(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, I'm happy to have you with us. We have been exploring the idea of assessment for a couple of episodes.

We have learned a whole lot from Rachel Moriarty, who is here today to give us a little bit more information. But if you've missed a couple of episodes, let me kind of bring you up to speed with what we've been learning. And if you need to jump back an episode or two and pick up the threads, you'll be able to.

We have learned that assessing really is about blessing. It's about blessing our children, blessing our families, blessing the relationship we have within our families. It's about blessing our conversations, and even blessing the growth that we experience, both as students and as parents. Assessing and learning to assess well really is, we've discovered, a growing experience for parents who learn how to assess the important things, which is very important as we shepherd our children.

And it's a growing experience for students who hopefully learn the art of self-assessment, which will be a blessing to them throughout life. We ended up by reminding ourselves that assessment, however, is not or should not be an end in itself. That assessment is really just an activity that gives us a snapshot of our homeschool journey.

And, you know, it occurred to me, a snapshot can be marred by any number of circumstances that are not really the subject's problem. So it really helps that we are learning how to assess well so that we get a snapshot that's not a mess. All right, so today, like I said, we have Rachel here with us again.

Rachel is going to help us get ready to create that ultimate snapshot, a transcript. But we're actually gonna try something a little different today. Rachel is gonna become the presenter, and I have agreed to be the question answerer instead of the question asker. So Rachel is going to help me process through some ideas that hopefully you will be able to process along with me.

Okay, Rachel, I put myself in your hands. - All right, thank you so much for allowing me to switch roles with you for a little bit. And we're gonna walk this journey of the game together, right, just a journey rather, more of a journey, but we get to have fun along the way, just like if we were playing a game.

So I've had fun with you a lot these last few weeks, and I look forward to today's conversation. So transcripts, and we talked about last week how transcripts can create some negative feelings, right, within us. So I'd like to think about a different topic. Okay, you like movies, right?

- I do. - Okay, so my kids make fun of me because they say that I like to watch movie trailers more than I like to actually watch movies. And I don't know if you're like me, but after watching an hour of movie trailers and not figuring out what movie I wanna watch, I'm ready for bed.

Who needs the movie, right? - I know, it's like, okay, yep, I've had enough. Thank you, I've been entertained. I've been intrigued, I'm good. - And I tell the kids, actually, I just watched eight movies, right? I mean, what's the big deal? - That's right, I have enough of stories in my head that when I go to sleep, I'm gonna have some good dreams, right, I have story problems.

- Well, let's talk about a movie for a second, okay? A movie, what are some parts that go into making a movie? - Well, I'm a writer, so I know that a movie needs a script. - Okay, okay, what else? - So we need a script, we need actors.

- Yep. - We need costumes, we need set designers. We need a director who can say, okay, we're gonna shoot this scene now and this scene now, but then when we get an editor, they might reorder these things. So we need an editor, we need somebody running the camera, not just calling the shots, but running the camera.

Then we need a set designer who can, I guess, read the script and figure out what the atmosphere should be like or what the places should, you know, how can what we see add to the story or tell a part of the story without words. - Well, I think that you actually know more about movies than I do, that's an impressive point.

- Isn't that hilarious? I did not realize that I was gonna go on and on like that, but there's, I don't know, I guess what I think is that there's a lot of parts, there's a lot of moving parts to a movie. And I think I have been involved in enough filmings with classical conversations that I know it's a lot more involved than it looks like from the finished product.

- Amen to that. Okay, well, let's say that a movie is like, if we relate that to the education life of our child, who might the child be in this metaphor? Does the child make all the shots? Does the child- - No, do they? - I, that's what I'm thinking.

They like to think they should, right, or can, but- - Yes, and the older they get, the more they stick their oar in, you know, the more they want to be in the driver's seat. And I guess, really, Rachel, as they get ready to graduate, they should be learning to make some of those decisions.

- That's true, yeah, that's true. - They should be, but- - That makes me think of, okay, so let's say my five-year-old might be the main actor in a play or in the movie, right, might be the hero. - Right, that's what I think, they're the main actor. - But maybe, I like what you just said, because maybe by the time they are in high school, maybe they're like those actor-producers, do you know what I'm talking about, where they have a little more stake in it and more say than your everyday actor.

