(gentle music) - Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I am excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, I'm super excited to talk to you today about something that, frankly, I gave very little thought to as an early homeschooler.

And I have a friend to talk with today. You get to listen in on our conversation. Kelly Wilt is joining me. Kelly is also a member of the Classical Conversations Multimedia Curriculum Development team. And we have lots of cool conversations. And I thought it'd be fun for you guys to listen in on this conversation about family mission statements.

Kelly, how long have you been homeschooling? - Oh my goodness, Lisa. - Like forever. People ask me that and I think, well, longer than you have time to hear about. - Yes, it's hard to believe. It seems like hardly any time at all and forever all at once, 15 years this year, Lisa.

- Oh my word. - So God has been so faithful because at the beginning of this journey, if I had thought about the length of it, I think I would have been intimidated, but God has been so faithful to us. - Yeah, I would have to say that too.

Now I look back and I think, oh, wow, when you said 15 and I said, oh, wow, that's a long time. And then I thought that my oldest daughter will be 30 in a few months. So I must have been homeschooling for 25 years. But I still love it.

I still do it. I still have a passion for it. God has placed homeschooling on my heart. And I think not just because I love my children and I love other people's children, I've been blessed to tutor many other families' children. It's not just that I love the children.

I really am so committed to homeschooling because I love parents and I love encouraging parents. I love helping them to see that God has called them to do an absolutely scary but wonderful thing and that they can do it. And so that, y'all, is totally the reason I wanna talk about mission statements today because I was being completely honest.

Our family, when we jumped into homeschooling, we jumped in with both feet and the full assurance that God was calling us to do it. But we had no clue about a mission statement. And so we, Kelly and I, are gonna together kind of deconstruct that whole idea of having a family mission statement while you guys listen.

And hopefully, there'll be some takeaways for you. And I suspect that you may come to believe that a mission statement might just be the thing that your homeschool is missing that will give it life and purpose, but we'll see. Let me ask you, Kelly, does your family have a family mission statement?

- Well, Lisa, let me say our family is very similar to yours in that, when we first began homeschooling so many years ago, mission statements were not in vogue. That was not a term that we were familiar with. And so in my mind's eye, I think I had a very unfocused view of what homeschooling would be to our family.

And one of my sons is a photographer, and so often, he will hand me his camera, and I will look through the lens, and everything will be blurry. And he'll say, "Focus, Mom, focus!" And so I will turn that lens under his direction, and the picture will come into view.

And at the beginning of our homeschooling, I think it was very similar in many ways to that process. I thought in my mind, I knew where I wanted us to end up, but I'll be honest and say that I was not certain at moments how we would get there.

And so there was always this question in the back of my mind, am I doing the right things? Are we moving in the right direction? And classical conversations played a huge role in helping to establish that focus in our family for our journey. So I would say at the very beginning, no.

Now over time, as our vision as a family has sharpened for what homeschooling actually is for our family, we have come across some phrases and some words and sentiments by studying God's Word, or even through our reading, our common reading that we do together as a family that I think have given us more clarity as a family to what homeschooling is and what it can be for our family, not only in the years past, but in the years to come.

- I really like that. I like the analogy that you made to looking through the lens of a camera. And yeah, you can see things, but it's not as sharply focused as you thought it was gonna be. You know that when you look through that at something beautiful, this always happens to me.

We will drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway in the fall to look at the leaves, and they are just so stunningly beautiful. And I take a picture, but when I come home, the picture is never, I never feel like exactly, that it's exactly what I was looking at.

And so somehow I'm not capturing the full beauty that is there. And so I really appreciate what you said. Sometimes looking, focusing, adjusting the focus a little bit can bring things into sharper relief. Okay, so you said you didn't have one when you started, but you eventually saw the light, so to speak, and realized that a family mission statement might be a good thing.

