(upbeat 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'm so happy to welcome you to this episode. We are gonna talk about one of my favorite things of all time, we're gonna talk about practicum.

And I brought along a friend that will be familiar to many of you who also happens to love practicum and who has some special insight that she can share with us about this year's practicum. I have with me Jill Philbrick. Jill, thanks for coming back. - Absolutely, it's wonderful to be with you again.

- Well, I always love our time talking together about really anything, but I especially like to talk to you about practicum and actually be with you at practicum because I happen to know that you really enjoy practicums. Why do you love practicum so much, Jill? - I do love practicum.

I love practicum because, well, first of all, hanging around other homeschool parents is the coolest group of people on the planet. We get each other's jokes and we can celebrate with each other with the things that have gone well. And we sometimes share tips if something isn't going well.

I think we sort of, well, you know, birds of a feather. So there's just wonderful, it's like being with your family. And then I also love practicum because I am always encouraged by the thoughts that go into the practicum from behind the scenes that CC, I believe, their intent has always been to pour into people and to pour into them academically with what we need for our schooling, but really just as people and as people that are made by God and to value us, to encourage us and to love us.

- I love what you said. I love that. And it is true, I'll tell you, as somebody who works behind the scenes on practicum, we do think a lot about what will build up homeschool mom and dads as lead learners in the home. So we think about what can we give parents this year that will help them grow academically, but also there is a real heart in CC leadership for the moms and dads and their spiritual walk and their need for encouragement in the everyday journey of home education.

So I appreciate you saying that and I'm glad that you value that. Let me ask you this. Did you like practicum the first time you went? - I did, but I didn't know I would. I only knew that I was going to attend. I was going to tutor for the first time and that was one of the parts of tutoring is it's important for you to attend practicum partly so that you're building community there with your directors and fellow parents, but also so that you maybe know a little bit more about what it is you're doing.

So I did not know what to expect and I wouldn't say I was looking forward to it, but I loved every minute of it when I got there. - What was most encouraging to you? - It was so simple. It was not a whole three days or one day or hours and hours of do this, do this, do this, do this, do this.

It was very engaging, very inviting. It helped me to think through if the speaker asked, "Well, what's a hobby you have?" Well, I could answer that. So it was just so accessible, I guess maybe is a good word. And nobody there felt, it didn't appear that they felt that there were any wrong answers, that whatever we were in our life was totally fine and you could enter into that conversation and be encouraged and use the information that was given and find out that probably you're already doing a little of it and why that's working so that you can do it in other areas as well.

- I really liked that. My experience was kind of the same. I didn't know what I was getting into. I really, I had never heard of practicum. That's not a word that gets thrown around in most people's circles. And so somebody invites you to go to a practicum and you think, "I don't know what that is and I don't have any frame of reference for that.

Nothing else is like that." And I had somebody explain to me that it was a conference and it was kind of like a prayer meeting and kind of like a pep rally and kind of like a lecture where you found out a lot of good things, but it was also practical.

And I could not imagine what the intersection of all that stuff was. And so the first time I ever went to a practicum, I found a lot of what you said, that there were other people who were both like me and not like me. And so I could learn things from them and they maybe learned things from me, but we found what we had in common and we moved together into learning things that we all were interested in knowing because we loved our children and we really wanted to do our very best in this endeavor that God had drawn us into this homeschooling.

And so I liked that. It was very encouraging. So for years and years, I had the privilege of training practicum speakers and speaker trainers and working real intimately with practicum. And I remember year after year after year telling people there are three main purposes of practicum, to inspire, to encourage, and to equip.

So are that, I mean, some of that, I mean, equipping sounds very practical. Like you're gonna, equipping means that I'm gonna come and you're gonna teach me how to do this big, hairy, audacious task that I've undertaken. But how are inspiring and encouraging practical concerns? - Well, I guess I would say that it's hard to live uninspired.

It's hard to cook dinner when you don't feel inspired. - Yes. - You know, sometimes you just need some motivation, you know, to do the laundry and to mow the lawn and to wash the car, to cook the dinner, to sometimes to even do things you really enjoy doing.