- And they have a little more experience so that the people, the producer, who's actually putting up the money, trusts them a little more because they've seen some of their work before. - Exactly, yeah, so then who might the director be? - Well, I tend to think that that's the homeschool parent, you know, that they have seen the script, they've seen the talent, they've seen the resources, and they are kind of above the story a little bit, able to show people in the best light and tell the story in the most understandable way.

- Yes, yes, that's good. So, and I might even say, as parents, you know, as directors of this movie, we also need a director of our own, right? - Yes, we do. - Which is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has to be directing our steps so that we can do a good job of directing their steps until they're ready to be passed to God, right?

And released for Him to then direct their steps directly. Well, what about the script? - Well, I think the script is our curriculum plan. It's what we have designed, what courses we've designed our student to take, what style of learning, you know, the environment, what they, the motions they have gone through to build the skills of learning and to amass a foundation of knowledge.

- Excellent, yep, I agree with that. It seems the fitting place for it. So who is the audience? - Of this movie called "The Educational Life of My Child." - Well, okay, so I can think of several different audiences in my most spiritually mature, I realized that the audience should just be the Lord.

My husband's a guitar player and he has the best t-shirt. It says, "Playing for an audience of one." Everything we do, if we do unto the Lord, that is beautiful. In the real world and in the high pressure, I gotta get this right world that many of us parents live in, the audience for this movie, "The Homeschool Education of My Fill-in-the-Blank Child," it is the people who are gonna make decisions about their next opportunities.

And, you know, maybe that's an employer or maybe that's a college recruiter or it's a scholarship decider or it's a mission organization. - And maybe even a governing body, like maybe they weren't gonna go off, we're not talking about a job or college as in the final. Sometimes it's, "Hey, I have to turn in." Yeah, locally, you know?

Or as a parent, I have to turn in a transcript to enroll. You know, certain states have different laws that require reporting of various natures, right? - Yes, I have to turn it in once a year. I've got to show what we've been doing at our homeschool. Or if my child wants to do CC+ or some kind of dual enrollment, somebody needs to know what they've done.

And so my transcript is my way of telling them the story in a way they can understand. - Yeah, and if we're thinking about the education of a child, sometimes our audience can even be family members, like extended family members. - Oh my goodness. - When I first decided to homeschool, my daughter was four, and I was reading all kinds of books to try to decide which philosophy or the way I wanted to go about this.

I wasn't even confident how to do it or that I could do it, but I felt compelled because of reading that verse in Deuteronomy that says to teach your children, "When you stand up, when you lie down, "when you go on the way." And I'm thinking, how am I supposed to do that if I'm not with them, right?

And so that was a motivating guide for me of even being drawn into homeschooling. Well, my mother-in-law, she's a public educator for 40, 50 years, and she is a music teacher, and she's brilliant. And she's had a lot of training with education and stuff. And she comes to me and says, "Rachel, what about science labs?

"How are you gonna do science labs?" And I have a four-year-old, and I don't even know how to get them to read, you know? - Right, my science lab is playing with water in the sink. - I was like, I have no idea. I'm just trying to figure out what do I do this year and what they gotta do, you know?

- Yes, yes. - Looking back on it, she didn't mean anything against me by asking that. It's just, she had a scope of it that I didn't have, and she's thinking farther out. And it's not that you think farther out, because most of us are. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to parents who it's like, "Well, I made a commitment for this year, "but I don't know, you know, we take it year by year.

"I don't know what I'm gonna do." And that's an honest answer. - Yes, absolutely. - But they probably feel the pressures of their family as well, like I did. Have to know all the things or, you know, 'cause the grandma loves your children just as much as you love your children, and they want, but we each talk out of what we know, right?

- Yes, yes. - So, all right, so let's talk about the role of the director. Can you tell me, what does a director of a movie do? - Okay, so I'm talking kind of out of my ignorance, but, you know, from things that I have seen and heard, and what I have observed of directors from being in plays as a kid and as an adult, I think that the director gives direction.

