Everyday Educator - Stop Blaming the Textbook: Lessons from a Photography Class with Leigh Bortins
00:00:00.000 | Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator podcast.
00:00:08.040 | I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we learn
00:00:14.280 | together, encourage one another, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling
00:00:20.900 | the adventure of a lifetime.
00:00:22.700 | Now, whether you are just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the
00:00:29.240 | daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.
00:00:34.740 | But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support
00:00:42.220 | in a local CC community.
00:00:44.460 | So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today.
00:00:52.380 | Well, listeners, I have a super treat for you today.
00:00:56.660 | Lee Bortons, our dear founder and head lead learner, is here with me today.
00:01:03.140 | And I wanted to ask her some questions about going back to school.
00:01:10.660 | That's right.
00:01:11.740 | Lee herself is going to tell us what it's like when you go back to school.
00:01:19.120 | All of you may feel like you are back at school when your children are studying, when you are
00:01:25.040 | reclaiming your education.
00:01:26.940 | And you may think, well, one day I'll get to the point where I know enough and I know it
00:01:32.900 | all and I'm not going back to school anymore.
00:01:34.940 | It's not the truth.
00:01:36.760 | Is it, Lee?
00:01:38.460 | No, I mean, we're lifelong learners for a reason.
00:01:40.740 | And I just really appreciate you having me on your show, Lisa.
00:01:43.300 | Yeah.
00:01:43.880 | It's such a, just a privilege to be able to always see you in your face as we talk to one
00:01:48.740 | another through this thing called technology.
00:01:50.780 | And we got a hold of you because I had such an amazing experience with my husband.
00:01:57.060 | We just recently went to Botswana on purpose to take a photography course and not really
00:02:05.380 | thinking about, oh, I'm going back to school.
00:02:07.660 | What would that be like in a classroom?
00:02:09.420 | I was just excited to go away on vacation with my husband and to learn something amazing and
00:02:14.700 | to be in a country I'd never been in before.
00:02:16.960 | And all those things did happen and we had a very, very good time.
00:02:22.300 | But only a few minutes into the first class, I realized, oh, I really do learn things classically.
00:02:30.320 | And that doesn't mean my teacher teaches classically.
00:02:33.880 | Oh, wow.
00:02:35.620 | So we spent five days butting heads, having a great time.
00:02:38.560 | You and the teacher butting heads.
00:02:40.860 | Okay.
00:02:41.280 | That could be really encouraging for moms who continually butt heads with their children.
00:02:46.640 | Okay.
00:02:47.120 | It can happen and learning can still commence.
00:02:50.140 | Yeah, it absolutely can.
00:02:52.240 | And in fact, I think it's very personality driven.
00:02:54.840 | So while I was sitting there, okay, so let's first think about this.
00:02:58.360 | I had an amazing teacher, an amazing situation classroom.
00:03:03.000 | Oh, yeah.
00:03:03.960 | There was only five students to two instructors.
00:03:07.880 | Oh, my word.
00:03:08.940 | So it was like, right, all the ideal conditions.
00:03:11.620 | And such beautiful things to photograph.
00:03:15.200 | Oh, my word.
00:03:16.540 | It was so wonderful.
00:03:18.400 | All of the, I mean, so all of us are always trying to set up this perfect classroom.
00:03:22.120 | Yes.
00:03:22.720 | So I've had it.
00:03:23.780 | And guess what?
00:03:25.060 | There was still conflict.
00:03:26.820 | Oh, my gosh.
00:03:27.740 | Okay, stop right there for a minute.
00:03:29.220 | Okay.
00:03:29.620 | I want everybody to just take a deep breath and feel your shoulders relax.
00:03:34.120 | Because, look, here is Lee, rocket scientist, founder of an education company, in the perfect place.
00:03:41.840 | So the setting is perfect.
00:03:43.100 | The tools are perfect.
00:03:44.040 | The teacher has arrived.
00:03:45.680 | The student is engaged.
00:03:47.720 | And yet, there's still problems.
00:03:50.440 | So, all right, take us.
00:03:52.500 | Take us, Lee.
00:03:53.300 | Well, and I'm going to kind of clinch it first.
00:03:56.420 | So at the end of the week, after the five of us were finished and having our last dinner with our teachers,
00:04:03.820 | the one lead said to all of us, you are the first group of people I've ever had that didn't give up after the first day.
00:04:10.920 | Yay.
00:04:12.740 | I'm proud of you.
00:04:14.760 | I mean, I knew you'd never give up.
00:04:16.840 | Never.
00:04:18.540 | But that made me go, oh, my.
00:04:20.160 | And then, like, that's when it hit me.
00:04:21.500 | I have to podcast about this.
00:04:23.200 | Because how many parents want to give up?
00:04:26.740 | How many kids want to give up?
00:04:28.460 | And then I thought, that is probably the nature of human beings, is to give up.
00:04:34.240 | Because if you have that.
00:04:35.220 | When it gets hard.
00:04:35.980 | Yeah.
00:04:37.100 | You know, perfect to hear it.
00:04:38.900 | I mean, and these people who go pay, you know, thousands of dollars and know that it's a photography course.
00:04:46.860 | They know the camera will be heavy.
00:04:48.900 | They know you have to wait because animals don't, you know, they don't ring a bell and they just show up.
00:04:53.760 | They don't read the script.
00:04:54.680 | No.
00:04:55.200 | They did not read the script.
00:04:56.680 | So you know all that's going to happen.
00:04:58.900 | What do you think?
00:05:00.760 | Because you said there were five students.
00:05:03.160 | And not one of you gave up.
00:05:05.680 | I know.
00:05:06.760 | I mean, I know you.
00:05:08.200 | So you were never going to give up.
00:05:10.460 | I mean, that was not going to happen.
00:05:11.840 | And what do you think possessed the rest of the people to persevere?
