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Everyday Educator - Cultivating a Legacy


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00:00:00.000 | Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator Podcast.
00:00:09.800 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time today with you as we learn
00:00:16.360 | together and just really explore the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the
00:00:23.280 | adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:24.840 | Now, whether you are just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight
00:00:32.480 | of family learning, I think you're going to enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:36.820 | But don't forget, although our online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support
00:00:44.120 | in a local CC community.
00:00:46.280 | So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today.
00:00:53.760 | Well, listeners, I'm so excited to welcome you to this episode of Everyday Educator.
00:01:00.120 | I've got Delise with us, as usual.
00:01:03.660 | Delise is here, and we have a dear friend, Olivia Walsh, with us, too.
00:01:10.120 | And we're going to talk about homeschooling, as always, but we're going to talk about it
00:01:16.080 | in a way that the three of us were just discussing.
00:01:19.180 | We've never really thought about homeschooling as producing a legacy before.
00:01:26.200 | So we're going to talk about building a legacy with our homeschooling.
00:01:31.320 | And what does that mean?
00:01:32.280 | And what does that look like?
00:01:33.680 | Olivia, thank you for joining me and Delise today.
00:01:37.620 | Thank you for having me.
00:01:39.800 | You said that you had never really thought about homeschooling and legacy kind of in the same
00:01:47.720 | sentence.
00:01:48.300 | What do you usually think about when you think about legacies?
00:01:52.220 | Sure.
00:01:53.980 | So I guess I just don't think about legacies a whole lot.
00:01:57.040 | But I do think of it, truly, but I do think of it mostly in the sense of passing down a
00:02:03.480 | value, an idea.
00:02:06.020 | But then I kind of also think about it as passing down something, but maybe not all things.
00:02:11.640 | So I, being a homeschool nerd, I literally went to my Webster dictionary before I came on
00:02:16.820 | the call.
00:02:17.380 | Yeah, I have to.
00:02:17.960 | And legacy, in my 1984 copy dictionary, says money, that legacy is money or property bequeathed
00:02:27.340 | by a will, or that it's something handed down from an ancestor or from the past, like a strong
00:02:32.780 | legacy of personal freedom.
00:02:34.140 | So I was thinking of like, you know, when you have this legacy of maybe your dad was a lawyer
00:02:40.540 | and you're a lawyer, or you have some gift that you give to your community.
00:02:46.420 | You know, maybe you are some good benefactor, you know, like a family legacy.
00:02:50.640 | But I don't always think of literal things as being passed down on their own.
00:02:58.620 | Like, for example, I have a painting, a beautiful painting of my father-in-law from when he was
00:03:04.540 | a kid, and it's hanging in our living room because I loved it because, you know, it makes
00:03:08.240 | me think of Doug, and I love who Doug is.
00:03:11.800 | But I wouldn't necessarily think of that painting as holding any much value to it, unless I told
00:03:18.300 | my kids, this is your grandfather, and these are the things he stood for.
00:03:20.940 | Yeah, the story that goes with the thing.
00:03:24.560 | Yeah, exactly.
00:03:25.380 | Be like, if I had, one thing for me in particular, when I had to sit and think through some of the
00:03:32.060 | questions you sent over with legacy was it made me think about my maternal grandparents' legacy
00:03:38.440 | when it comes to how I stay connected with them through gardening.
00:03:42.520 | Like, I have my grandfather's blackberry vines in my yard, and several of my cousins do, and
00:03:48.220 | my aunts do, and my parents do, and Iris is in honor of my grandmother.
00:03:53.180 | But just, I don't want to, like, ramble, ramble the whole time, but I did want to say one other
00:03:58.920 | thing was that it made me think about how small my perspective on legacy really is, because I
00:04:05.820 | only think back one or two generations, maybe three.
00:04:10.700 | I don't think of something that has lasted for generations, like, with a society or culture
00:04:15.680 | that has a tradition that's passed down that says, hey, this is a piece of our identity.
00:04:20.600 | So it was a really interesting question that you posed.
00:04:23.800 | I love what you just said.
00:04:25.820 | It has something to do with our identity.
00:04:28.460 | Because a lot of times, I know, for me, legacies tend to be something that you inherit, something
00:04:36.800 | that was passed down.
00:04:38.180 | I know that I have a stone from my great-grandmother's ring that my dad gave me after his grandmother
00:04:48.720 | passed away.
00:04:49.700 | I was the daughter who had the most relationship with that great-grandmother, and so I have that.
00:04:56.820 | And, you know, we have some similar stories.
00:04:59.420 | I have a, my husband and I have a plant that came from a cutting that was his grandmother's,
00:05:07.000 | and our girls have cuttings from that plant.
00:05:10.360 | And so I guess that's kind of a legacy.
00:05:13.340 | But I love the whole idea of a legacy being part of your family identity,
00:05:21.420 | or you inheriting a legacy that speaks into your identity.
00:05:28.560 | Delise, do you have anything like that?
00:05:31.220 | Do you have any legacies that are identity-making?
00:05:34.580 | I do.
00:05:36.180 | And I think I love having this conversation with people because I'm starting to realize that
00:05:43.680 | what I have is maybe more unique than I thought.
00:05:47.960 | Because I think it's the idea of legacy all the time.
00:05:51.220 | I mean, like multiple times in a week, usually every day.
00:05:56.340 | And I realize now that I think about it because it's been planted in me.
00:06:02.960 | So it very much is a legacy that I'm carrying on.
00:06:06.760 | And thinking about legacies.
00:06:08.720 | Yeah, truly.
00:06:09.740 | And not just me, but also my husband.
