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 learn together and we ponder the delights and challenges that make homeschooling the adventure of a lifetime. Now, whether you are just considering this learning possibility or deep into the daily delight of family learning, we think you'll enjoy thinking along with us.

But don't forget, you'll find even closer fellowship in a local CC community. So go to classicalconversations.com and find a community near you today. Well, listeners, this is the first episode of Everyday Educator podcast, where you got to see us live and sort of in person. And we can sort of see each other in person.

We can see each other live. And so I hope that it does not distract me or you from the content and the conversation of our podcast. It's sort of jarring to look up and see myself talking to you. And it may throw me off when I begin to talk with my hands, as I usually do.

And I see that reflected back. And I hope it won't be disturbing for you. I have some awesome friends with me today. I've got Kelly. Wait, wave your hand, Kelly. And I have Delise with me. Delise, I'm so tickled to have you. You guys probably know Delise from the Blessings and Motherhood podcast.

And she is joining me today, along with Kelly, as we talk about what it means to become a lead learner. Now, I know that some of you are thinking, I'm sorry, I think you have gone from preaching and straight to meddling now. I thought you were supposed to be helping me educate my children.

I'm actually not interested in learning anything myself. No, I'm just kidding. Because I suspect that all of you, my faithful podcast friends, are already learning a lot alongside your kids. And I hope you have discovered it's a delightful journey. But we want to talk about what it means to intentionally become or continue to be a lead learner.

So I want to start by asking both you guys a question. I think I know the answer for both of you, but I don't know if all my listeners do. So Delise, I'm going to ask you first, would you say that you are a curious person? Yes, at times to a fault.

I am extremely inquisitive. It's been funny too, in my 30s, because at work now, it's very popular to take these personality tests. Oh, my word. Right. And all of my results always come out exactly the same. So my self-assessment this time was completely accurate. And I'm highly inquisitive. Usually it shows up somewhere on the discernment piece, but it's just because I have asked so many questions to get to know I know the answer to my questions.

And I'm not going to stop doing that. So yes, I would definitely say that I consider myself to be curious. I think, you know what, Delise? I actually think that that is the best skill for a podcast host to have. Somebody asked me one time, you've been doing these podcasts for a really long time.

Are you not like running out of things to talk about? I'm like, oh, no, I have an endless supply of questions to ask to anybody that I can convince to come on the show with me. Because I'm always curious about stuff. And sometimes I'm curious, like I know what I think, but I'm curious about what you think about something.

Or what do you know that I never dreamed of knowing that I can learn from you? So Kelly, let me pose the same question to you. Are you a curious person? Well, Lisa, as you've probably already surmised, Delise and I are cut from the same kind of cloth. I'm of the opinion that if the Lord wanted us to be bored, He wouldn't have made such an amazing world for us to live in.

Oh, that's cool. You know, we have so many things to explore. And I think it has been ingrained in me from the time I was a child, just to feel the reward of seeking out information. What I can remember as a child in Girl Scouts, that the dabbler badge, where you got to dip your finger in lots of different pots and puddings was my absolute favorite because I got to explore so many different topics.

So yes, as you probably guessed, I would consider myself a curious person too. Okay, this is maybe a delicate question and you may not enjoy this one as much. I also like to ask lots of questions and I am a dabbler in many things, but I have discovered about myself that I am sometimes fearful of new things, things that I don't know enough about to be good at.

And this is a fatal flaw. This is a flaw. Hopefully it's not fatal. This is a flaw for me. So I want to ask you guys, what do you like to try new things? And what's your reaction to learning something new? Are you enthusiastic? Are you a little timid?

Are you worried about being good at it like me? Are you always all in? What's your reaction to learning something new or to having to learn something new? If the newness is forced upon you, does that make a difference? Kelly, you are laughing. So I know you've got an answer.

Oh my. So many true confessions on this face-to-face podcast. I know, right? People have to see your face get red. I can't hide my expressions at all. I will say this. It is a virtue and a vice that I am innately a perfectionist. And when I think about trying new things, I am typically all or nothing, which I have found in my adult years, as Delisa has already alluded to, does not always serve me well because I've learned through homeschooling and through just my experience in classical education that learning is a process.

And I judge myself too harshly as to whether or not I've been successful in learning something because I think in my mind, I attach a deadline to success. Oh yeah, that's good. Well, you know, I feel like, oh, if I'm not, you know, the world's most foremost expert on baking sourdough bread in six months.