00:05:17.220 | So I would say two things.
00:05:20.680 | One is their own personality and nature.
00:05:24.360 | Okay.
00:05:24.960 | And like when I was ready to give up, because it was hard.
00:05:27.820 | And I'll explain what was hard later.
00:05:29.280 | And one of the other persons who was new to cameras was ready to give up at one point.
00:05:33.820 | But we didn't because as a class, as comrades, we encouraged one another.
00:05:39.060 | Okay.
00:05:40.280 | Which is what you did in the CC community.
00:05:42.340 | So it made me think, okay, so when these parents say, well, my child's just not going to do Latin or not going to do math.
00:05:48.060 | I'm like, all right, that's what you think.
00:05:49.900 | Did you sit in the classroom?
00:05:51.280 | Did you go to the director?
00:05:52.360 | Yes.
00:05:52.680 | Did you tell the other students, my child wants you to be their friend when you're doing Latin?
00:05:57.260 | Yes.
00:05:57.860 | Right?
00:05:58.320 | We need to encourage each other.
00:06:00.300 | I love that.
00:06:01.980 | You said two things.
00:06:03.060 | I just kind of want to stop.
00:06:04.380 | Sorry to keep interrupting you, but I want to be sure that people capitalize on what you're laying down.
00:06:09.840 | Okay.
00:06:10.420 | So it's the personality of the learner.
00:06:12.380 | So as parents, we need to know what is the personality of our learner and what is their bet, what frustrates them, what encourages them, and how can we come alongside of them and support them?
00:06:25.040 | But the second thing you said was community.
00:06:28.260 | That makes a huge difference.
00:06:31.180 | And at home, it starts with us as a family building a family rhythm of learning and learning in community for your child to have a partner who will learn it alongside them.
00:06:44.340 | I had one that really needed me to learn.
00:06:47.320 | Well, they both did.
00:06:48.460 | But certain things I needed to learn alongside them.
00:06:51.240 | And then, like you said, the community of fellow learners is a great encouragement.
00:06:56.620 | Okay.
00:06:57.800 | So from there, the other thing that made it so we kept going is all five of us had careers that required a lot of perseverance to get where we were.
00:07:11.420 | But that's because we're adults.
00:07:13.000 | You can't ever say that about a child.
00:07:14.820 | They haven't had time to have the experience to know how to persevere.
00:07:18.840 | So no wonder they throw a tantrum like a toddler or maybe cry or cross their arms and say, I don't want to do it.
00:07:25.400 | We never did that as adults.
00:07:27.340 | So that was a difference between adult learning and, you know, learning as a child.
00:07:32.640 | So the other thing is people always want to blame stuff on the teacher.
00:07:37.000 | So here's where that's it.
00:07:38.420 | The teacher and I butt heads.
00:07:39.800 | But because, again, as an adult, I knew it was never his responsibility to teach me.
00:07:45.100 | It was my responsibility to learn.
00:07:47.700 | Yes.
00:07:48.180 | Which is an adult version of an adult thought in education.
00:07:52.100 | Children won't say, oh, it's my job to do this.
00:07:55.220 | Not at the beginning, especially, unless you teach them.
00:07:58.640 | Right.
00:07:59.560 | So that's we're always coaching them that, you know, there's no such thing as an educator.
00:08:03.760 | People decide if they want to be educated or not and write and do it themselves.
00:08:08.700 | So that, you know, I was reminded of that.
00:08:11.240 | And then, you know, the physical environment.
00:08:14.300 | So I don't have to practice holding my body still to do a math problem or to write an essay
00:08:21.080 | or to type on the laptop.
00:08:22.540 | I've been doing that a long time.
00:08:24.480 | But that whole week, I had to practice holding the camera the right way.
00:08:29.020 | It was a very heavy camera.
00:08:31.140 | And I kept thinking, this is hard.
00:08:33.640 | And I'm not six years old trying to hold a pencil and a paper and manage a textbook
00:08:38.660 | and look up at the board and listen to my mom or the teacher saying.
00:08:42.060 | Yes.
00:08:43.280 | And processing what you're hearing, but also what's coming through your brain so you can
00:08:48.160 | write it down.
00:08:48.900 | That's huge.
00:08:49.980 | So what you're talking about is managing your body.
00:08:53.180 | So as adults, we pretty much know how to sit fairly successfully a lot of the time.
00:08:59.460 | But as kids, they don't know being in motion is more natural to them than sitting.
00:09:07.380 | And so you're talking about, in the homeschool environment, training your mind and your body
00:09:13.080 | and a lot of times your emotions because of the perseverance.
00:09:15.500 | And as you, as an adult learner, you pretty much only had to work on one of those, your
00:09:21.060 | body.
00:09:22.940 | Well, and the new thing that reminded me of this, the family situation too, was I was
00:09:27.820 | fortunate.
00:09:28.220 | I had a good bed to sleep in and I liked the food that I was eating.
00:09:31.540 | But children did not get a good night's sleep or they might not, you know, you know how they
00:09:36.140 | go through those growth spurts where they eat too much and they eat nothing at all.
00:09:40.060 | And we sometimes will blame the textbook or how we're teaching when really they weren't
00:09:45.060 | going to learn anything from anybody that day.
00:09:46.800 | It was a body rhythm.
00:09:47.960 | It was just not synced up right.
00:09:49.960 | It was not meant to be.
00:09:51.120 | Yeah.
00:09:51.360 | And there are times as a parent, you just have to, after you go through a couple of hours,
00:09:55.880 | you just have to look and say, you know what, this is not our day to be successful at this.
00:10:00.440 | Let's go outside and see if we can be successful walking around the yard or digging in the
00:10:06.520 | garden or learning to ride your bike, let's have a success.
00:10:10.160 | I love that.
00:10:11.820 | Yeah.
