(upbeat music) - Welcome friends to this episode of the "Everyday Educator" podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Bailey, and I'm excited to spend some time with you today as we encourage one another, learn together, and ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Whether you're just considering this homeschooling possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, I believe you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, although this online community is awesome, you'll find even closer support in a local CC community. So, go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well listeners, I'm happy to be back with you for this episode. We are gonna be talking mock trial. Mock trial is the capstone event of Challenge B.

And I remember as a young parent thinking, I know nothing about trials, mock or otherwise, and I don't know how to shepherd my student through this process. And I had tons of questions. And even as a Challenge B tutor, I wasn't sure that I knew what I needed to know in order to help my students get the most out of the experience.

So, we are gonna approach all of those questions and more with a good expert today. I have with me Emily Martin, and Emily is the academic advisor with CCMM. She helps directors and parents help their students get the very most out of everything Challenge B related. And Emily actually oversees Challenge A, B and 1.

So she knows where these B students are coming from, and she knows where they're going. So Emily, I appreciate you being with us to share your knowledge with all of us. - Well, thank you for having me today. - I think it's gonna be a fun conversation. Full disclosure, I love Challenge B.

I've taught other levels, but I keep coming back to the fact that I think I just must be an eighth grader at heart because I love Challenge B. And I will confess that mock trial was one of my favorite parts about Challenge B. So maybe I'm slightly prejudiced, but I think there's something for everybody to love.

Now, Emily, I happen to know that you also have tutored Challenge B for years. So you know what families are like when they first come into the program. What do they have the most questions about when they first come in and they're wondering what is it their students are gonna study this year?

What about Challenge B gets their radar pinging? - Yeah, I think the biggest thing that most parents are unfamiliar with when they go into B really is the logic, the formal logic, it's our reasoning strand. And because it can be a little intimidating if it's something you're unfamiliar with.

So I think that's the biggest thing that parents are questioning when they look at the B curriculum. - Yep, yep. - And I would say they are unfamiliar, but kind of excited about mock trial. - Yeah, it sounds like some, well, okay. It does sound like it might be more fun than formal logic.

I will admit that. - Yes. (both laughing) - And you're right. Even if they're not familiar with it, it sounds like something that they would like to explore along with their student. That's really true. Have you had many parents in the years that you've been tutoring B, have you had many parents that have mock trial experience?

- Other than the occasional attorney parent? No, I think very few have any experience with it. So I think most parents enjoy going through the process with their child. - I think you're right. This is really funny. I was part of a community that was very old. Like I joined in 2004 and that was their third year.

So this community had been at it for a while. And so I tutored for many years in a community that was very deep. And so I ended up with students and parents who had been through it with a sibling before. So a lot of times I had families that were familiar with mock trial even if the current student was kind of green.

So that makes a difference too. - It does, yeah. - So just for listeners that we have who maybe they don't have a child in Challenge B yet, they're just thinking what's gonna come next or what is this mock trial of which you speak? Describe the whole, 'cause it is a semester long course or project really.

Describe it for us just in simple terms that we non-lawyers can understand. - Sure, okay. So I'll go through the parts of it and then I'll delve into the details. - Okay, that's awesome. - So the first thing is the mock trial notebook. Everybody has access to the mock trial notebook.

They read through the case summary, like what is the case? - Right, okay. So that's where they get the story that they're playing with, right? - Right, and then they'll read through the evidence, they develop a strategy and then they tell the story. And that is the day of the mock trial.

So the mock trial notebook, it's the rules of the whole mock trial. We want all teams to go into it with the same rules and regulations, if you will, so that there are no surprises on the day of. So that if we have really an even playing field among the teams.

The mock trial also, it's the entire case. It's the evidence. Nobody should use anything outside of the mock trial notebook. - Okay, so they don't make up stuff that goes into there. Okay, got it, got it. - I mean, there might be the occasional, well, wait, what is this word?

I don't even know what this word means. And they might look it up, but that's okay. But as far as-- - They don't add evidence or add parts to the story that aren't provided for everybody. - Correct, yes. - Gotcha. - So one kid might have a parent who is a construction worker and they really know all the ins and outs of a crane.