Three weeks after you. I'm throwing out the starter. No. And I really have tried to divorce myself from that type of thinking because it doesn't serve me well. First, it makes me feel terrible about my, you know, success or my perceived failure. Right. But also, it makes me intimidated to try new things and to approach new things with a spirit of genuine interest and inquiry.

So I'm trying to take that perfectionist in me and just tamer a little bit so that I can enjoy the learning process a little bit more. I love that. I think that we are innately more able to show grace to somebody else than we are to ourselves. And so, I mean, a lot of times I just think I need to serve myself a big old helping of grace when I have messed this up.

And I need to not be so focused on success that I don't enjoy the journey. You know, that can kill it. That can kill an exploration if you demand perfection really fast. Delise, what about you? Are you eager to try new things, whether it's your choice or not? I love this question so much.

And I love what you said, Kelly, because honestly, what trips me up is when I'm focused on learning it for the sake of performing. Oh, good, good description. Oh, to be honest, because am I eager to learn new things? Yes. I love trying new things. It lights me up.

I love anything new. I want a new food. I want all the new things. I tend to gravitate toward things that I feel I can succeed in. That you might be good at. Yeah, things that may show off my skills. But especially my first go-round, so I would say like elementary into high school, I really tripped over that performative aspect of, quote, learning.

And I don't even know that I would say I was learning. I would say I was regurgitating information because I understood how tests work, which is why testing is not the only way you should assess a person's understanding. And so I could make an A on any kind of test and not know anything about the subject because I understand how this question works.

And I know what you want to hear from me, whether it's fill in the blank, whether it's multiple choice, and so it really is about, it's more about understanding and enjoying the process of learning and what I'm internalizing. And it depends on the subject for me still, whether or not I'm running into it or using into it.

Yes. But I do like to learn new things. I think it, listeners, I encourage you to ask yourself this hard and uncomfortable question because what I discovered is that I was passing along a lot of my unfortunate attitudes about learning new things or trying new things to my kids.

And I believe that our children do not come out this way. They are free-spirited. They love to do, and the joy is in the doing, not in the perfecting. And they just want to go in there and be part of it all. And if we pass on that, I don't know if I'll be good at that, so I'm not eager to try it, then they will begin to incorporate that into how they learn.

So I think that we all need to take inventory before we pass on things that we would rather keep to ourselves or put to death. We do have to acknowledge that there are likely for all of us things that we are interested in learning and things that don't really interest us.

So do y'all have those things? Delise, what is something that you are not really interested in learning? Well, I'm interested in it now. Yes. But I remember proactively turning my brain off in this category before, and that would be history. I've learned that I actually love history, and I had no idea, because Lisa knows I couldn't help myself in her house.

There's so many antiques, and I love old things. I find them fascinating. I want to know about the story. I can make an educated guess about why that thing was the way it was because of what was happening in the world. I had no idea. That's history. So why did I turn my brain off in history class?

Yes. No idea. So that has been an area that I just have been very averse to learning, and I'm a little bit more curious because I just, I love the old stuff, so I must care about where it came from and why they made it. That is so cool.

I do want to say to everyone that I am not the old thing. She didn't know that she wanted to explore in my house, but my father-in-law passed on to us a World War I helmet and a microscope that he used as a medic in the war. And so it is fun when there are artifacts connected to it.

That's really interesting. Kelly, what is something that doesn't really interest you to learn? Okay. And we can just be honest, y'all. There are things that I am less interested in knowing about. I know that I probably should be interested in them, and maybe, Lord willing, one day I will be.

But right now, Kelly is not interested in learning what? Oh, my. Well, in the past, I would say, true confessions, it was mathematics. Oh, yes. Just in the same vein as what Delise was describing. I think it would be time for math, and my brain would just pull the little ceiling fan cord click.

Yes, like, okay, checking out now. Yes, exactly. And I will say this, homeschooling and not wanting to pass on my attitude about mathematics to my children is what shifted my perspective. Oh, good. That along with, I have to say, the math map and directing challenge has completely rehabilitated my viewpoint from what it was in the past, because there's so much to that subject.

I think I didn't know enough, because I intentionally isolated my brain from the content. Maybe you didn't want anybody else to know that you were not already good at it. I think so. I think I didn't want people to know I didn't love math. Yeah. Because I wanted them to think I was good at it.

And I think the thing that I've discovered is there were stories that surround mathematicians and why they wrote the types of problems and theorems that they did at certain points in history. And so I have learned that there is a fullness to the knowledge of that subject that I was completely not aware of.

