Leigh & Robert Bortins - Why Parents Are Ditching Public Schools for Homeschooling | SRS #188

horse man is was the primary evangelist. for the public school system he wanted. to get rid of Christianity and he wanted. to get rid of individualism and. capitalism over the last 100 years of. State education parenting's kind of been. drummed out of us and in the UN since. the 1930s when it was got to be big. after the war has the same agenda as. Horus me because the UN wants this. voucher system to occur because they. knew with the shackles come the shackles.

Lee and Robert bordons welcome to the. show thanks for having us yeah Sean. thanks for having us it's uh I've been. looking forward to this for a while so. you know we were kind of talking off. camera just a little bit but I've been. really looking forward to this uh my. wife and I have little ones and uh it's. seems like every day we're trying to. decide what we're going to do with the. schooling are we going to do Public. School are we going to do private school. are we going to do home H school and I.

think both of us well I don't think I. know both of us lean way more towards. the homeschooling we have a lot of. friends uh that do homeschooling and. where we live here seems to be like. somewhat of a homeschool Mecca and um. and uh but it's also it's also kind of a. it's kind of a daunting task you know. it's it's maybe not it's intimidating. you know the it's intimidating to us the.

the time commitment the socialization. are we going to do it right um all those. kind of things and so so anyways we my. wife and I who's she never sits in on. interviews this is the first one ever uh. she sitting in on because we're so. interested in this so I just I just want. to say uh to both of you thank you for. coming and uh and like I said we've. really been looking forward to this. conversation so I appreciate it yeah. we're glad to be here and you brought up. the isues that people want us to address.

all the time so it's kind of universal. that over the last 100 years of State. education parenting's kind of been. drummed out of us and the confidence. that I can teach you Reading Writing. arithmetic H that it doesn't take an. expert to do it I mean just isn't there. anymore in our culture versus if you. look back say pre9 uh 20s parents. wouldn't have even sent a child onto a. school situation if they couldn't. already read right and Cipher as they. called it they knew that if you can.

teach them to uh read to um walk and. talk which are the hardest two things a. human being ever learns parents can. teach him pretty much anything else. after that wow wow interesting um I got. a I just I'm just curious you know I. think the thing that really got us. thinking about this was. before before we even had our. son uh 2020 Co head kids weren't in. schools kids were wearing masks in.

schools then this then you know certain. Outlets started talking about how you. know kids are falling behind on just. picking up on basic body language stuff. and and all of that and then on top of. that I mean I hate talking about it but. it's a thing you know the the the woke. curriculum the the the white privilege. stuff the lgbtq stuff like all this. stuff that's like what what what is this. doing in the public public school system.

and how does this better their future. and and uh and so we we've really taken. note of that and we've we've talked to a. lot of our friends that have kids in. both public and private school and I I. have to like say the only people that we. talk to that like are gung-ho about. their kids education are the people that. are taking the time to homeschool their.

kids and um so so I guess long wted. there but my question is have you seen a. rise in homeschooling since Co since. 2020 well first let's just say that uh. all that stuff that's in the public. schools is in there intentionally and. back Horus man who started the public. school system in the United States 200. years ago had a vision for all this but. he knew he couldn't introduce it into a. Christian Nation right away and so he. knew that he had to plant the seeds and.

and let it grow and so public school has. been wildly successful in the United. States based on what its uh framers had. hoped that it would accomplish so uh. preco numbers there's you know KN. knowing an exact number of homeschooler. is difficult but about 2 million. homeschoolers in the United States uh. preco you know during covid uh you know. 6 to 8 million where kind of the high. point of parents who are intentionally. educating their kids picking out.

curriculum you know not talking about. the kids who are doing public school at. home but intentionally homeschooling. their kids and then that's dropped down. to about 4 million you know 3 and a half. to 5 million based on some different. numbers that I've seen so it's. effectively almost doubled or maybe a. little bit more than that postco so uh. I've seen some research that says uh one. out of eight kids of the current. generation will be homeschooled uh at. least one year and so it's uh definitely. becoming an option that families are.

picking uh you know maybe they. homeschool an elementary school but send. their kids to a Catholic school for. middle school and public school for high. school so it's just going to be much. more uh ubiquitous uh when people are. going to be selecting their educational. options but obviously we we believe. homeschooling the whole way through high. school that parents can do it and and do. it well it seems like it's exploded and. just just to elaborate you know like. it's. just like like the white privilege stuff.

like like I think it's important to. learn about everything that happened. with slavery and the mistakes that we. made as a country and all of that kind. of stuff but I don't want my son or. daughter to feel guilty for being a. Caucasian straight male or a Caucasian. straight female and I've brought on all. kinds of people to talk about this and. and and wasn't necessarily the focus of. the interview but I brought on this guy.

Chris Beck uh who is the. first maybe the only I don't know but. the first transgender Navy SEAL and I. wanted to get inside of his mind and see. you know how does this like how does. this happen like I just wanted a. snapshot into his mind and throughout. that his conversation he talked about. love bombing you guess familiar with. this no so they basically like love bomb. you into the they basically just like.

fill you with love and d d like. everybody's looking for acceptance into. something and so they like they they. overdo it and. and that that's what they call it they. call love bombing and and into the into. that culture yeah and then if you if you. leave then it's like you're a pariah. exactly and um and he he he went on to. talk about like how that happens in. schools and and he he is he's.

transitioned back and so that it was a. fascinating conversation one of my uh. best interviews ever but but that all. these things are just like in my head. and then in man I could go off on. tangents all day but I mean kids these. days can't read you know that they're. their their math skills are shot their. reading shot they have no physical. education they don't know how to balance. a checkbook they have no Financial. skills they they don't they don't know. how to apply for a job they have no.

confidence I mean I see this like. through the youth everywhere I go I mean. I've brought it up several times you. know I go to I go to Home Depot or I go. any to. any Home Improvement Center department. store restaurant you know and I I I get. a limp wristed handshake I get a kid who. has zero confidence and is staring at. his shoes when I ask him where you know. where's the where's the door knob. section or you know what I mean and it's.

like they they don't know they don't. know how to act and I'm like man what. like I know a lot of that goes off on. parenting as well but I mean it's just a. it's atrocious out there well for five. generations our parents have been in all. went to public school right before the. 1920s hardly anybody did and so each. generation of parents bought into a. little bit more of what I call the the. box of Education that it's fun it's um. funded by distributed income it's. socialist in nature so of course Marxist.

ideology is what the content will be no. matter how much you try to put School. prayer or patriotism or anything else. into it because the Box itself the. public education is um uh Marxist and so. every generation we've accepted since. the first Universal socialist program. Public School we've accepted each. generation another form of Socialism so. whether it was socialized housing or. Johnson's Great Society or now. Healthcare old enough to remember when.

people paid their own doctor bills and. through had insurance and not Health. Care from the government so and then we. got to the point where now um parents. are like I I'm not in charge of their. education of their housing of their food. because we're on food stamps and that's. all subsidized by the government and so. now like I don't even know what gender. they're supposed to be I'm so confused. yeah and so you had Parents actually. saying because of the love bombing so. now I know what you're referring to I'll. love you no matter what you do and that. of course you know they that's the. Christian way of doing thing but they.