00:10:12.480 | So, so the physical, so the environment, your physical capabilities, the people around you,
00:10:18.580 | like that doesn't change when you're learning.
00:10:20.200 | All those questions are, are effective.
00:10:22.900 | But the one thing that the instructor and I did that nobody else did is we kept arguing with
00:10:31.440 | each other and he got really frustrated with me because he really was a very good teacher.
00:10:37.540 | And so my husband, who's very, you know, quiet and doesn't say much, and I didn't really know
00:10:42.960 | how I was going with him for the first couple of days.
00:10:45.400 | So let me back up and explain.
00:10:46.700 | We did this for five days and every morning and or evening, we would take a safari ride either
00:10:52.320 | on a boat down the Choby River or in the Choby River National Park on a truck.
00:10:57.880 | So on the river, we had gimbals that held up the camera.
00:11:01.940 | So it was easier for people to keep the camera still.
00:11:05.040 | But in the truck, we didn't have that and I'm not driving.
00:11:08.940 | So sometimes the driver would just go and we're in the middle of the truck.
00:11:12.060 | Right?
00:11:13.120 | You're falling back.
00:11:14.100 | Yes.
00:11:14.800 | Oh, my word.
00:11:16.460 | All kinds of challenges.
00:11:18.860 | So what we did between morning and afternoon safaris is we had classes where we could go
00:11:24.180 | to the instructor and he would explain how the camera worked better to us or show us how to
00:11:29.080 | use Adobe Lightroom and talk to us about the kind of lighting that you do use in different
00:11:34.440 | shots, things like that.
00:11:35.520 | Okay.
00:11:36.500 | And so that's where he began to get frustrated with me because when he's on the boat or in
00:11:42.800 | the truck, he can't see what we're doing.
00:11:44.320 | Right.
00:11:45.100 | And so he was working so hard.
00:11:48.400 | Mama, let's listen to this.
00:11:49.600 | He was working so hard to make sure our pictures were really good from the very beginning.
00:11:54.820 | Oh, my word.
00:11:57.060 | I was working very hard to learn the camera and to teach my students.
00:12:01.860 | So you were making a big mess of your pictures at first.
00:12:05.000 | On the second day, he came up to me and he goes, if you don't start taking better photos
00:12:10.700 | and listening to me, I'm going to get fired.
00:12:13.180 | That is so funny.
00:12:14.400 | He thought you were sabotaging his goal of being a good teacher, but you were doing exactly what
00:12:22.860 | you needed to do to be a good student.
00:12:25.780 | So the other four people were way more compliant.
00:12:29.280 | And here's the thing.
00:12:30.440 | That's how it came across.
00:12:31.780 | But first, let me back up.
00:12:33.480 | So that made me think of that poor teacher who knows her salary is based on all those kids
00:12:37.700 | doing what she wants them to do.
00:12:39.300 | And they're not going to.
00:12:41.540 | So anyway, so while I was arguing with him about, you know, because he would tell us the
00:12:46.860 | exact way to take it.
00:12:47.880 | And I would say, well, I do have a couple of shots that way, but immediately turn all the
00:12:51.200 | knobs and do something else, right?
00:12:53.600 | And he was going to say, stop it, stop it, stop it.
00:12:56.180 | So on the third day, I realized when we really, we really were starting to take pictures by
00:13:01.700 | that time.
00:13:02.340 | And I looked at my husband who had said like nothing to the guy the whole time.
00:13:06.040 | These pictures were amazing.
00:13:07.760 | And I said, how are you taking those pictures?
00:13:10.220 | And he said, I'm doing what you're doing.
00:13:12.580 | I'm just not telling him.
00:13:13.800 | Oh, he's a quiet subversive.
00:13:17.720 | Gotcha.
00:13:18.320 | Yeah.
00:13:19.440 | So by the end of the five days, and you're starting to see on Facebook, some of the videos.
00:13:25.160 | Yes, they're amazing.
00:13:26.640 | We like, and it wasn't us individually.
00:13:30.400 | It truly was our camera, the environment, our instructor.
00:13:34.260 | He really was quite good at, you know, telling, making sure we were situated right and looking
00:13:41.520 | at the right exposure and had the right shutter speeds and the lighting and all those things.
00:13:45.940 | So the, the, for folks that maybe don't know a lot of photography, cause I didn't, I had
00:13:51.400 | previously taken a course on composition, which you can do with any bad camera you want.
00:13:57.400 | Right.
00:13:58.000 | This was on how to use the camera, you know, it's get the most out of what the camera could
00:14:04.540 | do for you.
00:14:05.320 | You know, I've taken a bajillion pictures and sometimes like of something seriously amazing.
00:14:12.140 | It is so beautiful.
00:14:13.800 | And I take the picture and it's like, never like what I saw.
00:14:18.580 | So is this a camera that can more easily reproduce what you are really seeing?
00:14:24.820 | Is that the difference in quality of equipment?
00:14:28.540 | No.
00:14:29.280 | So what this, what a very good camera does is actually sees your eyes are inherently damaged
00:14:36.660 | and the lenses are more perfect.
00:14:39.780 | So the camera, when we got home and looked, the camera saw way more than I ever saw.
00:14:46.240 | And one of the things that was kind of a hindrance, and this is on tools, so we can talk about this
00:14:51.300 | for a second, is the lens was designed to get a really good shot of an animal's eyeball from
00:14:56.680 | a quarter mile away.
00:14:57.820 | Oh, my.
00:14:58.800 | And we did.
00:14:59.240 | Yes.
00:15:00.120 | It was not a good camera for, to take a broad view of a hundred elephants around you within
00:15:05.980 | a few feet away.
00:15:07.580 | Yes.
00:15:08.060 | Okay.
00:15:08.600 | Okay.
00:15:09.200 | Yeah.
00:15:09.720 | So, so really you had to know your tool really well in order to get the kind of picture that
00:15:17.180 | you wanted.
