(upbeat music) - Classical Conversations is alive with the hustle and bustle of the season. As such, our host of the everyday educator podcast, Lisa Bailey, has chosen a special episode for you to enjoy. Thanks for listening. And as always, we hope that you continue to encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime.

- Hey friends, welcome to this episode of the everyday educator podcast. As always, we're here to encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're a regular listener or a first-time visitor, I'm glad to have you. And to be sure that you find us every week, I want to remind you that we have a brand new look and a brand new channel.

Instead of searching for us under Classical Conversations podcasts, you'll find us now on our own channel, Everyday Educator Podcast. Same great community, whole new look. But don't forget, although our 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, welcome to this episode of the Everyday Educator Podcast. We are running up on, believe it or not, the end of our first semester. I know that lots of you are looking toward the holidays, some of you with great longing because you're gonna see family and have lots of fun.

And for students, some of them are eager to have a rest. And all of us know that what comes at the end of the semester for many parents and students is a little unsettling before the sweetness. Blue Book exams loom for many of our Challenge students. And for the younger Challenge students, it may be the first time they've ever had anything like a formal exam.

So we wanna talk about Blue Books today. That's the whole thing. Do Blue Books make you blue? Does it make you worried or nervous or anxious or sad or just thoughtful when you contemplate creating Blue Book exams for your students? Or when you contemplate helping your students get ready for the Blue Book exams that they will experience in community.

So today, I have one of my best friends, I got Kelly Wilt with me. Kelly is a great creative thinker. And I will tell you, she is a Challenge 3 tutor this fall. And if I could go and sit in her classroom, I would be happy at least once every week.

It sounds to me, Kelly, like you have the best time with your students. And I happen to know that you're having at least as much fun as they are. - Yes, I would say that is true. (all laughing) - I thought you would be the perfect person to help us think about Blue Book exams in a way that will not leave us feeling blue.

I know that you can give parents some insights on the whys and hows and how to get ready, and maybe offer some ideas that will not sound like the Blue Books we all loved to hate, and give parents a better idea of what this tool can really do for them and for their students.

- Oh, Lisa, I'm so excited about the topic of this conversation, because as a Type A student- - Oh my gosh, me too. - I can tell you with certainty that there were times in my life where I had extreme testing anxiety because I wanted to do well. And I felt like the letter that would be written at the top of that test paper was a treatise on me as a person.

- It was gonna define you as a student, right? And that's how I felt. It was gonna define me as a student in the eyes of my teacher, in the eyes maybe of my parents, certainly in my own eyes. And so that was a scary thing. That was a scary thing.

So here's my very first question for you. Is assessing ever a blessing for real? I mean, really? - Well, you know, I will say this. I think assessment can be a blessing depending on our perspective about what the word assessing should mean for us as classical educators. - Okay, give us some perspective then, 'cause I think maybe you're onto something that will help all of us chill out.

- Well, I'm gonna begin this conversation by saying I have not always done this well. I have distinct memories as a new challenge parent of seeing our eldest in his challenge A room on community day. And his sweet tutor knocked on the door where I was sitting, having fun, singing along with our younger two students who were still in foundations.

And she said, "Kelly, I need you." And I thought, well, that's never good. Oh, it could be either, right? And I knew at that moment in time what my son was doing was working on his blue book exam because it was week 15. And I thought, okay, what can be going on?

So I went to the room and I discovered that my sweet boy, who is wonderful and very gifted, was curled up in the corner of the room. - Oh, bless his heart. It was not a blessing at the moment to him. - It was not a blessing. And the rest of his friends had already been excused to lunch and they were all playing.

And he was sitting in the corner of the room. And so I went up to him and I said, "Okay, you gotta tell me what's going on." - I was like, what is the deal? - And he told me, he said, "Mom, I just don't know everything." And I distinctly remember thinking to myself, well, I don't know everything either.