forget that even though God is love love. is in God and that there's four kinds of. love talking about talked about in the. scriptures so there just it's a lot of. confusion because each generation. accepted something the previous one. wouldn't have until now we're at the. point where you know we fought against. all this subsidization for the last 30. years and now they want to subsidize. homeschooling and we're like uh with the. shackles come the shackles we don't want. civil government uh in influencing our. children's Minds stay.

away um and people don't recognize that. that's what happened that every new plan. with dollars attached made it so a woman. like me a woman like your wife we don't. need our husbands anymore we have. full-time daycare and if we're worried. about our children being good citizens. the civil government will be sure to. control their minds yeah you know I mean. that's that's another thing I don't I. just don't see very many critical. thinkers out there are free thinkers. anymore everybody everybody's told How. to Think Through the media are told how. to think very obviously through the the.

the the the universities out there and. and now into like little kids I mean. even the patriotism I mean I don't have. kids in school yet but it seems like the. Pledge of Allegiance has been yanked out. I and I mean I I went to public school I. did one year of homeschooling it was the. fastest like I learned the fastest there. I excelled the fastest there in probably. a quarter of the time uh that I was in. public education that year I think it.

was sixth grade but I mean I I remember. going to school and like election day. was like a big day it was a big day. everybody's talking about it it wasn't. divisive it was like yeah we get out. that's what we do as Americans we get. out we vote for what we believe in and. and now like I just I mean I don't see. any of that stuff happening anymore and. As Americans we think that we're the. center of the universe and that like. these things have never happened any. anywhere else like again our public.

education system was implemented was. imported from Prussia now most people. probably don't even know what Prussia is. I don't Germany pre-World War I our. education was based on the same. education system that initiated World. War. I they had the same sexual Revolution. back then because they could see that. that would affect the children and stuff. but then they saw that it was destroying. their society and that's why part of the. reason why h killed the gays and those.

type of things because they had put this. sexual idea inside their kids so that. the state could control them but then. when they realized that you wouldn't be. able to keep your civilization going I. mean we have a birth rate problem here. in the United States once these Marxist. ideas get inside of our children's head. that uh that that wasn't going to be you. know worthwhile and so uh you know again. this is the sexual stuff you know is. really perverted now uh but it's nothing. new there's nothing new Under the Sun. the and they've done this before in. other countries and it's gone terribly.

AR and so that's why you know how were. they doing it back then I mean cuz these. these gender surgeries are relatively I. mean the past 10 years so how are they. how are they sexually perverting the. public schools back in World War I yeah. I mean not here in the United States but. in other countries they're doing the. same thing oh we need to have sex. education for sixth graders now it's. Fourth Graders now it's second graders. you know in Minnesota they just passed a. law where they want to teach third. graders how to implement they them. pronouns here in the United States today.

so it's the same same things that. they're doing here in the United States. the same arguments hey we need need. these kids to understand you know their. sexuality and things like that but the. kids' Minds aren't developed for that. and so they develop perverted mindsets. and they want to fit in or whatnot or be. different and so I mean these playbooks. that they've used in the US for the last. 20 years isn't something that they. hasn't been tried before it's not even. just genders now yeah I mean remember in. Cookville Cookville Tennessee I think it.

was Cookville they had somebody of. course from California go figure right. oh another one from California moving to. Tennessee for whatever the hell reason I. don't know you don't fit here if you. think like this but they they bring. their kid to school in a crate and call. it a furry call a furry I think it's. called a furry I can't remember what. it's called a furry they and piss. in a litter box and like all the all the. rest of the kids it's like like how is.

that how is that not A disruption cook. folk. said they didn't stand for it they were. like well we're going to sue the school. and they're like cool you came from. California you can go right the. back to California where you belong we. don't we don't have furries and public. schools here. but I get like so pissed. off critical race Theory ideas right if. you're a white sis male or white sis. female whatever you know a normal human. being right you don't have any sort of.

privilege and so you are automatically. an oppressor and so why you see this. number of you know just these. astronomical number of people being LGBT. identified is because they've been told. they're oppressors their entire public. school life and how do you if you're a. white male what's the only way to stop. becoming an oppressor by becoming a. white. female. interesting it's spring the sun's out. and it's time to feel comfortable every. time time you step out feel relaxed in.

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restore your title at no additional cost. your satisfaction is guaranteed and you. can cancel at any time get peace of mind. now at hometitlelock.com promo code SRS. or click the link in the. description the other thing is like all. this is kind of a new way of talking. about it something that's been around. the classical um books and education is. this idea that you can either teach your. children that they're a little better. than monkeys or a little lower than the.

angels and that changes a whole world. view of how children are raised and. taught and what's expected of them and. so Public Schools where is where. Darwinism and its both social and. scientific ideas was ushered in and made. a cultural norm and so if you have. children who think they're just little. better than animals eventually that's. how they act versus if you think your. children are just a little lower than. the Angels they know what to Aspire to. interesting.

interesting all right well I got a ton. of questions but let's uh let's get into. the interview so everybody starts with. an introduction here so Lee and Robert. Borton Lee and Robert Borton a motherson. team who've turned their passion for. Education into a global homeschooling. movement called classical conversations. Lee you are a wife a mother of four a. grandmother and an aerospace engineer. turned education Pioneer you are the. Visionary founder of classical.

conversations a homeschooling Juggernaut. that's empowered over. 125,000 students worldwide to learn. through a classical Christian lens you. started with a basement class of 11. teenage boys including Robert and turned. it into a community spanning 50 plus. countries Robert you're a husband father. of three an Industrial Engineer graduate. from Clemson who traded corporate life. at UPS to join join the family business.

you are now the CEO who took the Reigns. from your mother and grew this thing by. 300% since 2012 making it the world's. largest classical homeschooling. organization you are the host of. the refining rhetoric podcast you serve. on multiple boards engage in state. politics and you love rugby you're both. Fierce advocates for educational pre. Freedom pushing back against government. over reach while championing parents.

parents' rights to educate their kids. how they see fit most importantly the. families you serve are dedicated to. preserving the best of Western. Civilization while raising families that. know God and live to make him. know I'm sure I'm missing a lot there. but uh but uh we sound cool yeah you do. sound cool but uh yeah you guys I mean. obviously my producer Jeremy he's his.

kids are uh in the curriculum do you. call it a curriculum immunity immunity. immunity cuz it's not the children or. the curriculum that matter it's the. parents and the families together that. matter okay um but he's had phenomenal. things to say about the program and and. uh just a whole bunch of people we know. here in Tennessee uh are in the munity. so uh couple other things everybody gets. a gift oh thank you there you go.

thank you I wouldn't recommend giving. these to uh your homeschool kids CU. gummy. bears yeah high quality ones I've heard. from your other guests oh yeah oh yeah. wonderful thank you so much you're. welcome they will be enjoyed got lots of. grandbabies you have another son that's. a Green Beret correct yeah our youngest. yep very cool maybe we'll get him on the. show someday. too but um but uh so uh one last thing.