And I think, similar to what Delise said, like, I knew how to take tests. And I thought, that was the measure of my success with knowledge. But now I'm learning. What I have learned is, that wasn't learning. That was just, like she said, regurgitating information for a purpose. But learning is something different entirely.

Yeah. So I think homeschooling and being exposed to the fact that, you know, we look at information through a different lens, because we serve a God who has made an incredible world. And to look at any part of His creation and not see Him reflected in it, if we look for His reflection, how can we not love the thing that we're studying because we love Him?

And so that has been my challenge with directing challenge classes, just to say, where do you see God in this thing that you may not find lovely, because we find Him lovely? And I think that's been a perspective shift, not only for me, but for the students who are in community with me, and hopefully my own children as well.

Yeah. That's a great perspective, Kelly. That is definitely one of the things that you can do when you need to learn something that you don't really want to learn, find the Lord in it. Find a new perspective. Delise, what were you going to say? Hearing you share, Kelly, has also reminded me that I often do not want to learn information for which I do not want to be held responsible.

Okay. That's good. Here we go. Why did you write the confessions episode? Yes, I know, right? I stepped on my own toes first, full disclosure. Good, good, because we're all getting hit out here. So my husband is phenomenal with cars, master technician. He's so great with cars. My dad is an electrical engineer.

He always was. Well, since being married, we're in our 10th year of marriage. My husband has told me, hey, I've noticed that there are a lot of women who don't know how to care for their cars. And if they lose their spouse or something happens to them, they're in a really tight spot.

I don't want this to be you. So he is constantly trying to teach me just the basics of car maintenance and things like that. And I know, and now that I'm hearing you share, and you said, you can be honest with that to myself, you know, what I'm proactively trying not to learn right now is about these cars.

Because I don't care. And I have all these people in my life who are great at it. And the truth is, the reason I don't want to learn those things is I don't want to be held responsible for my knowledge. Right. If I don't know, then I don't have to act on it.

But if I know, then I feel a deep conviction that I should, you know, take my car for the oil change, whether someone comes to me to ask or not, etc. So I think that may be another common stumbling block that may comfort a listener. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think one of the things that we can do, if you find that you need to learn something, physics, that you don't want to learn, because as the lead learner in your home, you've got to sit down with your student and learn it alongside of them.

What do you do when you have to learn something you don't want to learn? You can find somebody who does know it, who can inspire you to get better. You can do what Kelly said and find another perspective. Well, can I find God in this? You could go look for something.

You love stories, not physics so much. So let's find some stories about physics. Let's find some stories about scientists. Let's find the entry point. Keep looking for the entry point. And that, I think, is one of the habits of good learners. You guys, let's name some other habits. What do you, Kelly, what do you believe are a couple of the habits of good learners?

Such a good question. I like the word habits because habits are things that we practice. And that challenges my thinking about being a perfectionist because we're not habitually perfect at everything. Wouldn't it be great? Maybe it wouldn't be great. If you're perfect, you don't need to practice anymore. I think if I, you know, if I think about something that a learner continually practices, I think we've already alluded to this a little bit.

I think that a learner asks good questions. Good. And, you know, I think our common topics are really helpful when it comes to categorizing how we think about things. Okay. So remind people what the common topics are in case we've got a new listener who doesn't want to pause and go look that up.

Absolutely. I am fresh from community day. So they are right in the middle of my tongue. So the first would be definition, how we define terms. And they're not in any particular order. So please don't try to assign, you know, a mnemonic device or anything to them right now.

Then I would also say comparison. So looking at two things and examining those for similarities or differences. Okay, good. For instance, thinking about what is happening almost in concentric circles around a particular topic, thinking about, for instance, you know, if I'm thinking about today and community day and what happened in the class with the students that I was in, well, what was going on in community outside of our room?

What was going on in our area? What was going on in our state? What was happening in the United States where we are? That type of thing. Relationship. So considering things like cause and effect, what brought something into being, and then authority, what do other people who are perceived experts in the field or what do other texts that are respected about a subject have to say about that?

And I think thinking back over my past and some of the things that we've already said, I don't think I thought so circumspectly about the things that I would click, you know, my brain off of. I think if I had thought about mathematics in that way from the get-go, I think I would call myself more of a math, a natural mathematician instead of a practiced, habitual mathematician.

Yeah, there you go. There you go. There you go. Delise, what are some of the habits of good learners as you just think about what it means to be a good learner or you've watched somebody who you think of as a good learner? What are some of their habits?

Yeah, I love this question too. And Kelly, I will say you hit on a lot of the first ones that come to my mind. But one that you haven't said yet that I think is necessary for all of those things is humility. Just the part of it is the awe, like the reverence that you have for God.