And if we aren't, if there isn't a little bit of something beautiful in it and some inspiration to it and sharing those things with other people, we can kind of get burned out. So I think inspiration maybe doesn't appear practical. Maybe we don't think of it as practical. But I think God would say it is practical, that it is important for us to be inspired and for us to be encouraged.

Our children need practical encouragement. So encouragement itself is practical because of the results. And inspiration itself is practical because of the results. And we would definitely think equipping is practical, but maybe it would also be kind of fun. - Yeah, I agree. I think that it is, all the things that happen at Practicum to me are very practical in that we put them all into practice in our homeschooling.

We want to inspire our children to do their best. We want to inspire our children to use their creativity. We want to inspire our children to try harder or to try something new. And all of those are practical things that happen at home. When we come to Practicum, we are inspired by people maybe who are farther along in the journey than we are, or we're inspired by somebody that we know had a really hard time with something.

They had a child who really struggled to learn, or they had a home situation that was causing them angst or taking a lot of outside resources or time. And we are inspired when we hear that those people have found success, that they have persevered, that God has blessed them, that God is upholding them.

It's inspiring to hear other people's experiences. And I think that's really important. That is very practical. For me, it was, I can keep going some days because I knew that friends of mine had been through similar things that I was feeling pulled down by and had persevered and come out shining on the other side.

And that was inspiring. - Yes, it is inspiring. I agree, to know that there are people walking it with us is inspiring to know you're not alone. - Yes, and it's very encouraging too. You know, I think one of Satan's great weapons is he uses our failings or our perceived failings, things that we don't feel certain about in ourselves.

He holds that over our heads. And then his second big weapon is that he whispers in our ears that we are the only ones who are experiencing that and that we should certainly not tell anybody about it because they'll look down on it. So he chips away at our hearts and our minds and he cloaks our struggle in silence.

And so we suffer alone. And that's a great weapon. God does not want us to suffer alone. We come to practice Him so that we can encourage each other. And I come not to tell you how perfect my school year was, but to say, "Man, I never thought we would make it "to the end of mock trial." Or, "The science fair almost killed me.

"How was your year?" Or, "I'm really struggling with working on Latin "with my child. "I think they need me to do the work with them "and I'm not sure I'm willing. "Help me, help me see the beauty." So it's very practical to receive encouragement from one another. And it's very biblical to encourage one another.

And it sticks it to Satan. When we tell the truth about what's going on, we tell the truth about where we struggle and the truth about where God has given us triumph. And that is very encouraging to our communities. - I really like how you said that when we tell the truth, I think that's a very powerful statement.

I believe the devil's intent is definitely to isolate us. So that not only to isolate us from each other, but then eventually to isolate us from the word. We might think we're pulling away from each other so that we can spend more time in the word, but really isolation, he does not have an end of that.

He will keep pushing for further and further isolation. So digging in and being with each other and telling the truth with one another about ourself or sometimes about what we, if they say, "I don't know how to do Latin." And then you also said, the question might not really be how, but will you?

If a parent is honest enough to say, "I don't know if I am willing." That's a very different conversation than I don't know how. - Exactly. And in community, we can receive encouragement for our own struggles, not just for our students' struggles. And nothing draws your heart closer to your community than being real with them and having them be real with you.

- Yes, very true. That's very true. - Here's what I'm saying to you listeners. If for no other reason than community building, you should come to practicum every summer. Every summer, you need to knit your hearts together with the moms and dads in your community. We will become a whole cloth laid out to the glory of God when we knit ourselves together.

- Yes, and a bunch of balls of yarn laid near each other never become fabric. - Yes, Jill, that's so true. Okay, so let's talk about really what happens at practicum. How is the learning at practicum made practical? What will we do as lead learners at practicum? And are we gonna learn more about these 15 tools or 15 skills that we keep talking about?

- I would say yes, yes, and yes. But first of all, one of the practical pieces is, well, we call ourself classical. We're in classical stations, and so we think that also means we are classical. And sometimes we are, and sometimes we're not. To get another practice at using classical tools can remind us of what we are doing that is classical and what we are doing that is not classical and how to regroup and how to say, oh, I have made this harder maybe than it needs to be.