before we get into the interview I have. a I have a subscription account it's. turned into a community of people it's. uh it's called patreon and so the. patrons the community they've been here. since the beginning when when it was me. and my wife doing this thing in the. attic and we couldn't figure out how to. make any money doing this and uh they're. they are the reason that I get to be. here and that you guys get to be here. and that we got this studio and we're.

moving on to the next they're they're. just our top supporters and we've turned. it into one hell of a community and so. one of the things we do is we uh offer. them the. opportunity um to ask each and every. guest a question and so this is. from this is for Lee from Stephen. Casey we've used classical conversations. for all five of our children four have. graduated and one now is 17 is still in.

the program as classical conversations. grows as an organization how do you. ensure it stays true to its founding. principles of a god- centered classical. education and does not drift off course. that is a really good question and it's. really difficult both to do and to. answer so the way we go about it is we. vet as well as we can the leadership. team we hire um we work at the um at the. sea Suite level and Below to really. write good training curriculum not just.

curriculum for the children and we value. the face Toof face more than I think a. lot of companies do in this day and age. of online and digital technology so like. we have over 15,000 uh tutors using our. curriculum that requires us to have. almost 3,000 uh trainers and so we have. a whole structure where they TR where. you know each trainer takes only eight. people and helps them understand the. classical Christian model and then. filters down so is it going to get kind.

of watered down at the lower level yeah. it's going to but I don't own this. company or run this company in the. normal sense the holy spirit is our. guide and it's the Lord's business and I. trust him to fill in the gaps where our. families are struggling and we can't. actually reach them so a lot of prayer. and like even just being on the show. today Sean you don't know how many. people have text us saying they're. praying for you and for this to go well. um we raise our children so that they. can see the Unseen they know the world.

has Windows and that they pursue their. uh purpose rather than their weakness. and as you help parents see how to do. that it Cann not do anything but. naturally filter down helping their. families know God and make him known so. we're going to have a lot of failures um. we're human beings but the vision is. what we have to stick to and we have to. keep knowing who's in. charge very cool um I'm just so you have. did you say 15,000 tutors yeah when you.

just announced the numbers that's just. how many students we have this year. we've been doing this for 20 years we've. had over a million almost a million. students go through classical. conversations tutors are teachers. correct yeah yes so we have about one. tutor for every eight students you want. to explain the structure can you do that. yeah so we form communities so we'll. have a community leader we call. Community director and for each kind of. I'll call them grade levels for uh the. sake of our. conversation um they have a tutor and.

they get training from classical. conversations you know home office and. we have all sorts of online modules for. them as well as in-person training. opportunities for them and so they're. leading the parents and the students uh. once a week inside of community um so. you and uh for especially K through. sixth grade you know typically the mom. and the kid go together so there's eight. kids and you know eight moms uh with one. tutor and she's demonstrating uh how to. go through all six subjects on a weekly.

basis and since we have since homeschool. parents have to teach all subjects we. have one tutor that's teaching all the. subjects and we believe that's part of. the that classical model and so it's not. uh it's a really strong bond you know. the Bible says a bond of three is uh not. easily broken so you've got your family. you've got your tutor and you've got. classical conversations home office um. all backing up uh you and your education. Endeavor interesting so what what is the.

so if somebody has me that's a lot of. people 15,000 tutors uh we spend a lot. of time and money training people love. classical chrisan Ed so what if somebody. goes AR Ray what happens how how do how. does that come to your attention how. does how would app parent so we have a. leadership structure we've got the the. world and then the US in particular. structures in um groups of say 10 so we. have 10 uh Regional leaders who have. about 10 folks that are then State. leaders they're kind of divided by. uh a few million people and then they.

have all those local leaders that we've. been referring to and so the uh Regional. leaders are trained in quality control. and they know the classical model really. really well and so they're always. working with the folks that they license. to be tutors with us as well as parents. at these online as not online Live. Events and so they'll go huh that was. kind of funny what you just said let me. look into it more or wow you guys got it. you really understand what's going on.

and it's all that one to one face Toof. Face Time is what is the best that we. can do for that person who goes aide. because it does happen it does does. happen yes of course it does yeah yeah. all right and because we have such a big. Community Network if it goes really. sideways we typically can put them into. a local community nearby to finish off. that Academic Year I mean it's once or. twice a year something happens but when. you have you know 15,000 people that's a. pretty good track record yeah so. something that I like to share with the.

parents is if you're at all into Venture. Capital you know the first round funding. never gets you anywhere but there's no. second round funding where you have the. profit and the impact on society if you. don't have the first round so that's how. we look at a new community and classical. conversations it's a bunch of parents. you don't know what they're doing but. they're trying and you give them that. that funding from us and the funding. from the parents and we all as a group. um work together guess what happens the. next year starts to get good and the. next year gets even better but we have.

to start because the public school. system isn't going to ever do what we do. and the state is never going to we don't. want them to fund what we do because. that will inherently destroy what we do. so we just have to trust people to just. try the Lord trusted you guys with two. kids is he crazy so might be yeah right. and so you're so I'm saying I trust you. to work with other families who are who. have the same goals to work together and. figure this out and I know you can do it. because I know you believe in Freedom. and that that you want your children to.

be made for freedom and that's what's in. the heart of every person not slavery. and so we just have a totally different. world view of what the human is and what. they can accomplish in classical. conversations we don't want any child. ever excluded from any form of human. endeavor we want them to say I can do. that it's going to be hard but I can do. that okay okay well let's move into so. you've been married since 1983 you were. an aerospace engineer I mean that's.

that's amazing what what was it. that why did you give up that career to. start homeschooling what because I loved. him what about. Dad give a little more details yeah so. well that's that's the big I mean was. there so. um so I was when I was pregnant with. Robert A friend of mine we have a TV we. chose not to have TV back then a friend.

and I who were both pregnant were. walking through a shopping center and. there was some TV so we stopped and. watched some TV and Phil Donnie youu was. on and he had this very strange family. that homeschooled and that's what the. episode was about and we watched it for. 10 minutes and my friend looked at me. and goes I would never do that and I. looked at her and I said I'm pretty sure. I'm going to do that so my husband who's. 10 years older than I and also met in. the aerospace engineering department at. the University of Michigan that's where. we met and were married and finished our. education um I went home and I said to.

him could we homeschool I think I want. to homeschool our children and he looked. at me and he goes oh my gosh I am so. happy because you guys that are 10 years. younger than me are so dumb there's no. way I'm sending my kids to public. school so we just from the time I was. pregnant we just knew something wasn't. right and we weren't Christians at the. time but we wanted better academics and. we saw the destruction of the family. occurring cuz me being an aerospace. engineer you can imagine the pressure to. work and to not be at home with him and.

the expectations and we're like this is. destroying the family we're not going to. let that happen to ours how did you pick. up on that before you had kids I'm just. curious well I you saw the destruction. you said you saw the destruction of. families occur occurring so my husband. had amazing parents as did I and um they. were just really both astute politically. and culturally I can remember being. seven years old watching a cartoon on a. Saturday morning with my siblings and my. dad was in the room and for the first. time an advertisement came on directed.

at the children rather than the adults. and he stood up and just said to nobody. in general thanks for making my life so. much. harder like that's the background I come. from my parents were always paying. attention to what it meant to be a good. family good parents and to serve the. community you said you weren't a. Christian before mm how did that change. neither neither you nor your husband. were Christian no so I became a. Christian when our second son John was.