He tells the actor or the actress how to move or how to speak or how to deliver their line, maybe when to come in and which way to turn or to face to give the best performance. The director is constantly trying to help the actor be all he can be and bring all the skill that the actor has within him to the forefront so that he leaves nothing on the table and is not disappointed that he didn't try something or do something he could have done.

- Right, okay, good. So what is the movie trailer? - The movie trailer is what encourages somebody like me to take a chance on a movie that doesn't, maybe the title didn't grab me, but the trailer gives me something to listen to and look at that maybe provides the hook that I needed to take a second look or to devote a little more of my time.

It kind of wets my appetite, either for the story or for the portrayal of the story. - Okay, so the summary of that story, and we could call this in education life of a transcript, possibly a, I mean, excuse me, we could call this in the education life of a child, a transcript.

- Yeah, we're gonna give you the overall picture. Good, that's good. - So we're gonna talk today about the role of the director and the role of a movie trailer in your child's life, okay? So let me think about, so there are two documents that we typically think of associated with graduating.

Can you recall what those might be? - A diploma, that's what you get when you, that shows you did it, and a transcript that is the record of all the stuff you did that earned you the diploma. - Okay, and that's really only, does the transcript covers what grades?

- Usually it's just high school, so nine to 12. - Yeah, sometimes people put some eighth grade things on there, but in general, a transcript is really only a record of the last four years, okay? So what about when you need to apply for a job? What kind of document do you use as a record?

- I guess it's been a long time since I applied for a job. (both laughing) I mean, I remember needing to show my high school diploma, and then there were some, you know, there are some jobs that might want to see a transcript. I don't think I ever remember.

My first job in high school, my first paying job in high school was as a bridal store attendant. And I don't think they asked me for anything 'cause I was still in high school at that point. - Probably not. Well, okay, so I remember last time I told you that my husband is looking for a job right now.

- Yes, yes. - Okay, so he has been applying to jobs and he uses a resume, sometimes five, 10 jobs a day. - Yes, that's it, yep. - So when we, yesterday, I have to tell you this quick thing, this is a little rabbit trail. Yesterday, he was told there's an algorithms because he's for nine months been applying to jobs and he doesn't seem to be getting anywhere, but he has a really good resume.

But evidently there's an algorithm system in AI uses that if your resume doesn't match enough criteria that they doesn't even make it to a human being. It's wrong. - They flag it based on some criteria. Oh my word. - Exactly. So we didn't, I didn't know that. And so having certain things on the resume, it's like playing a game.

You know, he was, someone told us about a AI that actually you can take a job description and your resume, insert it into this AI program and it will spit out your information with all of the right words that will not, that will have it pass the-- - Oh my goodness.

- Isn't that interesting? - Yes. - So sometimes to me, that's like playing a game, right? With I've got, there's not a lot of critical thinking going on. It's how can I present myself in a certain way that you'll even have a conversation with me. And so a lot of times that's what people think about the transcript.

And if we were to think about all three of those documents together, a resume, a transcript, a diploma, what do all three of these have in common with one another? - A resume, a transcript and a diploma, it's supposed to tell something about you. It's a way for someone to get to know you, maybe to get to know what skills you have, what experience you have or what knowledge you have.

- Okay, so it, does it tell you how to do something, these documents? - No. - No. - Not really. - No, it tells you what you already did, right? - Yeah. - It's almost, and it's like that snapshot that we were talking about. - Yeah. - So both, if you had to give one word to define what all three of these things are, what might word would you choose?

- A record. - A record, okay, good. - A record. - A record, I love it. So all of these are like the movie trailer, one for, but one is for the high school career and the other is for a professional career. Would you agree with that? - Yes, yes.

- Okay, so let's talk about testing. So when, what do you, what image comes into your mind when I use the word testing? - Hmm, well, I'm old, so I'm old school. A test to me is about a pencil and a mimeograph or a Xerox copy of a set of questions or problems that a teacher or proctor is presenting to me that I need to respond to or solve.

- Okay. - That's what a test is to me. - Yeah, okay. And does that process of taking a test, does that, what does it conjure up inside of you when you think about taking tests? - Well, this is really funny. When I took tests in subjects that I had loved or I had enjoyed the class or I felt really good about, I actually, I was one of those weird people that actually sort of enjoyed taking the test because I love to be able to show myself and the teacher what I knew.