But unfortunately, you can only use what's in the mock trial notebook. - Gotcha, gotcha. - Yeah. - Good reminder. - From there, they read the case summary. It's the facts of what happened on the day of the event in question during the trial. So they read all the background information about the case.

They learn the characters who was involved in the case. From there, they'll read the witness statements. They have, we have five witnesses and the students. They read the witness statements. They reread the witness statements. They summarize the witness statements. They rewrite the witness statements. - Yes, yeah. - They know these people in and out.

- Yes. - They will spend weeks reading the witness statements and really diving in. - Yeah. - That's the heart of the trial. - Yep. - And then they'll read through all the evidence and they put the pieces together and they figure out, oh, well, this guy keeps talking about the weather on the day.

And then you dig through the evidence. Oh, look, there's a weather report. Then they figure out why is this important? - Yes. - And then about a third of the way through the semester, the director or tutor assigns the students their roles. And depending on the size of the challenge B group that year, the students may play one role.

They may play two roles, but each team will have two to four attorneys. They'll have all their witnesses in the bailiff. And at that point, it's up to the students as a group to come up with how they'll question their witnesses, the strategy they're going to come up with.

- Wow. - They really learn their roles. They gather their costumes. And then that all leads up to the day of the mock trial where they will present it to a judge. - Wow. - And then the important part is on the day of that mock trial, aside from the judge and the administrator, they are not allowed to speak to any other adults.

- Wow. - It is up to them. - So they're really on their own, but they've practiced. They've prepared for a whole semester. - Exactly, yes. And so the role of the director at this point or the tutor is they oversee the discussion and the communication. And that's also the role of the parent at home is they have to be careful to not coach, not tell them what questions to ask, but they ask the questions to the student.

They say, "Oh, well, hey, they have a weather report "here in the evidence. "Why do you think that's important?" - "Where does that fit? "Where might that fit in?" - Yeah, there's this piece of garbage that they found that they stuck in this evidence folder. Why is that piece of trash important to the case?

So what do you think? So it's a lot of learning to ask your students the good questions and that will lead them to where they need to go. And they eventually, it starts off as a confusing process. But over time, they sort out these puzzle pieces and they create the bigger picture by the end.

And they really grasp it at the end and it's a really beautiful process to watch. - Oh, Emily, that sounds so encouraging. I'm gonna ask you this question that all of my parents, every year, I taught B for a long time, I got this question every year. Can eighth graders really do this?

Can they really do this? It seems, even just listening to you describe it so clearly and in such a simple way, I see why parents ask. How are eighth graders, how are our classical conversations? Eighth graders, these are 13 year olds, how are they prepared to do that? - They absolutely can do it.

And I think many of them, what I saw in my students was excitement and then fear in the headlights. - Yes, yes. - A little bit of anxiety. And then it all comes together and they learn, wait, we can do this. They learn to wrestle with the hard things.

- Yes, I love that. - And you have to remind them, hey, you've spent years in foundations working on your presentation skills. Remember all that formal logic we were doing through the reasoning strand and then challenge A, the analogies. You learn to think the complicated thoughts. The logic strand as they're working through their math and their algebra, they're moving variables around and figuring out how to work this formula, which is what they're doing in mock trial.

They're moving things around and laying it out. So their brain has already been working on these skills over time. - Oh, that's great. - And their brain knows how to transfer that information. And then the persuasive essays that they've been working on for the past year and a half.

They have learned how to formulate good arguments already. Just the format is different, but they absolutely can do it. - Yes, and also going on in the same semester, they're writing their own short story. So they have seen all the elements of a short story, the rising action and the hook and the character development and how to milk the suspense and how to tie all the ends together.

They can use those same kinds of skills in the story they create through testimony for the mock trial. Really it comes down to who tells the most compelling story. - Right. - And so that is really cool. I would have to agree with you. I had parents say every year, I think this is too much for these students.

I think this is just asking too much of them. But I agree with you. I see it come together and you're right. It does look like a bunch of buzzing bees at the beginning and they're just kind of bumbling around. But if they will listen to you as you lay out the process and if they will work the process and wrestle together, they create something that they and their parents could not possibly imagine that they could do with such grace.