um 3 years old it was on his birthday so. that's why I remember it and then my. husband became one 13 years later so for. 13 years I had to be like Esther and see. him as the King on the crown on the King. on the throne and to keep my tongue bite. it don't say all the things you want to. say to him and learn to honor and. respect him in a way that um was. impossible In My Own Strength and one. morning he I got up early on a Sunday. and there he was in the living room in.

his suit I looked at him and I said what. are you doing in a suit he said very. angrily I'm going to church isn't that. what Christians. do so and I was like okay you're really. fighting this so I a few years later. when he really was committed I looked at. him and I said what was what happened. like how did you you know change your. mind and these boys were College age at. that point we have our four children. there's a gap of 15 years so the two old. were in college and we had two at home.

and he looked at me and he said cuz I. want to be like my boys cuz he and John. were very strong in their. faith so and this is what homeschooling. did for our family wow and so what. brought you to Christianity um so when I. stay when I left boing to stay home with. Robert and had John um it was kind of. the hounds of Heaven chasing me down we. were in Seattle which isn't known for. Christian you know culture and yet my. dentist was a Christian and was always. playing this Christian contemporary.

music our gas station played it our. grocery store played it and then this. lady behind me me named Joanie Isaac um. was homeschooling and knew I was. interested in it and she was a really. strong Christian and she kept inviting. me to church and I was like what is. going on so um I said to my husband can. I explore going to church and what that. means and he was like sure and if you. figure out what you want to do I'll do. it well he did it took a lot of time but. but anyway so me being the academic I am.

I was like okay well how am I going to. learn about Christianity without like. committing so I was like I know so I. called the Jehovah Witnesses because I. knew they sent out people and I called. the Mormons because I knew they sent out. people and then I started reading the. books Joanie gave me and I was just. pursuing anybody and anybody that would. just talk to me about being a Christian. and fortunately uh jany won and I did. give my life to Christ um and once again. because of my husband it's really. interesting just how couples are tied.

together when you don't even know how so. I had um uh just done a lot of exploring. seeking searching who was Joanie with. again Joanie Isaac was my neighbor just. a neighbor she was your neighbor and she. homeschools and she was in CC and you. didn't go with the Jehovah's Witness no. I went with went with the Protestants as. who yeah I went with but you know God. had me in his hands it didn't matter. right he knew what was going to happen. and how it was going to go so um. uh Joanie was really smart and she uh.

paid for me to go to a um kenam. conference on creationism and she also. paid for a friend's unbelieving husband. to go also so this man and I went on. their dime and um we enjoyed the. conference a whole lot and we left kind. of mad that even though we didn't. believe any of it that we' never heard. any of it that there was a whole another. body of science so that kind of opened. up um you know our minds to what it. could be so I was um uh reading a book.

from Josh McDow very famous evangelist. from the 70s and. 80s and in the book he brings up CS. Lewis's uh logical option about uh Jesus. that either is the Lord he's a lunatic. or he's a liar and we have to pick and. no one will believe me but I'll just. hear what I think is true the holy. spirit in the form of Jesus came into my. kitchen and a blinding light knocked me. down the book fell my husband looks over.

and said what happened and I said did. you see that and he said no but there. was obviously something just happened to. you well it was the most terrifying. thing in my life that that happened and. if you read through scripture whenever. an angel comes down it's fear not it is. scary so I didn't go to church for a. year I didn't read anything about. scriptures nothing I was like oh my gosh. I don't want that so on John's third. birthday we're climbing Mount St Helens.

no Mount reneer and we're at like that. 9,000 foot level at this lake called. Lake Eunice this is why I remember the. details and so um as we're having his. cupcakes and giving him little dinosaurs. cuz he's three and Robert's there Lake. Unice is frozen over but it was melting. and um there was fish and you know you. go through the national park system and. they talk about stocking fish and the. various resources that are in the area. well was super high and I looked at my.

husband and I said how did fish get in. this Lake cuz it was so high and he goes. very flippantly I don't know maybe God. put him there and walked away and at. that moment I knew that I was his. forever and whether he put those dang. fish there or not is irrelevant that he. put me on this Earth with a purpose and. it was to serve him and so she who has. sinned much is forgiven much and my. whole life sins is been to love him wow.

was it was it difficult raising your. oldest too is Christians when your. husband wasn't on board so Rob was. always very kind and accommodating he. just didn't believe. himself what about you growing up how is. that you have a mother that's a Believer. and a and a father that yeah thinks it's. BS yeah I mean my dad was kind I mean he. didn't really like Express that but you. know you know we were at Church Sunday. mornings Sunday night Wednesday night. you know if his church was open we were.

there and he wasn't um and you know. occasionally like praying for him and. things like that but he was always a a. good father and he a good man uh was a. good man and treated us well and so um I. mean I think you know as growing up you. probably don't take those things as. seriously as you do as your as an adult. or know know it as well um but uh yeah I. always knew he loved him and we were. always praying for him that he would. come to know Jesus would you ever would. you ever ask has grown up why he didn't.

believe I have not um my dad is a very. quiet man uh so doesn't doesn't share a. whole lot of those details but when he. does does share things it's very. insightful so maybe you're challenging. me should ask him ask him more questions. especially before he dies we need to ask. him yeah I'm just curious you know how. that would be but it's kind of you know. and I didn't know some of those things. but you know my wife was a public school. teacher for 10 years and I was the first.

homeschooler that she ever met um and of. course I was you know we were in our mid. 20s and so when we started getting. serious you know I said uh I wasn't. working for classical conversations yet. but was starting to inch that way I like. you know I was homeschooled I enjoyed. being homeschooled if this thing gets. any more serious like you need to have. you know in the back of your mind that. this is a Poss you know that I'm going. to homeschool my kids and if you're not. on board with that um then we probably. shouldn't you know keep dating yeah and.

she started laughing she said I would. never send my kids to these schools and. wow she said I mean she was a public. school teacher grew up in the public. school system um but yeah she had that. same she I didn't know what. homeschooling was until I met you and. yeah I'm on board so now we got three. kids ourselves yep wow so let's talk. about let's talk about the beginning. then the beginning of of your homeschool. Adventure yeah so um he was in hitting.

