(gentle music) - Welcome, friends, to this episode of the Everyday Educator Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm 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 have a treat for you today. We spend a lot of time talking with homeschooling, mostly moms, but occasionally a dad.

Today, I want to give you a perspective on homeschooling and beyond, but from a dad's perspective. I have with me today a dad of two adult daughters. He and his wife graduated their children through the Challenge 4 program of Classical Conversations. This dad is an educator at heart. He loves to learn alongside his children, and how do I know all this?

Because he's my husband. Yes, I have recruited my own husband as a podcast guest because I think he has something unique to say to families, to parents, to homeschoolers, to lifelong learners, to everyday educators. And so I want to welcome to the podcast, my husband, David. - Hello. - I'm glad for you to get a front row seat for what I spend so much of my week doing every week.

- I was getting ready to say, I bet you say that about all your guests, but then you got to the husband part, so you knew I was unique. - I only say that to you. Okay, so we want today to give moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, maybe two, who are in the trenches of homeschooling their children an idea of what it might look like on the other side of the daily grind.

When the empty nest becomes reality and not theory, we want to give parents an idea of what you've been doing all these years as a homeschooling dad, part of a homeschooling family, the good, the bad, the ugly, and what it looks like now on this side, your hopes, your dreams, what you wish you had done, and how the life of a classical educator has prepared you to enjoy the future with your girls, okay?

- Sounds good. - So, let me ask you, David, how long did you homeschool? This is not a trick question. - We began homeschooling in, I guess, about 1997, something like that. - See, this is why I said, I should have said it is a trick question. Some people think, you know, I don't really remember when we started homeschooling.

We've always just kind of been living this life of the mind with curious children and answering their questions, and so sometimes I tell people we've been homeschooling from the very beginning, from the day we brought our older daughter home from the hospital, and then sometimes I say, I guess we officially started when she would have been a kindergartner, and so, yeah.

- About 1997, then our younger daughter graduated in 2015, so that's 18 years, is that the math correctly? - It's a long time. - So, you've probably told this story before, but when we were deciding how to educate our daughter, well, our daughters, I was all in favor of public school just because it would help us network with a lot of other families, and as a pastor, I wanted to have ways to connect with other young families, but you persuaded me to give homeschooling a shot, but one of the key moments came when we had a family visiting with us, and she and her husband homeschooled their children, and they asked us what we were gonna do with our kids' education, and when she said to you that you're already homeschooling now, you're already doing that, and I guess for you and me, it pretty much came naturally, and we didn't have to put on a teacher's hat, that's just kind of how we live life.

- Yeah. - And so, yeah, we've been homeschooling, we did it for a number of years. - So that's the how long, and that's pretty much the way I remember it too, so that's good, but why? Why did you agree to step out onto the path of this homeschooling journey?

- That's a good question, because back in the '90s, this was not mainstream in any context, and so it was a more radical kind of endeavor, we didn't have, actually that was the year that CC began in 1997, we didn't know about it then, but I think that we wanted to homeschool, I've heard you say this, and I agree, that it's just so fun to see children learn things, we just love children anyway, but we love watching their eyes light up, and we love fielding the questions that come to mind.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, do you think it's safe to say that you were willing to begin the homeschool journey, because I really wanted to, and we had people we trusted who thought we could really do this, but you also thought, how badly can we mess them up in kindergarten?

(laughing) - I probably wasn't thinking about it that deeply, in terms of long-term, once we started, it seemed so natural to me, I kind of never really looked back. - That was what I was gonna ask you next, if that's why you began, just because it is fun to see the light bulbs come on, and learning alongside your kids is supernatural, and a lot of fun, why did you agree to continue for so long?

After we started, do you remember thinking, oh, I'm gonna do this 'til they graduate, or not? - I was not thinking that far ahead. - Yeah. - You bore the brunt of the whole process, and it's not like it was a lot of work for me to be involved.

I know that you did a lot of research studying educational curriculum, curricula, and ways to educate children, of course you had background, a lot of experience, particularly with preschoolers, and so this was kind of something close to your heart to study and to find what is the right way to educate children, and we can chuckle now, because young parents think there's gotta be one right way.

