(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 will 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 second session about assessment. We had such a great time with Rachel last week, introducing us to a new way to look at assessment that she has come back with us today to give us some very practical how-tos.

If, however, you missed the last episode, I wanna give you a teaser and set the stage for what we learned together last week so that we can jump ahead a little farther in our exploration of assessment. So last time, Rachel helped us see assessment as relational first, all about considering our student and how he or she is growing, not just how well our student finished the work, okay?

That may be a new view of assessment for some of us. We also got a new view of assessment as potentially restful, a whole new idea for many of us. Restful assessment is all about sitting with the Lord as we help our student to grow. Last time, we also recognized that assessment is not just about the end.

It's not something we do just at the end of the course or the end of a semester or the end of a year. Assessment is the daily process that helps us gauge and get in touch with the up and back experience of growing alongside our student. Rachel helped us see that there's a rhythm to assessment, an ebb and a flow.

And, and this was perhaps for some of us the most convicting, we learned that joyful assessment really rest with us. It's not the student, it's not the assessing. If we change the way we see our job as parent, teacher, assessors, if we change the way we see our children, if we change the way we see the skills that we are assessing, our assessment might become more joyful.

So that sets us up for where we find ourselves today. The new question becomes, how in the world do we do this? Rachel, did you realize that you helped us do so many great things last time? - I know, I was thinking, wow, that sounds like an episode I should go listen to.

I frequently think that when I've told somebody something that the Lord's placed on my heart and they tell me what they heard. And I think, really, you heard that? Oh, that was really great. Good going, Lord, you produced a good message. But that's what I got from what you shared with us last time.

So listeners, if you missed the joy of assessment, assessing joyfully last time, go back and pick up that episode. I think that you will be blessed by getting a new view of assessment. But here we are now, Rachel, and the question becomes, how do we do this? And one thing that I remember that I loved that you gave us last time was a fuller picture of what assessment really is.

That there's really, what I picked up on, and there's probably a lot more and I might've missed something, but I picked out five things, five aspects, five pieces of assessment of what we do as we are assessing our child and their grasp of the concept. So knowing the information is absolutely part of assessment, but then understanding the information, practicing well enough, often enough, and deeply enough so that you can, your student can articulate the information.

And then the last part of assessment might actually be the most important. Where is our student's heart in all of this? How has what we have learned together changed our student's heart? I love all of that. I love all of that. And I know that for you, you weren't just born knowing all of this wisdom about assessment.

You've had a paradigm shift toward assessment. Talk to us about how that paradigm shift changed your homeschooling. Tell us your story, Rachel. - Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you again for having me today, Lisa. I'm excited about our conversation. You know, my story is gonna be, it's like the first step is something that we don't like to encounter, but it's doing something poorly.

None of us love to do things poorly, but in order to do something well, you have to be willing to do it poorly first. And so that is the same with assessment. As I began to learn in a different way and have a different mindset, that mindset has to change, right?

I had to walk that out in practice. And that practice can come much easier than you think it is or can, it would happen, right? - Yeah. - So for me, I have six children and assessing a 21-year-old is different than assessing a six-year-old, right? - So true. - But you're doing it all the way across the board with every age.

So learning some of these skills, I would say one of the thing, first pieces that I was willing to like, okay, Lord, what do I do? How do I do this? I'd say that really resonated with me was allowing your student to self-assess first, right? And so that takes a lot of pressure off of the assessor too, is that our first goal is listening.

Anytime you're assessing, you cannot assess well without first listening well. - That's so good. - How am I gonna know if there is a character issue or a heart issue that needs to be addressed if I am not listening to my student or my child, right? And that is something that we have to practice.

I mean, I'll be honest, Lisa, it's easier for me to talk than it is for me to listen. - Oh my word, I resonate with that. - Yes, I mean, some people are internal processors. I'm an external processor. And so then those thoughts just start flying and I, before you know it, I'm not listening.

So practicing asking a question that causes your student to self-assess and listen is the first step of how you assess well. - That is really good. That is really good. You know what, Rachel? I think that that is key. I love what you said about, it helps us to hear our student's heart.

