Everyday Educator - JAM with Latin
00:00:00.000 | Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:08.540 | I'm your host today, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today
00:00:14.160 | as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that
00:00:21.260 | make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:23.920 | Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight
00:00:31.440 | of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.400 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you will find even closer support
00:00:43.640 | in a local CC community.
00:00:45.800 | So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today.
00:00:54.000 | Well, listeners, Delisa and I have a big surprise or a big blessing for you today.
00:01:02.600 | As you come to the end of your school year, as you are thinking about how am I going to
00:01:09.380 | keep my kids focused or on learning for the summer?
00:01:14.620 | What's something fun I can do with them that will keep them in learning mode?
00:01:20.100 | Or maybe you're thinking, what is something I can do to prepare myself for the next fall?
00:01:26.140 | We have got a guest that I think is going to be a blessing.
00:01:30.180 | We have with us today, Alexis Selby Carrico.
00:01:34.780 | Alexis works with Jam with Latin.
00:01:39.360 | You may have accessed this podcast because you wanted to answer the question,
00:01:45.100 | is Latin your jam?
00:01:47.920 | And maybe you wanted to say, yes, it is.
00:01:50.320 | Or maybe you wanted to say, no, it's not, but it needs to be.
00:01:54.000 | We're hoping that Alexis can make a real difference for you today.
00:01:58.040 | Alexis, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:59.760 | Thanks so much for having me.
00:02:02.180 | I'm excited to be here and to talk to everybody.
00:02:04.280 | Well, I discovered from a little comment that you made a few minutes ago,
00:02:10.360 | as we were getting to know each other, that you are actually a homeschool mom yourself.
00:02:16.240 | So tell us a little bit about your homeschool experience so that we can know that you get us.
00:02:23.160 | You really get us.
00:02:25.780 | Yeah.
00:02:26.220 | So I've actually been homeschooling for 15 years.
00:02:30.200 | My son was in third grade and he was in public school and he was actually very depressed.
00:02:38.480 | He was, you know, seven or eight years old and he was super depressed.
00:02:41.520 | And we took him to doctors and everything, couldn't figure it out.
00:02:45.120 | So I was kind of forced into homeschooling.
00:02:48.780 | You know, a lot of us are forced by our Lord telling us, hey, you should do this.
00:02:54.340 | Absolutely.
00:02:55.360 | So my son was again in third grade and we brought him home and he started to thrive and
00:03:04.740 | not be as depressed, which was, of course, our blessing that we wanted.
00:03:09.460 | And we were able to work with him at his level.
00:03:12.780 | He has dyslexia as well as I do.
00:03:16.360 | And I actually have three children.
00:03:19.600 | He's the oldest, Noah.
00:03:21.260 | And then Anastasia, we pulled her out of third grade.
00:03:24.820 | She's two years younger than he is.
00:03:26.820 | And then we have Gabrielle, the baby, and she's always been homeschooled.
00:03:32.380 | All right.
00:03:33.240 | Sometimes she wishes she wasn't like all of our kids at home.
00:03:37.420 | But, you know, sometimes we have to put our foot down and say, no, this is the best thing
00:03:42.020 | for you.
00:03:42.560 | You're my child and I'm going to raise you up the best way I can.
00:03:46.200 | Yeah.
00:03:46.960 | I love you too much to let you have everything you want, especially if it's not the best for
00:03:51.540 | you.
00:03:51.760 | Absolutely.
00:03:53.120 | Absolutely.
00:03:54.720 | Well, that is really cool.
00:03:55.920 | And I understand that you have quite a bit of experience with Classical Conversations
00:04:01.160 | in our programs as well.
00:04:02.880 | Yeah.
00:04:04.280 | So I'm actually a former teacher.
00:04:07.640 | I have a degree in education.
00:04:09.180 | And I had a friend who kept telling me, Alexis, just come home and homeschool Noah.
00:04:15.520 | He needs it.
00:04:16.400 | And she was a director of Assisi Community.
00:04:20.100 | And she's like, just come and be with us.
00:04:22.340 | And, you know, I'll help you through this.
00:04:25.280 | And that's the great thing about CC, the community that you build.
00:04:28.840 | So for 15 years, from the very beginning of my homeschool journey, I have been a part of
00:04:34.740 | Classical Conversations.
00:04:35.840 | Oh, that is so cool.
00:04:37.780 | I'm glad.
00:04:38.460 | I loved it that you said community was the thing that drew you in and that kept you because I think
00:04:44.800 | that's true for a lot of us.
00:04:46.340 | We are looking for somebody to walk beside us on this journey.
00:04:52.180 | And so it's great that you understand where we're all coming from.
00:04:58.340 | So I guess your children have participated in Classical Conversations classes and levels.
00:05:07.540 | Is that where you got exposed to Latin?
00:05:11.000 | Yes, yes.
00:05:13.080 | So again, my son has dyslexia and I have it.
00:05:19.020 | And to tell you the truth, I did not have a very strong background in English grammar.
00:05:26.160 | And so my son was in Essentials and learning grammar.
00:05:31.780 | And so I started to learn right along with him.
00:05:35.360 | And so when he went from Essentials to Challenge A, which is our seventh grade level, we were told,
00:05:48.520 | hey, you should learn Latin.