- There's so many right ways. - Yeah, and it is a process, and there is grace built into it that a young parent may not realize. - Okay, listeners, I want you to hear that. There is grace built into homeschooling that you might not realize. You don't have to find the one right way, 'cause there's not one right way, and if you have more than one child, you've already internalized that whole idea, because the right way to teach child A to read is the one way that will not work for child B, almost guaranteed.

There's not one right way. There are very few mistakes from which you cannot recover as a homeschooler. If you try one tack and it doesn't work, or it doesn't work well, or you just don't like it, you can stop, boot that to the curb, and try a different way, and it's okay.

Don't be afraid that you're gonna make a mistake. And moms, if your husband needs to hear this, then stop the podcast, go find him, and help him listen to this dad, who also is saying to you, "Yeah, I kinda just believed you "when you said we could do this, "and I saw good things, and I trusted you." - Well, another thing about our relationship is that even before we began dating, we worked shoulder to shoulder with children, and I knew how you dealt with children, you knew how I dealt with children, and for our first married years, we were looking forward to the time when we would have our own children.

And so we both came into parenthood with more experience working with children than maybe is typical. - There are a lot. - And that helped a lot. - It did. - I mean, it helped us get on the same page in terms of parenting, not just educating. - Right, I think that both of us tend to be learners, we both tend to be curious, we both tend to ask a lot of questions, we tend to be interested in a lot of different things, and for those reasons, I think we continued to be interested in homeschooling.

I do know, I can remember when I went to my very first CC practicum, and y'all, it looked way different way back then. I mean, it was in one, we fit, I think there were 24 of us at the first practicum I ever attended, and Lee was the speaker, and we spent three days in a second floor, un-air-conditioned Sunday school room with small chairs and a big whiteboard, which Lee wrote madly on for six hours every day while she talked to us about the beauties and benefits of a classical Christian education.

And I came home from that one of the very first days, and we went out to eat, and I was talking to you about math, and the glory of math, which was not my favorite subject growing up, okay, and the glory of math, and how you could see God in math, and I was drawing these little diagrams on beverage napkins, and you looked at me and said, "Who are you, and what has happened to you?" And I was so excited about education at that point that I think, we had been homeschooling for several years by then.

When our girls jumped into the foundations program, one was in the fifth grade, and one was in the second grade, so we had some years of homeschooling under our belt, but it was at the point where I discovered classical conversations that I really had confidence in the long view that we could stay the course, and I remember one of the things that appealed to you the most was looking at the challenge, scope, and sequence.

- I don't even remember that. - Isn't that funny? - What I do remember is you coming home, and you were excited about math, and you were teaching me all these things, and I thought, wow, this really has lit your fire. It's grasped your imagination and your enthusiasm, and so that was a selling point to me.

Of course, at that point, we, as you said, had been homeschooling for nine years, and we were not considering stopping homeschooling, but we were wondering if we could throw in with this new organization, new to us organization, that some friends had kind of recruited you for. - True. - And when it seemed to be a real fit for you as a mom and a teacher, it seemed like something really worth pursuing.

- Yeah, yeah, I really loved becoming involved as a challenge tutor, director at the very beginning, because I loved seeing where the foundation's work was going to take these children, that we really were giving them so much good stuff to think about that when they were old enough to think deeper thoughts, they would have some ammunition.

They would have some stuff to think about. And I liked the plan that was laid out. - Well, you had done enough research before you ever went to that practicum about classical education. You knew what you were looking for. You were kind of in the process of inventing the wheel on how that would work in a day-to-day child's curriculum.

And when you found that somebody else was a few years ahead in inventing this wheel, it just was a natural fit. - Absolutely, because you know what? If you've ever tried to do it, man, September and October go great. And November is kind of fun. In December, you can do a lot of holiday stuff, but January comes and man, the doldrums set in and creating a classical Christian curriculum for your children, especially as they mature and grow and their skills develop and they're ready for new adventures, man, that was hard.