00:15:17.700 | Yes.
00:15:19.500 | So we'd be sometimes taking pictures and he could tell what we were doing in general
00:15:23.680 | by where we were pointing and how we were sitting and things like that.
00:15:27.040 | And he would say, you're never going to get that shot.
00:15:29.540 | And I would just look at him and say, yeah, watch me because we were always on each other.
00:15:35.600 | But we enjoyed each other, you know, a whole lot.
00:15:40.180 | I don't want people to feel misrepresented here.
00:15:42.860 | He just was, thought he, that I really wasn't listening when I was listening.
00:15:47.720 | And that made me think of all those so-called ADHD boys who don't seem to be listening.
00:15:51.600 | And then they're, they're just fine when you give them their work.
00:15:54.660 | They're just doing more than you're asking them to do, or they're asking why, or they're
00:16:00.220 | pushing back, or they're trying to, that's such a, that's such wise counsel to realize
00:16:05.200 | that there, there's a relationship there.
00:16:09.200 | There's a teacher and there is, or there's a mentor or there's a coach, a teacher, a mom,
00:16:17.760 | a dad, and then there's a student.
00:16:19.980 | And if they're coming at a task in a different way, then you have to allow, there's not a perfect
00:16:27.720 | fit.
00:16:28.180 | You're going to have to allow for the give and take and the interplay of that relationship.
00:16:34.760 | I could tell, you know, I taught challenge B for like, it felt like a hundred years and
00:16:40.440 | I love, love, love those eighth grade students.
00:16:43.000 | And I had some that believed everything I told them or, you know, would be led by my questions
00:16:49.760 | to the right scenario.
00:16:52.080 | And then there were some whose, whose second question always preempted my second question.
00:16:58.360 | They always wanted to know why or why not, or what if, and okay, but, and so those
00:17:04.700 | kids, we had a different dynamic.
00:17:06.900 | Yeah.
00:17:07.940 | So you didn't even have that, you know, between the adults in there, I told you, Rob and I
00:17:11.940 | were different.
00:17:12.300 | So we had one of the people who was new to cameras.
00:17:15.740 | She, um, she wanted him to say, use this setting, use this light, sit in this position.
00:17:22.280 | I listened to that and then would decide whether that's what I wanted to do or not.
00:17:27.420 | Yes.
00:17:28.220 | And then we had, he was so good at tailoring.
00:17:31.180 | So we had two people on their boat who were already very good photographers.
00:17:35.700 | So they didn't need to have the basics that the other three of us did.
00:17:40.440 | But, um, the first day or two, they listened because they said, you know, we don't do this
00:17:45.200 | for a living and we forget.
00:17:47.420 | Yeah.
00:17:47.820 | We need a brush up.
00:17:48.820 | Yeah.
00:17:49.700 | So they were so happy for that.
00:17:50.980 | But once he knew each of our levels, he would change up the lesson for the five of us.
00:17:55.600 | So for instance, they already knew the basics that the three of us that were practicing that
00:17:59.860 | were new.
00:18:00.140 | So he would help them change their lenses out and do it with different lenses.
00:18:05.000 | Well, we never changed our lens.
00:18:08.260 | It was enough to use the camera.
00:18:11.260 | So I think about tailoring and CC, it has to be enough for some of your students to just
00:18:18.940 | write a basic essay.
00:18:21.320 | Yeah.
00:18:22.080 | But more of your students need to have all those descriptors and adjectives and the various
00:18:27.340 | dress ups as well as the research.
00:18:29.840 | And then that's the other thing that was different.
00:18:31.500 | Those two would go home at night or during the day and research their lenses or research more
00:18:37.460 | of the dynamics of the camera, we would actually just look at our camera.
00:18:41.960 | And you didn't know enough.
00:18:43.800 | Yes.
00:18:44.520 | You didn't know enough to go deeper or go searching for something else that you didn't understand
00:18:49.480 | yet.
00:18:49.840 | That's really good.
00:18:51.300 | And it sounds like he was a very wise teacher in being able both to recognize which students
00:18:58.760 | needed what kind of prompt or what kind of encouragement, but also at being okay that
00:19:06.900 | everybody moved at their own pace.
00:19:09.780 | I know he wanted, it sounds like he wanted all of you to get really good pictures, but
00:19:16.640 | he actually knew that what it would take for each of you to get a good picture was going
00:19:23.460 | to be different depending on where you started from.
00:19:26.960 | Yeah.
00:19:27.700 | And so that's going to be true with five students in a classroom.
00:19:30.960 | They're all on, say, challenge me.
00:19:32.320 | That's going to be the same with five children at home and they're all different ages.
00:19:36.340 | It's like classical education forces you to practice the way humanity really is.
00:19:42.220 | It's not an artificial setting where the curriculum drives everything.
00:19:46.340 | Instead, the curriculum should just be your skeleton and the student and teacher relationship
00:19:51.780 | is what drives everything.
00:19:53.900 | Because in classical conversations, our tutors and our parents are trying so hard to point
00:19:59.440 | their children to God.
00:20:00.740 | And yet the world wants to point them to completing their math book or getting a transcript.
00:20:05.720 | And we know we get like, I eventually could take a really good picture, but I am way better
00:20:11.960 | than I would have been if I only did what he said because I practiced in different ways.
00:20:17.180 | And so it's like that parent who says, well, why should I do tin whistle?
00:20:19.880 | We're doing the piano.
00:20:20.860 | They don't recognize that cross-training, that breaking things, that failing.
00:20:25.420 | Those are all parts of learning.
00:20:27.960 | And that's what an adult will accept while they're trying to learn something.
00:20:33.800 | Versus like Andrew Poodle likes to say, our little guys want to just get the work done
00:20:37.220 | so they can go out and support, right?
00:20:40.060 | And so we have to be wise enough to know that, yes, go ahead and get this done.