And as you grew in your understanding alongside your family of what it could be, that that seemed like a desirable thing. What I was thinking when I realized that we really needed to address this, I started trying to think, why might a family want a family mission statement? And I want you to help me think through that.

I came up with a couple of things. A family mission statement gives us as a family an identity. It's something that stamps all of us as belonging together in purpose. And that's the other thing that a family mission statement can give your family. It can very clearly state what you all see as the purpose of your home, not just your homeschooling, but what is God's purpose for you as a family unit in the world?

Why did God ordain from the foundation of the world that you be part of this family? I think that having a family mission statement acquaints every member of your family with the mission. What is God calling you, not just to be, 'cause that's your identity, but what is God calling your family to do together?

What are you thinking? Why might a family want a family mission statement? - Well, I feel like a driver who is looking through the rear view mirror with a car in reverse just a little bit, hindsight is 20/20. But I think now looking back to when we first began homeschooling, a mission statement would have been so helpful because I think you're right.

I think that it gives a family a shared meaning. It gives you a shared purpose, but I think it also establishes a family culture. We have some things that we say as a family and jokingly, when our boys were younger, now they're young men, but we, my husband and I determined we wanted them to be hardworking.

And so very flippantly, we would say, wilts don't whine, we do things. - Oh, I love it. - It began as this refocusing tool that we would use where, oh, they would be in the middle of putting together an any chart for a book maybe they didn't enjoy as much, or they would be working on an outline or working on a difficult assignment or committing something to memory.

Obviously something that would take time and energy and effort. - Right, and determination, yeah. - That's right, we would start to notice that the attitudes would take a turn south. - Oh yeah, yeah. - So my husband would look at me and he would say, wilts don't whine, and I would say, we do things.

And it was so funny over the years, it has become a catchphrase in our family to the point that when we're in community, I've heard my child say, our youngest say to herself, wilts don't whine, they do things. (laughing) - What a great mantra though. And what an important way to teach little children a great spiritual and character truth in a fun way, but that makes you all part of the same team.

Because it wasn't that you were saying, Jonathan, stop whining, or Libby, you know better than that. It's, this identifies us all. I'm part of this family that doesn't whine, it does things. How lovely, I like that. - Well, and you know, thinking about this, I think way back at the beginning of our homeschool journey, having a mission statement would have also helped us to determine our why.

Why were we doing this? Because you know, I just was jokingly talking about my children doing difficult things. Well, Lisa, you and I both know, homeschooling itself on most days is a difficult thing. And so having that statement would have helped me to focus my mind and my heart, just like I tried to do with my children, so that I could stay the course.

Because you know, looking back, one thing I know for certain is that God called us to this path. And to stay committed to something that is difficult takes fortitude, it takes perseverance, it takes determination on the most difficult of days to stay the course and to continue to move forward so that God can complete the work that He's called you to do.

And so having that focused statement, I think would have done for me and my homeschool momma heart the same thing that saying, "Wilts don't whine, we do things for my children." - I love that, I love that. Another thing that having a family mission statement can do is help us form goals, help us formulate goals for our family.

What kind of impact are we gonna have on the world? If a world impact is part of your mission statement, then what will you do? It actually helps to flesh out or to give you something to flesh out. Not just the whys, but the whats, and then the hows of what your family is going to do.

As you move through. So we've talked a lot about why a family might want a family mission statement, okay. But really, I want us to get super practical because I can remember Kelly as a new homeschooling mom and I had a five year old who was itching to learn everything and thought that she already knew most of it.

And then a two and a half year old that just wanted to be with us wherever we were and whatever we were doing. And I remember thinking, "Oh glory, I've got to teach "this little soul how to read and all about numbers "and I want her to be curious about the world.

"I want both of them to be healthy and happy "and I want them to know about God and I want them "to learn how to live in a family." Oh, I was so overwhelmed some days. I mean, isn't coming up with a family mission statement just a bridge too far?