I think that's really amazing. So what have you seen your students learn by participating? 'Cause you talked about that they are using and continuing to sharpen their skills of logical thinking and moving variables around. They are working on their persuasive speech skills. I love that you brought out they're learning to ask good questions 'cause parents and the tutors model the asking of good questions.

But the student mock trial is all about asking the best question to elicit the information you want to come out. What else? What did the students learn by participating in mock trial? Well, I think one thing that they really learn how to do and they've done it for years, but this is kind of in a different way is attend.

They have to attend to the information given to them. And so many details, right? There's so many details. And what is important to one person, another person may not find it to be important until they say, "No, this is important because in another student, I had no idea. I never thought of it that way." Oh, wow, I missed that, yeah.

It's like reading your Bible. You can read it 15 times and get something new every single time. Oh, what a good point. That's a great analogy, Emily. Yeah, so they really have to learn to attend to the detail, which is something they learned how to do way early on and when they're five years old, when they're studying a flower, they're attending, but this is a different way to attend to something.

They're also learning comparison. They're saying, "Wow, okay, well, this witness, he's saying this, but this witness is saying this. Okay, let's compare these." Yes. Yeah, so they're really looking at that comparison and the circumstances under which the event happened. So they're looking at their circumstances. And considering what's possible and what's not possible.

Exactly, yes. Yeah, and like, "Well, wait, well, this character is saying, well, something was happening here. This one's saying this was going on elsewhere. How did those relate to each other? What's the relationship between this guy and that guy?" And of course, testimony. You know, all the information and the facts.

Yeah, and then on the day, as they're preparing for the day of. So most of that happens beforehand, right? You know, in the weeks leading up to the big event. Right, what you do in class and what they do at home, right. Yeah, but about the week or two before, at that point, they're really working on the five canons of rhetoric.

So they're saying, "Okay, what do I already know about what happened?" Perhaps it's the attorney preparing their opening statement or the closing statement. Then they're inventing their speech. They're arranging it. They're putting things in order. Like, "Okay, maybe I should bring up this point first. And then I'm gonna talk about this aspect of the case." They're choosing their style, right?

They're working on their elocution and the delivery, the actual delivery. And all of them really go through those steps, whether they're a witness or an attorney. Absolutely. Because they have to, as the witnesses, they're playing the character. Like, "Okay, how am I gonna play this character? What style, what attitude is this person gonna have?

Yeah, should I cry? I don't know." Yes, yes. Oh my goodness, yeah. All of it adds up to the total experience, which adds to the persuasion of your team's story. Yes. And so really, I mean, the mock trial is a beautiful example of how all of the 15 skills come together for one capstone event.

Yeah. I find that to be really true. In the years that I did BE, I saw my students sharpen all of those skills, like you said, of attending and of arranging and of comparing and of delivering. All of those. And then there were new attitudes and other skills that I watched the students gain or sharpen that they were gonna be able to take forward.

You know, they have to learn to work as a team. Right. You know, a lot of the work that our students do, even they come to the community day and they wrestle with ideas, but then they go home and what they do at home is really what determines a good bit of their success.

But mock trial is very different. It is a team sport and there's not a... The assessment at the end is very much dependent on the team and how well people prepare and work together. So one of the things that I always found students learned was how to work together well, how to cooperate.

What are some other attitudes or skills or even experiences that you've watched your students have and create that they can take forward to upper challenges? Right, I think the working together as a team is most important. For most of these students, this is the biggest task or project they've had to do.

Yes, the most public facing one anyway. Yeah, and they're learning how to do this with other people. And this might be one of the first times they're really having to come together and collaborate on something big. So they are learning to work together and they're learning those communication skills.

They're learning humility, admit when, "Oh, you know what? "I was wrong about this. "You're right. "It says it right here in the mock trial notebook." - Yeah, or your way is better, yeah. - Yeah, they are having to set aside their own ideas and admit that somebody else's idea was better.