Or maybe I have not necessarily made it harder, but I haven't had the conversation with my child, or I haven't cracked open this particular topic with them and just checked on it. There can be a lot of self-checkup, a little bit of a checklist maybe of how are things coming with me and my 15 tools?

Am I using them? And I think learning to love those 15 tools is something that happens in community. We might not be completely enamored by all 15, but that can come, and we might have favorites. Like I have a favorite knife. Oh my, this knife can do it all.

And if that knife is not clean, then I need to go, I don't even let it not get clean. Okay, so let me rephrase that. I use it, and then I immediately clean it because it is my favorite, and I'm going to need it three times for everything I make.

So you might have a favorite whatever, a favorite tool of some kind, or you might have that, it could be a fashion accessory that's your favorite, or it could be your favorite whatever, your favorite thing. And those 15 tools can become our favorites, our go-tos, that if you were traveling and you said, I need to take, you're going to go camping and you're going to take 15 things with you that you know you use every day, those are your 15.

And to practice using them together. And then even when we have those conversations, like we said earlier, sometimes we realize, oh, I am doing that. So this is, I am doing this. And that can be very encouraging to see that we are doing it. And then to look at how we can maybe even do that with more joy and being a little more intentional with it and to recognize, hey guys, we did it.

We were classical today. - Yes, and just the practice of doing those things and naming it as you do it keeps it in the forefront of your mind. It occurs to me suddenly, Jill, that we may have a lot of new families listening today who have not been to practicum before and some who may have been only to one practicum or two.

So we might need a refresher course. The 15 skills that we're talking about that we will use at practicum every year include the skills of grammar, which are? - The five core habits. And that would be, there's the acronym NAMES, N-A-M-E-S. So naming, attending, memory or memorizing, expressing and storytelling.

And those tools, even though we'd already used some other classical tools, when those were introduced, it opened doors to me. Realized that those grammar tools work no matter if you're in a grammar stage of learning or not. Those are so beautiful, so brilliant, so inviting and hospitable. And it helped me fall in love with art.

- That's very cool. I did not know that NAMES is what helped you fall in love with art. - And I wanna say they are super natural. We have spent the last week taking care of our grandson while our new granddaughter was born and in the hospital. And so we had been with Gideon, 22 months old, all week.

And the other day, on one of our last days with him, my husband looked up at me and he said, "Oh my gosh, it just occurred to me how he does NAMES naturally all day long." He is constantly practicing the names of things that he knows and he is attending to everything around him and asking questions about it or pointing at it.

He is memorizing because he rehearses. Some days he gets up in the morning and he just starts saying all the words that he knows. It's like he's going through the card catalog of his mind to remember all the words that he knows. And he likes to make sounds. Now he doesn't storytell yet because he's 22 months old and he doesn't have all the vocabulary he would need.

But what I'm saying is that these are such natural tools that basically non-verbal children use them to become verbal and to become active learners. So yes, NAMES are wonderful. Maybe non-anything that we want to become, we can use these tools to become. Maybe non-happy, maybe non-peaceful, maybe non-mathy, maybe non-classical, whatever.

We can use some tools and practice with them and discover the joy of that thing by naming it, by giving close attention to it, by memorizing even small parts and then recalling those and by finding ways to express them and express thanks to God for them. And then by telling others.

- Yeah, yes. And so that's the first five skills that we talk about and that we will talk about at practicum this year. You'll get some very practical ideas of how to promote those 15 skills with all of the children and grownups who live at your house. But you'll also be introduced and given opportunity to practice with the five tools of the dialectic, the invention, elocution.

No, these are the five common topics. So definition, comparison, relationships, circumstance and testimony or authority. And so those are five more skills. And then the last five skills are the five canons of rhetoric, invention, arrangement, elocution, memory and delivery. And so we are gonna talk about those 15 skills and not just talk about it, but actually do things to help you use those tools.