00:05:50.440 | And when you have dyslexia and you can't spell it in English, you're like, are you kidding me?
00:05:56.300 | I'm going to add a language grade.
00:05:58.900 | So that is what I said at first.
00:06:03.680 | And I'm sure everybody says that.
00:06:05.080 | Are you kidding me?
00:06:05.820 | Why do I have to learn Latin?
00:06:07.340 | And it's actually been one of the biggest blessings in not only my son's life, but the whole family's life.
00:06:15.620 | And it grew from our saying yes to homeschooling and saying, yes, we need a new way to educate ourselves.
00:06:24.400 | We are not going to do what has been done for the last 50 years.
00:06:28.860 | We want to do what's best for us.
00:06:31.000 | That is so awesome.
00:06:33.740 | That is awesome.
00:06:34.880 | So you did not, because now everybody is going to see you as the Latin lady.
00:06:39.940 | You know that, right?
00:06:41.520 | So you're telling me that you did not have a background in Latin when you were growing up.
00:06:47.000 | Did you take Latin in high school or college?
00:06:49.660 | Absolutely not.
00:06:50.820 | I did not.
00:06:51.420 | Oh, my word.
00:06:52.380 | Okay.
00:06:52.860 | So parents everywhere, put your pen down.
00:06:56.580 | That's not your out.
00:06:57.800 | You can't say, I can't help my kids because I never took Latin in high school.
00:07:02.700 | Alexis, the Latin lady, did not take Latin in high school.
00:07:07.180 | Okay.
00:07:07.640 | That's correct.
00:07:08.420 | What made you dig into it for yourself?
00:07:11.860 | Was it to help Noah?
00:07:13.320 | Yeah.
00:07:14.340 | Yeah.
00:07:14.820 | So it was definitely to help Noah.
00:07:16.400 | And, you know, a couple times I had to throw the Latin textbook across the room because, you know, it made no sense to anybody in our house.
00:07:27.300 | And how can that be the answer?
00:07:30.640 | Yeah.
00:07:31.480 | Yes, yes.
00:07:32.460 | And so we started digging into it.
00:07:35.040 | And one thing about the Robert Henley textbook is the very fine print because it was written in 1945.
00:07:42.060 | And so that is actually what I started with first was I was recopying most of the exercises for him so that he could see them clearly because the lines actually run together.
00:07:57.620 | And so by recopying, and I spent like every Sunday for, you know, a couple of years doing that, I started to understand the grammar.
00:08:10.640 | And it really helped because I was in essentials.
00:08:13.180 | I did get that new foundation.
00:08:16.300 | And, you know, it's mostly about memory work and understanding grammar.
00:08:20.300 | Yes.
00:08:21.440 | Oh, you're singing my language now.
00:08:24.360 | I love that.
00:08:25.040 | And you mentioned something that we try to tell parents, even young parents, your children are learning by copying.
00:08:32.000 | They are learning by copying.
00:08:34.180 | And I really love that you emphasize what you were trying to do with Noah at the beginning was make it more hospitable for him to do this thing you were asking him to do.
00:08:46.040 | Learn Latin with this textbook.
00:08:48.060 | So even just copying it into bigger script was a hospitable way to help him learn.
00:08:54.080 | Right.
00:08:55.280 | That's really cool.
00:08:55.980 | What else?
00:08:56.500 | What else did you do?
00:08:57.500 | Did you did you did you do the vocabulary along with him?
00:09:01.500 | Did you do exercises so you could feel his frustration?
00:09:05.360 | What did you do?
00:09:06.300 | Well, we basically did the whole study together.
00:09:10.640 | And one of the things that we found that I found as I also have dyslexia was that when I wrote out flashcards, then I could practice the words over and over again.
00:09:24.420 | And so we would do that.
00:09:26.940 | We would write flashcards.
00:09:28.120 | We would do exercises and and he would, you know, go to class and he was able to participate.
00:09:35.840 | And he was actually really good at memorizing the vocabulary, but not the grammar.
00:09:41.380 | So, you know, that was always where his dyslexia would hold him back.
00:09:47.740 | But he could definitely go to class and translate a sentence out loud and know all the words.
00:09:53.460 | And, you know, even today, he's 23.
00:09:56.800 | We still work on grammar.
00:09:57.980 | So we talk about that.
00:10:00.640 | Did he get to the point that he was faster than you at some of the vocabulary and stuff?
00:10:08.020 | Yeah. So that's one thing we have to remember as parents is that the kid's memory is, you know, a hundred times better than our memory.
00:10:16.880 | And what looks hard to us is really not hard to them if we give them the tools to actually do it.
00:10:24.940 | So, yes, he was very good at memory works.
00:10:28.820 | And my youngest daughter, who also has dyslexia, who's used Jam with Latin her whole life, she is like my walking encyclopedia.
00:10:38.300 | I'll go, hey, what's this Latin word?
00:10:40.220 | And she she pulls it up.
00:10:41.940 | So it's important to know that as adults, there's so many tools that we can use to help us translate, to help our child at home, but that they're going to soak it up like a sponge and then know it and be able to teach us what we forgot.