It also helps us to hear where our child feels either proficient or confident and where they recognize some lack or some need. - Yes. - And it's very helpful. Sometimes we look and we think, oh, well, this is what you're not good at, but that's not what the student feels unsure of.

And so we need to know what it is that they think they're doing well and what it is that they perceive they need help with. - Yeah, I mean, choosing to listen to your student actually is practicing humility. You know, every time we pray, every time we listen, we're actually walking out humility because we often think that the master teacher, I must know all the information mindset that I was raised in, where you as an individual learn that it's not okay to not know.

- Right. - Right, and that feeling then causes us to be defensive and respond with, well, I do know, you know? And so then, and that actually inhibits learning. And so changing that mindset, I think assessment, one of the fruits of doing this kind of assessment is that it births humility in us as people, as parents, as teachers, because when you are listening to how the student responds and sees themselves, you're actually giving room for the Holy Spirit to guide you because you may think you know what they need to be fixed until they start talking, and then you're like, oh, okay, we're going in a different direction.

- I had no idea that this was the struggle, huh? This is probably the primary struggle that this is the struggle I should worry about. This other thing that I thought was the big deal is not really that big a deal. - Exactly, and a lot of those other things that are like blaring in our faces, right?

A master teacher mindset would be, I know what you need to do to fix whatever needs to be fixed. But a classical assessor who is interested in recognizing the nature of the human in front of them, that they were made in the image of God, and that the Holy Spirit is within them, and that the Holy Spirit is their guide.

And our really responsibility as a parent, as a teacher, is to steward them learning how to know Him, right? Make Him known, how to hear His voice. And so we can do that by starting with self-assessment and by listening so that they can basically ask, think, who am I?

What did I do that was well? What did I not do that as well? Am I seeing the situation with truth, right? I mean, Jesus says, "Take every thought captive." How many of us have had a student who self-assesses themselves incorrectly, right? Like whether it be the student who said, "Man, I can't find a single thing wrong that I've done." Or it be the student who's like, "I didn't do anything right." I mean, I actually honestly find those students more often than I even do the other, where they just don't like what they've done, and they can't even see the good in it.

- Yes, and that's hard. But that is important for us to know as parents who love on these students, these children, because that's a heart thing. That shows us where they need some building up at the heart before you can address any of the academic or otherwise assessing points.

That's really good. - Yeah, and the thing is, is by asking your student to look at themselves, then it gives you insight while you listen to know, okay, what do I need to attend to first, right? That's always the thing, is arrangement. How, what is the most important thing?

And the hardest part in assessing is I'm having to figure that out quickly, right? - Yes, while the child is standing in front of you, waiting for your assessment. - And there has been a moment, Lisa, where I'm having a hard time myself, and she's not coming to me, and I just have to stop and say, let's just pray for a minute.

And we're just gonna ask the Lord to give us revelation, to give us understanding as to what the situation, sometimes that's what the student needs too, is they need to just reach out to God, Lord, help me to see myself clearly. - Yes, and sometimes it is okay to look at your student and say, well, this is going in a direction I didn't really see coming, and I'm gonna need to take a minute and think about this, can we just have our appointment in 20 minutes?

I mean, I need to sit with this for a minute, I didn't realize that this was your struggle, or I didn't realize this was your felt need, or I didn't realize that this was hard in this way for you, like I viewed the situation wrong, so I'm prepared to help you in a way that you don't see as a problem yet, and not prepared to help you in a way that you are feeling stressed by.

- Right, well, and actually it can trigger things in us as assessors. - Absolutely. - And being able to recognize that trigger and say, hey, let's come back to this, circle back in a little bit is actually wisdom, right? It's exercising wisdom because how many of us, especially when it's our children, find ourselves triggered in ways that we didn't, we need to do some self-assessment and go sit before the Lord and say, okay, Lord, what was that?

Why did I get so angry? - Right. - In that moment? - Right, what made me defensive about this need in my student? - Right, and do I have some lies that need to be uncovered that I'm believing? And the Lord, He is so faithful to correct the thoughts, to help us to see whether it is a truth or a lie.