- I know, it's like, okay, so that's not a revelation. So next. - So I looked at him and I said, "Okay, you don't know everything, "but what we're here to do today "is to celebrate what you do know and what you've learned." And this look came across his face like, "Wait, I'm not a failure if I don't know everything?" It was a step in the right direction for our family and for me as a future challenge director as well to maintain the right perspective about why we are assessing with blue books.

So as a challenge director, I've done a little bit of research about this because my paradigm is not classical education. I grew up private education where, like we've already talked a little bit about extreme testing anxiety and feeling that a letter on a paper told me my worth and not only as a student, but as a person.

And as classical educators, that is not the mentality that we should promote. So I looked up the word assessment and the root of that word comes from the Latin verb, ad sedere, which means, and get this, how wonderful is this? Not to berate or exempt any other negative word we could possibly fill in, but it means to sit near or beside or to give comfort or advice.

And so when I think about assessment in that way, it completely changed my perspective about- - Wow, that is completely different from what most of us have ever thought of assessment or a test or anything like that. - Yes, so apparently this word was used during the time of the Roman Empire when a citizen would be called up to sit next to a judge.

So I can imagine there probably was some testing anxiety. - Yes. - For instance, but I think if we think about assessment in this way, that primarily it is a time for us to draw near to our children, to sit with them. In other words, to see how they're doing and learn the best way that we can guide and encourage them, it completely revolutionizes what we think about that time of assessment.

And for us as CC families, the time of blue books. - You have started this off with a bang. I think everybody has now, their shoulders have dropped. They have sat back in their chair. We've all heaved a big sigh of relief. My favorite thing that you have said so far is that assessment is supposed to be a celebration of what you know.

Instead of a liturgy of all of the things that we forgot or didn't quite grasp or didn't know. And I absolutely love the whole, the mental picture that I got when you said, sit near or beside to give comfort, advice or encouragement. The mental picture of that will live with me for a long time.

So parents, that's the kind of assessing that we're gonna talk about for the next several minutes. Okay, let me ask you this because now that we're not afraid of assessment anymore, I still want to know, what is it that you think we gain from assessing our children's understanding and mastery of whatever material we've covered?

- Oh, that's such a good question. So I think, we can look at testing, we can look at exams or quizzes or anything that is quantitative in that way as a treatise on ourselves as well, right? Oh, I failed my child in this way. But the truth is, when we assess our children, we like we just discussed, we draw near to them.

We learn ways that we can correct them, ways that we can guide them. Just by the proximity, the drawing close. I know with our family, when it is time for blue books, we do spend even more time side by side, reviewing things that we've learned and read and experienced during that particular semester.

So really, we're gaining a greater knowledge of our children and what type of thinkers, what type of thinkers are we training them to be? How are they connecting the ideas that we have intentionally brought into their lives over the course of that semester? And so blue books really reveal to us how they're thinking, who they are as people, not the deficiency, but the sufficiency of what they've learned that semester.

- I love that because I think that sitting near to them and going through the material with them and talking with them about the blue book and how to prepare and all that also gives us a great deal of insight into how our children feel about assessment and how they deal with the whole idea that they're gonna be called to account.

Even if it's not called to account and found wanting, there are some students that still have test anxiety, even if mom and dad have given them every assurance that this is just a tool to measure. I used to tell my students, look, your exam or this test or this blue book is a tool to measure how well your study habits are working.

That's what it is. But there are students who still get really wound up about that. And so I think that that coming alongside of them and sitting with them gives us insight into their character and insight into their emotions and the way they handle stress. And I think being right there with them allows us to minister to them and to give them strengthening in whatever area they need.

I can remember that we had special snack. When we were, in the week that we were preparing for blue books, we had special snacks. We had, during hot chocolate coffee break time, we had extra goodies, and we might have hot chocolate more than once in a day. We just tried to make it a sweet and reassuring time.

So that's really good perspective that you're offering there. - Absolutely, well, and I really, I like what you said about strengthening because isn't that our goal that when we have had this time with our children, that they feel strengthened, not because we are hiding any needs that might have presented themselves during this time because there may be needs.