00:20:44.360 | This is one of those kinds of things.
00:20:45.800 | Or we're going to struggle and it's going to be okay to struggle right now.
00:20:50.840 | Yeah.
00:20:51.580 | I suspect that, you know, way more ways to take a good picture than you would have known
00:21:01.420 | if you had only done the one right way prescribed by him at every turn, because you tried a bunch
00:21:08.340 | of things and so now, you know, lots of different things to put together to get a different kind
00:21:15.540 | of picture.
00:21:16.040 | Whereas before it was just one path.
00:21:18.900 | It's kind of like if you teach somebody to play the piano, just this one, we're not going
00:21:23.320 | to know scales.
00:21:24.140 | We're not going to know notes.
00:21:25.320 | We're not worrying about what the names are.
00:21:27.080 | We're just going to teach you how to play this one piece and you get it beautifully and you
00:21:31.960 | have a great artifact for the recital.
00:21:34.360 | But then next week you have to start all over from the very beginning because you don't know
00:21:39.180 | any notes and you don't practice any scales.
00:21:41.980 | You have a leg up because now you know your camera and you know, yep, if I do this, it will
00:21:48.420 | not be good.
00:21:49.900 | It will not be pretty or it won't be clear.
00:21:51.780 | It won't be that range.
00:21:54.220 | That's, that's really good.
00:21:55.920 | That's illuminating for us to see that it works in real life, not just in IEW or in Latin.
00:22:03.260 | So the other thing I thought about is how my attitude worked for me with the tool I had.
00:22:10.460 | I would have been an idiot if I'd had the same attitude, if he was trying to teach me
00:22:16.640 | how to use a chainsaw.
00:22:18.220 | Because you know nothing about chainsaws?
00:22:20.800 | And I don't want to cut my leg off.
00:22:23.260 | Yeah.
00:22:24.500 | You would not have been eager to adventure with that, would you?
00:22:28.660 | Right.
00:22:29.620 | And so that made me think once again that sometimes you look at your little guys and you say, no,
00:22:34.400 | stop.
00:22:34.940 | And you better stop the first time I say it because the car is going to hit you.
00:22:37.980 | Versus talking to your 12 year old or 16 year old and saying, hey, stop doing that, you know,
00:22:43.420 | because we need to turn our attention elsewhere.
00:22:45.280 | There's different, there's different tools, consequences, circumstances.
00:22:50.500 | And so that whole week I was thinking about all these things I've been doing for, you
00:22:54.240 | know, 20 plus years, 40 years with our children and saying, how do they apply to me as an adult?
00:23:00.660 | Wow.
00:23:01.980 | I think that's really good.
00:23:03.080 | I think it would help us all to just have a few quiet moments and think about, okay, so
00:23:07.520 | these tools that I'm using, I mean, the tools that we give our children are not inherently
00:23:14.820 | dangerous.
00:23:15.580 | You know, it's not dangerous to think about things or to, to practice things or to do
00:23:20.320 | an anti-chart, but think about is this tool, does this tool need to be used in a certain
00:23:28.200 | way, in a certain sequence or at a certain time?
00:23:31.980 | Or can I, after we're all comfortable, can we play a little fast and loose with the order
00:23:38.300 | or with doing it to the nth degree?
00:23:41.260 | I think that's a good encouragement for us that, yeah, sometimes there are tools that
00:23:46.000 | you can, you can play with.
00:23:48.380 | You don't have to do it exactly like the guide prescribed.
00:23:52.140 | And you may learn something different along the way.
00:23:55.920 | I like that.
00:23:57.300 | That's good.
00:23:58.160 | So those are the main things I wanted to share with, with people that as much as I love being
00:24:04.060 | there with my husband and that, and I love Botswana and the Chobe River and I love all
00:24:07.740 | my photos, I was still loving being a lead learner and thinking through how does that
00:24:13.540 | affect things?
00:24:14.200 | Cause you know, I got those grandbabies and I don't do too much math or science with them
00:24:19.340 | or, you know, cause it's coursework, but they're the ones I'm taking bike riding and kayaking
00:24:23.680 | and canoeing and we build forts and you know, I'm that active grandma and it helped me think
00:24:28.960 | about, all right.
00:24:29.500 | So like last week we took, um, Joe and I, I taught him how to ride a bike and yeah, yeah,
00:24:36.100 | yeah.
00:24:36.240 | And you said this, you know, one of the things you mentioned earlier we need to do.
00:24:38.880 | And so while I was working with him riding the bike, I thought so differently than when
00:24:43.580 | I taught my own children, I thought for, I said, let's look at your bike.
00:24:48.180 | It's a little bit, maybe two inches too tall for you to be safe while you're riding.
00:24:53.460 | So our first lesson was learning how to fall.
00:24:55.880 | Oh, wow.
00:24:57.800 | He didn't fall when I let go.
00:24:59.920 | Right.
00:25:00.240 | And we weren't going anywhere.
00:25:01.660 | We were just operating and falling.
00:25:03.180 | So then whenever he started actually moving and started to fall, he knew how to catch himself.
00:25:09.300 | I don't think I did that with any of my children.
00:25:11.980 | I'm sure I didn't do that.
00:25:13.900 | Yeah.
00:25:14.260 | Things we learn on our children, we practice on these poor children so that we can be good
00:25:21.200 | when we're grandparents.
00:25:22.080 | I know I'm a way more, I think, patient, chase the moment with my grandchildren than I was
00:25:30.780 | with my children.
00:25:31.860 | There was always a purpose.
00:25:33.440 | And, you know, we're always, I always had in my mind what I wanted them to attain.
00:25:38.800 | And I've had to train that, some of that out of myself.
00:25:42.240 | And I got better and better as they got older and older.
00:25:45.920 | But I think, man, I could do a darn good job of homeschooling my little, my grandchildren
00:25:50.660 | because now I am less about the outcome than I am about the process and the relationship.
