:30.040 | and this great thing for my children.
00:42:32.260 | And I have since seen how the Lord has blessed me personally
00:42:39.580 | through homeschooling and through this journey.
00:42:42.700 | And He has refined me, not that He's done.
00:42:47.460 | He continually is refining me.
00:42:49.340 | But He refined me a lot in the process.
00:42:52.660 | There was a lot I learned about myself and about the Lord
00:42:57.580 | and about His goodness and faithfulness to me.
00:43:00.860 | I want to know how homeschooling has changed you.
00:43:06.580 | Charity, how has homeschooling changed you?
00:43:09.500 | Homeschooling is such a sanctifying experience.
00:43:15.540 | And I feel like in the early years, I'm a planner, too.
00:43:21.180 | And I love that you said, if you don't have a plan,
00:43:23.300 | I will plan for you.
00:43:25.140 | That is me.
00:43:26.700 | That is completely me.
00:43:29.180 | I know that we had a joke in our family in the early years
00:43:32.100 | that if I wrote out the lesson plans--
00:43:34.700 | because I actually had a planner in the old days.
00:43:36.700 | I had like an actual from the teacher's store.
00:43:38.900 | I went and got a planner, the green book.
00:43:42.500 | If I wrote the lesson plans in pen, someone would get sick.
00:43:47.140 | It was like the curse of the pen written.
00:43:50.020 | And I know in Alabama, we say pen, pen, an ink pen.
00:43:54.660 | The curse of the ink lesson plans, right?
00:43:58.280 | And if we wrote it in pencil, things went better.
00:44:00.900 | I know that seems like a little bit of a--
00:44:03.940 | that's ridiculous.
00:44:04.820 | But that's how it felt to us.
00:44:06.940 | And I had so many more--
00:44:12.460 | I held my plans much more close to my heart
00:44:16.620 | when the children were little.
00:44:17.860 | And I was much more distressed by the way
00:44:21.340 | that life interrupted and all the magic and flowers
00:44:27.700 | and unicorns that I'd planned for that week
00:44:29.940 | went up in smoke when the children got the flu
00:44:33.140 | or whatever.
00:44:34.380 | And so I feel like homeschooling has
00:44:35.940 | allowed me to be OK with writing my plans in pencil
00:44:40.620 | and finding out that when all you have to offer
00:44:43.780 | is a couple of loaves and some fishes,
00:44:45.700 | that Jesus makes it enough.
00:44:46.980 | They are going to be OK.
00:44:50.940 | They actually are.
00:44:52.380 | And I know that when my daughter came to me on her very
00:44:55.940 | last day of homeschool, we printed out
00:44:59.420 | her transcript on my printer.
00:45:01.540 | And we literally stood at the printer and cried together.
00:45:05.060 | Yes, yes.
00:45:07.900 | It wasn't a throw confetti in the air
00:45:09.580 | because homeschooling was hard.
00:45:11.300 | It was hard for her.
00:45:12.140 | It was hard for me.
00:45:12.940 | Our personalities didn't jive perfectly.
00:45:14.780 | We had a lot of hard days.
00:45:16.540 | But Jesus wrote a different story.
00:45:18.180 | And his story was beautiful.
00:45:20.340 | And I'm just so grateful for how he's changed me
00:45:23.340 | through homeschooling.
00:45:25.340 | That's so beautiful.
00:45:26.500 | You have moved me to tears.
00:45:27.860 | When you talked about standing at the printer,
00:45:30.180 | because I remember as the homeschooling mom,
00:45:34.420 | the homeschooling lead learner, the homeschooling school
00:45:37.220 | administrator, you have to generate all these documents
00:45:41.500 | when your children graduate.
00:45:43.300 | And so as I built their transcripts
00:45:46.780 | and as I wrote the description of the type of education
00:45:52.060 | they had had, I truly cried.
00:45:54.940 | And I thought, I could never have envisioned this.
00:45:58.620 | When my little girls were second grade and fifth grade,
00:46:01.260 | I could never envision that the Lord would have brought us all
00:46:07.660 | through all the things that we learned
00:46:11.340 | and all the ways that we learned and all the understanding
00:46:15.180 | that we had gained.
00:46:17.780 | And it was a moving and beautiful thing.
00:46:20.940 | He is very kind.
00:46:22.580 | He is a very kind and good father.
00:46:24.540 | He is a good, good father.
00:46:26.300 | That's what I was going to say.
00:46:28.340 | So Delise, how is homeschooling changing you?
00:46:32.580 | Well, as a person who has only ever truly known these waters,
00:46:41.860 | aside from going to university, I
00:46:44.460 | think it would be easy to think, oh, I know what I'm doing.
00:46:48.900 | Which is not the case.
00:46:51.820 | And so even though I've only been at it for three years,
00:46:55.620 | it has been very humbling and also so reassuring,
00:47:00.180 | because I'm a very inquisitive person.