You know, how my knowledge had grown and how it had become part of me. But when I had to take a test in a subject that either intimidated me or I did not feel like I had fully grasped, I was anxious and I wanted more than anything for it to be over.

- Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of us can identify with that feeling as well. Right? And it's probably because that test, it's gonna point out all the ways in which you failed or don't know something, right? - Yep. - So what about conversations that you have with people?

Have you had conversations that both elicit a positive and a negative with testing? - Oh, sure. Sure. There are people who always make you feel better about yourself, either because they're very interested in what you did or they are determined or willing to see the best in you and in the situation.

And sometimes the people who make you feel the best, when you're having a conversation, are the people who are just genuinely interested in what you have to say. They don't necessarily have their own agenda. They just wanna be with you. And they just wanna hear what you know that they could benefit from or become interested in.

And so that's really good. And then there are people that make you feel like you are always running to keep up or that you didn't quite measure up or you didn't maybe do something or see something or answer something quite in the way they would have. And that just makes you feel a little anxious or a little less than.

And nobody likes to feel less than. - No, nobody does for sure. So can a conversation achieve the same goal as a test? - I think it can in a lot of ways because it can elicit the information or elicit, well, information. Like, what do you know? How have you grown?

How conversant are you with information? But how have you applied it as well? Are you able to apply it? Have you come to some conclusions on your own? Is there growth in your thinking? - Good. So in general, like Lisa, like right now, I don't have a cup of coffee in front of me.

I should, darn it. But I don't. But having a conversation with you makes me want to have a cup of coffee. It is a pleasant thing every time that we're able to have a conversation. Yes, there are times that conversations can generate anxiety especially if you know you're walking into a confrontational conversation.

But in general, right? Conversations don't in themselves generate anxiety. Would you agree? - I do agree. I do agree. Yep. Unless there was something going on. I just regular conversations to me are pleasant. - Yeah. So if conversation can generate a knowledge base of an understanding of someone else's knowledge base just like a test, right?

Maybe that we can think about, maybe we need to do this assessing thing a little bit differently, right? Because if a person walks into a test, how many times have I heard about like anxiety where they have ways in which you can learn how to cope with the anxiety so you can do better on a test?

'Cause a lot of times the anxiety itself can actually cause a person to fail a test. Not that they didn't know it. - Right. There are absolutely people who know material but are for whatever reason, poor test takers. And so the test is not an accurate assessment of what they know at all.

I have one child who is a good tester and one who is not, for whom I have one child who is a good tester and a test is generally a fairly reliable method of what she knows and how deeply she knows it. I have another daughter who is not a great tester and frequently the test is not an accurate measure of how much she interacted and held on to material.

Yeah. - Right, right. Okay, good. 'Cause I'm like you, I have a child who loves taking tests. She thought the first time I ever gave her an end of the year Stanford test, she thought it was the most fun ever. And I told her, "Shh, don't say that out loud.

"You will not be free." (laughing) You know, it does not make you look good. But she was that kind of child too where she just enjoyed all the details and things like that and loved to read. So it was like, "Ooh, how much have I noticed?" You know, she's my trivia girl.

She loves trivia. - Yes, yes. - Yeah, she does. She loves it. But I have the children who in general, they don't like testing. And we honestly, as a family, we don't really do that much testing in the whole school world. There's some people who do it more and that's a part of their life.

But mostly, I have learned a different way of assessing using conversation. And so if you... Well, let's just say we'll put the word assessment on both a test and a conversation. And that's kind of like what the director does in a movie. Would you agree? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- So in what ways does the director walking in the skills of assessment in a movie? - So I guess that I would say that a director takes into consideration the abilities of his actors and their experience, maybe based on their past experiences. I imagine that he has seen other work they've done and he knows what they're capable of.

I also think that the director as an assessor would know how to consider the environment and what he's asking and what role the environment or the setting might have on what the actor is able to give him. - And so in the middle of a shooting of the part of the movie, right?

A scene. - Right, right. - When the actor doesn't do it the way the director wants it done, what does he usually do? - He says, "Cut." And they're gonna try again. And maybe the director would explain, well, this is what I thought was gonna happen and I wonder if we could try it a different way, you know?