00:06:12.960 | Like, I know my husband's family history and the things that we're retaining in his family
00:06:17.840 | history for our sons.
00:06:19.560 | But I also know the things that, when you talk about culture, Olivia, like I know the
00:06:24.700 | things that six generations back, like I know my whole family line.
00:06:28.740 | I know the things that generations back, they tried to preserve that I'm still trying to
00:06:33.800 | steward and pass to my son.
00:06:35.380 | And even down to very specific things, like my family has a legacy of hosting and hospitality.
00:06:40.900 | And my family has, the women have a legacy of sewing.
00:06:45.320 | And so like, there are all kinds of really fun stories about my grandmother and my great
00:06:49.580 | grandmother and the things that they made for different people that they sewed for them.
00:06:53.020 | And I mean, I could go on and on about this, but I do find it so fascinating.
00:06:58.000 | And I think it has the potential to really shape and inspire your children as a child who was
00:07:05.400 | fed a very specific type of legacy in the way that they view themselves in the scope of the
00:07:12.300 | world.
00:07:13.100 | So, yeah, I love this topic.
00:07:15.180 | That's really cool.
00:07:16.620 | And you know what?
00:07:17.420 | I was having a conversation with my daughters who are grown, who one is getting ready to have
00:07:23.740 | her first baby and one has two little ones already.
00:07:26.460 | And we were talking about things in our home that we have received as physical legacies.
00:07:33.200 | And I was explaining to them that there are going to be some things that it would be important
00:07:38.760 | to me for them to keep.
00:07:40.940 | And, you know, I mean, they are not really attached to some of the things, the things
00:07:46.040 | that I am attached to.
00:07:47.260 | But I stumbled across something really interesting.
00:07:51.500 | I said, well, let me tell you why this thing is important to me.
00:07:57.460 | And I told my daughter this whole story about why this piece of furniture had been important
00:08:05.680 | to her grandfather and why it was important.
00:08:08.640 | What little child memories I had and what growing up memories I had.
00:08:14.160 | And she was really quiet when I got done.
00:08:16.340 | And she said, Mama, that makes me want to keep it.
00:08:20.780 | The object I don't really care about.
00:08:23.460 | The story that connected that object to me as your child and as Pawpaw's granddaughter and
00:08:33.480 | as the great-granddaughter, great-great-granddaughter of a woman I never knew, she said, it's the
00:08:38.520 | story that connects me.
00:08:41.100 | Because she said, now I can identify with that piece.
00:08:44.020 | And so something you said, Delise, brought that to my mind.
00:08:49.280 | Because you said you love to hear the stories of how these legacies of hospitality or sewing
00:08:58.900 | have established a family identity to you.
00:09:02.220 | And so I think it's all about the stories that we tell our children that show them how those
00:09:11.940 | things are intrinsic to who our family has become.
00:09:16.320 | And maybe that's the benefit of the legacy.
00:09:20.520 | What do y'all think?
00:09:21.260 | Olivia, what do you think is the benefit of a legacy?
00:09:26.720 | Well, I think it benefits you even when you don't necessarily know it.
00:09:31.540 | Like you said, your daughters are young and you want to give them things.
00:09:34.420 | I've been in that position as the daughter multiple times.
00:09:37.800 | And I can tell you, I don't like stuff being brought to my house.
00:09:40.820 | Right, that's how they are.
00:09:42.940 | It's just the truth.
00:09:43.260 | I hate to say it, but it's true.
00:09:44.940 | I don't like it.
00:09:45.740 | But when you give me understanding as to why this is actually a richness, you know, this is a good
00:09:54.500 | thing for you to pass down.
00:09:56.220 | I mean, even when you don't understand it, you take it on as you age and your kids grow up.
00:10:02.820 | The value is just instilled even more and the understanding grows.
00:10:07.400 | So I was thinking about that it can be beneficial if I see it not just like the burden side of it,
00:10:15.440 | like literally taking something on.
00:10:16.720 | Like, okay, now I have to, whatever.
00:10:19.120 | Now I have to sew.
00:10:20.040 | Maybe you don't like sewing.
00:10:21.100 | Now I have to sew.
00:10:22.380 | Well, you don't see it as a burden.
00:10:23.760 | You see it as it's a calling now.
00:10:27.340 | Right?
00:10:27.640 | So now it's a way that you are.
00:10:28.880 | It's now something that you're picking up, like the idea of passing on the baton or the torch.
00:10:33.600 | It's now a calling on my life because what does this do for other people?
00:10:39.040 | How can I help other people with this?
00:10:40.840 | How can I love others?
00:10:41.840 | How can I teach my children through this?
00:10:44.660 | Because I think something that's really special about classical education is that we say it is God-centered,
00:10:51.700 | and all these subjects are really just your whole world, right?
00:10:54.560 | And you see Christ in the midst of it because he's there with you in the midst of it.
00:10:59.180 | And so no matter what it is that we are called to do, we do it for the glory of the Lord, right?
00:11:06.280 | And it's another area that we can now teach our children strength in their faith.
00:11:11.740 | So I think that it's beneficial to you on a much deeper level than you can comprehend as an 8-year-old kid or a 15-year-old,
00:11:19.240 | or even now at 30, I miss things, you know?
00:11:22.600 | So I think it has great value beyond what we can see.
00:11:27.760 | Oh, that's lovely.
00:11:30.220 | Which I want to hear more from Delisa.
00:11:32.160 | I know.
00:11:32.940 | I want to say what Delisa thinks.
00:11:34.060 | Does your mom actually be like, this is who we are?
00:11:36.240 | Because, like, that's kind of what I wonder.