We may look at what they are able to independently produce, and we may look at it and think, "Wow, oh, I see that my child "just wrote one big long run on sentence." And so we look at that, and obviously that's something that as parents, we want to course correct a little bit and say, "You know what?

"I know that you were writing this, "and I love the way that you constructed your thoughts, "and I can really see how you're growing, "but let's look at one thing here. "Tell me, where's the punctuation?" (laughs) - Yes, it's an opportunity to call their attention to things they can work on next.

- Exactly, exactly. And so they feel strengthened because they have heard you tell them how much you appreciate the quality of their thoughts, how much you like the connection, but yet we're also not afraid to be able to introduce those things that might need a review, that maybe when they were in the flow of thought, they were so excited about what they were thinking that commas and periods were-- - Right, just had no meaning.

(laughs) - That's right. So they should feel that strengthening because we are walking alongside them. We are encouraging them. We are giving them words of affirmation, and we're making this a time to celebrate. I love what you said about the hot chocolate. And I think that applies to parents, and it also applies to directors too.

My goodness, how we need to celebrate that time, that closure of the semester with our students. - Yeah, I love that, I love that. I was gonna ask you, what do our children gain from assessment? But you already kind of answered that. They gain a chance to recognize things they would like to work on.

They gain the confidence from seeing what they do know and how they're able to put that out there. I think they also gain practice with assessing themselves and being assessed so that it's not such a big, scary thing. I think that that is one of the things that, if we fail to assess, I've had families before who just said, yes, we're not gonna do blue books.

We don't believe in blue books. We don't believe in assessing in community. We don't believe, well, they were pretty much saying they didn't believe in assessing. What do we lose if we don't assess? - Oh, that's such a good question. I think if we don't assess and assess rightly, like we've been discussing, I think we can lose, first of all, a relationship with our children because they are given to us.

They are treasure given to us, royalty, as Lee often says, worth dying for. And I think our children need to see that relationship originating from us, that their learning is a priority to us, that the way that they are being mentored and the way that they are seeing this modeling of lifelong learning, there's an essence of that that is lost when we don't assess and when we don't, first of all, encourage, and then also observe.

Because they may fill in the blanks incorrectly in their minds. - Right, and we don't ever know. - Exactly. They may think, well, I'm not worth, or my mother or father doesn't think I can. And I've found quite often that our children rise to the expectations that we set for them.

You know, when I sit and I have conversations with our middle son, who happens to be in my Challenge 3 class this year, I will say to him words like, "I know that you've been thinking about this, "and I can't wait to hear "how you're going to compare this to this." Or I will say those life-giving words to him that spur his heart and his soul onto nobler purpose.

Because I want him to know that I am always thinking, you know, there's a realization that we all are sinners. We are all sinners. But there is a pursuit of God that we are all taking place in as well. And so I want to speak words to him that encourage him to Christlikeness, that encourage him to diligence and excellence in what he's doing.

And so I feel like if we say, "Oh, I'm not going to assess you. "You know, assessment is wrong." You know, we also have to keep in mind that at the end of time, we will also be assessed by the Lord as believers. And we need to be ready.

And how do we do that? By being diligent with the time that he has given us. And so I want to model that for my children. And I'm certain that other parents do as well. You know, we should always be pointing them in a way that shows the glory of God to them in every possible way.

And that even includes blue book examinations. - That's really, that's really good. Okay, I just realized, we've been talking about blue book exams and we did not define our terms. So there may be some listeners who are saying, "Okay, now what does blue have to do with assessing? "And what is a blue book?" So first of all, in a minute, I want you to tell what is a blue book exam.

And then I want you to talk a little bit how, why we as classical educators choose to assess using blue book exams instead of the old multiple guess, matching, short answer essay tests that we used to maybe have as students ourselves. - We should have started with defining our terms.