- Yeah, exactly. And so I bet that those actors actually are very grateful to those directors. - I imagine so too, yeah. Don't let me just keep going on in this. Yes, I don't want you to let me keep floundering around in this bad way. If you know a better way, tell it.

- Exactly, exactly. And then also the director is able to like celebrate and jump and be excited because it was seen well, right? - Yes, yes. - Okay, so are transcripts more like directors or movie trailers? - I actually think transcripts are more like movie trailers because they're telling you what's already been done.

- Right, right. And then, so how would you define a transcript in one sentence, a complete sentence? - Well, okay, so this is not a refined sentence 'cause I'm just doing it out loud. I'm not mulling over it a whole lot. A transcript is a record of what a student has attempted and how well they succeeded in learning.

- Okay, and what a director does is assess and tells us how to get better and how to fix something and also well done, that was really good, right? This is what you did, that was good. Well, we call that an assessment. So is a transcript then an assessment?

- You know, it's so funny, a transcript to me is different because a transcript is not interactive. I mean, it just is, it's a statement of what has happened and it's not an opportunity for me to explain and it's not an opportunity for you to say way to go unless the A has a plus behind it or a way for you to tell what went wrong.

I mean, you just gotta see. The transcript doesn't tell you that, you know, that was the semester that my grandma moved in with us or the semester that I had a broken leg and missed three weeks of class, so yeah. - Okay, so then if I said a transcript is a summary or a record summarizing their high school career and not an assessment, would you say that's a true statement?

- I would say that's true. A transcript is in fact a summary of a student's high school education, what courses they took and what assessment they received from it. - Okay, so now before you make a movie trailer, what do you have to be focused on? If you have, do you make the movie trailer before you make the movie?

- No, I don't think so. You have to have, well, because you gotta have some footage and hopefully you have already shot the movie and you take the footage for the trailer from what you already finished of the movie. - Right, okay, so do all movie trailers accurately portray a movie?

- Oh my gosh, I would say no because there are some movie trailers that I get, I think, oh, that's gonna be so good and I get to the movie and I realized that all 45 seconds of the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie is a snooze fest.

- Yes, and I've actually seen, because I told you that I probably watch more movie trailers than I ever watch movies. - Yes, yes, yes. - Enough movie trailers that I didn't, wasn't even pulled into wanting to watch the movie but my kids and they encouraged me to do it 'cause they liked it and then it was phenomenal.

The movie trailer didn't even do a job. - Oh my gosh, well, and sometimes the movie trailers are so, the worst one, the worst misdirection to me and this will date me too, but I don't even care. When "Pirates of the Caribbean" came out, the movie trailer was there and it just showed the skeletons walking under the sea on the seabed and coming toward people and I was like, oh my word, that's a terrible movie.

I'm not, that has got to be satanic and it looks like a horror movie. I don't have any desire. Well, my husband and his friend who, and the two of them always go to bed early, they went to like the 10 o'clock movie and my friend and I were just like, okay, these people, A, they're gonna go to sleep and miss the whole thing and B, why are they going to a horror movie?

This is not them. And then my husband came home and he said, no, no, no, you gotta watch this, there's a different trailer 'cause he saw the movie and he loved it and he came home talking about how great he was and I thought, who's my husband, where's my husband and what have we done with him 'cause it's not you and he said, no, no, no, you gotta see this other trailer and it was one of the trailers where he said, where Barbosa says, oh, I refuse to acquiesce to your request and it was like something about and then there was one that's like, where did the stories come from?

That's ironic, isn't it? And I thought, oh my gosh, this is a funny movie. This is not a horror movie, this is gonna be a funny movie but that was the most, that trailer was most misdirection that I ever experienced in a movie trailer. - I mean, and that's the thing is it's whoever's and that's a lot of times movies have multiple trailers because it's who's the audience.

- Different audiences. - And so have you, so I guess both of us has been surprised then by movies that were done from the movie trailer. So no matter how well a movie trailer is made, it cannot replace the movie. - Right. - As much as I want to convince my children that I don't need to watch the movie, I can just do the trailer because it just takes up so much time to watch a movie.