And so whereas we are sitting before our student and we start with self-assessment, I just want to encourage each of you that it takes a burden off of you. When you choose to not pick up, like there's even a sense of codependency that can come when we think we should tell what needs to be done first instead of self-assessment first, because by you're taking on a responsibility that's not yours is what I'm trying to say.

Oftentimes the assessor's purpose is to facilitate an awakening of the soul to truth that the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to them. And if we overstep that boundary and choose to tell them what we think first before we ask them to self-assess, we are in a way becoming our children's Holy Spirit.

And I know that is not our heart as parents, but yet we find ourselves in that spot over and over. - Right, right, I think you're right. All of us would say, oh, that's absolutely what we desire above everything else, that we would usher our students into the presence of the Lord where the Holy Spirit can reveal and deal with and shore them up and love on them.

But we get so busy and so convinced that we have to do something that we try to make that happen instead of just make that possible. - Exactly, open a space for an opportunity for them to encounter the Holy Spirit. And you don't have to spiritualize this. We are human.

What I mean by that is they are body, soul, and spirit. The spirit is always involved, always. So you don't have to like do a formal prayer session even. You can just speak. I mean, prayer is just communion to God, right? So even with them doing self-reflection, okay, if my student's not willing to do self-assessment, that right there tells me the heart of where am I?

- There's a heart issue, yeah. - Because we don't wanna look at ourselves. So the fact that they're willing to look at themselves is an act of humility on their part. And that takes a lot of courage and it's uncomfortable. And so being patient in that space, offering a space for them to do that, I cannot tell you how many times, like you asked for a story.

I'm thinking of a story right now. I had my son, he came, he's 16 now, but this was a couple of years ago, he's 14. And I'm sure we all know the cliches of 14-year-old boys, right? - Of course, we've heard them all. - Who know all the things.

Mom, I know it, you don't need to tell me, right? - Yes, I spent years in challenge B and challenge one. I know all of these people. - Exactly, yes, yes, okay. So I'm sitting down with him and he comes in and I start leading him through self-assessment of he's got a problem.

And through that self-assessment, I'm like, well, what do you think you did well? And what did you, mom, and they're so used to the assessment form. - They know all these shrinky questions. - And they even can get annoyed with me, right? So I'll just pray with them and be like, okay, can we just take a minute?

'Cause if you're not willing to self-assess, where are you, right? Let's just take a minute and pray. And he did. And then he said, okay, fine, mom, let's, okay. - Let's do this thing. - Yeah, let's do this thing. So I said, okay, let's, and I just asked some questions.

And do you know, sitting there in front of me, my son's heart became softened. - Yes. - And he then brought up issues that I didn't even know were there, but the Lord dealt with them with him without me even having to say a thing. And I'm sitting there going, oh, you're good, God, you're so good.

Like this parenting thing, I am appreciative of being able to take some notes. - I'm just gonna move over here to the side, yeah. I'm just gonna sit over here and let you do this while I watch, yeah. - Yes, and it was like, oh, it is turning upside down my role as a parent, let alone as a teacher and an assessor, right?

So learning these skills in a safe place, like with academics that feels like, oh, I have to do this, right? But learning those skillsets start to like leak over into all the areas of your life. - And you know what, I'm just triggered. - Absolutely, and I just want to say what a great thing this is, what a great process it is to usher our children into because I was sitting here thinking, wow, how great for them to learn to live peacefully with this process when they're young so that it becomes their knee jerk reaction to all of life.

They are constantly thinking, what should I be learning here? What am I doing well? What is the Lord trying to show me? Where is the teachable moment? And just to have a parent who is modeling that and walking them through that is amazing. - Well, it's easier. That's the thing, when he says my burden is light and my yoke is easy.

Lisa, it's easier to parent using this form of assessment when you internally-- - Yes, 'cause you don't have to know all the answers before you ask the questions. - Exactly, and that's the key is that as we learn how to ask questions and we learn the form, right? Then you're able to play within that form and there is not a heavy burden.