- I just was so excited to get your thoughts on this. I forgot. - Well, from what I can tell, historically blue books began as examinations that were offered on the collegiate level just before the Civil War era. And so a lot of them were just pieces of paper that were attached together and they were given to students and students could answer questions within the booklets.

And then the booklets will be given back to the professor or the teacher and they would be examined and marked. So that's the history of what originally a blue book was intended to be. But, you know, within classical conversations, we do assess in the way that we've been discussing.

We look for growth. We would never dream of looking at our children's blue book, their book of pages with questions and writing an F or a D or a C, you know, on that essay. So when we look at blue books, the thing that we remember about them is that we are gleaning our children's thoughts about important topics or conversations that they've encountered during that semester within their challenge classes.

So foundations parents, essentials parents, you know, blue books are not a reality for them, although they should still be having these conversations with their children at home throughout the week. This period of assessment, at least in this manner, doesn't really come into play until your student is in challenge A and it continues all the way through challenge four.

- Good, good. All right, and we use the blue book format because it is more like having a conversation, you know? It's sort of like the student, as they're answering the big prompt, the big question posed by their tutor or by you. If you choose to give a blue book exam at some point, they are actually responding to that question with the conversation about what they've learned.

And so it gives them a chance to say everything they want to say. I always hated, well, first of all, I didn't love matching because it just seemed like such a waste. I know so much more than just these labels. I hated multiple, I call them multiple guess because there were always some that were designed to trick you, okay?

When we're doing assessment, we're not trying to trick our students. We're actually trying to have a good conversation about deep ideas and turn them over in our minds, not trick you into picking the wrong answer. So I hated that. And even the short answer did not sometimes give me the scope to tell everything I knew or actually sometimes I don't know exactly what you're asking me, but I know a whole lot of other stuff.

And so I could really impress you with all the other stuff I knew if you would just give me a little more scope for my imagination. Anyway, that's why we use blue books instead of the old ways. Now, here comes a good question that I know you're gonna shine at 'cause I've heard some of your ideas already.

So tutors, directors, if you're listening, Kelly is going to give you some ideas on how to make blue book exams fun, illuminating adventures. - Oh my goodness. I love the thought of surprising the students that are in my challenge class because I think that they, regardless of how we have these conversations about assessment, always carry a little bit of dread because they want to not be found wanting.

And so one thing that I have done with my class as a director that has just reaped tremendous benefits, not only for me, but my students, is that at the beginning of the year, I gift each of them a journal. They bring this journal to class and they are told that it must not leave the table the entire time on community day.

- Yes. - They know when I say clean the table, that that means that this journal, which also happens to be blue this year, ironically. - How funny. - Stays on the table. So I'll tell them, get out your blue books. And I really didn't intend it to be an association, but what I've told them is this is your treasure chest.

This is your treasure chest to fill with wisdom and knowledge that you glean throughout the year. So we're having a conversation on Julius Caesar and an amazing thought comes to you. You need to whip out that journal and you need to jot it down. And it has been so heartening to me as a director this year, as in challenge three, students quite often get the opportunity to lead on community day, to see the young men and women in our class pull out that journal and they have these Pentecost aha moments.

And they're just writing furiously. And I don't try to micromanage those moments, but one thing that I do for them at the end of the day is I'll set aside 10 minutes to reflect at the end of the day. And I think that in the past, they very much were of the mindset, we're just gonna put all of our things away and we're just gonna roll on here.

- Right, right. - I told them, I said at the end of the day, it's time for you to reflect on what the information, the experiences that you have encountered on community day. And so I get them to pull out that blue book journal one more time. And I write three words on the whiteboard.

The three words are collect, connect and create. And so the first week that I wrote those three words that they were copying those words into their journal. And then one of the young men in my class said, "Okay, well, I'll see you next week." And I said, "Not so fast." I said, "You need to write three sentences "next to these three words.