Writing all of that on my own was really hard. And so while we still loved exploring the world together, it was really awesome to have somebody who was setting out a blueprint for us of how to do that. And that made it possible for us to look forward to continuing.

- Well, our older daughter particularly seemed very curious, but so logical, and this seemed like a good curriculum for her, we felt like, especially by then, we felt if she went to the public school system, she would just be bored and probably end up causing trouble. - Disruptive, shall we say.

- And so this seemed like a good curriculum where she could really be challenged. - And enjoy learning. - Yeah, yeah. So did you enjoy learning alongside them as they grew up? - I did enjoy it. I wish I had plugged into it more. They were being exposed to a lot that I never was exposed to in my education.

And I've kind of felt like I was an outsider. I was behind because the three of you knew all this stuff and I didn't. - I do remember the year after Sarah finished Challenge B, so three of us had been through multiple years of formal logic by then, and you were the only person who had not taken the logic course, which is ironic since probably by nature, you were the most logical person of the four of us.

- Oh, maybe. - That's really fun. So what was the best thing about homeschooling? As you look back, because okay, spirit of full disclosure, both of our girls are grown. They're both married. We have a grandson now. So we are looking beyond homeschooling. So this is homeschooling and beyond a dad's perspective.

It is way beyond homeschooling. So let me ask you this. What was the best thing about homeschooling as you look back? - I think just being in touch with my children. - Oh, yeah. - And public school then wasn't as bad as maybe-- - It seems to be now.

- Yes, it seems to be now, just based on news reports. But I was never concerned about what my children might be learning in school. And I knew who they were learning with, not just you, their mom, but also their peers and their families. But I just enjoy their company.

- Yeah. - And that's such a blessing, just to be able to enjoy your being together as a family. And we still enjoy that. It's a lot different now, but we still enjoy it. - Right. So I think that was one of the great joys. And it was also fun having them tell me stuff that they were learning.

- Oh, I like that. I used to love to listen to them rattle off the things that they knew. Or I liked watching them impress you with something that they knew that you were surprised to find that they knew. - Yes, the timeline stands out. - Oh yeah, oh yeah.

I like that. - I like that you said that your favorite part or the best thing about homeschooling was spending time with your girls. - Oh yeah. - So dads, treasure that, treasure that. - And I didn't, one of the regrets I have is that there were times when I could have been with them in community, in foundations, but I felt like I was too busy.

I did have a flexible schedule. I could have made it work, but I didn't. - Right, okay, so that's a cautionary tale, parents. Realize you don't get a second chance at some of this. Now maybe we'll be able to go to foundations with our grandson in a few years.

That's good, okay. So that was one of the best things about homeschooling. What was one of the hardest things about homeschooling? - Well, again, you were the one mostly bearing the burden of it. I think for me, when you became frustrated, that was hard for me. When you didn't know how to help them write this paper or I know that you had to kind of relearn or learn for the first time stuff like chemistry and physics.

- Oh, my. Some of the math of chemistry was utterly beyond what I could remember. - Yeah, and so that was hard for me to see you so frustrated. And although I have a math background, I couldn't jump in and go, oh, yeah, sure, I can show you how this works.

- Well, 'cause a lot of learning, you guys, is sequential. And as parents, if you don't keep up, as your child goes from easy to complex, you can't just easily jump in at complex and make it all turn out right. And so that's another cautionary tale. If there's a subject with which you are utterly unfamiliar, logic and mock trial come to mind, then you probably need to be in on it, sort of from the get-go, or you won't be as much help to your children as you hoped to be when they hit a hard patch.

- And you did learn along with them. - Oh, gosh, yeah. - And I was kind of a bystander. - Okay, okay. - But yeah, cheerleader, maybe, hopefully. So that, I do remember some angst and tears shed over science projects and-- - Oh, my word, yes. - Stuff like that.

- Last minute, you know what? One of the hardest things to teach children is not necessarily academic in nature, it's more life skills in nature. And so when your child fails to plan or does not have a realistic view of how long things take, then that bites not just the child, but the homeschooling parents as well, and those can be hard times.