And it has been life changing for my own soul to learn these skill sets. I mean, who would have thought when CeCe years ago would say, oh, for instance, the model or mission statement of classical conversations to know God and to make him know, right? That's the purpose of all of education, of even learning in the first place.

That resonated with me as a parent. Yes, I want that for my kids. - Yes. - And so, but how do you do it? And then eventually, yeah, you're in a, and someone's telling you you should learn Latin and you're going, this has no connection to God. I don't understand.

- I know, it's like, how does that relate to this great reason I started all this? - Yes, and so 20 years down the road, I can affirmatively tell you, Lisa, that the form of rhetoric, of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, of my mind being trained to think well, speak well, and write well, being is, it's actually opened doors to my ability to commune with God in a way that I could not have done before.

It has walked me and ushered me into a place of knowing Him and being able to express not just a third party relationship of I know about Him, but I'm able to express the intimate relationship that I have with Him, not only to my friends and peers and coworkers, but also to my children, right?

These are my people that I long for them to know Him personally in an intimate way. I had no idea years ago that learning how to assess would actually usher me into a place of learning how to teach my kids to hear His voice and know Him in a deeper way.

And so that alone has been a surprise. It's like, yeah, that's what I wanted so long ago. And I want to encourage everyone, the how-to process is actually very easy. It starts with humility. It starts with self-assessment, but then what happens in listening on our part, right? It definitely needs to include an actual verbal invitation to the Lord to reveal, right?

Reveal truth to us, God, even if it's not some formal prayer, just a statement. Lord, help. How many of us have been in those moments? Help, please. - Yes, help me Lord. - So He will. He's faithful to do that. And then what we need to do is to learn in that listening.

We ask, I mean, I've actually even done this internally. I'm listening going, okay, Lord, what is it that you want me to attend to, right? So I'm inviting Him into the process of me giving feedback to my student. Did they assess themselves correctly, number one? And then number two, if they didn't see it themselves, chances are they're not ready for it.

- Right. - That's a clue to us. Do my students understand and know? If they don't know, they didn't see it, then it's either maybe they're not emotionally ready for it or maybe they think that they don't need it. If we don't think we need help in something, we're not pretty much prone to accept help 'cause we already got it, right?

- Exactly. - That pride can rise up in an individual. So it makes me think of the story of David in the Bible. And David has the prophet, what was his name? - Nathan. - Nathan, I think, yes. Okay, Nathan comes into him and he is going, led by the Lord to rebuke him for the sin of stealing another man's wife and of sexual immorality and murder.

Now these are pretty big things to have to self-assess. - Yes, but he starts by telling him a story about sheep. - Exactly, right. Which telling him a story about sheep, that's a little less triggering, wouldn't you say? - Yes, yes, I mean, I could easily see the king thinking, well, this doesn't really have anything to do with me so I'm not on my guard.

I don't have my shield up. Nobody's attacking me. This is not about me. It's about a shepherd. - And you better believe that David was defensive right out the door as Nathan walked in. I mean, prophets don't come and visit kings. - Right, I know you're coming to smack my hand.

- Exactly, and he knows he sinned, right? So he's expecting some kind of smack. So to have a invitation, that's what happened is that Nathan invited him into a conversation to contemplate truths in a third objective, third party view. And that invitation was received. So that reception right off the bat tells Nathan, okay, he's interested in having a conversation.

And maybe even just having the conversation is helping him to, the Lord is softening his heart, right? 'Cause maybe he has a will, he could have chosen no, but he said yes, so his heart is being softened. And then Nathan tells him a story. Do you remember the story?

You have to tell me. - I do. - Okay, tell me the story. - Well, he tells him about a man who has a lot of sheep. He tells him, and the bottom line is that he says, and this guy who had everything went after the belongings of a much poorer man.

And what do you think should be done? - Right, and what does David, how does he respond? - Oh, this guy was way out, way off. He should be punished. He has done a despicable thing. And who is this guy? And I will fix this situation. - Right. - And Nathan is like, hey, guess what?