00:11:00.120 | Yeah, that's I was going to ask you, Delise, does that resonating with you?
00:11:06.680 | Because Leo being only only three, but I know he's a sponge and I know he remembers things both that you want him to remember and things you don't want him to remember.
00:11:18.560 | That is true.
00:11:20.680 | Yes, he's he's definitely a sponge.
00:11:22.340 | And I think every mom listening can relate to what you're saying.
00:11:26.400 | And I would love for you to honestly speak to speak to moms and encourage us even more to to stop putting up gates for our kids.
00:11:36.440 | I guess is really the best way I can put it, because, you know, we're intimidated by a topic.
00:11:40.760 | We never dove into that where we tried and we hit a wall, you know, that often happens to people with math, but it often happens to people with Latin.
00:11:48.880 | And so what would you say to a mom who's finding herself constantly creating objections for her child to maybe help her think differently about that?
00:11:59.460 | So when I was in getting my degree in education, back at that time, 1997, 98, we were always talking about inclusion.
00:12:12.380 | Include the kid in the school.
00:12:13.960 | Include everybody.
00:12:15.900 | Because if you include and you think about the one room schoolhouse, which included everybody.
00:12:20.720 | Right.
00:12:21.500 | You and you have a higher level.
00:12:24.720 | You pull everybody up to that higher level.
00:12:28.640 | Now, Noah was, had the dyslexia.
00:12:31.780 | So he had something that was holding him back.
00:12:33.780 | So is he going to get to the highest level of the genius?
00:12:37.420 | No, but he will get to the point where he's supposed to be in the path that God has set for him.
00:12:45.780 | And so when we put blocks and say, oh, my kid can't do this because I don't get it, then you're blocking what he's supposed to do, what that child's supposed to do.
00:12:58.080 | And so I always think about it is that everybody can learn something at their own level.
00:13:07.220 | And that there are so many tools for all of our subjects that, you know, like Gabrielle doesn't like, my youngest doesn't like science.
00:13:17.700 | But there's so many YouTube videos that we can go and access and say, okay, this is the concept we're learning today.
00:13:24.200 | The book made no sense to you, but let's open this video and watch that concept.
00:13:29.660 | So I think it's really important to remember that there is a plan for our children that we don't know what it is.
00:13:40.220 | And that when we give them the tools, and that's part of what Jam with Latin offers, is the tools to dive into topics that we don't understand,
00:13:52.380 | that they can then, you know, conquer the world because they have the tools.
00:13:57.620 | They can soar.
00:13:59.340 | I absolutely love you are helping us as parents see that our job is to be the gate, opening the gate.
00:14:09.260 | We're the gate opener, not the wall builder.
00:14:12.580 | And so as we need to think about what are we saying with our words?
00:14:19.100 | What are we saying with our faces?
00:14:21.420 | What are we saying with the way we structure their time?
00:14:25.920 | Like if we always leave the subject, Latin or math or logic or whatever it is, to the end of the day or till we don't really have time, what are we saying?
00:14:35.780 | Instead, I love that you say what our job is as parents is to show them all the tools, how to use them and let them go as far as God will carry them.
00:14:49.860 | So talk to us a little bit about how Jam with Latin does that.
00:14:55.400 | Tell us about when did the company begin?
00:14:58.340 | Why did you start it?
00:15:00.660 | What are the tools that are involved?
00:15:02.820 | Right, right.
00:15:04.120 | So, again, it started with me copying the Henley textbook for my son.
00:15:11.220 | And while I was doing that, I was picking up the Latin and the grammar.
00:15:15.100 | And the great thing about classical education, and this is a key that people don't understand, is that classical conversations is using the classical approach, which is actually layering information over and over again.
00:15:30.720 | And some people are like, well, we already did that chapter.
00:15:33.040 | I don't need it.
00:15:34.060 | No, you need it again.
00:15:35.340 | You have to do it again, yes.
00:15:37.580 | You have to listen because there are so many things that you miss the first time around.
00:15:45.400 | And when you get it a second time, it clicks.
00:15:50.380 | It's kind of like in foundations.
00:15:51.740 | We have three cycles, and your child might start at four, and then at six, we'll have it again, and then at nine or ten, we'll have it again.
00:16:00.760 | And those three exposures gives them a different level of understanding.
00:16:07.600 | And so that is what's so important about classical conversations and classical learning is the layering of every single subject, from the grammar stage to the dialectic stage.
00:16:21.360 | To then the rhetoric stage, when those kids are able to teach us what we've missed.
00:16:25.840 | Yeah.
00:16:27.180 | You're so right.
00:16:29.080 | I mean, that's how you get the full picture.
00:16:31.240 | It's like you get a few pixels every time you pass through a subject, and eventually you're going to have enough pixels that the picture actually looks like something.
00:16:40.580 | But it doesn't start out that way.
00:16:42.780 | Yeah.
00:16:43.240 | Yes.
00:16:45.080 | So in Jam with Latin, the reason I created it was because I was diving into the Henley textbook, and the moms in my community didn't have the time or weren't focused on that.
00:17:00.860 | And so they were asking me, Alexis, I need help.
00:17:03.660 | Alexis, I need tutoring.