Those are hard lessons. Good lessons are sometimes hard to learn. And the thing about being a homeschooling family is that, you know what, it hardly ever just bites the one who causes it. The problem bites all of us because we live in community and we love each other and we're trying to help each other.

And so, child A's botched science fair board bites us all because we're all scrambling to figure out how to fix it at the 11th hour. - Well, and just the angst of, "Oh, I wish I hadn't chosen this project." It's like, well, you did. - Three weeks ago. - Right.

- So that was one example of a frustration. - Okay, you've mentioned a couple of things. I've heard you say a couple of things that you wish you had done differently. I want to ask you about those things. What would you do differently? And they can be little practical things or big philosophical things.

- Well, I had an advantage and a disadvantage all rolled into one and that is that you're so good at this that I didn't feel like I needed to be micromanaging or even all that tuned into, 'cause I knew that they were gonna be fine 'cause you could take care of it.

And so that's a great advantage in that you were able to be a good homeschool teacher, but it's a disadvantage in that I was more hands off than I might have been if you were not so competent and capable, then I could have rolled up my sleeves a little bit more with the whole process.

And so that's not something I've, I guess what I could have done differently is just been more dialed in to what you're actually studying and the frustrations and maybe some of that learning along with them, I could have-- - Yes, yes, you could have memorized the timeline with that.

- Yeah, that's right. - That would have been a great thing. I think that having regrets is just part of what we do. - Oh, it's part of life. - And I'm asking you these questions because you have the long view because this is in the rear view mirror.

We're looking at homeschooling and beyond because you're past some of it. But I do want to remind you of a thing that you did. You became a director yourself. You became a lead learner, not just in our home, but in our CC community where you had multiple years where you led a challenge one community.

And so you did practice the classical model in front of children, both your own and other people's. And you did know what it was to dig in and learn something new or learn something old in a new way. And so parents who are listening, I would encourage you, if you want to be involved in a classical education and you don't mind learning in front of other people, then becoming a director is awesome.

You will learn twice as much when you are trying to learn it in order to explain it to somebody else as you ever learned when you were reading it for your own edification. And so that is the thing I want to tell you that you did really well. You modeled lifelong learning for your girls.

- And it was fun, I had both of them in the challenge one. - Yeah, and I have heard both of them tell people when they didn't know we were listening that learning is just what we do in our family. And they have always watched you be willing to learn something.

So that is a good, good thing. - Okay, so when the empty nest came several years ago for us now, what was the most surprising thing to you about the empty nest? - The most surprising thing? Well, maybe the most surprising thing as I think about it today is probably that it did not bother me more.

Because I've told this story so many times when we took our first daughter to college, that was easy, taking her to college was no problem at all. What was hard was leaving her there and coming home without her. And that, I was not prepared for that. That just really hit me hard emotionally.

And maybe that's part of what prepared me then for the empty nest. Of course it helped that our nest became empty when our younger daughter went to college, but the school was like half an hour from our house. - So we could go see her if we really needed a fix.

- Yeah, and so I do feel some sympathy for parents who send their kids halfway across the country or somewhere, that would be really hard. - One thing I think that helped us is that when our personal homeschool nest emptied, we were both still tutoring. So we both still, we were both still investing in young people.

- Right, it kind of scratched that itch. - Yeah, it did, it really did. So the nest was not completely empty. What did you miss about home? Was there anything that you missed about homeschooling at home? - When our nest became empty? - Yeah, when the girls were gone.

Was there anything about homeschooling that you missed? - I can't think of anything that I suddenly began to miss because it seemed like our children were headed in the right direction. They were taking the next steps that they needed to. And other than just not having children living at home, I don't really think I missed anything.

- I remember you saying that one of the things you missed when the girls were gone is being in touch with current popular teen culture. Like we didn't know the music anymore. We didn't know the slang words anymore. - That's true. I mean, when we would take our children, take them wherever they needed to go.

A lot of times we were driving and they would have a playlist that they could play music. So yeah, I miss being able to know what the hot new artists are and that kind of thing. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The cultural stuff. - I do remember joking with them that our music is a whole lot better than today's music.