Isn't that just too much for families starting out? - You know, I remember those days where my husband would come home from work and I would hand him a baby while I was stirring spaghetti sauce on the stove and I would say, "We made it, we're all still alive." And that was the goal of the day.

You know, I think that as I have learned more and as our family has grown, I've realized that as our family grows, so has our mission. Our understanding of our mission has grown, our understanding of what it can and should be has grown just as my children have. And so when my boys were super little, I would say, because I had two very distinct personalities.

I had a first born perfectionist who would build elaborate block towers and then I had my second born who delighted in knocking every single one of them over. And so there was always just an underlying conflict going on between the two boys. And so I would say to them, love God, love each other, daddy, mama, sister, brother.

And we would say that because at that point in our homeschool journey, those were the goals. I wanted my boys, and this was before their sister even came along, so they were ready for her whenever she came. But I wanted them, first of all, to love God. I knew that was a goal from the beginning.

That was a distinctive that I wanted for our family. And I wanted them to love each other well. Now that looked very different when I had a six year old and a three year old, than it does now as I have young men who are approaching manhood to live independently of our family, which seems so bizarre to say because those block knocking over days just seemed like yesterday.

But now I see the relationship they have. They do love the Lord. They do love each other. And when I walk past our son who is still at home's bedroom, and I hear him in conversation with his brother, I see that God used that little saying to cement a value in their hearts and minds to love God and to love each other well.

And so even though at that stage in the game when they were small, we did not have a formal mission statement. The sentiment, the values definitely were there and took root and were ingrained even when they were little guys. And now I get to enjoy the fruit of that as I see their near adult relationship with each other.

What a gift. - Man, I love that. I love that. Love God, love each other. I love that. I love that because we had little sayings in our family too that we grew up in. Some days it was just a one-off that you just said and it developed a life of its own.

Maybe it had a rhythm or a cadence or in a lighthearted way spoke a deep truth that you guys tended to live out. And so those are so, so fun to hold on to. And I bet your kids still remember those things. This is what I want to say about families who might feel like, oh, now I have to come up with a mission statement and do all this stuff.

Here's what I want to tell you. A mission statement, I believe, is worth the quote-unquote trouble for three reasons. Okay, I know I sound like a loss of tools of writing paper. Okay, for three reasons, at least three reasons. Here's one thing. A family mission statement can help you get started right.

It can help you distill the things that are truly important to you, that God has laid on your heart. It will help you articulate, like Kelly said, your why. Why has God called me to this? But it will help you get started right so that in the middle of a really bad day, you will be able to go back to your mission statement and say, but what our family is about is loving God and learning how to love others and filling in those blank.

And that brings me to the second reason that a mission statement is a really good thing. It will continually bring you back to home base. Those of you listeners who've been homeschooling for a long time know that even though we're everyday educators and we are learning alongside our children, we are still sometimes led astray by the eye candy of what other families are doing or what seems like a really great gimmick.

It's flashy or colorful or fun. And we get spread thin or pulled in too many different directions. A family mission statement will always bring you back to home base, will always bring you back to the foundations of why am I doing this? What am I called to do in my home with my children and in the world?

And here's another thing. The third reason I think a family mission statement is so wonderful is that it will calm you. It will give calmness to your homeschooling and to your family life because your family mission statement will actually help refine your choices. There are some things, you cannot, have you ever been to a homeschool book fair?

Oh my gosh, for people who love books, it is just like I sometimes go in and just sort of spin in a circle. I'm just like, I don't know what's a good thing to look at first. There's so many good things and there's so many choices and there's so many good choices.

But too much of a good thing is not too good. It is still just too much. And so you gotta have something that will help you refine your choices and find the things, the activities, the emphasis, the books, the avenues of study that really further your family's mission as God has led your family to see it.

And that's why I think a mission statement is so important. I can't, I really do think it's awesome to have one. Let's talk a little more practicality. Who should write this? Kelly, when you guys started coming up with more of a statement, did you and Kim, your husband write it together?