00:11:38.240 | Like, did you have family members that were like, hey, don't just come sew with me,
00:11:42.840 | but, like, let me tell you about us?
00:11:45.980 | I can hear your mom.
00:11:47.460 | I can hear your mom's voice, Delisa, saying things like that.
00:11:51.140 | Yeah.
00:11:52.020 | And even now, like, my grandmother.
00:11:54.540 | So I have a really strong line of matriarchs in my family.
00:12:02.300 | So, like, I know the stories of my grandmother, my great-grandmother, of course, my mother,
00:12:07.520 | and et cetera.
00:12:08.480 | And so people are still telling me really beautiful stories about sewing.
00:12:13.020 | Like, for example, my grandmother has always been really generous.
00:12:16.500 | That's another one of her legacies.
00:12:18.760 | And I will get to the benefit of it, but we'll use it.
00:12:23.000 | Oh, yeah.
00:12:23.060 | I want to, yeah.
00:12:24.000 | A little story.
00:12:25.280 | And so when she met her little brother's girlfriend for the first time,
00:12:31.120 | they were going to go out dancing.
00:12:32.660 | That's something my family does.
00:12:34.180 | We dance.
00:12:34.800 | I always call it partying.
00:12:36.960 | And then I think that people think that we're drinking and moving crazy.
00:12:39.960 | We're not doing that.
00:12:40.920 | We're eating good food.
00:12:41.860 | We're staying up late, playing cards and loving each other.
00:12:44.220 | But, you know, we're having a great time.
00:12:46.900 | And so they were going to do what they always do, which was go dancing.
00:12:50.900 | And my now Aunt Jean didn't have a dress.
00:12:56.140 | She had nothing to wear.
00:12:57.240 | And so they were like, oh, no, what are we going to do?
00:12:59.300 | Because, you know, this is, I think it was the 50s at that point.
00:13:02.580 | So you have to have a dress.
00:13:03.620 | Oh, yeah.
00:13:04.080 | You have to be dressed up.
00:13:05.260 | Yeah.
00:13:05.540 | Can't go out without a dress.
00:13:06.580 | So my grandmother, knowing that they were planning to go out the next day,
00:13:09.900 | spent the whole night making her a dress from scratch.
00:13:13.000 | And when Jean woke up the next morning, she had this dancing dress to go out in.
00:13:17.680 | And she just couldn't believe, you know, like the generosity of my grandmother's heart
00:13:22.800 | and the way that she had used the skill that she had.
00:13:25.440 | But what it does for me and the benefit of knowing some of these different legacies on
00:13:33.300 | a regular basis is it causes me to want to live up, if that makes sense.
00:13:37.500 | Yes, absolutely.
00:13:39.000 | Because I know about the courage and the strength that the people who raised me and raised the
00:13:46.620 | people who raised me apply to their lives in these really practical ways, I consider it
00:13:52.400 | when I'm making a decision.
00:13:53.700 | Even if it's just that I know that Hattie Duren, who was my great-grandmother, would
00:13:57.420 | never have left the house in X way, you know, like I just think about it because I know that
00:14:02.620 | I'm carrying them and we have very strong genes too.
00:14:05.380 | So depending on where I am in the United States, if I show up in a town, people know that I'm
00:14:10.320 | related to these people because I look like them.
00:14:13.300 | So I think about it a lot.
00:14:16.440 | And yeah, it's been empowering to me too, especially, you know, being a parent is difficult.
00:14:23.320 | And so sometimes we have challenging moments.
00:14:26.200 | And I think about the legacy of the women who have been leaders in my family over the years
00:14:34.340 | and the fact that the Lord did those things through them and that he can do it through
00:14:38.280 | me as well.
00:14:39.040 | Um, when I'm raising my son and, you know, facing something that I've never faced before,
00:14:43.720 | but I know they've faced this.
00:14:47.180 | And so you are, you, I like what you said.
00:14:50.620 | It, it, it causes you, it calls you to live up.
00:14:54.300 | Um, it is an encouragement.
00:14:56.600 | If we have received a legacy of hospitality or a legacy of perseverance or a legacy of leadership
00:15:07.200 | or a legacy of strength or, and I promise guys, we're going to get to it, a legacy of homeschooling,
00:15:13.720 | a legacy of valuing education.
00:15:16.940 | It helps you to live up in those moments that would drag you down.
00:15:23.220 | That would, you just say, yeah, I'm out.
00:15:26.260 | I mean, I'm tapping out here.
00:15:27.840 | I can't.
00:15:28.760 | I mean, this is not, this is clearly not meant for me, or this is no longer working for us.
00:15:34.240 | You lean into, you lean into, and you live up to that legacy.
00:15:39.100 | Um, and it can be a beautiful thing.
00:15:42.320 | Now, for me, I don't have a look back legacy of homeschooling.
00:15:51.180 | Um, when, I don't think, well, I mean, I'm a good bit older than you guys.
00:15:57.260 | And so when I was little, um, I don't know that homeschooling was a thing.
00:16:03.240 | Okay.
00:16:03.700 | I mean, you know, it was a thing on the prairie, but like I tell my kids, I'm not that old.
00:16:08.740 | Okay.
00:16:09.080 | But it was not a thing.
00:16:10.660 | I went to public school and my, and my parents never considered, and nobody I knew ever considered
00:16:16.320 | anything, but going to school.
00:16:19.040 | So I don't have a legacy of home education, but my children do.
00:16:26.320 | And I know that when we began homeschooling, um, I was very, my husband and I were very intentional
00:16:34.620 | about establishing what we hoped would be a legacy of a family culture of learning.