Jill, tell us a little bit about how that happens at practicum. - Well, at practicum, we sometimes come with this big idea of our homeschool, all of our homeschool and all of our education. And if we narrow it down a little, we might narrow it down to one year.

We might narrow it down to, or even two years, maybe this last year and what we think went well or didn't go well or what we would like to add or change. And then the upcoming year and a little about what our goals are, sometimes what we're excited about, sometimes what we're dreading, those kinds of things.

And so the big picture is great, but if we can narrow it even further and say, okay, let's look at one subject. So in practicum, we will take one area that the classical tools can be used to explore. So it could be history or a Latin or science, lots of different areas.

And this year happens to be math. So we will take math and slow our walk. And it occurred to me, as I was thinking about our upcoming call, that so often we hear the phrase, or in CC, I hear the phrase that, you know, we walked through that together, or we learned Latin together.

And I think this is the only part of my life where I really hear that. And it occurred to me that that is very different than running. And we can run ahead of ourselves sometimes in our thoughts, and sometimes in our worries or in our enthusiasm. And maybe we run ahead of our children with where we feel like the goal is, but they're walking.

And if we can walk with them, in fact, there is a Bible verse that says that God gently leads those with young. And when I heard that verse the first time, I wept because I did feel so rushed and so hurried. And in practicum, we are not rushing. We are not hurrying.

We are gently leading. So we will take one thing that we can look at, and we can apply those classical tools. For instance, if we were looking at, well, let's just talk math, since that's what this theory is. So we might see either a definition of something in math or an equation or an expression in math, and ponder it.

Just take a moment and realize that solving it quickly is not the only goal. 'Cause we could look at three times two, and all of our adult brains might say, "Oh, that's six." And we want to turn the page. But let's apply some classical skills and some joy to it, and take a look at that three.

What does three represent? What might our child see when they see three? What does that X mean? Are there different ways to write that? What does that two mean? What do we know about these? Why do we know that six, that three times two will be an even number?

Why, what would we think if we saw three times three? What would we, what if this, if we can change this or look at that? So we're definitely using those, some of those 15 tools that we talked about. We're looking at naming the parts. We're looking at looking closer.

And what did we already learn? And are there other ways to express this by changing the symbol? And is there a story that goes with it? And it could be a story of the time that three people each accidentally got two whatever's at the store, or it could be the story of how our child learned three times two, or things like that.

And then with the five common topics and the five canons of rhetoric, that of course expands into deeper things with those numbers. So slowing down, looking at a thing, and practicing those tools for ourself instead of just asking our child, "Okay, look at this and tell me what's the same." And then good, check mark, move on.

To do it and to have that conversation and to give ourself enough time to have that conversation, ignites some joy. That joy in the actual looking at one thing and seeing how beautiful that one thing is instead of trying to complete a hundred of them as fast as possible.

- You know what? I, that was the most restful answer. You know, I could feel my blood pressure go, I can feel my heart rate slowing down. I absolutely love that take on what happens at practicum. Listeners, I hope that everybody who's been to a practicum will stop and think, that's what it's supposed to be like.

We are supposed to slow down. We are, this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. The practicum time is for us to thoroughly enjoy and to consider and slowly is actually better. I love that. It is an opportunity for us to practice slowing down ourselves so that we are then ready to be the example of slowing down with our children, enjoying a conversation, actually asking them what do they see and what are they thinking about and what else might be going on.

That's a beautiful way to explore any concept. And it's a super way to explore math, which is like you said, the topic that we'll delve into more deeply or use as practice fodder this year. Now, listen, I know that this year is especially important for all of us. There are things that we glean from practicum every year, the community aspect and learning about these 15 skills we practice every year.

But this year is different. Our CC leadership is so eager for everyone to attend practicum this year. And it's because we're doing math, but we've done math before, Jill. So why is it so important that we all come to practicum this year and do math together? - This year, there is so much excitement about the new math curriculum, the MathMap.

- Yes. - Just the chance to share it and to let parents see the beauty of it, that it is the most inviting, hospitable, I've said this quite a few times, so maybe you've heard me say it before, but when I was in high school, I was in a Christian high school and what made math Christian was that we added disciples or multiplied fishes.