- You, you are that guy. - You're the one. - You're the one. - Right? Now, what if David had responded with, I don't see the problem, what's wrong with that? - Right, or this is, yeah, yeah. Then I guess that Nathan would know that David was not, his heart was not ready to receive truth, that he was not able to judge justly even in this situation.

- Right, and I mean, and as a king, we see in history tells us there's lots of kings who did not know how to judge justly, right? And so here is David. If he didn't respond in a way that he understood justice, then it could be, it's not that he's evil, it could be that he's had poor training that needs to be corrected, right?

And Nathan would have to identify that. It could be that he doesn't care about justice. And even though he has been taught correctly, he doesn't care. - Or that he's gotten all involved in situational ethics. You know, well, this is not as bad in this situation or it's not as bad as this other thing.

- Right, right. And so Nathan's having to assess that. Now, the thing is, is Nathan had relationship with David. This was not a first encounter. So that plays a part in how we can assess. If we know someone better, like our children, we're able to see very quickly patterns in their life of other spaces that the Lord will bring up to help connect the dots as to what the truth may be in that situation.

But if it's somebody that you don't know, you might have to ask more questions. But in this case, Nathan had a relationship with him. He had invited him and David had accepted the invitation. He presented an objective, you know, a third party, what's the word? Objective story to help him to see a truth so that by the time he then turned it to, well, David, you are that man.

It caused him to come to a place of repentance. - Yes. - And that repentance is huge. - He was able to see himself standing against the truth he really believed. He was finally able to see himself in his actions as opposed to what he held to in his heart.

And he found himself apart from God. - Exactly. And so what it did was what repentance always does, it drives us to the feet of our creator. And he went and he repented, received the message as to what he needed to do. And that encounter is the kind of encounters that I experienced with all of my people all the time.

Because when, now let me rephrase that, when I practice these tools, Lisa, there are still times that I find myself telling my students, my children, what I think before I walk them into self-assessment. And I'm telling you, it does not get the same results as when I practice and employ these skills of assessment.

It is first and foremost relational, but it is conversational. And if you need to know more information, you ask more questions. And recognizing that when any time that we're assessing, we're always considering the content that we're assessing in tension with the student, in tension with ourselves. And of course that makes us think of triangles, right?

- Right. - And that triangle of that perfect tension, it's not accidental that the triangle is a symbol of the Trinity of God. - Yes. - And inviting him into this process, he made us be in communion, not only with him, but with each other. And our relationship in communion with each other actually facilitates and drives us to our relationship with him, which is what you saw with David, right?

And so I'm just thinking, okay, Lord, what's the next step then in assessment? How do we do this thing? - Yes, because I love the groundwork that you've laid that helps us see the content, which is what most of us start with when we think, okay, it was time to do assessment.

Oh, it's the end of the semester, it's the end of the year, or I have to give somebody a grade for something. We start with the content, but what you're helping us see is that the content is always intention with the relationship that the student has to the Lord that has to us.

So once we recognize that, what do we do? Where do we go next? - Yes, so after we've walked our student through self-assessment and we've invited God in to asking for arrangement help as to what to address, I always piggyback off of what the student sees, what they see in themselves, if they've judged themselves correctly, right?

So there are times that you have a student where I'll throw some bonus pieces in is how I call it. Maybe they didn't see it, but I can tell that they're hungry for more, and that hunger is an invitation to me to be able to add one or two more things, but understanding that assessment is, there's lots of kinds of assessment.

So what I just described to you as a step-by-step process, or what that we're in the middle of is one kind of assessment to bless. There are other kinds, like in my class that I teach online, I actually focus on a different style of assessment, which helps us to identify the sum total of what we would know on any given subject.

And that helps us to understand, not necessarily the information, but on the skill sets that they possess or do not possess. So I think that's one piece of classical assessment that is different than a modern style of assessment is that we're focused on skill sets. - Yes, good. - Not just piles of information.

- And that is something that's different for us, 'cause most of us who were presumably educated under the modern education system were totally assessed on information. What we know, what we can show, what we can solve, what we can prove, and not on the skills of listening or logical thinking or articulation or beauty, the skill of knowing how to use something beautiful.