00:16:44.980 | We hoped, especially after the first couple of years, when we thought this is the best
00:16:49.660 | thing we have ever done in between those moments when we thought this is the hardest thing God
00:16:54.480 | has ever asked me to do.
00:16:55.640 | And we thought this is the best thing.
00:16:57.800 | And, and I hope my children will choose this path, but I know that both of you guys were homeschooled.
00:17:06.980 | Um, and so I want to know, um, why did your parents choose to homeschool you?
00:17:15.540 | And did you know what their reason was at the time that you were being homeschooled?
00:17:24.780 | And did you agree with it?
00:17:26.300 | Did you want to be homeschooled?
00:17:28.340 | Olivia, I'll ask you first.
00:17:29.880 | Um, do you know why your parents picked homeschooling and did you agree with their reason?
00:17:35.340 | Did you like it?
00:17:36.320 | Um, I, I liked being homeschooled there.
00:17:39.720 | I, I was homeschooled K through 12.
00:17:41.780 | So it's not like there was like much option.
00:17:44.140 | A come home day.
00:17:44.960 | Yeah.
00:17:45.240 | Yeah.
00:17:46.140 | But, um, I know that the reason we were homeschooled really came down more to my mom than my dad.
00:17:52.200 | My mom had been interested in homeschool for a very long time.
00:17:57.040 | Um, I'm from a mixed home, a mixed family.
00:17:59.480 | So she had been married and had her oldest and my dad had been married and had his oldest.
00:18:04.260 | And then they met and grew the family with me and my, one of my sisters.
00:18:08.040 | Um, but she had been interested in home education since my brother who is 16 years older than I am.
00:18:15.480 | In elementary school.
00:18:17.000 | Okay.
00:18:17.480 | But, um, it just wasn't something she could do very well at the time.
00:18:23.320 | She was a single mom, but I know it had always been at the back of her mind.
00:18:27.240 | Um, and I think it had a lot to do with the way she wanted the culture around her, her kids.
00:18:33.960 | I think she just wanted them to be around the right people and have truth spoken to them.
00:18:38.240 | Like I can, I was thinking back to my mom and I think a big thing for my mom was always just truth.
00:18:43.900 | You know, she wanted to pursue the truth.
00:18:45.740 | I don't know if she necessarily knew exactly what that looked like when she set out and
00:18:50.720 | what the outcomes of that were going to be.
00:18:52.420 | But I know that that was a big motivator for her was that she wanted us to learn the truth
00:18:59.420 | and she wanted us not just like facts, right?
00:19:02.040 | Not just about where the world came from, but also about the people who were big influences
00:19:08.080 | in our lives.
00:19:08.960 | She wanted them to speak the truth to us.
00:19:11.980 | And when you're in, let's say a public school setting, you don't have control over who's
00:19:16.400 | in there with your kids all the time.
00:19:17.940 | You don't have control over what the peers in their life are saying.
00:19:21.300 | And I think she saw a lot of, uh, honestly, like a negative impact on, on my brother from
00:19:27.060 | being around, um, not the truth all the time.
00:19:31.180 | I mean, it did make a long-term impact on his life.
00:19:33.300 | Um, but, uh, I, I know that that was important to her and I know that as she home educated
00:19:40.100 | us, it was, she didn't know how to put it into words.
00:19:43.700 | That's actually why she started classically educating us.
00:19:46.280 | Uh-huh.
00:19:46.680 | Cause we did CC was she, she wanted to show, she wanted to teach us like everything is
00:19:52.880 | connected.
00:19:53.380 | She didn't know how to do it.
00:19:55.600 | She was like, I know that when we're talking about history, I know we're talking about math
00:20:00.320 | and I know we're talking about science and I know we're talking about scripture, but how
00:20:04.380 | do I teach you that?
00:20:06.040 | How do I package that?
00:20:07.740 | Right.
00:20:08.160 | So, um, yeah.
00:20:09.440 | And so, uh, I, I was happy to be homeschooled as far as like, was I considered, I had my oldest
00:20:16.200 | sister was in the public school all the way through graduation.
00:20:18.980 | So we would go to, you know, plays and different activities at the public school.
00:20:24.400 | And my mom taught art classes to afterschool students at the public schools at the middle
00:20:29.500 | and elementary schools in our town.
00:20:31.360 | So I had spent every week time in the public schools and I didn't, it didn't interest me.
00:20:38.600 | I didn't want to be there any more than I already was.
00:20:40.840 | I liked being at home.
00:20:42.780 | I liked my studies at home.
00:20:44.480 | That's just me.
00:20:45.740 | I don't, I don't know what it was like for Delise.
00:20:47.760 | Cause Delise, you were homeschooled also.
00:20:51.840 | I was homeschooled all the way through.
00:20:53.420 | And like you, Olivia, you know, not being the first child does kind of mean that you get
00:20:58.680 | grandfathered in, in the best way.
00:21:00.720 | Um, so I was the third for, and then we always had a cousin who my mom was homeschooling.
00:21:09.860 | Interestingly enough, I think she's about to graduate her sixth student from homeschool.
00:21:13.880 | That's how, how many children do you have to graduate.
00:21:16.540 | Now that's a legacy.
00:21:18.200 | Yeah, that's a legacy.
00:21:19.800 | And we have a legacy of education even before, like you said, it didn't used to be a thing
00:21:24.420 | that homeschooling was a normal choice.
00:21:26.900 | And so my family, they were educators.
00:21:28.860 | Um, but I know initially the choice to homeschool was because my oldest brother who was quite
00:21:36.760 | bright could read early on and the teacher would not allow him to read.
00:21:41.240 | And my mother couldn't understand that.