But then also the humility to be willing to be bad at something in order to be good at something, as my mother would say. That is so good. Your mom is wise. She's a good one. And it's true. You know, if you're willing to start at the bottom, then you can learn.

And if you're also willing to acknowledge the fact that there's always more that you can learn, then you will continue to learn. And so I think that's a really good habit, whether you consider yourself an expert at something, whether you have, you know, a paper that says you're an expert at something or not.

We expect our doctors to continue to research. Yes. Everyone needs. Right. Please. I beg of you. Continue to learn. And so I think it's something, whether we say it out loud or not, that we need to apply. But also the ability to find joy in simple, repetitive tasks. Because a lot of the things that you're learning in the grammar stage, you just have to repeat it.

It's not even necessarily that you get to jump to the end. You just have to be okay with doing the motions. Like I think of practicing piano. When you're doing your skills, you have to make yourself slow down and just practice the muscle memory. And if you're willing to do that, then you can learn.

But if you're not willing to do that, you'll never actually make much progress. So those are a couple of things that come to mind in addition to the things that you shared. Yes. I love the asking good questions. I love the humility. I love just it's a habit of good learners to be curious.

To wonder, well, why or why not or what else? Those are good habits. And many of you have been to a classical conversation practicum. And you have heard about the 15 skills of learning and the habits of good learning. And Kelly and I have been working on a book.

I'll just kind of give you all a sneak peek. Coming up in the next year or so, there will be a new book called The Habits. And it's about the habits of good learning. Naming things, attending to things, memorizing things, being able to express what you're learning in different ways and finding joy in the stories of things and telling stories about your learning journey.

Those are all the habits of good learners. How do we, if we, if we say, okay, yep, I want to be a good learner. I'm willing to practice, like Delice said, I'm willing to be grammars. I need, I'm willing to practice the grammar. I'm willing to keep doing this.

I will actually, I actually enjoy it. And how do you develop the habits of good learning? And how do you keep practicing them, Kelly? I think, you know, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about the Nike slogan, just do it. It's famous for a reason. Right. I think having them in front of your eyes so that you're reminded until they become natural is a great first step.

And I can remember when my children were new challenge students, I would write the first letter of each of the five common topics on my hand with ink. Oh, there you go. I jog my memory as I'm sitting at the table and we're having conversations that I was thinking about those things.

Um, and there is a quote, I'm not sure if it's Aristotle, someone far older than me and probably wiser than me that said, we are what we repeatedly do. Oh, yes. I think if we want to become a learner, we have to consistently practice the habits of being one.

And sometimes that's not natural because maybe that's not the way that we were taught to learn things as the three of us are alluded to, you know, a little bit. Um, but maybe that's who we want to become. And I know as an adult, you know, I look at homeschooling as a reclamation of my own personal education as much as it is.

And a new education for my children. I am simultaneously unlearning behaviors and learning new behaviors. And I know looking at my children, the habits that I want to be ingrained in them. And so in essence, I am that reminder to them that we're constantly talking about those things in those ways to the point where now all three of my children who two of the three have graduated through challenge for my youngest is in challenge two.

They will have conversations with their friends and I will hear those same habits coming out in their mouths because they've heard it consistently from my mouth to their ears. So when I hear my daughter having a conversation with a friend and she says, now, wait a minute, you need to stop and define your terms.

Oh, it thrills me. Lovely. Because I know that it's become habitual for her. Right. What about you, Delise? What would you say? I'm curious. Oh, I love this conversation. Honestly, I would say to preserve the habit of play. So my brother is a challenge grad and we were both, you know, homeschooled through high school.

And so one of the things that we were encouraged to do was to ask a lot of questions. I'm sure you're not shocked. And so now that we're in our adulthood, we still do that. And sometimes we're playing with an item or an object or something that we're learning.

But sometimes it's our thoughts. Yes. And so what you just said about your daughter, define your terms. I mean, that sounds like a conversation my brother and I have about, well, what do you mean by this? And explain that. And what if you look at it from this angle?

Would that be the same? Right. So having that habit, nurturing that habit, I think is a really ripe opportunity for continuing to be a lifelong learner. And it is a way that you can develop and preserve your habit. And of course, my son is very young. And so I'm watching some of that unadulterated play.

And it reminds me, it reminds me, okay, wait, let's be curious about this. Let's stop and slow down. And sometimes I find better questions after I've played with an object. Oh, absolutely. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Rather than starting with a question saying, I wonder what would happen of this.