They're learning how to lay out the groundwork for a huge project. So they're learning time management skills. - That's great. - They might be learning administration skills, like organization, how to use a Google Docs sheet or something like that. - Oh, wow, true. - So they can share their information with one another via email whenever they're having...

So because, again, we're talking about 13 year olds, they don't have the control over their parents' calendar either. So they're still having to work together. So sometimes those can't always be face-to-face meetings. So a lot of students in today's technology, they'll meet over a video call. They'll share documents via email with one another so they can work on their project.

So they're learning so many other skills in doing this. But I think some of the biggest ones were the communication and the humility, really, is a big one because 13 year olds, they're dealing with a lot of growing up at this point in their lives. And so learning how to do these things gracefully is a big skill that they're learning.

- My daughter says that part of growing up is learning that it's not ready, fire, aim. It's ready, aim, fire. And so our 13 year olds sometimes speak before they think and they empty their gun before they really consider where should I be shooting? And so you're right. That is learning to communicate and work with humility and grace and offer mercy both to your teammates and to yourself.

Another thing that I think is absolutely huge that students gain by participating is a huge measure of confidence. - Yes. - They come in and this is a big task. I mean, this is, I've had judges for mock trial before. Like we would go and recruit real judges to be the judges in the trial and they would address the teams after the event was over and they would just be kind of looking at these kids.

I've had judges say, "Now, who coached your team?" "Well, this group of homeschool mommas did." And you know, "And how old are y'all?" "13." And they would just shake their head in wonderment and say, "There are law school students who have never done a mock trial like this before.

They are in law school and they've not done this." So the confidence that it inspires in our children that they can do a hard thing and with perseverance and teamwork do it well is huge. I mean, parents come to mock trial on the day of the real mock trial and they look and they have told me later, "I didn't recognize my son.

I didn't recognize my daughter. They became somebody else. I didn't know they had that in them." And the students don't know either until it comes out and then they know that they were able to do it. And that's great. It's a huge shot in the arm of confidence. - It is.

And it's so beautiful to see the confidence that comes through this whole process. There was the father of one of my students or is an attorney. And when she was working on her mock trial case, he said, "This is more in depth than what we did in mock trial here in law school." - It's so amazing.

It's just amazing. Our kids are used to working hard and producing excellent results. And so that's how they work. What do you think, Emily, what have you seen as the most challenging thing for students to learn in mock trial? So what's the hardest thing for them as they come into this and how can we as parents help with this?

- Yeah, so I think one of the biggest things, well, of course, you know, we said working together, so coaching them through the open communication and not get heated. - Right, don't get your feelings hurt. Don't demand your own way kind of thing. - Yep. But a practical thing I think is their organization.

There are a lot of moving pieces to mock trial. And so teaching your student how to organize their material I think is huge. - Yes. Even if you as a parent don't know the ins and outs of mock trial, you are a grownup and you probably have more, well, you have more ideas than your kid about good organizational methods.

That's really great. And that's- - Figuring out how to do it well is, yeah. - Yes. Because that will help your student be able to move more smoothly through the parts and always find what they're looking for. That's really good. - Exactly. So whatever method you find works for your students, some people it's color coding.

Like, okay, every witness has their own color. Or it's folders or index cards or a binder and it's tabs. Whatever works, figure out a system. Because again, they're referencing this material over and over and over again. - Yes. - So it might be, okay, I need to make five copies of this because every witness needs this particular, they relate to this particular document.

So I need to have it in every folder. Or making notes about line numbers. Those line numbers on the witness statements are immensely helpful. - They are, they are. That's really good. That's very, very good. I think sometimes scheduling is another thing. Helping your students. I don't know, A and B students tend to think that things take less time than they really do.

- Yes. - Especially when they involve other people or cooperation. 'Cause you can't just assume that everybody can meet when you can meet. And so I think that that's one thing that parents can easily step in and help with is arranging times and helping their student with realistic time management.

- Right. What do you think is the hardest part of mock trial for parents? And what is it that would help us if we could know or remember as parents what will help us shepherd our students? - So the biggest thing is to step back and not help. - That is hard.

- That is so hard. - That's hard. That is hard, especially if you get interested yourself. - Yes, because we see where it should go. Our brains are more developed. We have, you know, we're a little older. We can see the bigger picture. - We can see these big holes.