00:26:00.700 | You know, maybe instead of outcome, we should say income and really mean it.
00:26:04.760 | What are we putting in?
00:26:06.520 | Not income money, but income, love and attention.
00:26:10.480 | Yes, and willingness to suspend our disbelief and to see it from the child's side.
00:26:20.360 | Sometimes my grandson will ask me a question.
00:26:23.060 | And I now know that if I don't understand, I need to not expect him to use my words, but
00:26:31.960 | I need to say to him, help me see.
00:26:34.460 | And I do.
00:26:35.020 | I will say to him, help me see it a different way.
00:26:38.200 | Use some different words or show me with your hands or show me with your body because I don't
00:26:45.220 | understand what you know.
00:26:47.100 | So help me get it.
00:26:49.300 | And that's a relationship builder.
00:26:51.320 | Yeah.
00:26:52.020 | And then back to my trip in Botswana, our guide, as good as he was, he's only 40.
00:26:56.760 | And I was thinking about that.
00:26:58.400 | What kind of a teacher are you going to be when you're 60?
00:27:00.780 | Oh, my goodness.
00:27:01.960 | Well, gosh, Lily, think what kind of a teacher he is after a week with you.
00:27:06.860 | Okay.
00:27:08.860 | He probably is looking for people who want to break the rules or who want to ask questions
00:27:15.520 | or, or experiment before, you know, I mean, you went into it knowing what kind of learner
00:27:23.540 | you are, right?
00:27:25.360 | So you knew that probably you were not going to just follow the prompts because you needed
00:27:34.060 | to understand, but what else or what if.
00:27:37.700 | And so I think, you know, when we think about our homeschool, I think it's wise for us as parents
00:27:45.560 | to think about our own personalities, our own learning personalities, our own proclivities.
00:27:55.120 | I think if I had known that I should do that before I started teaching my children, they
00:28:02.320 | would have had fewer hiccups in the subjects that made my heartbeat a little faster.
00:28:09.480 | There were things about my learning personality that I thought, okay, I didn't get that right.
00:28:15.980 | I'm going to make sure that you get it right.
00:28:17.720 | But what I did at the beginning was just compound my mistakes or my bad learning habits.
00:28:25.340 | And so I think it would be really wise for us all just to say, okay, how do I react when
00:28:31.780 | I'm learning something new?
00:28:33.200 | What, what is my knee jerk reaction to not getting something right and try to get over ourselves?
00:28:43.120 | You know, so another connection too, was I started off by saying, um, the guide said we
00:28:49.300 | were the only group who had all stuck with it.
00:28:51.620 | And I can imagine how many people went home and said, oh, he's such a horrible guide.
00:28:55.940 | Right.
00:28:56.940 | And how many times we do that?
00:28:58.340 | We blame it on the book or our parents' relationship or the teacher that we have.
00:29:02.100 | And nobody on our boat was going to do that.
00:29:04.680 | That just wasn't like thinking people don't really do that.
00:29:08.860 | And that's so good.
00:29:10.340 | Yeah.
00:29:10.880 | Because we could have said, well, what's wrong with you that they don't want to finish?
00:29:14.360 | And not one of us thought that we were like, well, you're a really good teacher.
00:29:18.400 | What was the problem?
00:29:19.740 | Well, I like it that you did remind us at the outset that you guys were all adult learners.
00:29:28.240 | And so, and you had, um, gone out of your way and given up a lot of resources, whether that's
00:29:35.220 | money or time or distance to take that class.
00:29:39.240 | Um, but you all also took responsibility for your own learning.
00:29:46.820 | You didn't think it was the teacher's responsibility or the coach's responsibility.
00:29:53.800 | Um, I have told a few people this story before.
00:29:58.340 | Um, that was a lesson that, um, I learned, uh, as it came out of my mouth to my child.
00:30:06.580 | I learned and had to repent.
00:30:09.060 | We were sitting at a table doing chemistry together.
00:30:12.680 | And, um, it was in one of the advanced lessons.
00:30:16.000 | I don't know.
00:30:16.400 | We, it was, it, it involves stoichiometry, but also other higher math.
00:30:20.340 | And I remember thinking 30 years ago, I did not like to do this and I did not know what
00:30:25.480 | I was doing and I don't know now.
00:30:27.020 | And I had other things on my agenda for the day and she was getting frustrated and I got
00:30:32.520 | frustrated and I said to her, I said to her, you went to community.
00:30:39.700 | I did not go to community.
00:30:41.500 | What did Ms.
00:30:42.740 | Carrie show you about these kinds of problems?
00:30:45.740 | What did she, it's Ms.
00:30:47.440 | Carrie's job to introduce this to you.
00:30:50.000 | And then it's one of those moments where there's silence and you hear it echo her responsibility,
00:30:56.440 | her responsibility, her responsibility.
00:30:58.340 | And I just thought, oh no.
00:31:00.640 | And I said, and I apologize.
00:31:02.640 | I said, Sarah, I have to apologize to you.
00:31:04.360 | And her head jerked.
00:31:05.980 | And I said, um, it, I need you to hear me.
00:31:09.500 | It is never going to be Ms.
00:31:12.580 | Carrie's responsibility to teach you chemistry.
00:31:15.960 | Um, it is first mama's responsibility to shepherd you as we learn chemistry together.
00:31:23.280 | But ultimately you're 16.
00:31:25.800 | It's your job to learn this.
00:31:29.400 | And I said, so we're having trouble.
00:31:30.860 | I said, so it's the math.
00:31:31.960 | I know it's the math.
00:31:32.720 | I can't remember how to do it.
00:31:34.560 | Let's go ask daddy, Mr.
00:31:36.340 | Math major, and he can teach me and I'll teach you and we'll move on.