I just interact with the topic. And then I go back and say, okay, well, what did I observe? What did happen when the ball rolled this way? And why was it so hard to hit the baseball on this particular day? What shifted in the sun or the weather or something like that?

And so I find myself being much more curious if I nurture those questions or entertain my questions after I've just allowed myself to do what God created my body to do and interact with the subject. Yeah. And it is so natural. You don't have to teach little children to look and think and try things out.

I know Gideon has always been fascinated with this regulator clock. Gideon is my grandson. He's two and a half. We have this regulator clock that ticks in the family room. And he, we talked about the clock and why does it dong and what makes the pendulum swing. We talked about the hands on the clock go around.

We talk about they go around and they go around. And so after we had one of our clock conversations, we were reading a book and there was a windmill in it. And so talk about windmills, Lolly. What is that? Talk about windmills. And so we talked about the, the, that, that the windmill goes around and he looked at me and he said, like a clock, Lolly.

And so he is comparing this new thing that he's learning to this other thing that he learned about. And that's what we do. We compare it. So take this new thing and how is it like, or how is it not like this other thing? And we continue to explore.

I love that. But we have come today to talk about being not just learners, but lead learners. Okay. Lead learners. Delise, what's a lead learner? And what's the primary job of a lead learner? Going first. Everybody deserves to go first at least once or twice. Yeah, yeah. Being willing to go first.

There you go. When I think about the lead learner, I honestly think about a lady named Sherry Rivera who homeschooled her children alongside of me and my siblings. Okay. And she would always say when we showed up to co-op, here's what I learned this week. And I mean, she was learning with us.

There were a lot of things that my mother was remembering while she was homeschooling because I'm the third child, but she was homeschooling her first child with me. And so she was very much lead learning week to week. And it was so encouraging for us to hear her say that because we thought to ourselves, okay, well, she learned it this week.

We can learn it this week too. Right. Right. Well, and it's fresh in her mind what it was that it took for her to get it. Exactly. So, yeah, I really think of that as the primary job, just that willingness to come at a subject from a place of humility and see what you can glean.

You don't have to get it all. You just have to thrive. Right. Kelly, I see you nodding your head. Do you concur? I do concur. And I have a really great example because I said I'm fresh home from Community Day. So today I had the pleasure of subbing in Challenge 3 and we had a wonderful logic conversation.

Oh, my. We were talking about, which is ironic, right? Because I said I'm not a natural mathematician. I'm a habitual mathematician. You used to not be, but now you are. That's right. So we were talking about Pythagoras and we were talking about the Pythagorean theorem and triangles. And I was encouraging the class to play, which at least was right on the money.

Play is so crucial to being a good learner. We were playing with the idea of the proportions of the sides of a triangle. And there was one part of the conversation where my brain disengaged from what the students were saying. And I came back to the conversation just in time to not remember what the next step was I needed to do on the board.

And so I was standing there watching. And one of the students said, Mrs. Wilt, can I come up to the board? I think I know exactly where you were headed. Well, praise the Lord. I'm so welcome to that. And I told him, I said, you know what? I'm so glad.

Come up and show me what you're thinking. Because he wanted to play with the equation that we were using on the board. And I think a lead learner is a person who can say, I may not know the answer, but let's learn together. Let's discover together. I invite you in.

Just as Delice was describing Sherry. Like that person who invites you in to the act of learning without fear and with kindness and hospitality and sets the stage for, you know, taking in more information than what you even dreamed you could. Because not only have you learned, but you've cultivated a love for something.

And I think that might be a distinctive feature between gaining knowledge and really truly learning, being educated, that there is a heart love that accompanies that information that is a distinct difference. I want to pick up on one thing that you said, the humility to realize that, oh, I might actually not know all the things about this and potentially don't even know all the things I thought I knew about this as I am here standing in front of you now.

And that can be a little disconcerting, but if you are going to be a true lead learner, full disclosure, it's going to happen to you a lot and it's okay and it's not fatal. I can remember several years ago and I taught Challenge B, I tutored Challenge B for like eight years, but it's been a minute since I did that.

A couple of years ago, my daughter, who's Challenge B at the time, a Challenge B director, herself had to be out and she asked me to come and sub in her class. And I loved it because I missed my Challenge B kids. So I thought I'll probably love her kids too.

So I came and this one kid who deeply resonated with logic, and I luckily did love logic, but he asked me a question. That nobody had ever asked me before, and in all of my study, I had never, like, this was off book question. Like, it is not in the notes.