12 years old and like every other. homeschooling parent you get nervous. about those older grades and what you. can do and not do and the books on. classical education had just started. being released by Christians that were. doing classical education in schools and. some in homeschool and so my husband the. whole time I'd been homeschooling him. and John so the first 12 years he was. always supportive but he would say but. you're doing it wrong and I'd be like I. don't know what did you want me to do.

differently so then I started reading. this book on classical education and I. would read passages to him and he'd say. that's what I've been saying and you. know one day I remember looking at him. and going well not very well because I. didn't understand what you were talking. about and so I began to realize that. because he was old enough he'd actually. gone to a grammar school that's what. they used to be called I went to an. elementary school so there was that. divide between what's a classical. education and a modern education in our. relationship ship so I didn't know what. he was saying I didn't know what his. words meant so when I read these books.

on classical education I was like yes. okay I get it this is what I want too um. but when you're working with the older. children you need to have What's called. the dialectic and rhetorical experience. where there's lots of questioning and. lots of um presentations and. argumentation and various dispositions. and things like that critical thinking. critical thinking yes and so I looked at. him and I said okay this is going to be. hard to do all by myself with Robert and. on and you know you um and I had always.

run homeschool co-ops and homeschool. math classes and just various things so. we had looked around for a potentially. classical uh Christian School to send. them to and there just wasn't one um at. that time and so after we interviewed a. few head Masters uh Rob looked at me and. this very quiet shimy and looked at me. and said well you're just going to have. to have people in the house and start it. yourself right and so that's what we did. and that's when we had in 1997 11. families join us and it was boys and.

girls there was a mix not just boys at. that point so once again my husband. pushing me to look for a church pushing. me to homeschool better pushing me to. start classical conversations so it. really wasn't a surprise when he did. become a Christian and you knew it was. going to happen cuz he was helping all. of us get there interesting so when I. know we cover this a little at the. beginning but when when did. the when did did the public school. system really start going off the.

rails well which history do you want. because you know we have um you can. start back at the founding fathers where. there was very little public education. but some up in Massachusetts but when. they say public uh education what they. really mean was the church was the. church said hey you can use our building. uh we'll teach the Christian religion. and parents paid parents paid for all. public schools that were in existence. before the 19 1920s so they were called. Public Schools but the parents had to.

pay for them you mean paid directly not. through taxation right they PID they. hired the they might hire the teacher. through a board and all pay the salary. that way or they might every Friday give. her 12 bucks or $2 whatever the amount. was but there was no control um beyond. the parents until the 19 1980s I mean. 1880s is when it began to be more. prolific and Robert can tell you more. about the history of why that happened. um and then in the 1920s think about.

what we used to call it in the 1920s. almost every state had what's called. compulsory education because no parent. in their right mind would give their. children over to the government for. Education the civil government has no. rights over your child's mind that's. something the family and the church does. so they had to make it a law because if. because the only way to fund it was to. make it part of the general welfare and. make everybody be part of it so the. Catholics were very smart and that's. when they said look can we opt out we'll. pay the taxes but we don't want to be in.

it we want to have our parochial school. system which a lot of people are. familiar with that so they were smart. right from the beginning so from the. 1920s on um uh it became more and more. prevalent but remember in the 1920s it. was only through 8th grade and it wasn't. N9 months of the year it was mostly. three or four months of the year and it. wasn't all day long so it wasn't nearly. as influential on the family and even me. I never went to kindergarten they didn't. have kindergarten when I was a child it.

wasn't until my brother who was a little. bit younger came along that that was. something we had in our country so. people don't always know the history of. United States education and when they. talk about school choice it's like we've. always had lots of choices but every. time the government added another year. another month another grade another. service we've had less and less choices. and so the decline in education um has. been because Public Schools destroy. public. education so since the N before the.

1920s the United States had a proficient. literacy rate of. 90% now we have one of. 9% we have what 9% so let me describe. what my words mean that's definitions In. classical education so someone who's. proficiently literate can read multiple. resources hold their ideas and once. they've done finished reading all of. them synthesize them and analyze it. that's someone who's proficiently. literate only 9% of our population can.

do that now but 90% used to do it when. the only three resources they had in. their home was the Bible Shakespeare and. the local. newspaper Hillsdale College is offering. more than 40 free online courses that's. right more than 40 free online courses. learn about the works of CS Lewis the. stories in the Book of Genesis the. meeting of the US Constitution the rise. and fall of the Roman Republic or the.

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RS I mean a lot of people like to point. especially in Christians when you get. prayer back in school right and you hear. that but it's like well what set up the. system to remove prayer from school and. a lot of people don't know before prayer. was removed from school you actually had. to memorize the Christian catechisms to. graduate from like third or fourth grade. and so I said why stop at prayer why not. go back to the. catechisms um and so so oh again there's. plenty of History they've got the papers.

out there Alex Newman a buddy of mine. has done. cism uho vitim yeah I mean catechism. basically it's a series of questions. about the Bible and and uh the Christian. dog do dogma and Faith so what is the. chief end of man the chief end of man is. to glorify God and enjoy him forever so. every child every third grader had. memorize that answer and there's I don't. know how many there's like well there's.

over a hundred on the full catechisms. but I imagine they had to memorized by. 15 or 20 of those answers so I mean. literally I mean I mean the system was. designed from the beginning to get us. where we are today so it's I mean first. they implemented the system and then. they took over the teachers colleges and. so you can have who implemented the. system Heman is was the primary. evangelist for the public school system. and he was praising the the Russian.

system andian system Prussian system um. Germany AKA and worked with them got. them to implement it over there and then. brought it here into. Massachusetts uh started started there. and then peripher it throughout the. United States and again it was very. minimal to start but he saw that he. wanted to get rid of. Christianity and he wanted to get rid of. individual ISM and capitalism and he. knew that if we could have a a public.

education system a system based on. redistribution of wealth that it might. not be in his lifetime and not might. might not be in his child's lifetime but. eventually the United States uh would. bend its knee uh would would no longer. be would become a post-christian. uh Society right now only 3% of gen Z. has a Biblical World viiew less than 9%. of all Society has a Biblical world view. I mean so so his efforts took you know. almost 200 years to to to work but it.

worked and so it's but he knew from the. beginning that because Society was. Christian at the time that it wasn't. going to he he couldn't say what his end. goals were you know publicly but he WR. he wrote them down in different. documents so yeah there's lots in the UN. since the 1930s when it was got to be. big after the war has the same agenda as. Horus man so Back in 1970 in Milwaukee. Wisconsin were the first voucher. programs the UN and their cronies helped.

fund that and and when Milwaukee and. this um before the 70s before they had. the vure program had um the same. proficient literacy rate as everywhere. else across our country we're at like. 70% at that point and now you know they. it's just plummeted and that was. instituted by the Democrats not the. Republicans because the UN wants this. voucher system to occur because they. knew with the shackles come the. shackles and let me add one more thing. what you said so two things made it so. that cuz you said who's they like is.

there who's this they so two things. happened one the Civil War so after the. Civil War for the southern states to be. allowed back into the feder to the. Federation of the United States they had. to rewrite their constitutions to. include public education then when the. immigration crisis occurred in the 1880s. and there was all kinds of people who. couldn't speak English the Protestant. Church said hey let's get them to be. English-speaking Christians by making. them go to public school so it was a. whole bunch of days that made all this. happen now it's just a system inside of.

itself but see as as Christians uh we. believe that God actually established. three different forms of government and. so there's the family government that's. headed up by the husband there's the. church government and then there's the. civil government and then the Bible lays. out each of those things that they're. responsible for and the civil government. is basically responsible for justice and. uh to to promote not fund not require.

but to promote good and the only way to. do that is allow the family government. to do what it is does in the church. government and there's a verse in the. Bible that I think is Mis misunderstood. that we don't wager against flesh and. blood but we get wager wage war against. spiritual things but the spiritual war. is where does it say this in the Bible. about three governments oh no it's not. it's not like it's one. verse so you got to go through Moses is. in the law you've got to go through. Jesus and what he said about the law to.