00:21:43.120 | And so she said, you know, I know, can you please just hand him a book because he knows
00:21:48.600 | his ABCs and I don't want him to lose his skills or, you know, just, I don't want him to be
00:21:52.900 | Well, and you shouldn't want him to be disruptive because he's bored.
00:21:56.840 | Exactly.
00:21:57.240 | So give him something to do.
00:21:58.800 | And the teacher just wouldn't.
00:22:00.580 | And my mother couldn't understand it.
00:22:02.100 | And so she, she pulled him out.
00:22:03.820 | So that was one of the reasons.
00:22:04.920 | And then another one of the reasons, just to be honest, was to, to depart from the statistics,
00:22:11.720 | um, because I am an African-American.
00:22:13.940 | And so growing up in the nineties in the South was a challenging time for academics.
00:22:19.800 | You're right.
00:22:20.460 | And my parents knew that, and they knew that they wanted to give my brothers and me the
00:22:26.560 | best chance that we possibly could get.
00:22:28.660 | And so they realized very early on with that example that it might be wise for them to choose
00:22:35.040 | to homeschool us so that they could maintain our legacy.
00:22:38.140 | You know, we have all kinds of things that my family's into classical music.
00:22:41.460 | All kinds of stuff.
00:22:42.440 | And so they wanted to, like what you were saying, Olivia, just make sure that the influences
00:22:48.320 | of my brother's lives and in my life were good influences and that we had more access to truth
00:22:53.740 | than anything else.
00:22:54.680 | And homeschooling really did afford my family that.
00:22:58.300 | And so I'm grateful for it.
00:22:59.840 | And I had the choice, but I saw that, you know, my life would have looked really different
00:23:05.240 | if I chose to do public school.
00:23:07.140 | I wanted to do all the extracurriculars and I wanted to work and I wanted to make my
00:23:11.440 | own schedule, you know, by the time I was graduating and homeschooling is the way to do it.
00:23:15.720 | So I loved it.
00:23:18.460 | I love it that you both can look at your parents' choices and see that they were intentionally
00:23:27.240 | crafting an educational experience and not just educating your mind, but educating your heart.
00:23:37.380 | And really impacting who you became and how you thought about things and what weight you
00:23:49.920 | gave to things.
00:23:50.520 | Like truth was very important to you and choices and freedom and just recognizing that that choice
00:24:00.020 | that your parent made was perhaps the, either the beginning or the next step and a legacy that
00:24:10.880 | had been there for a while.
00:24:12.400 | That's really cool.
00:24:13.600 | So I know that both of you are set on home educating your own children.
00:24:24.040 | Did you have to think twice about that?
00:24:26.580 | Was it just not really a decision?
00:24:30.020 | It was just, has it just become how you would obviously raise your children?
00:24:35.120 | Or did you and your husband, husbands have to think, are we going to do this homeschool thing
00:24:40.860 | or are we going to go another direction?
00:24:42.240 | What do you think, Olivia?
00:24:44.460 | For Ian and I, Ian is my husband, for us, well, by the time our oldest started being ready for school,
00:24:51.940 | I was still working part-time and he works full-time.
00:24:55.520 | And it wasn't, I don't want to like discourage anyone because that's not it at all.
00:24:59.680 | Right.
00:25:00.520 | Homeschool is very natural for me and homeschool is very natural for my husband.
00:25:05.560 | There was never a question of, could we do it?
00:25:08.640 | Or do we want to try it?
00:25:10.180 | It was just, that is the default in my brain.
00:25:12.580 | That's the legacy.
00:25:13.800 | That is the legacy.
00:25:15.400 | It has just come down to you as natural.
00:25:18.360 | Yeah.
00:25:19.320 | So the question for us was more like, okay, well, would it benefit us if we sent him to
00:25:24.400 | this hybrid school?
00:25:25.420 | Do we want to look into this?
00:25:26.740 | And for us, it was like, no, like, you know, we could, but let's just do what we know to do
00:25:33.000 | best because it is very natural when you've been homeschooled because you just, you just,
00:25:40.260 | like, it never stops in my opinion.
00:25:42.760 | Like, I feel like I'm constantly learning and I'm constantly seeing the world, you know,
00:25:50.220 | through education and, you know, not getting any credentials for anything I'm learning or
00:25:54.900 | studying or spending all this time on.
00:25:56.240 | Right.
00:25:56.580 | It's just the way we live.
00:25:57.980 | Right.
00:25:58.400 | And so my son is now just living life with me.
00:26:02.840 | So, you know what I mean?
00:26:04.580 | Like, our kids are born and they just start living life with us and they start learning
00:26:08.140 | with us.
00:26:08.560 | So, yeah, home school is never a question.
00:26:10.980 | Yeah.
00:26:11.820 | Yeah.
00:26:12.980 | Do you think that's the legacy that your mom passed on to you that you just live, you
00:26:19.340 | just learn as part of the process of living and that a family culture of learning is just
00:26:26.640 | the same thing as a family culture?
00:26:29.060 | Do you think that's part of the legacy she passed to you?
00:26:32.100 | I think it's part of the legacy that they started to build without realizing it.
00:26:36.660 | Yeah.
00:26:36.940 | I don't think they, you know what I mean?
00:26:38.420 | I think, I think of it more that way.
00:26:40.000 | So, like, it sounds like Delise has this, this true legacy that is being handed down
00:26:45.160 | and described.
00:26:45.860 | And I'm sure I have stuff like that, but has it always been put into words exactly?
00:26:51.400 | I don't think so because my mom's still trying to figure it out.
00:26:53.800 | My dad's figuring stuff out and then getting what I can to pass down.
00:26:58.260 | But I think it is like, maybe my family does love truth.