Yes, attending to things, noticing pieces and how they fit together. Yeah, I love that. That's very much a classical difference. - And it actually frees us, because if we have like a checklist of a hundred items and the student was able to acquire a skill in only 20 of those items that need to be checked off, then guess what?

You're freed from those other 80 items, because the purpose is to learn things in order to acquire skills. I had a mom who told me years ago when I was first getting started, maybe only like three or four years into my own homeschooling journey with my kids, and she goes, "Rachel, you know you can't teach your kids "everything that they need to know, right?" - Right, there's always gonna be something you don't know or you don't get to.

- Right, well, I honestly was like stuck when she said that, because I did believe that I was responsible for teaching them everything they should know. - Right, right. - And I didn't even know that I had that burden on me. And so for her saying that to me helped me go, "Oh, okay, well then what is my purpose?

"What am I supposed to be doing?" Right, and so this learning how to teach skills, and that we are giving them skills that then the Lord continues that process of giving them what they need to know as they age, and other people in their lives, whether it be universities or mentors in their life, right, that come alongside them and guide them, then take over that responsibility of skill sets.

That is freeing, Lisa, that is so freeing. - Well, and it is so much more successful if we will spend the time we have with our children preparing them to be learners, giving them the skills of learning, then they are prepared to learn whenever and wherever God drops in a lesson or a teacher.

We have cultivated the soil so that it can actually receive a seed and produce a plant with fruit. - Exactly, and so then what happens is that by the time you're talking about something like a transcript, a transcript becomes minor. It's just a snapshot of their story. It's just a little picture, right?

When you have a picture of a child that you post like your Christmas photo, that doesn't tell your whole story of your family, but it is just a quick view of an idea, a caricature of who they are, and that's what the transcript is. And so when we learn that we are assessing on skills and not content, then that also frees us of the burden of the transcript that we grade in a different kind of way than what a modern educator might see the transcript as or grade by.

And we don't fit in the same rules, if you will. We have to play by the same rules. - Yes, and I just wanna say at this point, you guys, we are gonna have one more session with Rachel where she is going to take us through the transcript and how to build that snapshot, make our peace with the fact that it's a snapshot, but how do we produce that snapshot that will tell an accurate story to people who may be not looking at assessment in the same way that we have when we are producing a transcript for other people to use in other contexts.

So we're gonna talk about that next time. So I just wanna use that as a teaser, Rachel. - I love it, I love it. - That is just great. - Yes, are there any other specific questions that you have for me today? - Well, I was gonna say, you have given us a whole lot of better reasons, better purposes for assessment, and you have given us something that I know is the real practical starting out step, the asking the question, asking the Lord to take control, listening to our student and listening to not just what they say, but where their heart is, how what they say pulls back the curtain on where their heart is and what they're ready to hear.

And then I absolutely resonate with your classical emphasis and reminder to us that we are assessing skills, and that is more important. It's different than, and also more important than just assessing information that our children may have accumulated. Are there any other stages of assessment? I know that you alluded at the beginning when you're talking about your family, that there are different ways to assess children at different stages of their development.

I mean, you can't really ask, if you're assessing your first grader, you don't necessarily put as much stock in. Well, what do you think you did well this year? Because they don't know what they are supposed to be doing. Are there some tips that, or are there different things you use to assess students of different ages/stages?

- Well, that's a really good question. And I think that the form actually stays the same, but it's truncated for small children. - That's exactly what I'm going for. Practical help for people who are thinking, but I have a six-year-old, and I have a 10-year-old, and I have a 14-year-old, and I have a 17-year-old.

- Right, yes. - How do I shuffle those? - Absolutely. - That process, okay. - Yep, so the themes, it's kind of like makes me think of jazz music, right? - Ooh. - Jazz music is actually a very complex form. And a lot of times you'll hear the word impromptu in regards to jazz music, but people think that they just make up stuff, right?

Well, actually, the truth is that there is a theme, a melody, and there are forms that they have to have had learned first as a musician, and then they are able to have freedom within those forms. And the same plays out for a parent. When you learn the forms of assessment, and you learn the forms of learning, then when I'm applying them to a six-year-old, I'm able to play with it, if you will.