We see the big holes in the case or the thing that could be turned to our advantage, yeah. - Yes, and so you're biting your tongue trying not to tell your student, this is what you need to do. - Look there, look there. - So we have to ask the questions.

Okay, so you have that piece of evidence in front of you. Who might talk about this? - Right. - Who brought this up? And why do you think he mentioned this? So we have to ask the questions for them to connect those dots. And oh, that is so hard.

- It is. - And also you mentioned it a little while ago. The students have such a hard time seeing their schedule. They don't think it's gonna take as long. So making sure they're working on it every day. Hey, you know what? You really need to read these pages again because the mock trial notebook does not only discuss the ins and outs of the case, it tells you about courtroom procedure.

- Oh, that's great. - So it's those little details that the students have to read over and over again to say, oh, look. So we had a situation when we did mock trial where the student was supposed to say something, oh, I rest my case. And we as a whole just did not read over that page.

We did not attend to that page. And so the child on the other team was waiting for our attorney to say that. The judge was waiting for him to say that. Nobody knew. It was a little awkward. We finally got it. They finally figured it. And I, as a director, could not say in the middle of, hey, you need to say this.

- Say it, say it. - We were not allowed to talk. So it was a bit of a moment before he was like, no, well, we're not done. We have our cross-examined questions, but that's not what they were getting at. - Right. - Attend to the courtroom rules and regulations of the mock trial notebook.

Make sure your student reads those pages too, not just the case pages. - That's good. - And also as a parent, it is so important you volunteer your time, your home, resources to help these students come together to work on this project. If every parent would volunteer one day, it could happen where they can meet outside of their normal CC time, especially if you're teaming up with another community who might have community day on another day.

- Yeah. - And that's what we did. So it was a lot of Fridays that we spent coming together as two individual communities to come together to form one team. And so, you know, gracious, offer your time to pick up a few students and meet at a location or offer your home.

Snacks go a long way too. - Oh my goodness. - The kids love to eat. - Absolutely. At 13, they can eat a lot of snacks in two hours. - Yeah. - Yeah. That's good. That is really good. And the whole family can be involved in that kind of hospitality.

- Yeah. - You know, there are ways to involve your whole family in mock trial. You know, you could be a practice witness. You could read the script of being the practice witness and you could help ask questions or you could get your other students in your home to try to poke holes in the case or to have somebody read a statement and say what's not clear.

'Cause sometimes as the mock trial participant, you know what you mean by everything 'cause all that is in your head. But people who are hearing the trial, including the judge who will be at the trial, haven't rehearsed this and they don't have all the context. And that's part of what your students on the mock trial team have to provide.

They have to provide enough context for the story for it to make sense to somebody who's hearing it for the first time. - Right, and that's why those direct examination questions are so important. And we had to remind the students, it's the direct examination questions that tell the story.

- That's how the story gets out there. - Yes. - Absolutely. Why do teams do the trial twice? What is the value of that? - Yeah, so it's not a requirement to do it twice but it is incredibly helpful because the first, like a dress rehearsal, there are always hiccups and like how I wish I could have done this differently.

- Right. - So you get an opportunity to do it twice and it helps build their confidence. - It does and it gets their nervousness out. - Yes. - They discover that you don't turn into a toad and you don't die. And if you make a stumble, you just take a deep breath and go on and you get better.

Yeah, I think it's incredibly valuable to Emily to do it more than once 'cause you get the nerves out the first time. - Exactly. So if you live in an area where there are multiple challenge B communities, yeah, I recommend doing it twice or even a round robin works really well.

So you have three communities, they get a chance. So I'll go, make their rounds and everybody gets a chance to do it twice. So it is really helpful. And I think the students appreciate that second time around so they feel better. - They've worked so hard for so long.

- Yes, to this one objective, yeah. - And so it's like, yeah, practicing months and months and only get to do the dance one time. Well, no, let's do it a couple of times. - I know, they love it. And I will just say, I've had more challenge B students who come out of challenge B determined to be attorneys 'cause they ended up loving mock trial and some who actually kept that love and went on to be attorneys, but some who just really valued the skills that they gained and that they got to practice.