00:27:01.820 | I know they do, like my siblings and my parents, but has it, do I remember my mom saying, you
00:27:07.280 | know that she wanted us to learn the truth?
00:27:10.380 | And did that stick?
00:27:11.240 | And so now do I say that to my kids?
00:27:13.640 | Maybe I should.
00:27:14.380 | I'm learning from Delise.
00:27:15.380 | Maybe I should.
00:27:16.220 | But now it's like just an understanding.
00:27:18.700 | No, in our education, we seek truth.
00:27:22.200 | And what I say out loud currently is probably building on it.
00:27:26.040 | But I say that we're seeking to worship God in all we do.
00:27:29.120 | So we're seeking truth.
00:27:30.300 | And for me and my kids and my husband, it's in everything we do, we want to worship God.
00:27:34.140 | So am I just building onto that legacy without realizing it?
00:27:38.220 | Like probably.
00:27:38.940 | Yeah.
00:27:39.740 | How do we, you know, how do we keep that momentum?
00:27:42.060 | Yeah.
00:27:43.100 | We talk about it.
00:27:43.880 | Yeah.
00:27:44.940 | Yeah.
00:27:45.980 | I think, I mean, I think we all come to the point where we eventually do see it as something
00:27:55.300 | we intentionally want to pass on, that we intentionally cherish and want to pass on.
00:28:02.100 | But maybe like you said, Olivia, not right at first.
00:28:04.820 | We just are doing this thing that seems right and good to us at first.
00:28:11.200 | Delise, what would you say?
00:28:12.400 | What's the legacy?
00:28:15.660 | And are you intentionally passing on a legacy when you look at homeschooling Leo?
00:28:23.020 | Well, I am now.
00:28:26.660 | I will say the process of making that decision, you know, it was a partnership because, of course,
00:28:33.240 | I'm married as well to Evan.
00:28:35.080 | And so my husband, he wasn't homeschooled.
00:28:39.060 | He wasn't really exposed to any of the homeschool community.
00:28:43.580 | And so homeschooling was definitely something for him to wrap his mind around.
00:28:50.280 | Right.
00:28:51.040 | And he was not entirely convinced.
00:28:54.140 | Now, granted, Leo is three.
00:28:55.920 | So we could have had more time for him to become convinced.
00:28:59.920 | He told me the other day, actually.
00:29:01.320 | He said, honey, just look at me.
00:29:02.700 | Yeah.
00:29:03.460 | Am I not convinced?
00:29:06.280 | Don't you want this for our child?
00:29:10.760 | It would have been a no-brainer, but something weird happened there.
00:29:13.540 | So he wasn't convinced.
00:29:16.120 | And so I prayed a lot about it, but I knew I wanted it personally because I wanted it there
00:29:23.800 | for the moments.
00:29:24.860 | And I remember how much I loved that my mom was there.
00:29:28.780 | I was never one of those teenagers who didn't want their mom around.
00:29:31.500 | I just loved it.
00:29:32.240 | She's the coolest, and I still love it.
00:29:34.480 | And that's why I want her to move across the street from my house.
00:29:37.280 | I just want her there.
00:29:38.260 | And so I hope that my son will feel that way.
00:29:42.000 | But regardless, I know it's a gift to, like what you're saying, Olivia, to learn as you
00:29:47.100 | go with your parent.
00:29:48.220 | It's just a really special and natural way to live.
00:29:52.320 | And so I'm hopeful about that.
00:29:54.520 | But then as we got to know Leo and as Evan continued to talk with me about just my thoughts
00:30:02.760 | of classical education and homeschooling and stuff like that, he started to see, we both
00:30:07.720 | started to see that homeschooling was absolutely the perfect fit for our son because of the way
00:30:15.040 | that he thinks.
00:30:15.700 | And Evan is a very, very bright person who is a textbook case of falling through the cracks.
00:30:23.400 | So he's brilliant.
00:30:25.400 | I mean, he has done so many things.
00:30:28.820 | I could go on and on by way of just learning as you go, just like homeschoolers do.
00:30:34.800 | However, in school, his teachers were constantly just telling him, hey, we know you're really
00:30:40.260 | smart.
00:30:40.660 | Why don't you make better grades?
00:30:43.200 | Why won't you apply yourself to this?
00:30:44.980 | And the truth was he was bored.
00:30:46.140 | He could see that the way that they were presenting the information was kind of like usurping the
00:30:50.620 | point.
00:30:50.880 | And so he just spent his time doing something else.
00:30:55.480 | And therefore, no one ever pushed him to meet his potential in school.
00:30:58.980 | And it was just a true waste of his time.
00:31:01.420 | And so I don't want that to happen to my son.
00:31:04.220 | I can see that that's the way that we think.
00:31:06.040 | Leo doesn't like to be, quote, tested.
00:31:08.320 | He's going to have to work through that.
00:31:10.060 | But also, there are a lot of ways you can assess a person.
00:31:12.540 | So if a test is the only thing they're offering him to assess whether or not he's understood
00:31:17.760 | a topic, we have a problem.
00:31:19.720 | Yeah, absolutely.
00:31:21.480 | Right?
00:31:22.800 | So I'm excited about the flexibility that homeschooling affords, but also just the potential to help
00:31:30.320 | my son to rise to his potential.
00:31:32.820 | And I selfishly want to be there.
00:31:35.840 | Yes, yes, I know.
00:31:37.920 | I think I talk to a lot of people about why they chose to homeschool.
00:31:42.400 | And a lot of us are jealous of the light bulb moments.
00:31:46.980 | Like I absolutely, that's one of the reasons I chose to homeschool.