00:31:40.360 | And, and, and she, I apologized and cried and she cried and we did the math and we got it.
00:31:46.080 | Woo.
00:31:46.300 | I thought that was the end of the lesson.
00:31:48.720 | Fast forward to college.
00:31:51.300 | And she came home or called me one day and said, um, I am, I don't know what's going on.
00:31:59.560 | This is a photography class.
00:32:01.160 | And my advisor let me take this level.
00:32:04.040 | And there was a prerequisite for this class that I didn't have.
00:32:07.920 | And my, my advisor didn't say I had to have it.
00:32:11.280 | And now I'm in over my head.
00:32:12.860 | And I said, please, tomorrow is the drop ad date.
00:32:16.660 | You need to get out of that class.
00:32:18.620 | What in the world?
00:32:19.500 | I don't know, you just need to go handle it.
00:32:21.520 | And we hung up and I thought she'd handled it.
00:32:23.160 | So several weeks later, I said, so did you, what did you pick up instead?
00:32:27.580 | She said, oh, I kept photography and I was so annoyed.
00:32:30.840 | And I said, honey, why did you do that?
00:32:33.200 | You knew there was all this stuff you didn't know.
00:32:35.620 | And she said, right.
00:32:37.760 | I knew what it was that I didn't know.
00:32:40.800 | I knew I was missing the basics, the grammar.
00:32:44.780 | She said, and I said, so did you just get help from the teacher?
00:32:47.840 | She said, no, I knew what I was missing.
00:32:50.180 | I went online and found that and cleared up the gaps.
00:32:54.480 | She said, mama, it's my responsibility to learn what I need to learn.
00:33:00.800 | And I thought, okay, so I thought I was supposed to be teaching her chemistry.
00:33:05.960 | What I was supposed to be teaching her was how to be a lifelong learner and be responsible
00:33:11.280 | for her own learning.
00:33:13.260 | And so that was that, and that was, you know, Lee, that was 12 years ago that I first had
00:33:19.180 | that experience.
00:33:19.860 | And, you know, probably a good 10 years ago when she went to college and had that, but it
00:33:25.260 | still resonates with me.
00:33:26.620 | And I think it resonates with all of us who need to be responsible for our own learning.
00:33:31.940 | Don't be afraid to learn something new and don't be afraid to be unconventional in how
00:33:36.980 | you learn it.
00:33:37.620 | Yeah.
00:33:38.380 | Well, and that story just highlights how, because I have some more stories I could share, but
00:33:42.780 | how oftentimes we are, they want the, we're the millstone that handicaps our children.
00:33:48.360 | Oh, that's so true.
00:33:50.520 | That is so true.
00:33:52.560 | And how do we get out of our own way?
00:33:57.220 | How do we get out of our children's way, Lee?
00:33:59.080 | Yeah, I don't think you can know.
00:34:02.560 | I mean, you know, you've heard me say this before, but every day is a new day.
00:34:06.620 | Never had it before.
00:34:08.360 | You've never had children that age before in that circumstance before.
00:34:12.300 | The Lord's made it so that there's no way for us to know what to do.
00:34:15.300 | And that's a wonderful thing because you get to rely on the Holy Spirit.
00:34:19.100 | I'm going to say, so we just need to trust God.
00:34:22.420 | We need to trust God and rely on him and let the chips fall as they may and trust his goodness.
00:34:28.880 | I think why that falls on deaf ears or seems trite to people, Lisa, is because they actually
00:34:33.800 | don't, they actually think God's some ethereal thing.
00:34:36.660 | They don't know that he's a real person that we talk to every day and he actually answers
00:34:42.100 | us.
00:34:42.920 | Yes, yes.
00:34:44.180 | In your despair, when you cry out and say, God, I don't know what to do.
00:34:48.160 | You're going to have to show me.
00:34:49.500 | He will.
00:34:51.200 | And he does.
00:34:52.980 | And that, you know what, is actually the most encouraging thing.
00:34:58.380 | That is the most encouraging thing.
00:35:00.860 | All right.
00:35:01.060 | What was the most exciting part of your trip?
00:35:05.340 | Is it the pictures that you brought home or something you learned about yourself or the
00:35:12.260 | community you built?
00:35:15.580 | So maybe this won't be exciting, but it's definitive.
00:35:19.520 | I left knowing I was probably never going to buy a camera.
00:35:23.420 | So as much as I loved it, I will pay and go on another photo safari.
00:35:29.080 | But it was so distracting compared to just being, you know, having that always in your hand.
00:35:37.640 | And so I may go ahead and buy a small, better travel camera, but you won't be seeing me around
00:35:45.040 | my neck because to do it well, it's like playing the piano.
00:35:49.280 | I would have to play the piano and not be cooking.
00:35:52.220 | So to take pictures well, you have to take the pictures, not be a tourist.
00:35:58.160 | So that was interesting for me to find out about myself.
00:36:01.420 | Exciting wise, of course, was the healthy animals.
00:36:05.940 | I'll share a few stories because I won't get to anywhere else.
00:36:08.980 | You guys can edit it or do what you want with it.
00:36:11.080 | But we were charged in our Jeep by an elephant in musk, which was so scary.
00:36:16.780 | But you can know all five of us were flashing that camera as fast as we could because if we
00:36:21.760 | were going to die, we were going to get pictures of it.
00:36:25.940 | And then one of the most delightful stories was as a baby elephant was just dead tired
00:36:31.580 | or sleeping in the road.
00:36:32.600 | And we got up to it and the guide kind of gently honked the horn and woke that elephant up.
00:36:37.160 | He was so mad.
00:36:38.880 | He started screaming and screaming.
00:36:40.660 | Well, all his friends, all these three foot tall elephants right out of the bushes were
00:36:46.620 | all yelling and screaming at us.
00:36:48.540 | The elephants were just a hoot.