So you have done this for how many years? How many years have you done challenge B? - Well, I've only led challenge B one year, but I've become intimately familiar with challenge B through my role as an AA. - And supporting it for several years as well, yeah, yeah.

So between us, we probably have 10 years of experience with challenge B. For you, what has been the biggest revelation as you have helped with mock trial, as a tutor, as a parent, as an academic advisor, biggest revelations for you? - Yeah, our children can do the hard things and they can do them well.

- Yes, yes, absolutely. - And I think the beauty of the entire challenge B year is the theme of our young students can do the hard things. In the first half of the year, we read so much literature about these children working hard to support their families and to meet their goals.

So we read these books about 13, 14-year-old students working for years to earn the money to do something or having to actually support their family. They're doing things in these stories and one of them is a true story, Ralph Moody in "Little Britches." - Yes. - Their family was poor and he had to actually earn money to help their family survive.

And he was doing chores on their farm that our parents today, and I speak as a mother of a 13-year-old, we would never allow my child to do some of these things that they're being asked to do. And so I think we forget that in our modern society that God built these young teenagers to do hard things, whether it's physically or intellectually, they are so much more capable than what we think they are.

And so I think that's really important for us to keep in mind that meeting a hard spot, meeting a difficult spot in life is a good thing. It helps with growth. - Yes, yes, that's great. That is a great revelation. And that was definitely one of mine too, that they could do hard things.

But another revelation that I had was that our children, through activities like Community Day and the Mock Trial Project, our students learn to love their neighbors well. - Yes. - And particularly, I actually had both of my daughters in Challenge B as students also. So I have years worth of students that I adopted into my heart and two students that were born into my heart.

And there are some beautiful pictures of students learning to love one another, to bear one another's burdens. I saw students who would come alongside a classmate who was utterly wigged out by public speaking and did not, just really didn't know if they could do it. And I saw teammates come alongside that person and say, "This is gonna be okay, you can do this.

Here's what you, here's a trick I've used." Or, "When you're nervous, you can look at me." And I saw teammates push papers of notes of encouragement or next steps to a teammate when they got flustered during a trial. I saw them hold each other up and I saw them hold each other accountable.

I saw them say to one another, "You know what, you're not doing the work at home. You're not practicing, you're hurting our team. You need to step it up." They learned how to give mercy and grace and also to hold each other accountable for things. And that was a huge revelation to me that those students learn to love one another so well through this academic experience.

- Yeah, we had, on the day of our mock trial, one of our students got sick and she was one of our attorneys. And so we had one of our other students step up and had to take over her role literally the last minute. - Man, yeah. - But had they not all come together and work together as a whole group and had this other student not been prepared or shared her notes, it would have been done.

- That's right. - And so at the end, she eventually showed up, but she was only able to attend it. She was no longer able to participate by that point. But the other student went up to her and said, "Thank you so much because you prepared so much and we had this all available.

I was able to do it." So thank you so much. So yeah, it was just that coming together and the thanksgiving for one another. - Yeah. - And yeah, the encouragement. We had one student, and this is also a tip for parents. One of our students was profoundly dyslexic and just has a really difficult time reading lengthy passages and the print in the mock trial notebook is kind of small.

- Small. - And so the mother read through all the witness statements and he played one of our witnesses. She read through the witness statement and recorded it so he could listen to it over and over and over again. And so the students-- - Great idea. - Yeah, and I think it was one of the other students who suggested that to him, saying, "Hey, have your mom read it so you can listen to it." Just like, and listen to it over and over.

So I think it was one of the other students encouraged that. - And so it was, yeah, beautiful how all these ideas came together and they do learn all of that. And it's amazing. On the day of mock trial, I cried. It was just so beautiful. - Yes, yes, yes.

And you just think, wow, this is a beautiful picture of what comes of hard work. - Yes. - And you're so happy for the students. It's hard work to be so richly rewarded. - Right. - That's awesome. So mock trial is the capstone event. It's the crown jewel of Challenge B.