00:31:51.120 | My husband and I really loved being there for the light bulb moments.
00:31:56.440 | When the understanding dawns and you see them thinking, and also this, and this too.
00:32:04.460 | And the pieces get put together.
00:32:06.380 | And then there's a thirst and an excitement.
00:32:08.940 | And I did not want to give that away.
00:32:11.980 | And that, I think, is a learning legacy.
00:32:15.740 | If we can pass that on, I wanted to give my children memories of how fun it was to learn
00:32:25.500 | something new with mama and daddy so that we could all learn it.
00:32:30.460 | There were things that we learned at the same time, like, you know, aha moments that struck
00:32:36.940 | me at the same time they struck this child of mine.
00:32:39.880 | But that became a shared legacy.
00:32:42.900 | And that is something that they still look back on and say, remember when we figured
00:32:47.480 | out how to do that problem.
00:32:48.780 | Or remember when we both learned this thing.
00:32:51.700 | And that's a legacy.
00:32:53.260 | That is a family culture of learning.
00:32:55.940 | I've heard my girls just tell people, yeah, we read books together.
00:33:00.300 | That's just what we do.
00:33:01.560 | Well, that's a legacy, y'all.
00:33:03.640 | That anything that you do because your family did it, that has created an identity for you
00:33:11.720 | is awesome.
00:33:12.920 | And so I know I am, I'm farther along this road.
00:33:18.940 | And so I can ask myself this question.
00:33:21.020 | I mean, I'm going to ask you too, but you're not going to have any idea if you can answer
00:33:25.560 | it now or not.
00:33:26.300 | Like, what is it that you, what kind of legacy do you, are you hoping to create with your children
00:33:35.660 | children as you homeschool them?
00:33:38.380 | Because I've got girls that were homeschooled the whole way and I didn't know what I was
00:33:45.400 | doing at the beginning.
00:33:46.560 | And so maybe I was like your mom, Olivia, that just said, I want them to appreciate truth and
00:33:53.820 | I want them to see that everything we learn is of God and from God.
00:34:00.300 | But I didn't know a lot of that other integration stuff because it's not the way I was taught.
00:34:06.380 | But I do know that now I hope that I have, through the learning that I did gradually, I hope that I
00:34:17.460 | put that in them so that it is a legacy of family learning and a thirst and an excitement about
00:34:25.080 | knowing things and knowing the Lord, I hope I placed that in their hearts.
00:34:30.380 | And so I hope that I have passed on a legacy that they will consider valuable enough to pass
00:34:38.780 | on to their children.
00:34:40.520 | So what I want to ask from, you know, I'll ask you first, Elise, how is, what kind of legacy
00:34:49.300 | is it that you're hoping to pass on to Leo?
00:34:51.960 | And do you hope that one day, you know, 25 years from now, he might homeschool his own child?
00:35:00.740 | This is such a big question.
00:35:03.160 | I know.
00:35:04.120 | And it makes you speculate because who knows?
00:35:07.900 | I'm going to choose to answer it just in the realm of homeschool and education.
00:35:12.320 | And if you want me to go on more than how to talk later.
00:35:17.840 | So as far as learning is concerned, I, right now, I really want to pass on to him the legacy
00:35:27.760 | of grace-filled learning.
00:35:29.660 | And I don't know if I feel that way because right now I just have one in the womb, you know,
00:35:35.800 | and one in front.
00:35:36.700 | And I know that that is something that was given to me that he needs because for a firstborn child,
00:35:45.860 | for like a type A personality, it can be so easy to want to get everything right.
00:35:50.640 | And I think sometimes that inhibits learning.
00:35:54.420 | Yes, it does.
00:35:55.780 | So I really want him to have that legacy because his father has that.
00:36:02.160 | Like I can see it coming down from the other side as well.
00:36:04.480 | His dad is so good.
00:36:05.740 | He wants it to be right.
00:36:06.720 | But he will try and he will try and he's not afraid of failing.
00:36:09.900 | And so that causes him to accomplish a lot more, I think, than the average person because
00:36:16.960 | he's willing to try again and to perfect an art, you know, as much as we can as humans.
00:36:23.420 | Yeah.
00:36:23.820 | So I'm hoping that that grace-filled learning mindset is something that Leo really gets
00:36:29.440 | from us.
00:36:30.340 | I'm also hoping, and this is more from my side of family, that Leo gleans a love of ideas.
00:36:37.500 | Like I have so many just happy memories of talking with my little brother specifically, but all
00:36:44.500 | my brothers, about ideas.
00:36:46.000 | We just like to, we like to banter.
00:36:48.480 | I've said that on the podcast before.
00:36:50.100 | We like to entertain an idea and we like to tease it apart until it's like most dead.
00:36:55.980 | And then we want to talk about it.
00:36:57.320 | And I think the love of thinking is, is almost a lost art these days.
00:37:03.720 | You know, we have a lot of podcasts.
00:37:05.340 | We have a lot of people who, you know, you can self-publish, but people don't necessarily
00:37:09.200 | want to go deep on one topic.
00:37:11.460 | And I think that is still important.
00:37:14.080 | And I want to pass that on to my son.
00:37:16.480 | And it's actually, I think it's the ability to use your imagination and to apply the things
00:37:25.160 | that you see to your imagination.
00:37:27.700 | So I hope he gets those things.
00:37:30.420 | Oh, that's a great, what an awesome legacy to leave.
00:37:36.020 | If he gets those, he will be one lucky little man.
00:37:40.580 | That's awesome.
00:37:41.500 | All right, Olivia.
00:37:42.920 | So what is it that you, that you want to add to the legacy that your, your family gave
00:37:51.140 | What would you like to add to the legacy of homeschooling?