- Yeah, and you were right. Okay, so empty nest, your children have grown and gone. How have your interactions with your children changed? - I think it's been a gradual process because we, and as parents, you learn this on the job, on the fly. And that is the way you interact with your children has to evolve over time.

And our goal was to invest more and more independence in them and overall, I think, well, we could ask them what they think, but I think that we were able to give them appropriate amounts of independence at appropriate times. And so the way we interact with our children didn't take a sudden turn.

I guess when they moved out of the house, it took a sudden turn and that we didn't know how class went today necessarily, that kind of thing. But overall, I think that we just adjusted our role in their lives gradually over time. It didn't seem like a big change, big point of inflection somehow, oh, now it's all different.

'Cause it was always becoming different the whole time. - And that's pretty awesome if you think about it because they were able to gradually take up the reins of independence as we gradually relinquished the reins of being in charge, or at least having a hand, a lead rope, as it were.

And so, yeah, that's really pretty cool when you realize that your children are able to make really good decisions when they're on their own, because they learned to make good decisions while they were still at home with you. - And for the most part, they were level-headed and responsible, we didn't have a real rebellious child.

But for both of our children, they did make some choices we thought were probably not the most wise. - Right. - But we were able to hold on to the relationship as primary instead of them doing what we want them to do as primary. - Right, that's really good, that's really good.

What do you appreciate the most about your grown-up kids? - Watching them make good decisions. And one of the most rewarding things of parenthood is seeing your children live out and speak out the things that we have been instilling in them. Because when you're teenagers and you're telling them some of the wisdom of life, it just seems not to take.

It seems like they're just rolling their eyes and saying, "Yeah, what do you know?" - Right, right. - One of the memories I have is with one of our daughters I kept telling her about various things. This is a life skill, you need to be able to do this.

And then when she was in college, she was telling her roommate who had been more sheltered than our daughter, she would tell her roommate, "This is a life skill, you need to be able to do this." - You felt vindicated, I'm sure. - I was kind of surprised that it sank in more than I had thought it.

And so parents can take heart knowing that you may feel like you're just talking till you're blue in the face and they're, "They're not getting any of this." But they are probably getting more than they're letting on. - They are probably internalizing more than you ever remember giving out.

- Well, that's true 'cause they're watching our example as well as our words. - Yes, that's a cautionary tale there too. They're watching and they will emulate the good, the bad and the ugly, but you just have to deal with that. - And that's one of the most frustrating things of parenthood is seeing your child do that thing that you set the example for that is not really helpful.

And so then you're not just annoyed with them, but you're mad at yourself. - Yeah, yeah. Well, let me ask you this as we come to the end of our time, how can you see the fruits of a classical Christian education in the women your girls have become? - They seem to be willing to embrace challenge.

- Oh, that's great. - And they are not afraid of being stretched. - Yes, I can agree. - And they feel like they have the tools that they need to figure out a situation and admittedly they have tools that we couldn't conceive of when our children were little. - True, but they wield them with confidence that we perhaps did not have either.

- Right, I'm just saying that they can pull out their phones and Google something to get an answer, which was a luxury that we had when they were little, but they can approach life with some confidence, not feeling concerned that they're going to be taken advantage of in a business deal, for example.

But they still ask for our wisdom and input, which is nice to be able to offer that when requested. But classical education has given them tools to not just read a book and write a paper, it's given them tools to approach any task or situation or difficulty with a general roadmap that can move them through learning what they need to learn, assessing the situation and moving to action.

- I would agree, I love that. I think when I look at the girls, I can see the fruits of the classical education in them. They have learned to ask good, incisive questions. They have learned to break tasks down into smaller pieces and work the plan. They have learned to listen intently to arguments that are not their own and view with grace and mercy and respect people who hold a different position.

- And they're willing to listen to other people's points of view. - Yes. - And they're not crystallized in their understanding of life in the world. - Right. - They have a basis, a solid foundation, but they don't dismiss out of hand other points of view. They're willing to evaluate and consider, and even if they're not persuaded by those arguments, they can be gracious toward those who hold-- - They know how to love their neighbor, even if their neighbor is not like them.