And I almost like, you know how Darth Vader would walk in, and every time he walks in in "Star Wars," his theme music starts to play? - Oh, yes, yes, yes. - So you're gonna start having theme music changing to each kid. You're gonna, things that the Lord is highlighting to you that needs to be addressed, certain skills that start to play over and over again when I encounter a student.

You know, we've all been there even just in parenting. Oh, like Mrs. Pigglewiggle books, right? There's these little issues that have to be addressed in a particular kid. Now, I mean, if you love Mrs. Pigglewiggle, I've always thought of God as Mrs. Pigglewiggle in a way that he has every specific potion and cure for every kid in the whole world.

So he does that to, he'll teach me through the self-assessment and walking, even my six-year-old. So I had my daughter, my youngest, she came in and I was sitting in a chair, drinking my coffee. And you know, sometimes, I will be honest, I love it when she snuggles, and then there are other times that I'm like, "Wow, you're interrupting my moment." (laughs) - With my mom, my time.

- Yeah, which is, you know, an interesting thing, 'cause it could be that I have to assess in that moment that the Lord wants to teach me something about patience and how this interruption is actually, it is the parts of parenting, exactly. And so this one particular day, she came into my lap and I was praying and she's like, "What are you doing?" And I'm like, "Oh, I'm asking Jesus if there's anybody that I need to forgive." And she goes, "I wanna pray too." And I go, "Oh, okay, well, let's ask Jesus." So we did.

I was able to walk her through hearing and listening to whom the Lord thinks that she needs to forgive. Well, then it ended up being this beautiful, like three minute interaction of her forgiving her sister over something. And what I learned from that moment is, I was listening, the Lord was highlighting, right?

Something needed to be addressed. He, and her attentiveness as a six-year-old to want to pray, that tells me something right away, right? That this, okay. - Yes, yes. That God has softened her heart. - Exactly, 'cause I didn't ask her. - The Holy Spirit has made her ready. - Uh-huh, exactly, exactly, Lisa.

He led her to me. Now he's asking for me to facilitate a space. And so as a six-year-old, I have to ask questions the same that I ask. Now, if it's a 16-year-old, I can ask different kinds of questions. I can probe a little bit deeper. My six-year-old only has like a five minute attention span.

- Right. - That, you know, compare, and honestly, my 16-year-old only has slightly more, let's be honest. (both laughing) So, so I have to change based on what they're, how they're responding to me. The other thing that I would encourage you is in building relationship. Because even though a six-year-old, we recognize, okay, I build relationship with this child by reading to them, and doing, and like baking, and doing all the fun things that we like can be prompted to do.

But a 16-year-old needs the same kind of relational equity, if you will. - Yes, yes. - As a six-year-old. So I need to schedule in one-on-one time every week with that kid, and I have six kids. And Lisa, I have to be intentional. - Yes, or it doesn't happen.

- I mean, I have to do, yeah, like I have to assign a day to each kid. That that is your day, and I spend one hour on their day with them. Is it beautiful and exact every week? Not at all. - Right, right. - But it becomes a part of our culture.

Like going to church. - It becomes a part of your rhythm. It's the rhythm of your family that this happens. - Yes. - Yeah. You have to schedule intentional time to have conversation, and assessment is no different. So if I want to assess all of my children, I have to intentionally schedule space and opportunities for assessment.

And then sometimes I have to motivate myself to get there. - Yeah, yes. - You know, like with a good cup of coffee, a piece of dark chocolate, some, you know, a reward afterwards. Sometimes I do have to have those motivators just to make it happen. - Well, 'cause sometimes you know it's gonna be a hard conversation.

- Yeah, yeah. - Or it's gonna be uncomfortable before it's comfortable. And that can be difficult. - Yeah. - That can be very difficult. - It can, it can. And so it does look, it does feel and look different to assess the different ages. But you know how I started off, I'm gonna circle back to the very first thing that I said, was that you have to be willing to do things poorly to begin with.