"One sentence to collect is a sentence of something new "that you learned today. "Maybe you learned that Eratosthenes was a librarian "who measured the circumference of the earth "using a well and an obelisk." (laughs) Pretty cool. Then next to the word connect, you need to think about something that you heard discussed today and how that relates to something that you already knew.

So maybe you already knew that pi equals 3.14, but today we used pi in a way that you had never used it before in your law studies. So you knew something and you connected new information to that. But I think the third word to me is the word that has produced the most fruit, create.

And this comes back to, hearkens back to that thinking about coming alongside. I tell them next to the word create, write something that you learned today and how it will change who you are as a person. Because really, when we think about assessment, we want to think about, we have eternal souls that have been given into our care.

What are they encountering that's going to change them for eternity? And so they will write next to the word create that new idea, that new thing. And occasionally from time to time, I'll say before you go, I'd love to hear your create from today. And it is interesting to me to see, rather than us packing up all of our bags and squealing our wheels as we're leaving on community day, that they leave in a time of thoughtful reflection about what they have encountered during the day.

So as a director, what I plan to do and what I have done in the past is to, as we're having these great conversations on community day, I've been jotting them down so that when we get to the end of this semester I'm thinking what would be the most effective questions for me to answer?

It's not those fill in the blank, matching the A, B, A not B, A and B. (laughing) Types of questions. But instead it's questions about, for example, what did you, what play, for example, for challenge three, we learn to read Shakespeare. So it would be me asking a question about, for instance, when we read "Much Ado About Nothing," when your friend led the conversation in community about loyalty and trust in marriage, what did you determine as a guiding principle to take with you as you look for a marriage partner for life?

You know, and here, you know, and I'll say, you know, give references, play to support your position. And so it's this moment of not only thinking about, okay, who was the author of the play? Who were the characters in the play? All of the trivia. Yes. But you're connecting it to something in their lives, which is what is going to make that memorable for life.

Because now it's part of their own experience and their own hopes and dreams. Exactly. And how much more meaning, you know, does that have to them? Because they are connecting it. Choices that they're going to have to make and challenge consequences that are going to come from those choices that show, you know, their pursuit of God, their pursuit of His will for their life, that growth that goes so far beyond just matching A, B, C, D.

It really is a reflection of who they are and their souls. And to me, that is some valuable assessment. That is good. And, you know, that would be a much more illuminating question to answer, I think, because it would call upon your students to remember what they've studied, what they've read, what y'all have discussed, but also put it into a frame that they intend to use later on in life.

That's very illuminating. And I think it would be more fun, too. What have you done to make Blue Books fun in the past? Or what preview can we give your students of how you're going to make it fun? Oh, goodness. I have, I try to come up with some crazy idea for every weekend.

So I have brought in fun snacks. We have done our Blue Books, you know, in different places in the building where we currently meet. I remember one year, this probably wasn't the wisest decision, but I brought in cans of Mountain Dew, and I gave one to each of them, and I said, "You can do this." Oh, my word.

And I told them they couldn't drink it until they were done with their Blue Books. Well, that's good. And then you can send them home all hyped up on the sugar from Mountain Dew. That's perfect. You know, I try really hard to create an atmosphere of celebration. So we are planning, you know, those fun snacks.

We're planning lots of time to stretch legs, and to take away some of the testing anxiety. One of the things that I always offer to my students is the fact that they may not have enough time on community day to be able to express their thoughts, because they're having to put together their thoughts, they're having to get information together, and then to be able to write that and articulate that.

Sometimes there are obstacles to that being done to the extent they would like. And so what I have asked them to do for me is this. I say, "Choose one color of ink for community day. Then you're going to take your Blue Book home, and you're going to show it to your family.

And if you feel at that point, there's more that you want to express, change the color of ink or pencil that you were using, and keep on writing, keep on expressing." Because really, this is supposed to be, to us as parents, a coming alongside. If I'm looking at my son's or my daughter's Blue Book, and I see that they have very little written in the time that they were given, well, I might want to know more.