00:17:04.800 | And so I had these people ask me all the time, and I said, I can't help everybody.
00:17:09.240 | I'm still homeschooling.
00:17:11.300 | So let me put my lessons online for you to access.
00:17:16.320 | And that is part of our class.
00:17:19.720 | So what happens is the Jam with Latin classroom has a checklist because I found that my son really needed to be accountable for what there was to do.
00:17:29.780 | And we have daily videos, and they are eight minutes or less.
00:17:35.820 | And in the videos, I teach the Robert Henley grammar, and then I go over the vocabulary words.
00:17:43.180 | So the two really main important parts.
00:17:45.740 | And then after that, I do have the Henley exercises type that the Loyola Press gave us permission to have them in our classroom for our class.
00:17:58.700 | And that gives those kids that need help with the readings to be able to see them clearly.
00:18:06.040 | So those are just some of the tools.
00:18:08.400 | The other thing is the community.
00:18:10.080 | I really want to help as many people as possible across the world.
00:18:15.540 | Jam with Latin actually has users in South Africa, Kenya, India.
00:18:22.980 | There's an Air Force base, no, Army base in Germany that there's a lot of families that use our program.
00:18:29.780 | So I'm giving you the tools, but I'm also giving you the community.
00:18:35.140 | And all of my members can actually email me, call me, text me, Zoom me, and ask questions and have me help them through the exercise.
00:18:45.780 | Why is this, this?
00:18:46.820 | And I, you know, we walk through it together.
00:18:49.560 | Right.
00:18:50.440 | That's so helpful.
00:18:51.540 | That is really great for a parent to know.
00:18:54.500 | Because I know, you know, sometimes the kids are like, I don't care why it is that way.
00:19:01.060 | I just want to do my work.
00:19:02.520 | But the parent always wants to know, well, I don't understand why that's not the answer.
00:19:07.240 | That's not what it says in the answer key.
00:19:09.020 | I need to know why.
00:19:10.700 | And so that's great that they have access to somebody who can help with that.
00:19:15.220 | I love it.
00:19:16.260 | And I love that you structure those videos so tightly that they're eight minutes or less.
00:19:22.800 | Because I think sometimes the hurdle is starting.
00:19:25.160 | You know, you think, okay, well, this is this huge thing.
00:19:28.640 | You know, it's going to take me a lot of time, but if you just say, let's just put 15 minutes aside and eight minutes of that time is going to be us watching this video.
00:19:37.080 | And you know you're going to spend more than 15 minutes because it takes more time than that.
00:19:40.520 | But you can at least get started and get that ball rolling and know that your time will be productive and well used.
00:19:48.060 | So I just think that's beautiful that you're illustrating.
00:19:51.280 | This can be explained succinctly, and then you can unpack it as much as you need.
00:19:57.000 | Yeah, so part of the reason I can do it in eight minutes or less is that the videos are for the four days a week that you're at home.
00:20:04.360 | And so each day is building on the textbook, whatever that grammar rule is or whatever the vocabulary is,
00:20:12.560 | so that you're not putting the whole weeks of lessons on Monday and then trying to work through it.
00:20:19.300 | So that it breaks it down into a more succinct, more digestible amount of time for the kids and the moms.
00:20:27.100 | You know, and I do encourage moms to sit and watch the videos as well so that they can then explain or ask me questions if they don't understand something.
00:20:37.620 | That's really good.
00:20:38.820 | I was going to say, do you advocate parents doing this?
00:20:42.360 | Well, for eight minutes, everybody's got eight minutes to sit down.
00:20:47.540 | That to me seems like it would be, you mentioned, Delise, earlier that doing it as a summer addition would be a little delicious.
00:20:58.260 | Alexis, an eight-minute lesson is something that you could do after you get your bathing suit on before you go to the pool, you know,
00:21:06.640 | and that gives you something to think about.
00:21:09.260 | I like that, too, that you said, Alexis, that you do like one grammar concept or one rule a day and let it layer and let it sink in a little bit.
00:21:21.640 | That's really good.
00:21:22.620 | Who are your main users?
00:21:24.840 | Is it CC communities?
00:21:27.280 | Yeah.
00:21:28.840 | So it's usually CC moms across the country and in those other countries that I mentioned earlier.
00:21:35.160 | And they're trying to be equipped to help their child at home.
00:21:40.360 | And I, you know, we didn't learn Latin, most of us that are homeschooling today.
00:21:48.920 | We didn't learn Latin and we hardly learned any other language.
00:21:53.480 | You know, we had to all take two years of French or Spanish or whatever it is.
00:21:58.620 | But a true American doesn't know another language.
00:22:01.520 | Part of that, I think, is definitely the fact that we weren't taught basic grammar in school.
00:22:08.840 | And so when you don't understand grammar, you can't understand how foreign languages work and they don't stick in our brains.
00:22:18.200 | So using Latin as your base course to then go into these other languages if the student and the family wants to is really a stronger foundation than just doing grammar or English grammar by itself.
00:22:37.620 | Again, it's that layering, get the English grammar in the younger years, and then we add the Latin grammar with the Latin words.
00:22:44.880 | And then we have this whole new basket of knowledge.