It is not in the study guide. It's nowhere. And I had never thought about it before, and I could feel myself turning red. And then I just thought, you know what? It is okay. And I said, I think we can figure this out. Let's just keep talking. I feel that if we keep talking about it, what are both of us is going to come upon this answer.

And so I said, okay, so let's think about all the things we know about this logical situation. Let's define all these terms. Let's think about this. And let's think about what is true in this situation and what is not true. And we figured it out together. We figured it out together.

And I thought, and he, because I was willing to say, I don't know, but I bet we can find out. We can figure it out together. He did not look at me like I was a grave disappointment to him. He did not tell my daughter later on, that substitute you sent us was pitiful.

He actually went home and told his mom, that was really fun. We figured something out together in class that none of us had ever thought of before. Okay. That is what a lead learner does. Learns in front of and alongside this other learners, the other students. To be a lead learner does not mean you know everything.

To be the lead learner means you are willing to learn in front of somebody else or alongside of somebody else and you're still eager to learn. That's what a lead learner. So I was going to ask y'all, how long does the job of lead learner ask? But that's such a softball question because it lasts forever.

You never get rid of that job. It's always going to be your job. I want y'all to think about this for a minute. A time when you had to learn or maybe relearn something, maybe in order to teach somebody else. I want you to tell us, so you haven't shared enough embarrassing things or, you know, today.

And so I'm giving you one more opportunity. Tell me about a time when you had to learn or relearn something in order to either encourage somebody else or teach somebody else something. Okay. Who wants to share first? Kelly, you look like you found something already. Oh, Lisa, you're making me hang out all my dirty laundry on this podcast.

But you know what? That we are just all laundresses. That's what here at Everyday Educator, we are all learning every day. And if you're not, that's the only time you're doing something wrong. Yes, that's right. That's right. So tell it. That's part of the humility that Delisa is describing is the ability to look at our life.

And the joy that we're not done. The joy that we can still learn things. Exactly. Because it's a process. Learning is a process. The thing that initially comes to mind, I am a musician. Okay. I have vivid memories of very rigorous piano teachers when I was very young. Wrapping your knuckles.

Wrapping my knuckles as I learned music theory and played scales. And basically learned the grammar of playing the piano, but not in a loving, gentle, self-assessing way and much more of a schoolmaster, schoolmistress kind of way. So I had really negative feelings about the study of music theory. I love to play, but just thinking about scales and fifths and intervals and, oh my, it just brought back all this negative, negative hooboo-dooboo from my childhood.

And when I became a challenge director, I had to relearn music theory. Oh, for math and motion. Yes. So that I can lead conversations through math and motion. And as we've already alluded to on this podcast, I did not want to transfer that negativity to the students who would be in my challenge class.

And so I sought to make that the most exciting strand that we had every week. And I would find some way to make it fun and engaging. I mean, I think at one point we had taken masking tape and we had made a piano keyboard on the floor. Yes, we did that.

We were slipping on the intervals. I mean, just completely outrageous, over-the-top things, but so much fun. And I think preparation for that, igniting that joy with students that were in that community class, just helped me to reclaim my love of something that initially I did not love. Because unfortunately, the love of that thing, the potential love or joy of that thing was kind of sucked out of my experience the first time around.

But now I've reclaimed that. And it was hilarious as the students were presenting their rhetorical assignment, their composition project, transposition project at the end of that particular semester. I had so many of them say, oh, this is, well, can we do this again next semester? And I'm going, well, goodness, I don't know.

I'll have to regroup. But it was wonderful to see their enthusiasm. Well, kudos to you for making something that could have been a Debbie Downer experience into something good. That's awesome. Delice, have you ever had an experience where you had to learn or relearn something in order to teach somebody else?

Yes. And I'm going to pull way back into yesterday. Yes. Good deal. So what can I talk about? So I, like you, have had to reclaim some areas of learning. Yeah. And I've just, I'm not, I shouldn't even say this sentence out loud because it may not be true in the future, I suppose.

But I don't consider myself a puzzle girl. Okay. I love big picture thinking. Yes. I do see the details very quickly, but I find it extremely exhausting and depleting to have to articulate those details because I can say, I don't want to talk about it. Right. Well, because of that, I don't think I've ever purchased my son a puzzle, to be honest with you.

The missing link of Leo's education. There you go. And so he spied this little Ninja Turtles puzzle and his whole life lit up and he said, please. And I didn't want to squash it for him and say, no, mommy hates puzzles. I'm not going to teach you to do that.