And maybe there was something else that happened. Maybe they were late getting back from lunch, or maybe in the case of teenagers, they were hungry. - Right. Absolutely fantastic. There are actually some children that for whatever reason, the question, the way it was posed, didn't resonate with them or did not call forth from them.

I know one of my daughters, I was surprised. Like you said, you read the question, and then you see this tiny little response. And because we have sat next to them, and we do know what they know, and we have had the deep conversations, we know that's not all there is inside your head about that.

And so I was able to reframe the question sometimes, and she's like, "Oh, well, yes." And this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And so sometimes as parents, it is a kindness to come home and reframe and allow that student to realize that they did know a lot more than they were able to write down in that moment.

That is a fantastic suggestion, Kelly. I love it. One other thing that I'm offering to parents as well, prior to Blue Books, this is the first time that I've tried this, but just offering this in the spirit of sharing with other directors who may be in the same boat.

I have been accumulating these questions and thoughts throughout the semester, and I am planning to email that list to the parents of the students in my class so they can see these are the conversations that we're having. And I try to do that on a weekly basis as I communicate with them by email, just giving them, "Here's some suggested questions "to continue the conversation "with your student at home this week." Yeah, because they're not in the classroom all the time.

Some parents are, but other parents have littles, or they need to be somewhere else on community day, serving as a director, perhaps in another group, or as an essentials tutor. Just quite often, they're not able to be in the room. So I want them to feel that even if they're not there physically, that mentally they know exactly the things that we're discussing.

But I am planning to take that list, email it to each of my parents and say, "I would like to know which questions "you would like to prioritize for your student," because it individualizes what they want to hear and what they want to know based on the conversations they've been having at home.

And so I'm hoping that that gives an even more well-rounded Blue Book experience to the students that are in my Challenge 3 class this year, because I want, first of all, parents to feel that connection to what we're discussing and to the ideas that we're coming across. But I also want the students to understand this is a partnership between me and them and their families.

And hopefully it will be able to model that relationship even to the next level for them in Blue Book assessment. - It's a great suggestion. It's a really good idea. Directors, I hope you picked up on that. It's a really good idea to be giving parents the heads up about the conversations and how they might be represented in a Blue Book exam.

That really helped. That leads me to this question. How can parents help their student prepare for Blue Books? Okay, now, as lifelong learners and just natural teachers, Kelly, I know both you and I want to say, how can parents help their students prepare for Blue Books during the semester?

Because it's not a good paradigm to wait and cram right before. So we don't want to encourage parents to only help right at the end. I mean, we do want them to help at the end of the semester as assessment approaches. So give us some suggestions for both times.

How can parents help their students prepare for Blue Book exams, both during the semester and then at the end as assessment approaches? Oh, okay. So I would say during the semester, make sure that you are dropping off your student, but you're not dropping out of conversations. I know it can be easy to just let your student become more independent and to relish that because that is the goal.

We want them to be independently thinking and learning for the rest of their lives. However, at this point, as their guides who are coming alongside them, we need to be keeping tabs on what their thoughts are behind what they're thinking, what they're learning, what they're experiencing. So I would recommend to parents, take time each week, even if your student is just the most independent student who can sit there and do all of their work without even making a peep.

We are classical conversations, not only for the conversations we have on community day, but for the conversations that those experiences produce within the home. And so talk to your student about what they're learning. And it can be something as simple as, for example, I know my examples are all challenge three right now.

That's the land that I'm living in this year. But, you know, as we're reading Patriots history, I will sit down with my son and I will say, so tell me, you know, the chapter that you read this week, what was one thing that surprised you? Or what is something that, you know, if you lived during that time, how do you think you would have felt about, you know, what was going on?

Or, you know, I mean, my son right now began the year with a fear and a dread of reading the Gallic Wars. - Yes, okay, I can understand that. - And it has turned into the most fun opportunity for the two of us to get together and talk about Caesar and his plans and his military strategies.