And so here I'm encouraging you just to take a step to do it poorly, to schedule time in your life, to have a rhythm for assessment, to ask good questions, and to practice it. And when you choose to intentionally practice these forms with your family, what happens is you internalize them.

And before you know it, it comes out in spaces you didn't schedule. - Yes. - It naturally flows through your parenting and your interaction with people, not only with my children, but with my spouse and with my peers. We learn how to invite, to offer hospitality, to be kind to our children, the same way we're kind to other people.

How many of us have said that? Where it's like to your children, you're like, you need to treat your siblings better than you treat other people 'cause it's harder. And if you can do it with these people, you'll be able to do it with everybody else, right? - That's very true.

- And so the same is with parenting. I have to learn how to treat my children just as good as I'm treating you here, Lisa, on this podcast. And setting aside space and learning these forms will actually help me to practice hospitality and kindness with the people who mean the most in my life.

- Oh, wow. And that makes me eager to practice assessing because I really do want to love my family better. I really do want us to have a richer relationship. I really do want us to be comfortable helping one another to grow in the Lord and toward the Lord.

And as he wants us each to grow, I would love to learn to help one another draw closer to the Lord. And that's what assessment can be. And I appreciate so much, Rachel, you spending this time helping us to get a new view of assessment or maybe a better handle on it, or at least permission to begin a new way of assessing that is a blessing to our whole family.

Thank you so much. I also want to ask you, well, I want to give a promo to the next segment that we're going to do, which is about transcripts. And I want to give you a chance to talk to our listeners about another offering you have for folks who want to know more about assessing or maybe more about transcripts.

Tell us about the classes you have coming up. - Absolutely. Thank you for this opportunity. - Yeah. - So, well, you can check us out at classicaltoolsforchange.com and that's for the number four. And we have a couple of conferences coming up that there's a six hour conference that really helps us to practice together the skills of assessment.

Not only do we go through a lot of these great conversations of ideas in the first part, but we practice the skills of assessment. I model it for you and you get to then practice. Now that kind of assessment we do in my class or this conference is focused on being able to take that information and apply it to a transcript.

Because the third part, then we're going through the logistics of crafting a transcript. - Yes. - And the conferences are kept small with a maximum of 12 students. And so we have a next one coming up is February 13th, 18th and 20th at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Yes.

But maybe you're not ready to join on to that conference. I do have a free class that I'm offering, a one hour class that's gonna be February 1st at 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. So I guess that's noon Eastern Standard Time. - Gotcha. - And that is gonna be, the registration for that will be on our website, Classical Tools for Change on Facebook.

Our website, you can connect to me directly, Rachel Moriarty and I can give you the information as well. I'm on all the social media interests. We have a page, Tools for Transcripts on Facebook as well. It'll be posted there. And that one hour class, I expand to 30 registrations.

But we cut it off at 30. And that is a different purpose. Whereas in our online conference, we're learning how to do the thing. This free class, we're focusing on what is a transcript really? And I know we're gonna talk about that some more next visit with each other.

But I wanted to be able to help people to see and walk them through a process of understanding its function and purpose within that form of assessing. And so we can, the dates again, are February 13th, 18th and 20th for our next live conference. - And that's a three part thing, right?

- That's a three part class. - You come to all three of those days, not one of those days, yes. - Exactly, that's a full six hour, but we only meet two hours each time for three meetings in order to practice and get to know one another, answer all your questions, all of those things.

And then the free class, one hour, I will have an also an opportunity for questions and answers of just those, I love they're called burning questions, right? The thing that you're just like, I've got to attend to this in order to hear. And so we can organize private events for your local community as well.

So you can enjoy the conversations with your friends. But to just, if you want some more information or to register for any of these, just visit us at classicaltoolsforchange.com. - Oh, Rachel, that's so good. Thank you for offering to share with us what the Lord has revealed to you and what has changed your homeschooling experience.

I appreciate you so much. And I'm already looking forward to our next conversation, which you guys will be about transcripts and how to see the transcript as a snapshot of your homeschool experience. All right, see you guys next time. Rachel, again, thanks. - All right, thank you. - All right, bye-bye.

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