It was not that it truly looked for God in math. And I think that we have done that in the past. We have looked for, okay, well, where do you find math in Bible verses or where, and some good things, or what is a tithe or how many tribes of Judah and how many of them all had their, how many baskets of manna?

But we can go deeper into the concepts of math and seeing the faithfulness of God and the patience of God and inviting ourselves to a conversation, just saying, no, I want to come. I am coming to that table, Lord, because you prepared it. Not because I necessarily thought I would enjoy the table of math, but because I will know you more in math and it will help me to not drag my children through a hard approach to math or project my own math love or issues onto my children to have that slower conversation.

And if I'm having a slower paced conversation with other parents at the table and I see the value of that, then maybe I will not rush my children. And when they appear to want to talk about something else, I can take a minute and say, you know what? I did that at practicum and we still gained so much.

So maybe it isn't a stalling tactic. Maybe it is, but maybe this is also part of learning math. And knowing that it isn't about any one age, it's not too late, but it's also not too early to have conversations about math that point to God the same way we would with science.

It seems natural for us to talk about science and God. Look, God made this flower. - Right, right. - But we can say, look, look at all the places we see threes that God made. Look at all the places that we see spirals. Look at all the places where we see straight lines.

Look at all the places where we see hops on a number line. And to do that with our young children and to not miss those moments. And then obviously we can do them with our older children too and draw on the math experiences they've had up till now and either renew our minds with them according to the word and say, it might've been hard, but we're gonna change that.

And now we're gonna make it God honoring. - Yes, I love that. You know what is occurring to me, Jill? I really wanna talk to you even more about this practicum. I hope that listeners that we've given you something to think about for real, that you are really beginning to think, I, maybe I really do need to go to practicum this year.

I want that community. I do wanna practice those tools, but man, they're talking about things like having conversations and slowing down. And this really appeals to me, but math does not really appeal to me. So I'm still sort of on the fence. I wanna ask you Jill to come back and do another episode with me because I really want us to dive deeper into the math map and what we're gonna specifically do because I know there are a host of people out there who are thinking, yeah, well, here's the deal.

My kids are not having to do the math map yet. And so I don't really need to do this, get familiar with the math map yet. I could just wait. I don't want you listeners. I don't want you to do that. And I think Jill can help you to understand why, but it's gonna take us a little bit longer.

So Jill, I wanna close with, and I wanna ask you if you'll come back and talk to me about the math map and the math map practicum, which is what we'll be doing this summer. Will you talk to me in depth about that a little bit more next time?

- Of course, I'm always happy to. But I also want you to give a testimony because I do feel like there are some people who are thinking, yeah, well, I don't have to know that math map stuff yet. And so I'm not sure this is my year. You've worked a lot with the rollout of the math map and the pilot groups and stuff.

And you do have a testimony of what the math map has done for you. So I'd like to end this podcast with that testimony, and then we'll pick back up with more math map specifics on the next episode when we talk a little bit more about practicum specifics. - Sure.

So when I had the opportunity to join in as a pilot tutor, the first thing that happened was a math camp. And so I went to the math map group and several of us were together. And we were given some of the booklets and they were in their much earlier stages.

And some of them were, they were different domains, which is something you'll learn about. Basically, that's just the numbers, a word to describe the kinds of numbers you might be using. You might be using single digit numbers or fractions or percents, which would be decimals or some big, crazy, complicated looking stuff you either never saw or haven't seen in a long time.

Yes, there were a variety of these booklets in these different domains. And we had the chance to just take the book and go look at it and work through with no person teaching us. Just look at it and see. And there were so many discoveries that I made, even things that either I had done lots of times before, like what I would have considered simple addition.

I discovered things about myself, about God, about areas I need to develop my character. I discovered things that I could rejoice in and have aha moments. And then in the things that I either had never seen or had not seen in a long time, the same thing happened. Just taking the time to slowly look, to compare, to not have to keep up with a video or keep up with an expert, but to learn for myself.