So I bought the puzzle thinking, you know, we'll go through it. I'll hand it to daddy. No problem. I know he's smart enough to do the puzzles. I understand the way the brain works. You don't need this puzzle in your life. So we ended up doing the puzzle yesterday because it rained.

And I had to really slow down because it's true what I just said, that I do see how those pieces work together. And so he was having the time of his life because it was very new, but I had to make myself practice the art of articulating how to attend because I understood this piece goes with this piece and these pieces are all in categories because of their similar colors.

And look at the big picture. Can you see how they match? Right. But he's funny. And so saying, oh, why don't you just connect these pieces together because all of these fit is not helpful to him. Right. But what was helpful was, oh, why don't we work on this section?

Can we find things that seem to be all, you know, the nunchucks? Yeah. And let's put these nunchucks together and then look at the piece that you know is part of the nunchucks. Yes. Why are those shapes going to connect? Twist it until you find that. And just that process of, number one, slowing down to be kind enough to say it, but also watching him learn and helping him to connect to why a puzzle makes sense in the way that he thinks.

It brought the joy back for me, Kelly. Yes. Just like what you're talking about. I was having the best time. So when he said, let's do it again and again, I wasn't as hesitant as I thought I would be. And in fact, I said, did you know we actually bought two puzzles?

Let's get the other one. Let's do the other one. How beautiful. That's an awesome testimony for lead learners. You may very well rekindle or kindle for the first time a joy that the Lord has hidden for you as a lead learner in your home. I think that that life happens not to us, but for us.

And so the struggles that we may have in parenting or learning are not things God has done to us. They are done for us so that we might more fully enjoy what he has for us in life. I have two more questions I really want to ask you guys.

One is, what part do you think, I'm going to ask Elise this first, and then I'm going to ask Kelly to answer the second part of this question. What part do you think community might play in becoming better lead learners? I love this question. I think, well, here's what I'll say.

I do not pretend to know the exhaustive answer to this question. Of course. I don't know that anybody does. So in my experience, community has been very comforting in learning because if I can learn alongside someone, I don't feel as isolated in my mistakes or my successes. You know, I'm one of those people, if I learn something, I have to show how I am.

Yep. And so there's that side. And then on the other side, if I'm struggling with something, even if we're just learning alongside one another, you're not the expert. I'm not going to for you to divulge all your knowledge. If you would just learn this with me, I find that I have more longevity.

So I really do think that community is essential for learning. I love that. I love that. You hit on all the good things. And we get encouragement from one another. We are inspired by other people learning alongside of us. And a lot of times we're equipped because somebody will get something that I don't get and I'll get something they don't get.

And as long as we hang together, we can probably finish the whole thing. And we can be enjoying it and we can celebrate together. That is awesome. So Kelly, here's what I want to ask you. If we now have all committed to becoming or continuing to be lead learners, and we really think that community has some part to play in it, what are some opportunities we have to learn in community?

Oh, that's a good question. Opportunities we have to learn in community. I think by being willing to serve one another, to serve in leadership, to be willing to, as a parent, to look at the opportunity to direct with those eyes, knowing that you don't have to be the expert.

My goodness. All you have to do is lead those students with a spirit of grace and humility and curiosity and love and model for them what that type of learning looks like. I think being in community surrounding the people who do step forward and lead and direct and tutor and creating an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement, I think also is a ministry to the people who are directing, because then they're not afraid to, I hesitate to even say the word fail.

They're also, they're also, they're also not afraid to fly. You know, I think that is the spirit of community where we come alongside one another and we're willing to say, I might not be able to do this thing. But as Delis said, let's do it together. There's power in together because that means that I'm going to support you and I'm going to help you to achieve your goal.

It takes away the pressure, the invisible burden of perfection, and it helps us to embrace who we are and who we're created to be. There's an article on the CC blog that I adore called Why a Lead Lerner Will Never Be a Fully Rendered Panda. And it's this beautiful title.

Yes. Our good friend Leslie Hubbard wrote that article several years ago. And she talks about how when you look at some how-to-draw books, how they'll have a circle and then three circles. And suddenly the next step is this panda that looks like it's just coming off the page of the National Geographic.

Right. You think, you look at that and think, well, I can't draw that. I can't. I have missed something here. Exactly. And I think part of being in community is the fact that we don't expect a fully rendered panda from the people who are serving around us, that there is a spirit of love and there's encouragement and humility, genuine humility to love one another well, to love the things that we're learning, and to find how God reflects himself in those things together.