- Right. - I mean, honestly, I like movies, but really Lisa, I only watch them to relate to my children because they love movies so much. That's not my favorite thing. - Right, so that you have something to talk to. - Yeah, well, or just it's one of their favorite things.

So it's how we can, you know, but I don't feel, I don't feel like we're relating to each other really a lot in movies. Oh, I do have to tell you though this, okay, this is another side trail rabbit, just 'cause I think it's funny. My kids, they interact differently in movies than I do.

And so they would get together with their friends and they watch movies as a group, right? So then, so you know that movie, "The Quiet Place"? - Yes, oh my word, yes. - Right? So I had not seen that movie. They watched it with their group, with their friends, and they were like, "Mom, this is such a good movie." I'm like, "I don't do horror movies." And they're like, "No, mom, it's not a horror movie.

You'll like it." - Right, me too. I was like, "I don't wanna see it. I don't wanna see it." - And they were like, "No, come on, do it." I said, "Okay, fine." So they talked me into it. So we're watching it as a family and it's dark and it's in our basement.

And I have a very strict no talking policy in a movie, okay? - Yes, yes. - So I cannot stand it when my kids talk and I'm like, "Oops, nope, no talking." And so- - That's right, I'm gonna miss that dialogue, yeah. - (laughs) And so then at one point, my kids, I told them, "I can't do this anymore, turn it off." And I turned it off 'cause it was too scary for me.

And my kids were like, "Mom, it was not scary when we watched it before, but it's really scary when it's quiet." (laughs) - Oh my God, that's hilarious. - I know, because they, I didn't realize that when they watch movies, I said, "Wait, what are you talking about?" They were like, "No, we just make jokes the entire time and talk while the movie's going on." So we didn't- - So you miss all the reasons it's scary, hello?

- Yes, but my point, you know, it's like, they have an entirely different experience watching it. - Yes. - They're social in watching movies. So I choose to be social with them, even though I don't let them talk. I know they love it and we talk about it afterwards, you know, so anyway, so, but I have to say that when you watch a trailer, a movie trailer, we know that the movie has to be made first.

- Yeah. - You must be focused on making a movie good before you ever even try to make a movie trailer. - Yes, yes. - The movie trailer is the easy part. If you just take, you just have to make a good movie and just pull snapshots out of that story to put it together, to summarize the story itself in a short two minutes, right?

There's not a lot of, there is, there is a good way and a bad way to make a trailer. We can all agree on that. But if the movie is bad, no matter how good the trailer looks, it will not replace a bad movie. So as homeschoolers, I would say that we need to change the question from how do I make a transcript to how do I classically educate and assess my student?

A transcript is not an assessment, but we use that word as if it is an assessment. Making a transcript is just a snapshot. And yes, there is an art to how to make one better than another. However, if I have seen it over and over, Lisa, and I bet you can attest to this too, that parents come into the high school years, seventh, eighth grade, and they will change how they are homeschooling so that they can fit their homeschooling into what a transcript should look like.

- Yeah, yes. - And that's the wrong way to look at it, right? Because what we have here is let's be focused on doing what is good and right that blesses your children, blesses you, that builds a love of learning into the student. Do not change and go. Like I have that verse in my mind right now that says, do not turn to the left and do not turn to the right, but stay moving forward on the path that I have for you, right?

And so the transcript should not ever be something in which you are altering your education decisions to mold to a transcript. And so I would like to encourage our listeners that you crafting a transcript, that's the easy part. You know, my website classicaltoolsforchange.com is the number four. You go there, I can help you craft a transcript.

I can do a private consultation, but you could take my class and that class itself is going to teach you how to assess classically. And it doesn't take long. If you focus on the movie, then it does not take long to walk through how to put those pieces into a transcript.

Less than an hour, it does not take long. But a lot of that- - Because it's just a tool. It's just a tool for showing, for displaying what is good about the education you and your child produced. - Exactly, exactly. And I just want to encourage each of you that to stay strong and to know that this piece, oh, I have an idea.

Okay, I'm just gonna use another, I love metaphors. But if another way to look at it, right? Like Lisa, if I didn't know you and I walked into a party, like a dinner party and I say, hi, my name is Rachel. And you say, hi, my name is Lisa.