Did you write it and get him to pass off on it? Or did you involve the whole family? Well, I involved our whole family and let me tell you why. Because I wanted this to be a focus for all of us, not just something that mom had imposed on our family.

I wanted them to feel that they were a part of our family culture because they are. Each person in your family is unique and uniquely given to you to fulfill God's purpose for your family in this world. And so involving each of them, to me, was the right path to take.

And I would encourage young families who are listening to this podcast, you may be in the age right now where you have a mixture of ages, maybe even a three-year-old and our two-year-old who just likes to blurt out things like I love pizza, frogs are gross. You just never know what things they're going to observe and want to make known.

I would encourage you to sit down even with those little list of babies and really listen to everyone's contributions for your family statement. Because behind that I love pizza statement, there may be a little one who is actually saying, I love pizza because our family spends time together around the table.

I love pizza because it's something that we make together in the kitchen that's fun. There may be an underlying why or a how that's just under the surface. And so allowing each member of the family to contribute validates each member of your family as part of a whole. And I think in that sense, the process to get to a mission statement is as valuable if not more valuable than the product, the end result.

Because you were in conversation with those people who sit at the very center of your heart talking about what sets you apart in this world? What is your family's role in this world? And how do you want your family to grow in this world that God has made? And those are definitely valuable things that even the smallest members of your family should hear you speak aloud because it gives them weight and it gives them meaning and it helps them even from those youngest days to have understanding about what is valuable to your family and how God has uniquely created you to come together and to serve him in this world.

- That's cool. And realizing that God has put you all together in a specific family for a specific purpose is kind of awe-inspiring. And even for little children to think God chose us to be together on purpose so that we could learn to know him more and love him more and love one another.

But he may have given your family something unique to do in the world. And so pulling your family together to sit down and have a conversation about, okay, guys, what is ours to do? What is ours to do in our little community that maybe if we don't take up the task, nobody will do it?

What is ours to, and it gives me chills to think about that because what a lovely thing for your children to realize from an early age is that God has intentionally planned good works for them to do. And he planted them first in a family so that they could know and learn and grow to know him and love him and be prepared for the good works that he has for them to do.

So what if our listeners are thinking now, 'cause I'm here to tell y'all, if you've been homeschooling five or six years and think, well, I just missed that boat. I mean, I've just been messing around for five or six years. I don't know what I'm gonna do now. It's never too late.

And you know what, guys, if you've been at this for a while, you might have a better idea than ever before what your family's mission statement could be and maybe should be given what you now know about your family. But I suspect there's some people who are listening that think, well, I never thought about having a family mission statement.

Or if I thought about it at all, I thought that's not for me. But now I think it might be for me. It might be for us. Where do we get ideas? Where do we get ideas for cultivating or writing a family mission statement? How do we know what ought to be included?

I have, I wanna share with you that writing a family mission statement is actually one of the things that our brand new piece of material, Scribblers at Home, Recipes from Lifelong Learners, writing a family mission statement is one of the very first activities that is advocated for families and scribblers.

And so some of you, if you have the Scribblers resource already, if you look on pages two and three, that's where we talk about a family mission statement. There's some questions that we know that families might want to begin thinking. And new families, I understand that you might be overwhelmed.

Your big question right now might be, but what do I want my children to know? I'm not sure, what should I want my children to know? But there's some things, there's some other questions that I would advocate you asking first. Questions that might lead you gently toward what you want to enjoy with your family.

And like I said, this is in Scribblers on page two, but I'm just gonna mention these questions really quickly. They will give you something to think about if you are beginning to work on a family mission statement. What is your family's purpose? Now maybe you've never thought about that before.

Spend some time seeking the Lord and talking with the people in your family and really try to figure out what is it? What is our purpose? Why are we together? What are your family's priorities? What are your family's priorities? I suspect that most of us would say that knowing God and bringing our children into relationship with the Lord Jesus is one of our highest priorities.