How is it the perfect integration of all the skills that our students practice during that Challenge B year? - Oh my goodness. It does encompass everything. - It does. - They are learning the parts of the local judicial system. And you don't realize it until your child is moving up into the Challenge years.

What they learn in mock trial directly correlates to what they will be doing in Challenge 1. - It does. - They read "To Kill a Mockingbird," which is about an entire court case. And so, and I asked my students in Challenge 1 this year, I said, "Had you not done mock trial, would you have a good understanding?" - Yeah.

- And they said, "Nope, it really helped." I'm like, "There you go." They also read "Born Again" by Charles Olson. Again, it is about a court case. And had they not learned the vocabulary of the parts of a trial, these books that they read in Challenge 1, just, they don't make as much sense.

- Right, right. The context is huge. - Yeah. And so they are learning, again, to name and attend to things in a way that they probably have never attended to anything before, memorizing those details. They have to tell the story of what happened on the day of this case, or the day of question of the accident in the mock trial.

- Right, right. - So they're learning the storytelling and expressing. They're learning about how events directly correlate to one another. And one person's testimony may not be another person's testimony. So they're digging for the truth. And so, yeah, they just, it all comes together just in one big, cohesive picture that, yeah, and they don't realize it until they can look back on it.

- Right, right. When they look back on it, they're amazed. - Yeah. And they're learning the persuasive arguments, which again, come back in Challenge 1, they are learning how to put together a good, solid argument. And some of the things that they learned in Challenge A, like the appeal to fear, the appeal to pity.

- Yeah. - They learn, they're putting these things together that they may not realize that they are doing until you point them out. Like, wow, remember when you were learning in Challenge A about these fallacies, and now let's twist those and put them to your advantage while you're putting together an argument.

- Yes. Well, that's what makes it the capstone event because it really does. It is a great synthesis of the skills that our students have been massaging up to that time. Thank you for helping us to see that, Emily. And thank you for answering so many questions that parents all over have about mock trial.

This has been really helpful and informative. I appreciate you. - Oh, I love it. I mean, and I have said this to so many people, they're probably tired of hearing me say it, but the amount of growth I think you see in a student during the Challenge B year, it makes me cry.

They learn so much work ethic during this year because they think so much of it goes back to our children can do the hard things. And hey, look at what these kids my age were doing 100 years ago. - Yeah. - I noticed a difference in my oldest when he went through.

I would say, "Hey, can you take out the trash?" And a typical 12, 13 year old boy might complain about it. By mid year, I would say, "Hey, can you please take out the trash?" "Yep, no problem." Because I think they are learning that, hey, you know what, people really were working hard, much harder than what I'm having to learn this year.

The amount of maturity that goes into, they just grow up so much in that Challenge B year. And it is really great to see. - It is a beautiful picture of what God does in our lives as he helps us to become who he wants us to be. This has been really great.

And parents, we have talked a lot. You've heard Emily talk a lot about the 15 skills and the skill of attending and the skill of memorizing and expression and invention and all of those skills. If you are looking to become a better everyday educator, familiar with all those tools, join other homeschool parents this summer for a 2025 Practicum event.

It's hosted by a local CC leader every summer. And this parent conference will give you an opportunity for fellowship with brand new and experienced homeschool parents, or even just parents who are thinking about homeschooling. You'll have the chance to gather and learn and practice the classical arts. At this year's Practicum, you can practice the 15 skills of learning, many of which Emily talked about.

This year, we're gonna begin using content from the brand new curriculum, the Math Map. And so you will get two good things, practice with the 15 skills and perhaps an introduction or a deeper dive into the Math Map curriculum, the brand new math, classical math curriculum, the classical conversations is rolling out.

You're gonna be surprised at how approachable that curriculum is. And you're gonna be able to discuss it with people at all stages of learning. So find out when your local Practicum meets and you can do that by visiting ccpracticum.com. That's ccpracticum.com. Hopefully, we will see you all at a local Practicum this summer.

But even better than that, I hope to see you all or listen to you all next week on The Everyday Educator. Thanks, Emily, I appreciate you being with us and I'll talk to you again. - Well, thank you for having me. (upbeat music) you