00:22:51.320 | We do have some families that are not part of the CC community.
00:22:55.640 | And that's great as well because everything is accessed from their own website.
00:23:01.400 | We have one website that they log into.
00:23:04.160 | And as the kids get older, I start to get emails just from the students when they're in the sophomore or junior years.
00:23:11.900 | That's cool.
00:23:13.820 | And the kids can actually email me and we can do Zooms as well.
00:23:18.340 | So on Monday nights, we do have a live Zoom through April.
00:23:22.820 | And those live Zooms are for Henley Book Lesson 1 through 15, which I call Class A, and Book 1 through 29, which is Class B.
00:23:34.560 | And those are usually kids or moms or directors who want to know more about the lesson that we're on.
00:23:40.820 | And it's a review and a question and we dive more into the exercises and that gives them another avenue for help if you need it.
00:23:53.940 | Right, right.
00:23:55.340 | Another tool, another resource for them to use.
00:23:59.020 | That's really cool.
00:24:00.280 | Have you, I'm interested.
00:24:03.240 | Did you notice a correlation between studying Latin with your children and their ability to understand English grammar and use English words more fluently?
00:24:20.680 | Yes.
00:24:22.420 | So I have actually, not only with my own children at home, but with my students in community, the students that stick with Latin,
00:24:33.220 | Latin and are really dedicated to their studies, you can see in their sentence structure the intricate details of their Latin and their English.
00:24:47.580 | So it does really, studying Latin and the grammar of Latin through the Henley textbook really does strengthen a student's ability to write in English, which is a skill that many American children do not have.
00:25:03.840 | And we all are like, well, how could they know, kids know how to write today?
00:25:08.800 | No, they actually do not.
00:25:10.860 | My daughter goes to the University of Richmond and many of the kids are from private schools.
00:25:18.200 | And in her class of 25, her freshman English class, she was called out as having the best essay and her essay for the final exam was used as an example for the next year.
00:25:29.300 | So one in 25 kids was the only one that actually knew how to finish the exam.
00:25:35.600 | Isn't that interesting?
00:25:36.920 | I've always suspected it.
00:25:38.660 | And that's been, I ask you because it was my experience too, that the students who were good Latin students were better English grammarians and better writers in English.
00:25:49.560 | And then the kids who come into Latin having a good English grammar background seem to have an easier time with the transition as well.
00:25:59.880 | Yes, I have found that too.
00:26:01.720 | Those essentials years are valuable.
00:26:04.360 | They're crucial.
00:26:06.560 | And I wonder too, with, with the, you know, the new AI and the ways that we're approaching learning and writing and thinking, just everything that we're anticipating for the future, because of course we do not know the future.
00:26:23.260 | I wonder if that is going to be increasingly the case, that people are going to see, hey, it's not just, they need to understand grammar.
00:26:33.020 | It's that they need to understand it so well that, that they're able to communicate in a way that a computer never could.
00:26:40.460 | You know, they need, they need something that's beyond what can be replicated or learned by an intelligent machine.
00:26:48.400 | Right.
00:26:49.960 | And yeah, I'm excited when I think about the idea of teaching my son Latin, especially because, you know, I did, my mother's bilingual.
00:26:58.960 | So I grew up in a household where French was spoken frequently.
00:27:02.200 | So I learned French, um, as in I could understand everything she said and I spoke English to her.
00:27:09.000 | And then I actually learned Spanish in school, but because those romantic languages were structured differently, I still see so many gaps.
00:27:19.940 | In the way that I communicate, even though I excelled in English and I did wonderfully in college and, you know, they showed my essays too, but at the end of the day, I still have those gaps.
00:27:28.940 | So I'm wondering what, um, truly understanding Latin will do for students in the future and if you have any thoughts on that, especially with, with the new technology and, and what we're seeing on the horizon.
00:27:42.940 | Well, you know, you might not know this, but Latin was in all schools in until the 1950s, um, maybe early sixties.
00:27:54.800 | And since then we have seen a decrease in the quality of education throughout America.
00:28:02.700 | Um, and the Latin was one of our original ways to learn, right?
00:28:11.900 | We learned language, all the founding fathers learned Latin, all the, um, you know, original preachers that we listened to, they all learned Latin.
00:28:21.560 | And all these scholars that we now study, even Mark Twain and probably Shakespeare, you know, they all studied Latin and they were these highly intelligent beings that changed our world for the better.
00:28:34.760 | And we took Latin out of schools and it's possibly because of the religious connection is possibly because people thought it was too hard, but when we did or that it was dead, it was not necessary.
00:28:48.560 | And so I think just incorporating Latin for four or five years in a student's life gives them an edge to all those students who are not doing it.
00:29:12.640 | It, it, it, it increases your brain ability.
00:29:15.100 | Um, there was a study I read once where they put Latin into a Chicago public school and they did absolutely nothing else, but taught these kids Latin.
00:29:26.080 | And that school, it's test scores increased to the next year.
00:29:32.060 | So they, they have seen very, um, decisive increases in the ability of a student thinker when they are taught Latin.
00:29:45.320 | And it's, I, I think it's overall like your whole brain functions better when you can use Latin as a puzzle.
00:29:53.060 | Cause you know, a lot of times we're like, oh, it's a language.