the Pharisees and you have to look at. how the families describe the whole way. through all of it okay so a common. saying is that the family the church is. the family of. families okay yeah so the spiritual war. is what which unit is going to have the. most power um and so that's why so many. of these laws are uh you know the. spiritual warfare is they're trying to. create laws that destroy the family. right you saw the how welfare has. destroyed the black family uh over the. last you know 30 40 years uh so. ultimately our our spiritual Wars is the.

family unit actually has pretty much the. most power uh in God's in God's design. for Humanity uh the this the government. of the church is supposed to be there. for when the family unit gets off to. help the poor the widows people in bad. situations and the Civil government's. pretty much responsibility is to punish. bad guys and so when Any Human. Institution goes outside of its design. things tend to get really expensive and.

outcomes tend to get really bad so it's. bodies of influence basically yeah. family should have the most influence. Church Second M civil government third. so every time they overstep we have less. need for fathers mhm and so we find. ourselves now it's been for decades now. less than 50% of boys live with their. biological father that's not since Co or. since Dei it's been that way for a long. time really since the 80s so 40 years.

now wow so let's not repeat that you. know when people say to me well I can't. homeschool because you know I wasn't. educated very well and I don't think. feel like I can do that and so my. response is well don't send your kid to. the same system that's going to do that. to them too do something different the. definition of a fool is somebody who. just you know keeps repeating the same. thing same mistake over and over again. without getting different really um a. different result yeah that's it that's. it together we'll get the verse.

out I mean homeschooling we say redeems. two educations at once it redeems your. education as an adult and obviously the. child is getting a much more rigorous uh. education than they would have outside. of God's design for for children and. families and so you don't have to be an. expert you just got to be one page ahead. one minute ahead of your kid and one of. the best things that my mom taught me. growing up is I don't know let's go. figure it out and you know we drive to.

the library you know didn't have. Wikipedia back then or whatever right. drive to the library go look it up go. hey you know Mr Thompson at church you. know he does this for a living let's go. talk to him and and showing me how to. find out those things that she didn't. know and so it's a opportunity to uh be. humble but also to uh teach those skills. because I mean as you know you don't. know everything until you learn how to. ask good questions and so um yeah and. till uh you don't have to be an expert. at anything God trusts you with your.

kids and he designed it for you to raise. them and teach them uh the way they. should go where do you tell kids where. to go look things up I mean today with. the internet and and there's so many. false sources you can't trust can't. trust media I'm going to have friends. that. have warehouses full of Bibles because. they think that AI is going to. manipulate the Bible and and the word. and so where do you send you know. a kid who's in a homeschool program. doing a research project where did where.

do they find their information so we do. original Source documents and it's. really important to know the authority. of who wrote the document so we train. our children to ask questions about that. but we can't train our children to ask. questions if we as the parents don't. know the questions and what the. resources are also and that's why class. conversations focus is our parents. because parents need stuff real quick oh. yeah I know what that that is for as a. child may not have ever heard of certain. resources yeah so we think we don't read.

some woke professors interpretation of. the Federalist Papers we have our. students read The Federalist. Papers uh you know we don't want our. children to uh learn science we want. them to be scientists and so we try to. go back to you know and that's part of. the benefit of a classical education is. you're worth looking at what has stood. the test of time what has worked for. 2,000 years. like a lot of what's going on in the. public schools experiments that have.

never been tried before in human history. and we see what the results of that is. uh depression at an all-time high. reading levels at an all-time low. expense on education at all-time high. you know fatherless Homes at all-time. high so these modern experiences and. experiments that they're doing on our. kids and our families clearly isn't. working and so we say you know what is. the best book about philosophy that's. written in the past you know 3,000 years. what are the author that um influenced. our founding fathers or you know and not.

just people that we agree with even. people that we disagree with um that we. want uh people to be aware of and so. teaching them to don't believe the. media's perception of something go to. the original Source documents go to The. Experts so we're teaching them uh to be. resilient against the media's propaganda. which is one of the reasons they hate. homeschooling so. much are there any. efforts to end.

homeschooling in Illinois right now as. we're talking they're trying to for the. last 75 years every single new education. law that affected homeschooling made us. more free the state of Illinois for the. first time in uh 75 years and we'll see. if it passes or not is trying to add. restrictions to the homeschooling. experience are you kidding what. restrictions like making it so that you. have to file more paper paperwork as a. parent that you have to demonstrate you. know comp competencies in certain areas.

that you may even have to get. credentialed one day to be able to raise. your own kids stuff like that and where. does Illinois where does the Illinois. education where does it stack up well. I'll tell you what this States. competitiveness with States I'm just. curious where does where does illin St. like if if let's say I don't know what. Tennessee is let's say Tennessee is. number one where's where's Illinois let. me just tell you this Chicago has 40. schools where they spend over $20,000 a.

year per student where they have zero. students that can read at grade level or. zero students that can perform math. equations at grade level that's how they. are. performing wow and again Government. funding government managing. it absolute disaster for the family um. so so something people say like you know. I went to public school and I'm okay and. I'm like compared to what or I was. highly schooled and I'm really educated.

and I'm always like but compared to what. because where that came to hit me face. to face was when I was trying to when he. was 14 to teach him what the. Constitution said and we got the actual. Constitution and we read it and I read. two or three sentences in and I said I. don't know what I just said to you and. I'm a highly schooled person but I. wasn't Highly Educated I thought I was. so when I started looking at these or. these or organic documents from from our. founding fathers and the history of them. that they were written for the average. newspaper reader who had a you know so.

the average 12-year-old could read those. and understand the arguments of Madison. and you know the um Federalist the the. various names writing The Federalist. Papers and I as a 25 year or that as a. 40-year-old with all this education. couldn't read those same. documents that's in that same time. period where like we were looking at. what classical education is and starting. CC I was like this mama is not going to. be stupid anymore I am changing what.

we're doing and you asked about. homeschooling internationally in Germany. it's illegal to home school it's the. only law left on the books that Hitler. signed yeah in Sweden in 1992 they. started a revolutionary school choice. bill passed by conservatives now. Sweden's run by socialists and 19 years. later they outlawed homeschooling. because they told said why does a parent. need a homeschool and the state will. fund your education. so yes and it's all history is repeating. itself the immigration issue in Europe.

were countries that had really free. homeschooling laws they're starting to. suppress them they're saying no the. immigrants we can't trust them to teach. their children to be Patriots and it's. undermine our nationalism so they're. using that as the pretext to say then. all parents are going to do that they. have no nationalism right right right I. was just there it's it's in 10 years. it's a totally yeah the Crusade. our grand kids will be fighting The. Crusade it's crazy it's like they lost.

all their culture it's gone it's it is. insane so we want to recogniz so we. don't want to preserve the culture of. the 50s when there was still prayer in. school we want to preserve the culture. that that made Western Civilization. arise and be the great benefit it was to. the whole world so that means you know. if you're on if you're going the wrong. way down to wherever you're headed and. you realize it's wrong you got to go. back in and then go forward and so. that's what we're encouraging people to. do is to look at the great classical.

conversations of History where things. succeeded and let's go back and take the. best of that while we in wisdom. implement the newer things the. progressive things the timely things if. you're on a train that's moving down a. track and it's the wrong train moving to. the very back of it isn't going to get. you any closer to what you need to do. you got to get you got to jump off that. train get on a different one heading a. new Direction mhm no mhm so there are. efforts in. Illinois and then World interally huge.