00:36:50.960 | And then we got to watch a couple of mamas teach their three, four cubs how to kill a
00:36:56.920 | water monitor and then to see how the cubs deferred to the older brother and how he wouldn't share.
00:37:03.600 | And so, you know, we saw just a whole lot of mammal dynamics that obviously you're not going
00:37:09.500 | to see in the middle of the United States.
00:37:11.600 | So that was very fun.
00:37:13.460 | And then once again, the camera, I'll never have a good picture of the drafts.
00:37:17.320 | But we at one point were surrounded by, I counted, 27 giraffes, all within touching distance of our vehicle.
00:37:23.740 | Whoa, that is so cool.
00:37:25.620 | Hundreds of elephants at one time.
00:37:27.880 | Literally, a hundred impalas and turn the corner, there's another hundred, turn the corner, there's another hundred.
00:37:34.780 | So just the sheer quantity of them.
00:37:37.360 | And so the things you get to see them do because there's so many of them.
00:37:40.700 | It was just, it was delightful, but no more delightful than when the next weekend I took the grandbabies camping
00:37:48.020 | and Jonah ran over a snake with his bicycle and, you know, the kids got to swim in the river with snakes
00:37:56.560 | and it was just a big snake weekend and we got to see a falcon eat a quail.
00:38:01.060 | And, you know, the Lord's got his creation just all around us.
00:38:06.140 | You don't have to go anywhere to take good pictures, to learn, to share with somebody else.
00:38:10.900 | There's wonder all around.
00:38:12.740 | I love that.
00:38:13.560 | I love it.
00:38:14.320 | I love that you shared your experience with us.
00:38:17.840 | And I love that, that there were so many applications to where we all are on our learning journey, no matter where that is.
00:38:28.340 | Um, I like it that you showed us, we can go back to school, we can be a student and that actually it's probably good from time to time for us as lead learners to still be learning, to still be the student.
00:38:43.920 | So we don't forget that these habits of learning are real and they're helpful, um, and they are applicable not just to whatever our children are learning, but what we are learning throughout life in the life of the Lord.
00:39:01.320 | I love that.
00:39:02.620 | Um, I wanted to talk about the math map for a minute, Lee, um, we want there to be, we want our listeners today to keep thinking about the math map.
00:39:13.580 | And we know that our families who have students going into challenge B will be using the math map in community this fall.
00:39:22.020 | So they'll be doing, they'll be doing the monomials.
00:39:25.100 | Talk a little bit about monomials and what families can expect.
00:39:29.040 | Yep.
00:39:29.900 | Well, so just like we talked about with the photography course or, um, the stories that we've been sharing, our whole goal is to help everyone to see the unseen.
00:39:38.300 | And as frustrating as that camera could be sometimes for me, well, that's how frustrating the monomials will be for your child.
00:39:45.360 | And it's a good thing when that happens because that frustration, that practice, that repeatedness, um, we'll make it so that then the next day they try that same kind of problem and go, what was the problem?
00:39:56.600 | I'm fine.
00:39:57.480 | I can do it right.
00:39:59.000 | And be a confidence builder.
00:40:00.320 | So, um, it is math.
00:40:02.880 | Math never goes.
00:40:03.740 | I mean, the math map's not going to make it so you don't have to calculate or do problems.
00:40:07.660 | And so you have to have a willing heart in that.
00:40:10.100 | And so I just want to remind people always of that, that common sense and perseverance are your best friends as well as the Holy Spirit when you're learning anything, including if you're a challenge B student.
00:40:21.920 | But what I'm really excited about with the monomials is kind of that it has a different name like that, that it's monomials.
00:40:29.100 | That even if the students learn what a monomial is and nothing else, they're going to know more about math than a child who says why it's Algebra 1 and Algebra 2.
00:40:36.360 | I mean, just the language itself is going to help them if they pursue higher math as adults.
00:40:43.980 | So the perseverance with the language and the more difficult algorithms, because they are beginning, there weren't a lot in the complex level.
00:40:52.800 | But those are just processes.
00:40:55.540 | So it's kind of like, you know, how do you hold a chainsaw or hold a camera?
00:41:01.240 | Well, how do you hold the problem in your head?
00:41:03.600 | And what steps do you have to do that?
00:41:05.860 | Like your daughter, you got to go look up.
00:41:08.620 | So learning the resources and learning the language, so learning the resources of math and the language of math is still going to be the goal.
00:41:16.460 | Calculating will come, but it's hard to ask you to do a lot of calculations outside of natural numbers if you don't know the processes in the language.
00:41:27.120 | And so to work on that.
00:41:29.660 | Yep.
00:41:30.200 | So monomials really is going to help those students practice the introductory algebraic computations.
00:41:37.820 | But they're mostly going to use the classical skills so they learn to talk about math.
00:41:42.320 | They learn to speak the language of math.
00:41:44.980 | And the cool thing about monomials is that it allows your Challenge B and older students to do math at the family table with your younger students who are practicing with digits or fractions.
00:42:01.000 | And you can, as a parent, teach all of your children together.
00:42:05.660 | It's like a unified math language for home and community.
00:42:09.460 | So you guys check out monomials.
00:42:11.860 | You can look on the bookstore now and find out about that newest level that's rolling out.
00:42:18.560 | Awesome.
00:42:19.660 | Lee, thank you so much for sharing.
00:42:22.440 | I can't wait to see more of your pictures on Facebook.
00:42:26.320 | But I'm going to look at them in a different way now when I think about you going back to school to learn how to take good pictures.
00:42:34.040 | Thanks for sharing with us.
00:42:35.600 | You're welcome.
00:42:36.780 | It was wonderfully fun, Lisa.
00:42:38.800 | All right.
00:42:39.380 | Bye-bye.
00:42:40.100 | Bye-bye.
00:42:42.100 | Thank you.
00:42:43.100 | For more information, visit www.fema.gov