And so I will ask my son, so was Caesar a good military general at this point in the game? Why or why not? And it has launched the best conversations. Just asking them what they think, what they feel, what they have experienced, validates the fact that they are putting in hard work to take in this information and to assimilate it and to be able to articulate, you know, these really crucial, important pieces of history and science and math and language.

So, you know, I think one of the things that he looks forward to right now, I'll go sit in a rocking chair on our front porch and I'll text him and I'll say, "Five-minute conversation on the front porch." And so he'll come out and I'll ask, he'll say, "What do you wanna know?

"What do you wanna know?" And I'll ask him, you know, a question like, "What'd you do about nothing? "Would you marry someone like Beatrice? "Why or why not?" - Right, right. - He just, you know, he will launch into way more dialect than I probably would expect, you know, any high school junior to have an opinion about Shakespeare.

But because I'm asking him a question that directly correlates to who he is and the decisions that he makes, he's more interested and he wants to express his opinion because he is becoming truly rhetorical in what we've exposed him to and to all the pieces that he's put together in his mind and hopefully in his soul that will help him to continue to pursue Christ for the rest of his life.

- Yeah, that's great. Those are some really good suggestions, Kelly. I think it boils down to, I feel like in every podcast that I've done over the last six weeks, it's been about family learning. The refrain, the common refrain has been, "Ask good questions. "Ask your student good questions.

"Have good conversations." So there's a thread running through here, listeners. Yes, we are still talking about asking good questions and starting good conversations because that is both how our students learn and how they retain what they've learned when we contextually, in the context of conversation, connect it to other things that they really, really enjoy or that are important to them.

All right, Kelly, we're almost out of time, but I wanna ask you, I want you to think about exams that you have taken. - Right. - It could be when you were a little kid or when you were a college student, or I don't know, maybe it was your driver's test.

I don't know. Think about an exam you've taken. What was the best learning experience a test ever gave you? Okay, now that might be a loaded question. What was the best learning experience that a test ever gave you? And then what was the worst experience you had? Maybe it's because the test didn't teach you anything or didn't cement anything for you.

All right, the best learning experience a test ever gave you and the worst experience you ever had. - Oh my goodness, Lisa, I'm gonna have to think for just a moment. Let me think. The best experience, what immediately comes to mind is really not an exam, but kind of an assessment.

I was an early reader and always loved to spell. I have always been a speller and in kindergarten, my teacher noticed that. And so she began training me, sitting side by side with me, helping me to practice for the county spelling bee. And I remember that I got to the spelling bee and oh my goodness, there were students from all over our county and it was probably my first experience ever standing on a platform and articulate.

- I bet so. - But I remember, I kept seeing students get eliminated and I just thought, well, I felt badly for them because I needed them to do well. And so at the end of this kindergarten spelling bee, there was one other little boy and me. And I remember they gave him a word and my father still says that the moment that I realized he misspelled the word, that I got this look over my face like, oh my goodness.

- It's like, oh my gosh, I've stolen me. - They gave me my final word in the spelling bee and I was the winner of the spelling bee. - Oh, yay. - Such a good memory. I still have the little trophy and everything. - That's awesome. - But it was an assessment for me of that time that the teacher had sat side by side with me.

I prioritized rightly that we had done things well and praise the Lord. That had a positive impact on me. Now, the worst assessment probably followed the year after. So I, you know, I'm resting on my laurels in first grade. My teacher said, well, Kelly's gonna do the spelling bee again, she did such a great job last year.

So I thought, oh, this will be a piece of cake. I won in kindergarten, so I did not prepare. I did not prepare. And I'm going to show up and I remember, talk about a humbling. I remember when they called out, and this is so shameful for me to even admit, but I was in first grade, so you have to cut me some slack.

- Right, so you've grown a lot since then. So there you go. - I remember the moderator called out the word wash and immediately from my mouth came W-H, just like W-H at the beginning of whale. You know, we had been learning about the graphs and the sounds that they make.