Sweden the UK right now cuz they don't. want the Muslims being Muslims well. France is really bad right now France. too we yeah Virginia is trying to pass. laws that that what's going on there. that's irreversible they're just well. Virginia Democrats in Virginia are. trying to make it so that you can't each. State's different so in in the state of. Virginia to homeschool you can say that. you want to do it for a number of. different reasons academic health. reasons or religious reasons the.

Democrats in Virginia passed the law out. of their um. education conference uh to make it so. that you you are no longer allowed to. homeschool in the state of Virginia for. religious. reasons and for us that's the only. reason to educate anybody what is that. what does that even you have to have a. reason to homeschool your kids in some. states what does that mean what do you. have you basically fill out a paperwork. check a box fill it out send it to some. faceless bureaucrat I mean it's an.

automatically approval type process. right now but that doesn't mean it'll be. that way in the future we knew there. were people in the 9s that were getting. thrown in jail for homeschooling in the. United States there were people in the. 80s getting thrown in jail having their. children removed from them removed from. their household for homeschooling in the. United States this isn't a free doesn't. surprise me I mean in Washington they'll. take your kid if you don't give them the. gender surgery just like that we'll take. that we'll take your kid yeah so in the. 1980s when hslda home school legal.

defense Association was helping each of. the state home school orgs get developed. so that we could Lobby our Senators and. um Representatives so that we could have. freedom and. education um and the reason we we did. that is because we were tired of being. fined we were tired like early. homeschoolers we wouldn't let our kids. out of the house before 300 p.m. because. we knew our neighbors would tattle and. the TRU and officer would come and it's. the scariest thing for a woman woman to. be home by herself with three or four. kids behind the door and a lady in a.

suit and the police officer is next to. her and they're knocking at your door. that was a regular thing during that. time period and then the fines that came. around that and the children put in. foster care this is in the United States. when he was four five six years old not. that long ago wow so people so when. people when Wonder like Lee why are you. so against getting money from the. government it's because they don't. remember when we used to all get money. from the government how bad it was and. so we just said leave us out of it go do.

all the dumb stuff you want but leave us. alone and then by leaving us alone what. happened we got really strong and you. know any type you have a a business that. does well the government starts to say. oh we want to do that that looks good. and so our popularity has almost been. our worst enemy because now everybody. wants to have a classical Christian. education but they don't want to pay for. it they don't want put the work in and. so the government's making it possible. for everybody to do that but we'll give.

you $7,000 ahead for your kids so if you. have four kids what do you think about. the voucher program is isn't the santis. and Florida trying to like Implement. some type of a voucher prog very against. it you're very against it and he spends. a lot of time talking in these states so. you can explain some of the different. ones that up against um again this is. from just a perspective of three the. three governments the civil government. has no responsibility over the human. mind and so so we don't think the civil. government should pay for it and we. recognize as legislators you've got a.

hammer everything looks like a nail. basically the only thing they can do is. distribute money so we understand why. they're wanting to do it and we're glad. they want to get kids out of the public. school system but why is it a public. school system because the public is. paying for it with tax dollars so. they're not actually getting kids out of. the public school system they're. actually turning private schools and. homeschoolers into public school. students and every single state that. implements it their budgets go way up so. now they have to increase taxes which. makes it so fathers have to work harder. to be able to provide for their students.

and you know best case scenario you're. getting a temporary tax break but you're. going to be paying for that the rest of. your life like yeah you might be getting. some welfare checks from the government. for 12 years while your kid is uh you. know under the age of 18 but as soon as. they turn 19 you got to start paying. your taxes uh to cover those expenses. and so it's uh I wish it was the truth I. wish it would work but that's that's. what they did in Sweden they've got all. of Europe basically has some sort of. voucher system um their education is.

terrible so I got a question how how. much how much a year does classical. conversations cost per student on. average so kindergarten through third. grade you're looking probably around a. little bit less than $1,000 third. through sixth grade probably about. 1,500 and then uh 7th through 12th grade. you're looking at uh $1,500 to. $2,000 year not a month a year yeah. maybe a little more that wow so a lot.

less than I thought cuz I was going to. ask well what. about what about families that can't. afford that yeah what's my job to help. them afford it as a member of the church. it's my job to help the poor it's not. the government's job yeah is this civil. government helping the poor made the. poor less poor has it made their lives. better I'm not saying. that no so so I mean one of the things. we do at classical conversations is we. formed an ecosystem where you can. actually make money to homeschool it's. not a lot of money but if you tutor you.

can pretty much pay for one or two of. your kids to be in classical. conversations if you decide to uh run a. community and it's a successful. Community you can make $8 $10,000 a year. homeschooling through that and then. we've got salespeople and Leadership. that are making more than that so uh we. have single moms who's you know husbands. are you know not paying child support. that are doing classical conversations. and they're leadership you know going. through all sorts of things we've had. crack crackhead moms who you know Found.

Jesus and have a fourth grade education. and they come join a community and uh. you know one of the dads is paying for. their tuition to be there and the moms. are trying to teach her how to be a mom. cuz she never had it before so we just. want to be the hands and feet of God but. if the civil government takes over that. responsibility uh we know that the. situation is going to be dire for for. everybody yeah yeah now I do get it I. mean one of the plans me and my wife. came up with and we we brought a bunch.

not a bunch we don't have a lot of. friends we brought we brought the few. friends that we do have together uh that. have kids around our kids' Age and and. we had this idea where CU we like I said. we've been a little we've been. intimidated about the time commitment. and we thought it might be good to share. that time commitment with other. likeminded um friends of ours who we.

think share similar or the same values. and so. um we thought it would be a good idea. maybe if everybody put in an. investment into a pool of money and we. purchase a piece of property or rent a. piece of property but we we thought. purchase a piece of property because. that would be that would be a real. estate investment MH not opening a. school a real estate investment our kids. go to school there but we don't label it.

a school we don't we don't turn it into. some type of a educational business. because once I don't I don't want any. any involvement with any government I. don't want anybody I'm suing because. they can't put their kid there like. sorry your kid doesn't belong with we. don't we don't share the same values and. then I don't you go raise your kid. however the hell you want but not here. and so we thought it would be we would. do a real estate investment. that just happens to be a place where. education is is is is happening that's.

awesome and and and uh and then we would. all pull in hire hire a. teacher and then we bring in you know. each other's expertise you know. Financial. guy I'm a seal CIA guy podcaster media. nurses doctors and everybody kind of. brings their expertise and when we. really pour into our kids as a community. now you know and then at the end of.

it the the the real estate investment. gets sold and and all of the gains and. everything gets proportionally uh sent. back to to each individual family. brilant but you. know it never went anywhere I think my. wife or the we're actually excited about. it we call we call that a cottage school. where a few handful of family get. together and do something like that and. then what I call is a call toac school. because this was big in Co where five.