00:29:55.720 | Well, it's this big puzzle that when you know the pieces of the puzzle and you can put it together, your brain can then do that in many different aspects and very, very quickly.
00:30:06.740 | Um, so I don't think it's just in writing that we can see the improvement or in English grammar or how we present ourselves to others, but across the board, the, uh, the ability of a child who has learned Latin is increased like tenfold.
00:30:24.920 | I would say, um, by just studying, um, by just studying and being able to see those patterns that I believe God put out there for us.
00:30:32.940 | Yeah.
00:30:33.260 | I, I, that was going to ask you, do you think it is the, um, the discipline of studying, of memorizing, you know, paradigms and, and memorizing declensions and conjugations, or is it the finding of patterns?
00:30:48.380 | Or is it just that it is a structure and it has a structure, the language has a structure that you discover as you learn it more and more that maybe wires your brain to look for structure and pattern in everything else and find it and then learn it.
00:31:09.340 | Yeah.
00:31:10.120 | So I kind of think it's all of those things.
00:31:12.400 | I think, um, when you're studying Latin, you're learning how to study, um, you're learning how to memorize and you're learning to see patterns and then you will see those patterns in other aspects.
00:31:28.520 | Um, like when I opened the, um, I think the Apologia Biology book in the first chapter, there was a Latin word.
00:31:37.480 | I was like, oh, look, that's the exact Latin word that we've been using.
00:31:40.880 | Um, the quality of over quantity, which is for adjectives.
00:31:46.200 | I've seen that repeated in other aspects where we have quantity, the number of things over quality, the, the, how it should be, um, the explanation of something.
00:31:57.160 | And it's not just in Latin, but I think I've seen it in logic and in science as we've been studying those things.
00:32:04.700 | So overall, I think the combination of how you study Latin will then snowball into every other aspect of how you study and how you see and how you pull apart words.
00:32:19.160 | And, um, yeah, you're given a great advertisement for learning Latin for lots of different reasons, not just to earn a credit, but to, to wire your brain to be a better learning instrument.
00:32:34.480 | That's really cool.
00:32:35.920 | Delise, you said that you were looking forward to learning Latin alongside Leo.
00:32:43.560 | When do you think you guys will start?
00:32:45.860 | Do you think you'll just start, um, memorizing like foundations Latin?
00:32:51.980 | Um, I definitely plan to memorize or to try to memorize, you know, he'll do it and I'll do my best, um, everything that is offered in foundations.
00:33:01.660 | Um, so I'm looking at the next, the next year to year and a half, we're going to spend one year focusing on scribblers.
00:33:09.460 | Cause he's, he's got a full birthday.
00:33:10.940 | So I'm kind of in that in between.
00:33:12.880 | You could start them early.
00:33:13.860 | You could start them late.
00:33:14.680 | So I thought I'll give you the edge up and let you start late.
00:33:17.020 | You'll be the oldest instead of the youngest in the class.
00:33:19.680 | Um, but yeah, I'm definitely planning to embrace it and I'm excited.
00:33:24.460 | I mean, my husband and I, we love Jeopardy and I've even been frustrated that I didn't know more Latin when we're trying to answer the question to Jeopardy cause I can see, I can see the gap, you know, but it's this big.
00:33:37.380 | So I think it'll be fun to see, um, just the way things are demystified as we start to approach it.
00:33:45.500 | So, um, I would love to encourage young moms like you to, uh, number one, I do think memorizing the endings, the John one, one, the prepositions, all the things that are in foundation.
00:33:59.820 | They seem silly and, you know, useless, but really and random, um, but they're not, they're put in order.
00:34:08.880 | They're really the pegs that you need when you get into your challenge, a classroom.
00:34:17.500 | Um, and so I have seen the kids who do go through foundations and essentials.
00:34:22.500 | They are more equipped to start challenge a Latin with the Henley textbook.
00:34:29.060 | Um, there, the Jam with Latin classroom actually has a coloring book for John one, one, and that's on Amazon and we're, um, trying to produce a series of, um, children's stories.
00:34:42.620 | My daughter is actually a very good artist, all the Jam with Latin artwork that's on our cover and the John one, one coloring book was, um, drawn by my daughter, Anastasia Carrico.
00:34:53.780 | And so we're coming out with a book about three little piggies.
00:34:58.300 | We don't have a title yet, but, um, that is going to have like simple words that we learned, you know, like from Dr.
00:35:07.880 | Stoose and stuff, but simple words in English and then in Latin underneath.
00:35:12.620 | So you can see them both and so there'd be some introduction books like that, that we're going to produce that you can have at home as well.
00:35:22.340 | You were mentioning a while back about our summer program, like what to do in the summer because summer's about to start.
00:35:28.860 | So, um, if, so I have different levels and Jam with Latin has a beginner novus one class and this class is 24 weeks.
00:35:40.340 | Um, and I encourage families to do this their last year of essentials.
00:35:45.340 | And the way I set it up was copy work, like we were talking before, um, copying Latin sentences and diagramming them and then learning about 80 vocabulary words that will be in the Robert Henley textbook.