But for some families, physical fitness is a very high priority. For some families, spending time with extended family is a priority. For some families, it's learning how to plant a garden or fix a leaking faucet or work with your hands. What are your family's priorities? How does education fit into your purpose and priorities?

That question will begin to help you make homeschooling decisions. But homeschooling decisions on purpose, not on accident or not on 'cause that's what everybody else was doing or because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. Number four, do you have a family mission statement which is a family purpose?

What you could consider, what makes your family unique? How would you, what are your identifying characteristics? How will you identify yourself? When our family, when our oldest daughter was born, she wasn't, she was fairly precocious in speaking. So she was not too very old before we realized that she was picking up on our love of sarcasm.

And so she, when her sister came along, she was cut from a different piece of cloth and we realized that that sarcasm did not come naturally to her. And if that was gonna stay a love language for our family, we had to initiate her into it. So what makes your family unique?

But how, what's an identifying characteristic of your family? How will you love one another? Ooh, how will you each give and receive love? That's an important thing to know about your family. What traditions do you have now and what traditions would you like to begin? These are just some beginning questions that might help you narrow down your family mission statement.

Kelly, I want some ideas from you too. Where do we get ideas of how to craft our statement? What kind of stuff are we supposed to put in there? - Well, that is a great question. And I think the questions that you've just listed are a great place to start because I think for me, at the beginning of this journey, I definitely would have needed inspiration, even begin thinking about the scope of what homeschooling would mean for our family.

Like I said, those early days very much felt survival-based and really I wanted our family to thrive in their homeschooling journey. I did not want our days to feel thin and drawn. I wanted them to feel rich and full. And so at the beginning, I had to look past what our current place was.

Almost like I was saying before, when I would look through my son's camera and look at a far off place and draw focus, I think in those beginning days, I had to really, in my mind's eye, pray for God to reveal a future to me that was rich in wisdom and goodness and truth through my little people who were just at the very beginning stage, who wanted to sit in my lap, who wanted to hear stories, who wanted to go and dig in the dirt in the backyard and find worms and all of those things that make childhood so wonderful because there's discovery through play.

As a mom, I had to think, be forward thinking about where that would lead them. What kind of people did I want them to be in this world for the Lord? What was, like you said, what were the tasks that would be given to them to do on this side of eternity to glorify God?

And so I love that list of questions that you just shared because there is so much wisdom to be found in thinking deeply before you get to a place of expectation, thinking deeply in preparation because I think so often we can be very tempted to shoot an arrow and then draw the target and declare ourselves successful.

And quite often, if we would just take time to prepare and to pray, actually I probably should reverse that, to pray and prepare to think how God will multiply our efforts because we've taken time to commit that process to Him. So I love that list of questions. And I love also in the Scribblers at Home book how there are also conversation starters on that very same page to think about not only what your family may need, but what do you want to do with your children?

I knew when we began this journey that I wanted to escape the paradigm of education that I had been in my past. I knew I might not have known what homeschooling could be, but I had a pretty good idea of what I didn't want it to be. And so I had to pray and commit that to God and say, okay, Lord, help me not only to run from something, help me to run toward you and use this as a tool in my children's lives so that they could know Him.

And as we say here in CC, to know Him and to make Him known in this world. So those questions that are at the bottom of page two also are really helpful. And particularly the final one at the bottom of that list, how can you cultivate teachable moments, was a turning point for me as a homeschool mom.

Because in my former life, before I was a homeschooler, I was a classroom teacher. And so when we began our family, I was very wary of being my profession with my family. And so I think at first I shied away from those teachable moments because I wanted my children to have some rest.

And the truth is what I needed to do was pray for God to reveal those moments to me so that I could show Him to them in those moments. So I really, I love the fact that these questions are included so that we think what is unique to our family?