00:47:02.060 | And so I've always been the kind of person
00:47:03.900 | who had a lot of questions for God.
00:47:05.380 | And I'll write my questions down.
00:47:06.780 | And I'm digging through my Bible asking very specific questions.
00:47:10.100 | And he's very kind, as you guys just said, and gracious.
00:47:12.820 | And he often answers my questions.
00:47:14.900 | He humors me, is what I like to say.
00:47:17.900 | He shows me himself in his word.
00:47:20.540 | But I've seen him do that with homeschooling, too,
00:47:23.180 | when I'm confused or I don't understand--
00:47:25.820 | because my son is very different than I am--
00:47:28.100 | the way that he thinks and what I need to say.
00:47:31.060 | Because he's asking me things that I never
00:47:33.020 | thought about before.
00:47:34.700 | Or he's just a boy.
00:47:36.500 | And so he wants to express himself in ways
00:47:39.740 | that I simply don't relate.
00:47:43.220 | But the Lord has been kind already.
00:47:45.780 | And then just showing me himself and giving me
00:47:49.500 | wisdom as a mom, I believe, but also just showing me
00:47:53.540 | that my value is not in what I do.
00:47:58.540 | And that's something I want to communicate to my son,
00:48:02.620 | that his value is not in what he does or even other people's
00:48:06.540 | perspective of his performance.
00:48:09.260 | But I think when we homeschool and we do create the grades
00:48:13.020 | ourselves, it's easy to want to hear other people tell us,
00:48:16.780 | well done.
00:48:18.500 | And I just have to be honest with myself
00:48:20.260 | and say, you know what, Lord?
00:48:21.140 | I'm doing this because I feel called to do this.
00:48:23.700 | And at the end of the day, only you see my every day.
00:48:27.940 | And so only you can give me that thumbs up that I'm looking for.
00:48:32.060 | And he's not going to give that to me
00:48:34.540 | based on my, quote, "performance."
00:48:36.820 | I already belong to him.
00:48:37.740 | Yes.
00:48:38.740 | Oh.
00:48:40.020 | That's where my mind is right now.
00:48:42.060 | That is awesome.
00:48:43.900 | I think that's a good thing.
00:48:45.300 | That's a great place for us to end.
00:48:47.460 | It's a good thought to leave us all with.
00:48:50.740 | Our value is not in what we do.
00:48:54.500 | Our value is in the Lord.
00:48:58.100 | So moms and dads who are listening, who think,
00:49:01.700 | I'm not doing all I should.
00:49:03.300 | I know I'm failing.
00:49:04.700 | Your value is not in what you do.
00:49:08.060 | It is in the Lord.
00:49:09.420 | And so I fully believe, as I can tell Charity and Delise,
00:49:15.260 | believe that the Lord will give you what you need.
00:49:18.900 | And He is, you know, your children might be your project,
00:49:24.500 | but you are God's project.
00:49:26.460 | You are God's to love.
00:49:29.860 | And He is going to do a great work in you.
00:49:33.220 | Ladies, thank you so much for talking to me
00:49:35.900 | about your homeschool experience and sharing your wisdom
00:49:40.700 | with all of us today.
00:49:42.580 | That is awesome.
00:49:43.780 | I want to tell you listeners about another way for you
00:49:50.180 | to maybe interact with some new ideas.
00:49:53.740 | And of course, I guess it's not really a conversation
00:49:56.740 | if you're just doing the reading.
00:49:58.380 | But very soon, our 2025 catalog will be available.
00:50:05.940 | And I want you to know, the catalog is not just a way
00:50:09.860 | for you to find resources you need to buy for next year.
00:50:13.260 | The catalog is full of great articles,
00:50:16.700 | like "The Need for Community" and "His Grace is Sufficient"
00:50:22.980 | and "Skills to Love Your Neighbor."
00:50:25.900 | These are great reads that feed our souls,
00:50:30.300 | that encourage and equip us.
00:50:33.540 | And life is busy.
00:50:34.860 | So here's the deal.
00:50:36.100 | You don't have to read the articles yourself.
00:50:40.340 | You can actually download audio versions
00:50:44.820 | of these articles that are found in the catalog
00:50:47.820 | and listen while you're in the car or working out.
00:50:50.860 | You can even forward an episode to a friend that
00:50:53.780 | has really resonated with you.
00:50:56.060 | You can listen wherever you stream podcasts.
00:50:59.420 | You just search "Classical Conversations Catalog Podcast."
00:51:06.020 | Or you can go to classicalconversations/catalog-articles.com.
00:51:14.380 | All right.
00:51:15.460 | Some great things to take with you on the road.
00:51:18.300 | Delese, Charity, thank you again so much for being with us today.
00:51:22.300 | I appreciate both of you.
00:51:24.540 | Thank you.
00:51:25.020 | This was fun.
00:51:26.220 | All right.
00:51:26.700 | Bye, guys.
00:51:28.740 | [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:51:32.100 | [BLANK_AUDIO]