00:35:59.980 | Um, and then in the summer, um, then in the summer, if the kids miss that, I have a 40 week summer program, it's called Jam with Latin summer study.
00:36:07.480 | And there's a workbook for that on Amazon as well.
00:36:11.480 | And that actually helps you to start making your vocabulary flashcards.
00:36:17.000 | And it shows you the structure of the vocabulary words and our noun declensions and starts to introduce you, um, before you open up your Robert Henley textbook.
00:36:29.760 | I'm not sure how many vocabulary words are in that, but probably 60 to 80 as well that you would have the flashcards made.
00:36:37.800 | Um, and that actually helps to reduce the amount of vocabulary words you have to focus on when you start class a, and that is about 40 to 45 days of, of set work.
00:36:54.640 | There are short videos with that.
00:36:56.600 | Those are a little bit less because we're, we're focusing on, um, not as much grammar rules and more on the vocabulary.
00:37:03.900 | But like we all know with, uh, classical learning, we have to start with the vocabulary first and then go from there.
00:37:11.300 | Yes, yes.
00:37:12.600 | That'd be a great, easy thing to do in the summertime.
00:37:16.580 | That'd be a great add in.
00:37:18.800 | Yeah.
00:37:19.000 | And my daughter and I, I, so I made it for my youngest daughter, both of those classes, the summer study and the beginner novus one.
00:37:25.320 | And we didn't spend more than 20 minutes each day on either of those.
00:37:29.940 | That's awesome.
00:37:30.660 | And so again, I'm trying to help families to see that they can do this and give them the tools, um, and, and make it fun for the kids.
00:37:40.760 | I do have, you know, kids that email me all the time and like, thanks, Ms. Alexis for making this fun.
00:37:46.860 | I really love studying Latin and, um, there's lots of opportunities in the Jam with Latin classroom to, um, show me what you learn.
00:37:56.820 | So I each, like a few times a year, I'll put in the workbook, you know, draw me a picture of a Roman or send me a Roman fact.
00:38:05.600 | And the kids will send that to me and then we send out some stickers for them, um, to encourage them some more.
00:38:11.960 | So, yeah.
00:38:12.860 | Is that your favorite part of working with the students, seeing them come alive and learn something and enjoy it?
00:38:19.140 | Oh, definitely.
00:38:20.620 | Yeah.
00:38:21.040 | It's so much fun when, when they start talking to me about Latin and what they like about it.
00:38:27.160 | And, you know, so that's the, um, the reward is that I get to see these kids across the world really love that they're studying Latin, that they appreciate, um, their study of Latin.
00:38:42.200 | And, you know, it takes away that mystique that it's hard or not worth it, or, um, it's going to be boring.
00:38:49.700 | So I try to encourage kids that it's, you know, it's okay.
00:38:53.600 | We can do hard things and we can expand our mind at the same time.
00:38:57.760 | Yeah.
00:38:58.420 | We can do hard things together and enjoy it.
00:39:01.380 | That's a good message.
00:39:02.720 | If you had one, um, one adage to give to parents, one thing, what would you tell parents about learning Latin?
00:39:13.700 | What's the best way that they could help their kids?
00:39:17.680 | I mean, giving them the tools that they, that they need to be successful is always the best thing.
00:39:25.860 | You know, buy the Henley textbooks, buy the CC books that are for Latin, buy the, um, the chart pages if you need them and then study along with them.
00:39:37.020 | You know, again, the videos are only eight minutes.
00:39:39.720 | You can do that in the car because we can access them on our phones.
00:39:44.460 | You can look up Latin videos, um, whatever it takes to learn along with your child is really the best thing.
00:39:52.160 | And that's why I've been so blessed because I took that time with Noah and I was like, listen, we're going to learn this together.
00:39:59.960 | It is hard and, you know, I understand where you're coming from, but we can do this together.
00:40:06.840 | And, and I find the kids that do have the parents that can spend the eight to 10 minutes with them on the subject do, um, are really, really successful in what they do.
00:40:18.220 | So I encourage all the parents to take some time in all the sessions, you know, we are busy, but what I like to say is that God doesn't give us more than we can handle in a day.
00:40:30.920 | So if you have three kids, ask God to give you enough time with each of them on the topic that they need, um, for that day.
00:40:40.820 | And then say the same thing the next day.
00:40:42.860 | That's right.
00:40:43.840 | That's right.
00:40:44.280 | It's a great, encouraging word, Alexis, a generally encouraging word.
00:40:48.940 | I appreciate that.
00:40:50.040 | Delise, what, what would you say?
00:40:52.860 | What's, what's one last question you have for Alexis, or maybe what's the most surprising thing you learned today?
00:40:58.620 | Oh, what a good question.
00:41:03.080 | Hmm.
00:41:04.960 | Have you noticed that your dyslexia has either been an edge up, like something that has helped you with learning Latin,
00:41:20.900 | or it wasn't as much of a barrier to you as you maybe anticipated with learning Latin?
00:41:27.880 | So have you noticed anything as it pertains to that?
00:41:30.900 | Because I know that that's fairly common, honestly.
00:41:33.800 | And a lot of people feel very intimidated and excluded from things like learning Latin because of a learning challenge that they have.