And as soon as it came out, I wished I could take it back because I knew it was wrong. But it was that one mistake that cost me everything. And I remember I came down off the platform, ashamed and embarrassed, not that I had misspelled a word, but because I knew that my preparation ahead of time had spoiled it.

Yes, yes. And so I think the thing that I learned from that assessment was that we do need to take time to prepare adequately, to think, to reason. And so that was the thing that I learned. And in thinking about that, I think there are a lot of lessons for me as a homeschooling parent.

First of all, just like that kindergarten experience that was so positive. If I take the time to sit next to my child and to have those conversations and to keep a gauge on where is their mind? Where are their thoughts? Where is their heart? What are their struggles? What are their times of rejoicing that they've experienced this semester?

There will be no surprises when we get to that week 15 and that blue book opportunity. But equally, if we are like my poor little first grade self, if we do not make that time, we decide to withdraw, we prioritize other things rather than spending that time in conversation to prepare for assessments rightly, then we will not see the fruit that could have been produced.

And so, CC parents who are listening to this today, I would say the greatest thing to take from this podcast is assessment is a time for you to draw near to your child, to be able to strengthen, comfort your child, be together, devote yourself to one another, and to make it a time of assessment and celebration and rejoicing rather than regret, which I experienced.

You know, prioritize rightly because you want to be able to spend that time in preparation for more than just the answers that will be written in that blue book of stapled papers. You want to be able to keep your finger on the pulse of your child's spiritual growth. How are they assimilating the books that they're reading and the things that they're experiencing into who they are, you know, as a person, as an eternal soul, because that is infinitely more important than, say, a Spelling Bee trophy.

- Right, right, absolutely. Oh, this has just been such a sweet time, Kellie. I really appreciate you letting me pick your brain. I appreciate your transparency. I appreciate you giving away some of your best ideas. Parents, I hope that this conversation has been a blessing to you and that it will become a blessing for your family as you're able to act on some of these suggestions as we draw near to the end of our first semester and a time of assessing.

I want to leave you with a question that is sort of a challenge, okay? How can the blue book become not the end of the semester's learning but a new beginning? I want you to ponder that. As you go forth and lead your family, having great conversations by asking some really good leading questions, and as you all prepare for the assessment that will spur you on to greater thinking.

Kellie, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you being here with us today. I always love to talk to you, and we could talk for another hour, but I know that we've given people a lot to think about, and so we'll put a pen in it for now, and we'll just hope to talk together again another time, okay?

- Absolutely. Thank you, Lisa. - Parents, I also want to take just one more minute to talk to you again about Homeschool Families on Mission. I think I've talked to you about this before several months ago. It's a program through the nonprofit organization, the Classical Conversations Foundation. And through this group, Homeschool Families on Mission, the foundation supports homeschool students who want to participate in some short-term mission trips.

So I wanted to give you kind of a progress report. This year, the foundation was able to provide grants to 55 homeschool students who went on mission trips all over the world, South Africa, Uganda, the Czech Republic, Peru, and the Middle East. Now, you can help. If you would like to help these students, help these families, you can join the John 1-1 Mission Partnership Campaign and donate a dollar and 10 cents.

Get it, 1-1, okay? And by doing that, you can help fund mission trips for homeschool students to spread the good news of Christ, to make Him known, okay? You can help people come to know the truth of John 1-1 in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So if you want to become a mission partner and donate just $1.10 toward this cause, visit classicalconversationsfoundation.org and head over to the Mission Partner page, okay? After donating, you'll also get a free ebook written by our own Brian Gilpin, Journey Through Providence, A Guide to Understanding God's Will, all right?

And hey, if you make a donation, make sure to mention which CC community you're a member of to help Classical Conversations Licensed reach its goal of receiving at least one donation from every licensed community by the end of 2022. So go to classicalconversationsfoundation.org, head over to the Mission Partner page to donate your $1.10 and be sure you tell them which local community you belong to, all right?

Every contribution makes a difference. Thank you for considering helping others know God and make Him known. See you next time. (gentle music) you you