00:37:54.540 | I feel like I speak in too much abstract because I listened to Alicia, she's like sewing grace.
00:38:00.860 | Like all these, I think it's great.
00:38:03.940 | No, but I just, I feel like for me, it genuinely is, I think I said it already, but seeing that
00:38:10.240 | no matter what we're doing, that we're worshiping God, I really want that to be the heart of what
00:38:14.900 | I, what I teach them.
00:38:16.060 | Even in the, even in the mistakes, when we mistake, when we make mistakes, either, either one of us
00:38:21.840 | sins relationally trying to do this school together, or we're not understanding something, to have
00:38:28.480 | repentance, ask forgiveness, all of that as a form of worship, to actually pray and to actually
00:38:35.120 | have good fellowship with one another, and then to go and thank God for all that he's done
00:38:39.660 | and have this life filled with this liturgy of worshiping God.
00:38:44.140 | And that's, that's the biggest thing about my, my homeschool.
00:38:48.160 | It's pretty much the reason why I homeschool and why we do what we do, why we learned, why
00:38:52.580 | we did memory master this year, how, you know, why we did math every single day.
00:38:57.260 | Like that's, that's why we do it is so that it gives us something we can look at and then
00:39:01.700 | turn to God and give thanks and see him and see glorifying him in every single little
00:39:06.400 | thing that we're doing.
00:39:07.780 | So that's kind of the heart of what I'm doing with my kids.
00:39:12.400 | But if I had to think of a legacy of something that I know I do with them and that I know
00:39:18.460 | my mom did, and I can see all my grandparents have passed, but I could see looking back was
00:39:23.700 | the ability to just sit and observe, just to sit and watch and take in and be humble, not
00:39:31.220 | to say what you think right away, but to just sometimes sit and listen and take it in.
00:39:37.480 | And be really understanding and open to what's going on around you, not to accept it all
00:39:42.280 | as truth, but to then just be able to sit and listen humbly and observe.
00:39:47.140 | I think that that's a really important skill and can help you to love others really well
00:39:53.240 | when they feel that they can come to you or you can sit and look at creation and pay attention
00:39:57.460 | to what's really going on or listen to the news and try to listen for what's really happening
00:40:02.240 | so you can see through stuff that's just being pushed in your face, right?
00:40:05.420 | So I think being humble, being still, just paying attention to what's going on and listening.
00:40:12.540 | This has been so refreshing and so encouraging to hear you guys talk about what you see as
00:40:20.740 | the legacy that was passed to you and what legacy you intend to pass on.
00:40:26.200 | I can imagine that people may have clicked onto this podcast thinking, okay, they're going
00:40:32.420 | to talk about how we pass down the love of academics and how we pass down perseverance and hard work
00:40:41.500 | and those things are great, but the legacy that we want to pass down, the educational legacy that we want to pass down,
00:40:53.980 | you ladies have highlighted beautiful things, relational things, big idea things, heart things,
00:41:03.180 | the connection between who we are in Christ with who he calls us to be as we are learning about his world
00:41:15.540 | and as we're learning about how to live in a family and as we are learning how to live as stewards of the world
00:41:26.000 | that he has put us in is beautiful and that is what I want to encourage people.
00:41:33.480 | That's the legacy that you're building, not a college scholarship, not a great job, not an immaculate transcript.
00:41:46.060 | You are building a family culture of respect and learning and worship and that is a legacy.
00:41:55.540 | worth leaving.
00:41:57.720 | So thank y'all for having this conversation.
00:42:02.240 | It could have been 15 different conversations and I had to keep pulling my mind back from the bunny trail
00:42:10.200 | that I would love to go down with you guys.
00:42:12.160 | So, so listeners, you just keep listening because maybe we'll come back and talk with Olivia and Delise again
00:42:19.580 | and mine this legacy.
00:42:22.340 | I just want to remind people that this season of the year is when a lot of our brand new Classical Conversations books come out.
00:42:31.700 | The new books of 2025 are out now.
00:42:35.140 | There's lots of math map books available now in the bookstore.
00:42:41.280 | We've got digits and integers and fractions.
00:42:44.960 | There are flashcards that would be an awful lot of fun to play with in the summertime.
00:42:50.760 | Coming out that will be new and used in community in the fall is monomials.
00:42:57.100 | And all of this math map work is an awesome way.
00:43:02.260 | It's a classical presentation of math so that you can learn to worship the God of order as you learn to do computation,
00:43:11.600 | as you learn to build a good math vocabulary.
00:43:15.680 | Something that our Challenge 3 students will be using is Reasoning Together Philosophy,
00:43:21.420 | but it is a really cool book for families to have at home.
00:43:25.880 | There are excerpts of all kinds of philosophers that you could read,
00:43:29.680 | short excerpts that you could enjoy with your family and talk about.
00:43:34.060 | There are Copper Lodge library books.
00:43:37.260 | There are four new Copper Lodge books out.
00:43:40.040 | So many new things.
00:43:41.280 | I can't tell you all, but I'll tell you what.
00:43:43.260 | You can find out what's new by going to classicalconversations.com slash what's new.
00:43:51.860 | I mean, you can find out all the skinny.
00:43:54.380 | Classicalconversations.com slash what's new.
00:43:58.900 | Go look it up.
00:44:00.460 | It'll give you something to talk about with your family as you build a legacy.
00:44:04.680 | And we'll see you guys next time.
00:44:07.020 | Bye-bye.
00:44:07.960 | Bye-bye.
00:44:09.960 | Bye-bye.
00:44:11.460 | For more information, visit www.fema.org