And I have a natural, I'm curious about people. And I would say, Lisa, tell me about yourself, right? Like, tell me about who are you? Where are you from? What do you do? What kind of people are in your, that are around you? What kind of books do you like to read?

And after we've had this really great conversation for an hour, I am not gonna look at you and say, I would like to know what authority that you have. Or I'm not gonna question the pieces of your story. Does that make sense? - Yeah, it does. - And so a lot of times people think that the transcript is this document that someone is going to question all the pieces that are on there.

And they're like, well, I don't wanna fail my student. I don't want them to not get and be able to do what they wanna do because I have failed them in some kind of way. But the truth of the matter is, if it truly is just a snapshot of your child's story, who is going to argue with that?

Nobody. - Absolutely, nobody. - Nobody is gonna argue with that. And I'm telling you what, the transcript, it doesn't matter if it is from a public school, a private school, or a homeschool parent. It is subjective, completely subjective to whomever put those pieces together. There is no grade given by any instructor anywhere.

- Right. - That was not subjective, right? So that's why we have to, we can go all into grades. Today's not the day for that, but I would love for you to take my class to hear, we talk about what is a grade? How do I grade, right? What is this letter that's supposed to imply good or bad?

Nobody thinks so much about the B or the C. Those are just those average letters, right? That the A is the good one, the F is the bad one, and you're only averaging. Well, that is not something that I wanna be identified with. And I don't think that my own student wants to be identified by a letter, right?

However, we live in a world in which that is how we have to communicate. So when I go over to Italy, and I talk to an Italian, and they are, we're talking and I have to translate. So I have to take what I know in English, and I have to learn how to translate that in Italian to express what I know and understand.

So my vocabulary is really limited in Italian. And I sometimes like when I'm talking to my Italian friends, I only have like a 30 minute level of vocabulary. And it's always the same kind of conversation, right? Well, a lot of that is the same, you need to understand the language in which you're translating it in, and you need to understand the audience in which is going to receive the message you're trying to express.

And the same is with the transcript. If our audience is a governing body or a university, or a, I don't know what some of the others that we mentioned, right? A college or a local, whatever agency, right? That needs to look at your transcript. A classical education, you have to learn how to translate that into a language that a university can understand.

Right, and so there is a form to it, there is a language to a transcript that you need to learn. But what you really, it's the in between part, how do I bridge this education I'm not willing to sacrifice, I'm not willing to change, how do I communicate that or translate it into a one page record that is a summary of my children's high school so that they can understand what my children know or don't know.

And honestly, it's like that algorithm with my husband's job and how he's making resumes in. - Yep. - Sometimes you just have to know how to write the transcript so that it can go past the algorithm or AI of universities and colleges, if you will, so that you can have an interview, so that you can have a conversation where someone can actually assess or write an essay where somebody can actually read your thoughts that can express in a more accurate way what you know and what you don't know.

- That's so great. - It's important for us to know how to write transcripts, we cannot change that. But if we understand what a transcript actually is, then we can focus where we need to focus, which is on how to make a good movie or how rather how to educate my child so that they can know God and make him known, not so that they can get into a college, not so that they can make money down the road.

But like you said, I loved your response, right? Of, well, I really want my audience, the audience of my child's educational life to be God, right? - Yeah. - Fear God and none other. Do not fear man. Oh, and the thing, you know, the thing about fearing God is that it's like Aslan from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." That, is it the beaver that says-- - Yes.

- You remember, what did he say? I forget his line. - Is he scary? - It's like, he's good. - Oh, wild, I just remembered, is he wild? - Is he wild, yeah, yeah. - Or is he a tame lion and what is the beaver say? Do you remember?

- It's such a good, I don't want to misquote it. I'm like you, Rachel, I don't want to misquote it. - We're thinking out loud together 'cause I'm trying to remember too. So I think it went something like, is it a tame lion or a wild lion? He's like, is it a tame lion?

No, it's not a tame lion, but it's a good lion. - It's a good lion. - It's a good lion. - Yeah. - And that's the way that, I totally butchered that and you, "Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe." - I think it's not tame, he's not tame, but he's good.