Because the pursuit of that also brings together community. I mean, that's one of the things, you know, as we're classical and we're Christian and community, that's one of the delightful things of being a lead learner because we are not only pursuing knowledge, we're pursuing him and how to make him known in this world.

And what a great thing to rally together to accomplish. That's so well said. And I'm going to give you guys a suggestion about where you might practice your lead learner refining within community. But before I do that, I have one more question before our time runs out that I'm going to ask each of you.

We are all three self-proclaimed lead learners who are not giving up that, which is our day job, right? We are lead learners all the time. What is something that you either are currently learning or something that you are eager to learn in the next little while? All right. I'll tell you this.

Okay. And, you know, I sort of hesitate to broadcast this over the airwaves because you guys are probably going to ask me about it eventually. This summer, I want to learn how to can green beans. My husband grows the most delicious green beans in the garden. They are so excellent.

And we have them almost every night when they're in season because I don't want them to go to the waste. And I don't know how to can. But that is something I want to learn to do. And I am committed to doing it even if I fail first and succeed later.

Okay. So there's my thing. Delise, what about you? What are you currently learning? Or what would you like to be a lead learner about? Well, you can definitely pass all your canning tips over to me. Yes. Well, as soon as I have some tips, I'll pass them on. There you go.

And maybe green beans too. Yes. I love the green beans because I am a novice canner. I only can under the tutelage of my mother-in-law. Yes. Okay. Well, you may have to tutelage both of us. Here we go. Come on over. So in the process of gardening, I've learned that I wanted to have chickens and I need to learn to keep these chickens alive.

Again, everyone on the internet may come from me. I have a very lively rooster left and tomorrow I will receive more hens. But we live in a very challenging place to keep the chickens alive. And so it is something that now, not only I, but my husband, my parents, everyone is working on figuring out what is it going to take because it's not easy, but I'm determined to learn.

Not easy and not obvious. And yet we persevere. We persevere. Yes. Kelly, what is the thing that you either are learning or would like to learn as a lead learner? So good. Well, I am two years from approaching empty nest hood. So with my daughter finishing challenge two, our home is a little quieter.

Yes. And so I feel like I have a little more white space to think about things that unfortunately I had not made a priority in the past. And one of the things is my own health because, you know, I think sometimes as homeschoolers, we can burn the candle at both ends.

We feel like we have to do all the things and we take care of everybody's needs except for ours. And I think there's some guilt sometimes that we shoulder for that, that we don't need to shoulder because if we don't take care of ourselves, it's like being on an airplane.

If you don't put your mask on, you can't help everyone else around you. So I have dedicated myself to learning about nutrition and exercise so that I can reclaim my health. So I'm on a health journey right now. And I'm excited about what that means, not only for me, but for my daughter, because I want to model that well for her.

So in a sense, I'm being a lead learner to help her to really learn how to take good care of the body that God has given her, particularly before she might venture out into independent adulthood and be responsible for her own nutrition. So that's the thing that I'm learning right now is how to take care of this, this temple that God has given me.

That's great. You know what? Listeners, I hope that what you notice, and I just noticed this, none of us picked an academic subject. That's what I want you to know. A lead learner, that's why I said we have this job for life. You're a lead learner, not just until your child graduates from high school or even college, because they will send you their papers to prove.

You are a lead learner because God made you curious and because the Lord is trying to communicate with you through his word and his world. And so we are still learning things, hopefully forever, because Delisa and I were talking earlier, sometimes it seems that the people who stop learning, stop living.

And so we all want to keep learning. And it doesn't have to be an academic thing that you choose to learn. So listeners, I encourage you to pick something that you are going to learn even after the school year ends. Because you, my friends, are lead learners. And if you are looking for a community to practice your lead learning skills, I've got just the thing for you.

You need to go to parent practicum.com and you need to find a parent practicum in your area that you can attend with a bunch of friends. And friends are just people that you already know or people that you don't know yet that are going to become your friends. You can attend parent practicum this summer and you can practice the skills of learning along with friends new and old and you can practice these habits that will help you to excel in being a lead learner at home.

This summer, we are going to practice those skills on mathematics and it's not going to hurt and it's going to be full of joy and you are going to learn some skills that you can take with you as you go along your learning journey. So I hope to see you at one of those practicums, parent practicum.com and you can find the practicum in your area.

Okay. Ladies, this has been the best part of my day so far and I suspect that we will make it a great part of the day for lots of our listeners. Delise, Kelly, thank you so much for being real and being a lead learner with me. Thanks for letting us chat with you today.

Absolutely, Lisa. Thanks so much. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. Bye, guys. you Thank you.