So in the actual calculations part of math, I grew so much and found that I needed more vocabulary, found where my vocabulary was weak, where my vocabulary was strong. But the biggest thing I learned about my vocabulary is I had let some words in that were holding me back.

Yes, they were my own words, like easy and hard. - Aha. - Yes, it was like life-changing. And on day one, one of the things, and I'm sure all of us sitting in the room, we might've said, "Oh yeah, that was really hard for me." And I don't know if they had it in their notes or if hearing us so often use the words easy and hard, brought it out, but they would say, no, how about this?

How about instead of saying it hard or easy, calling it hard or easy, how about say, that's unfamiliar to me, or that is familiar to me. And it took all the self-evaluation out of it. And it really was such a breakthrough moment to not have to say that's hard for me or that's easy for me, because now you're putting yourself on some sort of scale with every other person in the room.

If you say it's hard and someone else says it's easy, now you're comparing like, I don't know, your IQ or something, which is not. - Right, right. - It's your experience. Have you done this before or have you done it in recent times? And it's such an approachable way to handle things in community.

I think that will change the culture of our CC groups in every, not just math, to instead of assessing something as hard or easy, which then makes it an assessment on us, to make it an assessment of familiar or unfamiliar. And then we just know whether we need to start with vocabulary or if we feel like we have the vocabulary we need.

And that's what happened to me with art, with the names, the five core habits. And I learned that in math, I don't have to be a calculations expert to love math. And to be a math person and to get all the math jokes, or if I don't get it, it's okay for me to go look it up and say, okay, I see people laughing at that.

Now, I wanna know why that is funny. And I genuinely believe I am a math person. I do not believe that I have the strongest calculation skills. I still would not say that I remember every formula well enough to do it without my charts, without going, but I am perfectly comfortable now being a person who goes back and checks for what I need.

We do that with the Bible. Nobody- - Absolutely. - Right. Nobody says, well, I guess I must not be a Christian since I don't remember Leviticus 4.2. - Right. - I mean- - Absolutely. - You just get your Bible out and you look it up. You use your concordance or you even Google it, but you just go get what you need and refresh yourself or learn.

And that happened to me in math. And so now I don't feel like I have to pass some sort of test to call myself a math person. I don't feel like I have to qualify myself with anybody else to love learning math. And I don't feel like I have to go to the far ends of anything and get it right the first time to still enjoy the math lesson.

- Wow. That is a huge encouragement. Listeners, I hope that's probably reason enough for you to come to the MathMap Practicum this summer, even if your child is not going into Challenge A and using it in community this year. But we are gonna dive even more deeply into what we're gonna do with the MathMap and Practicum this year on the next episode of "The Everyday Educator." Jill, I appreciate you for inspiring and encouraging and equipping us today.

And I look forward to what you're gonna tell us next time. - That sounds wonderful. Thank you for having me. - Yes, I'm really glad. And listeners, I have one more thing that I think could benefit you. That's another experience coming up for you in May. Our annual National Events Weekend is May 2nd through the 4th in Southern Pines.

If you've been before, you know what a fun time it is. Lots of games, lots of concerts, lots of speakers, lots of things to do, lots of people to see. If you've never been, this might be a great year for you to come and find out. It's presented by the Classical Conversations Foundation.

It's just a time for CC families from all across the nation to come, be together for three full days of events. You can learn about classical education. You can celebrate the hard work of fellow families. There will be national conference speakers where you can hear talks from homeschool leaders.

You can listen in on graduate and parent panels. You can watch the national commencement, our official graduation ceremony for challenge graduates and their parents. The National Memory Master Championship happens during that event weekend. There is so much more on the agenda. There are food trucks. There's a big party for graduates.

There are camps for your students, outdoor adventure camps. Those dates are May 2nd through the 4th, and you can learn more about it at classicalconversationsfoundation.org. ClassicalConversationsFoundation.org. All right, hope to see you there, and I hope to see you here next time where we'll learn a little bit more about the practicalities of practicum and a lot more about the MathMap.

Thanks, guys. See you next time. (gentle music) you you