He's not tame, but he's good. - And that is kind of how with God, like God is the all-powerful God. And he says, "Fear no one but me." But the beauty is that he's good. - Yeah. - He's good and he loves us. And when we are afraid of man, it can make us fear, think that God is not good, that I need to get approval and validation from man.

And really all that matters is, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. "You are my daughter and I love you." And when I know him and learn his voice and education helps me know him, it does help me to hear his voice and to see connections, to see the world around me and how it reflects the beauty and the goodness and the truth of who he is, right?

That's one aspect that helps open my mind to him. But if I'm focusing on that and he truly is my main audience, and as a parent, if that's who I want my main audience for it to be for my children, then we cannot alter how we educate our children simply because of a transcript.

- You're right. - And I am so thankful for you to just give us this opportunity today to have this conversation and to talk about the beauty of who God is and how the transcript fits into that story that you have. - This has been great. And I think a very valuable thinking exercise for all of us that really ought to always be the prerequisite for building a transcript for our children, because we get our thoughts in order, we get our heart straight, we get our priorities right, and then we look back and build the transcript.

The transcript doesn't drive the education. The education provides the script for the transcript. - Beautiful. - I love that. - I love that too. - I love that. - Well, I have to tell you, Lisa, this experience of doing this podcast with you has been so much fun. It's been my first time able to do a podcast, so much that it has inspired me to start my own podcast.

- Oh, tell us about it, 'cause you would be somebody that my listeners would love to know. - Yes, okay. Well, it's gonna be called the Worker Bee Podcast, adding honey to the hive, one podcast at a time. - Oh, I love that. - I'm like, it was really fun, came to me in prayer.

And the honey, it makes me think of a verse, Psalm 119, I think, 103, where it's like, "Taste and see that your words are honey," or like, "They are sweeter to me than honey." And I love hearing and talking about truth, about goodness, about beauty. And so it will be just a podcast where we can jump into lots of different conversations.

And of course, as a home educator and a teacher, there will be literary discussions and metaphor pictures. All of those will definitely come into play, but it's gonna just flow as God leads. So I'm excited, and I just wanted to say thank you for opening the door for me to be able to step into this world of podcasting, and we'll just get to go on a journey and play with it.

But I also want to be able to let you guys know that I will be featuring a free one-hour class. You can go to classicaltoolsforchange.com and be able to register for that free class. There is a limit of 30 people who can jump on. But if you liked today's conversation, it will be the same kind of conversation.

It will help the audience to walk on a journey of discovering what the transcript truly is. And I want to just bless you and your family, but it's an interactive conversation. So come ready to talk the way Lisa and I have been able to talk today. And then that is gonna be a lead-in to the next assessment class that I teach called Tools for Transcripts.

And that is where the first five hours are us learning and focusing on what assessment is, and how to assess classically, and how to assess what your students know. Because if you're like me, maybe you waited till your child was in the 10th or 11th grade, or even the 12th grade.

And you're like, how am I supposed to go back and figure out what they know and what they don't. - And remember all of this. - And so that's the kind of assessment we are gonna be focused on, is learning how to sit and converse with our student so that you can figure out what holes are there, or if they actually know a subject, how well do they know it?

And how do I then translate that onto a transcript? And we spend the last hour, hour and a half walking through actually how to craft a transcript. And I will go step by step, and then I can help you. Maybe you take that class and you're like, I still just need help.

I've had people, and I sit with you one by one. People have done it for me, and I want to do it for others where I can guide you. Who is my student? What have they done? How can we move forward in this process as a director? Needing to decide what do I want this to look like as God has put me as a steward over my children's education?

So join us. The next class I have for that is gonna be in February. You can get all the details on our website. And again, I just thank you, Lisa, for this opportunity. - Oh, this has been great. - It has been so fun. I really appreciate it. I have enjoyed it.

And I know that you have blessed us all by helping us perhaps turn assessment and the whole idea of transcript and judging our children's education. You've helped us turn that on its head and put it in a right perspective. And Rachel, I appreciate that. Listeners, you check the show notes.

It will remind you of those times for classes and other opportunities to hear from Rachel. Rachel, thank you so much. And listeners, I'll see you next week. Bye-bye. (gentle music) you you