00:41:43.680 | So that goes back to my whole study from college when we were trying to bring everybody to include everybody and pull them up to, um, like teach at a high level and pull everybody to that level as best as they can get.
00:42:01.960 | And so in my own education, I, my parents never told me that I couldn't do something.
00:42:08.440 | I couldn't smell.
00:42:09.760 | I know I can't spell, but I use a dictionary.
00:42:13.320 | I can use AI now.
00:42:15.120 | I can use, um, the talk to speak on the computer.
00:42:18.760 | I have a Mac so that I just press the button and you, dyslexia doesn't go away just because I'm older.
00:42:24.940 | It doesn't mean I don't have it.
00:42:26.160 | I still can't spell, but I have to recognize I can't spell.
00:42:30.940 | I can't read fast.
00:42:32.300 | And what are the tools that I need to, uh, get past that hurdle and move on with everything else?
00:42:41.120 | Just like for Noah, what was the tools to help him get past reading the textbook?
00:42:46.120 | You know, and sometimes it means you have to, um, have your student dictate and you have to type for them.
00:42:53.060 | Um, sometimes it means you have to make the flashcards for them or purchase flashcards online.
00:42:59.360 | Um, and so there are dyslexia is not something that stops the person and you have other forms.
00:43:08.100 | You have dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, but what tools do you need to get past that hurdle
00:43:15.400 | in order to learn as much as you can for what God's mission is for you?
00:43:22.120 | Um, so I think I learned that at an early age because my parents didn't put any blockers
00:43:29.020 | on what I could learn.
00:43:30.520 | And I encourage most, you know, all parents don't put blockers, don't tell your student
00:43:36.200 | because you can't write or spell or speak clearly that you can't learn.
00:43:41.960 | They all can learn.
00:43:43.840 | Just work with your child at the level that they're at, find the tools that you need to
00:43:49.820 | help them and then help them grow in the way that's best for them.
00:43:55.440 | That's great.
00:43:55.940 | And it sounds like to me, you're, you have learned to ask better questions.
00:44:00.860 | Okay.
00:44:01.740 | So I can't get to the path this way.
00:44:03.660 | What is another way that I can do it instead of just saying, Oh, the path is blocked.
00:44:08.060 | You know, what's it, what's a better question that I can ask to get the tool that I need so
00:44:12.260 | that I can continue to get to the destination.
00:44:15.700 | That's really great.
00:44:16.880 | I just appreciate you taking the time, Alexis, to tell us about what a great tool you have
00:44:24.060 | created and invited us to use, Jam with Latin.
00:44:27.720 | I want to share a couple of things with Jam with Latin.
00:44:34.980 | Just, you guys have heard Alexis talk about it today.
00:44:39.780 | The truth is that the beauty of Jam with Latin is that all the individual classes have unlimited
00:44:47.560 | family membership.
00:44:48.840 | So everybody in your family can get in on this.
00:44:52.200 | You can dive into Latin.
00:44:53.500 | Every one of your children can dive in when the time is right.
00:44:57.540 | And, and, and I love Alexis that you talked about the live tutorials and the flexibility
00:45:04.780 | that private tutoring could offer to families that want to, to pursue that a little bit more.
00:45:13.220 | I think it's really helpful to parents that they're able to monitor the progress with tests
00:45:19.940 | and quizzes and that you are really helping them, families immerse themselves in the Latin grammar
00:45:28.700 | and in the vocabulary.
00:45:31.120 | And so I want to tell people if they want to join Jam with Latin, if they want to jam with Latin
00:45:39.220 | and join the revolution, they can go to www.jamwithlatin.com.
00:45:47.820 | And that's how you can find all the information that you might need to join Alexis on the journey
00:45:54.600 | of loving Latin.
00:45:56.400 | So thank you so much for sharing with us.
00:46:00.160 | I feel like I learned a lot.
00:46:02.060 | I'm like more motivated to get back into Latin.
00:46:05.620 | I feel like I've let my Latin get rusty since my girls have graduated.
00:46:10.440 | Delise, I bet you're motivated too.
00:46:14.620 | Oh, definitely.
00:46:16.860 | I just looked up the coloring book.
00:46:18.600 | It is adorable.
00:46:19.460 | And I'm getting ready to press buy.
00:46:21.940 | So I'm very excited.
00:46:24.040 | People everywhere are getting ready to give Amazon a bump.
00:46:27.940 | So Alexis, thank you for introducing us to those great tools.
00:46:32.660 | Well, thank you so much for having me.
00:46:35.420 | And I really enjoyed talking to you both.
00:46:38.120 | And I really enjoyed that I get to help your listeners a little bit more to dive into not
00:46:43.420 | only Latin, but all the things, all the studies that we might find hard or difficult.
00:46:48.460 | You can do it with the right tools.
00:46:50.820 | So I'd love that.
00:46:52.440 | Thank you.
00:46:53.460 | Okay, guys, go and find the tool that you need to learn what God is calling you to explore
00:46:59.660 | and be an everyday educator wherever you go.
00:47:03.280 | See you next time.
00:47:04.680 | Bye.
00:47:05.680 | Bye.
00:47:06.680 | you
00:47:07.180 | you
00:47:07.680 | Transcription by CastingWords