And I appreciate that. Well, let me ask you this. How can you see the fruits of a classical education in yourself, can you? - I do feel like I can take a task and break it down into smaller steps. I feel like I have some confidence that I can take on something new.

- Yeah. - Which I'm doing now. - Right. - So as a farmer, and so that's a whole other world from a lot of things that we're more familiar with. It's kind of a lost art. And so I am realizing that there's just so much grammar that I need to have in agriculture and horticulture.

And every time I read something or hear a podcast about gardening or farming, and they're throwing around terms that I don't know, I realize, oh, that's vocabulary that I need to investigate. - Yeah. - And it all builds just like any discipline. It's all, you add things on top of previous knowledge.

And clearly with something like farming, it's a practical, the rhetoric of it is actually doing something with plants and animals and soil and trees and actually working it out and doing things. - Cool, very cool. I appreciate you sharing that. Okay, I have one last question. I ask this of every guest, so you get it too.

How are you, David, an everyday educator? - Well, there are two elements to that. One of the elements is first learning. And I always love learning stuff. I'm constantly listening to podcasts and reading books. I've been working lately on reading more literature instead of just nonfiction. But then the other element besides learning stuff is sharing stuff.

And so I've got various groups of where I'm able to do Bible studies and so forth that give me opportunity to invest in people's lives. But even as our children are adults, I still like teaching them stuff. - And they still like learning stuff. - Yeah, and our sons-in-law a lot of times will ask our take on something, our opinion about something, ask for advice sometimes.

And so it's nice to be able to share those things. So I think that you and I are just wired as educators anyway. - Yeah, true. - Sometimes our children would ask you something and I would think, "Why didn't you ask me?" And the answer is, "I didn't want to know that much." (laughing) - That's true.

Do I want daddy amount of information or mama amount of information? Yeah, that's true. Well, I really appreciate you sharing with the listeners today your perspective of homeschooling and beyond. It is really refreshing a lot of times to hear a dad's view of homeschooling and what made it great, what made it scary, especially if you can look in the rear-view mirror and see what it gave you and your family.

So thanks for sharing today. - Well, I'm glad you said that about seeing it in the rear-view mirror. I recently heard somebody talk about in Exodus 34, I think it's a passage where Moses sees God. But if you recall, God puts Moses in a cleft of the rock, covers him up, and God passes by while he proclaims his name.

But then he removes his hand, and Moses sees God from the back. That's how we can see God in life, is looking back, and we see God's hand at work. And we want to see God moving forward, and I think in a lot of ways by faith we do that.

But sometimes the sight is so much more clear as we look back on life's experiences, and some of the things that break our hearts the most are so often the things that God uses the most to develop us into better disciples of Jesus and people who love God and love people more.

- That might be the best thing that you've said this whole podcast. That's a great way to end it. Thank you so very much. Families, I hope that you have enjoyed hearing about homeschooling and beyond a dad's perspective. I have one more thing to, well, maybe it's a reminder for you, maybe it's the first time you've heard about the Math Map.

It is an all-new Foundations Through Challenge for Math curriculum that our CC founder, Lee Bortons, is developing. It's called the Math Map, and it is specifically designed to teach homeschool parents the language of math. Just like a foreign language, math has a specific vocabulary and concepts and notation that are often unfamiliar at first.

So if we spend some time discovering and becoming more familiar with this language of math, we will have an easier, more exciting, more thoroughly delightful time acquainting our children with this. Right now, Classical Conversations members can access an exclusive sneak peek of the Math Map. It's called Naturals, and it's on CC Connected.

If you want to find out what the Math Map is all about, you need to hop on it, because the beta release of Math Map Naturals will not stick around on CC Connected forever, so be sure that you work through it while it's still available. To get to these materials, log on to your CC Connected account, navigate to the Learning Center, it should be on the left toolbar, and search for the Math Map, okay?

It can be a delightful turn on your homeschool journey. All right, well, it has been great to be with you guys this afternoon, I appreciate you spending a little bit of time with us, and I will see you next week. Bye bye. (gentle music) you