But not only what is unique to us, but what do we want to achieve through this process? So good, so that we're not shooting an arrow and drawing a target. We draw that target and then we're able to take aim because we know exactly where we're headed. And that is so valuable.

- It really is. I love what you were saying about including your children and recognizing that your family mission statement is going to impact your children. And I got to thinking, it's not just impacting your children while they're little as you begin to homeschool them. It is going to impact your children as they grow up and as they leave your home.

What is it that your children, that you want them to become? Like you said, let's consider what do we want them to grow to be lovers of God? But who are they and who has God made them to be? And I think that they can draw some identity from this family mission statement.

I think that they can draw some direction from the family mission statement. I think that having a family mission statement provides our children a grounding in who they are in Christ, in who they are in the family and in who God is molding them to become. And what a great gift to give our children as they grow up.

I love it. It impacts our children even as they grow up and leave home. - Kelly, you've been such, as always, such a good conversation partner as we've kind of wrestled through a family mission statement and how to repent from not having one and now maybe for the listeners, how to do as we wish we had done.

Just talking about the value of it and how it can be a tool that the Lord uses to refine us in our homeschool as we really do follow His path has been really good. I have one last question for you. I'm gonna ask you the question and give you a minute to think as I tell our listeners about some other really good thing that I want them to know.

Here's my last question. How are you, Kelly Wilt, an everyday educator and will you always be one? You think about that. I'm gonna ask you. Listeners, I wanna tell you about a little more maybe about something that you've heard rumors of, a brand new foundations through challenge for math curriculum called the Math Map.

Some of you may have heard that such a curriculum is being developed by Lee Bortons, the founder of Classical Conversations. It is specifically designed to teach homeschool parents the language of math. And once we learn the language of math, we're going to be able to share that language with our children.

And now you might be saying, what does learning math have to do with learning a language? Well, here's the deal. Like a foreign language, math has very specific vocabulary and concepts and notations that are just as unfamiliar to us at first as a foreign language might be. With the Math Map, you can discover and become more familiar with this language of math.

Right now, Classical Conversation members can access an exclusive sneak peek of the beta release of the Math Map, Naturals. And you can find this on CC Connected. As you walk through the lessons in Math Map, Naturals and become more familiar with the language of math, you're gonna be better equipped to teach your kids and have great conversations with your children about math.

Now here's the deal, Math Map, Naturals will not stay on CC Connected forever. So you be sure to get on there and work through it while it's still available. To access Math Map, Naturals, log on to your CC Connected account, navigate to the Learning Center and search for the Math Map.

I think that you're gonna love it, I really do. Now, Kelly, I'm back to you. I wanna know the answer to the question, are you an everyday, how are you an everyday educator? And will you always be one? - Oh, that's a really great question. So I will start by telling you our family's mission statement, our working mission statement at this point in the game.

And I will say to people who are listening right now, at this point, we are 15 years into what will probably be almost a 20 year journey for our family. So we have homeschooled for quite some time. And so it's taken me to this point to sharpen our focus to the place where I have these thoughts.

But this is our family's working mission statement. The purpose of our family is to know God and to make Him known, sound familiar? By seeking truth, promoting goodness and celebrating beauty in and through the world He's created. So I would answer your question, Lisa, with this. I am an everyday educator, and this is how I will continue to seek to be one.

My prayer is that I will look for God in creation. Everywhere that I look, I see Him. And I will pray, like I mentioned before, for those teachable moments. Not only what I can teach my children, but what God can continue to teach me. Because we are all on an education journey, not only as homeschool families, but as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so as He continues to reveal Himself to us, we can know Him more deeply, and then we can reflect Him in this world. So yes, my goal is to be an everyday educator all the days that He gives me. - That's awesome, and I suspect did nothing less.

Thank you for sharing today, Kelly. Listeners, thank you for joining us. I hope this has given you food for thought. And I encourage you, as always, to go forth and be an everyday educator. See you next week. (gentle music) you