families get together and each family. takes one day of the week so you can. divide it by time or you can divide it. by income hire a single teacher or two. or three teachers and then add the. expertise like you said so what people. don't know is we have so much school. choice because of the homeschoolers. destroying the compulsory education laws. in all 50 states so anybody that wants. to start almost any kind of school. situation um can register as a home home. Schooler in their state and then. organize how you how you just described. or whatever works best for you so people.

don't understand that H schooling wasn't. just another option public school. private school bring it all home. homeschooling was people saying no we. want to be free we want to be able to. choose what's best for our families and. we want to be able to have what the. First Amendment says the right to. assemble the right for free speech why. do I have to ask the government for. permission to get together with to form. a school that's insane and yet people. just accept so but you saying you're. going to do a real estate thing. Bravo yeah the time commitment thing I.

think is something that people don't. understand if you're homeschooling so. for my like you know 10-year-old we're. spending maybe three 3 and a half 4. hours a day max educating her my. 8-year-old two 2 and 1/2 hours my. 5-year-old uh 4 and a half year old. maybe an hour a day so a lot of the educ. that's the formal education part there's. not really a lot of time I mean I think. other if you like got a lot of reading. or writing a paper or something like.

most homeschoolers typically spend about. 3 hours a day uh doing what you would. consider formal education and the rest. of it living life with their parents. which they're learning how to balance a. checkbook they're learning how to go. grocery shopping they're learning how to. fight with the insurance agent fight. with the insurance agent so many things. you know starting starting businesses. like so many homeschool moms are and. dads are entrepreneurs and so it's just. about living life together as a family. so there's really not a lot of you know. formal time commitment other than you.

know you've you're not you don't have. the government paying for someone to. babysit your kid uh while you go and do. stuff but I mean they could be. downstairs right now doing some coloring. books or talking to one of your. assistants about social media or. learning about cameras or something like. that and they' be getting a an amazing. education but you wouldn't get that type. of thing in public school so time. commitment is is really a limited part. of I mean and of course you can go 8.

hours a day but I mean I we' thought a. lot about this too and I mean I guess if. you cut all the out the. disruptions the lines the bathroom. breaks the recess the. lunches the insert whatever nonsense. that you have to deal with in public. school I mean just forming a line takes. probably five minutes you know and and. and all the other the disruptions the. the the disciplining like all that kind. of stuff I mean then it cuts down hours. and hours and hours worth of time the.

government did a study that I saw about. 10 or 12 years ago that showed in. average class period which I'm assuming. is about 55 minutes there's actually. only 8 minutes of instruction yeah. throughout the day the study is that. average child minutes per hour per hour. yes there's 26 minutes over the course. of a day at school of education going on. where was that study the federal. government did it about 12 years ago I. don't have it has stuff like that though. nhri is the national home education. Research Institute so they find out this.

sta for us but one of the things that. made a lot of um people eight minutes of. instruction per hour. yeah we let you say that was 12 years. ago so it's probably gotten better since. then. maybe now machine's doing it yeah so one. of the big moves towards um home. schooling in the early or late 80s was a. lot of um U teachers started home. educating kids because they were like. working all day with these kids and then. they'd go home and they'd spend because. they're good parents they'd spend two or.

three hours doing homework with them and. we would say to them why do you spend. two or three hours doing homework when. you can spend two or three hours and you. to be done and so they started to see. the exchange of time with their family. because they were already if they were. good parents putting that much time in. but then like one father of eight. children looked at me one day and said. look I am not having eight women at some. Public School tell me how to run my life. and my family if they're all in school. and we want to go on vacation or. something happens I have to go ask eight. ladies for permission to be the dad and.

make the decision for them he said I'm. not doing that so there's other. efficiencies that people aren't paying. attention to yeah you can go to Disney. World where there's no. lines yeah yeah well let's take a quick. break and uh we covered a lot there and. when we come back I I want to kind of. kind of dig into the actual experience. of kids K through 12 I I have a ton of. questions and and I just want to see. what the road map looks like so perfect. and also when we come back my wife Katie.

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okay so like if you how would it.

work CU as you're like you know talking. to Sean about all this stuff I have my. questions over there but I'm like how. would this work for a family that has to. have a dual income or like you mentioned. like single moms like how do how do how. do they do it you know what I mean like. right like you could be a stay-at-home. mom and I'm assuming your husband was. working we we we always both worked oh. okay that's the misnomer we've but not. full-time we've always had flexible.

schedules so when his schedule was. full-time not flexible I didn't work. very much at all and then whenever we. started CCE started to grow he quit and. I worked full-time and he. homeschooled and then as things kind of. leveled out we both had our hands in it. and that's what most people don't. understand is that almost every. homeschooling mom has to work at least. part-time because the economy has forced. that right and then when they are really. career-minded or have professional. degrees or things like that like we have. a lot of doctors that H school and what.

they'll do is they'll do clinics on the. weekend or they work second shift if. they're nurses like well there's a will. there's a way yeah it's just seeing that. way because there's you don't know a lot. of families doing it to see all the ways. to practice different things I mean you. have to be willing to get off the. consumerism hamster wheel that you know. I think they you work for a company you. don't like doing something you don't. want to buy stuff you don't need right. um and so but we're so used to that and. also you get you know you kind of have. this situation now in the United States. where people are having kids older and.

older in life and so they've gotten used. to a certain lifestyle and certain. things that aren't necessary to live the. good life but you know they have a house. that's too big and used to vacations. that are too extravagant and cars that. cost too much money and they don't want. to take a step back from a lifestyle. perspective and the government will pay. for their kids to get an education and. so they went through that same system. and even though that system's changed a. lot that's just what they know and so I. mean there is financial sacrifice but. what good things in life have we ever.

achieved without sacrifice and I mean I. think it creates kind of this like me. mentality uh that we see that's so you. know selfish orientation that we see in. our culture today uh because we're not. having the ability to you know really. make ourselves less to make other people. more and um I mean we're the wealthiest. country that this world has ever seen. like if if you're not for our children. if you're not home if you're not. homeless with like a mental issue you're. like in the top 1% that's ever walked.

this planet mhm and for the first you. know 80% of humanity they all. homeschooled their kids yeah uh so to. think that we've suddenly become so. wealthy that we can't afford to. homeschool our kids but a lot of it is. is lifestyle driven and you have to. decide do you want to um go on these. types of vacations and live this type of. lifestyle or do you want to live a. homeschooling family centered lifestyle. style and because the family's broken up. so much it's hard for people to to see. that difference and I mean obviously.

there's situations that make it more. difficult or life decisions that that. make it harder and that's when the. church is supposed to jump in or. community and like you know we have a. older gentleman at church you know him. and his wife didn't have any kids. there's a single mom and you know he. helps pay for those kids education. because he didn't have kids education. that he had to pay for himself and he. wants to make sure they have a Christian. education and so um when humans have the. opportunity to help humans uh we see.

good results but when the civil. government steps in uh it screws. everything up and so the problem is the. civil government has expanded so much. that most of us you know we're. conditioned the environment that we're. in and we know no better and so when. someone has been eating mud cakes than. their entire life and you offer them an. apple pie they say why would I ever want. to do that I got these free mud cakes. and you're like the apple pie is so good. you know but you can't you can't. describe it to them their taste buds. have been numbed by just the life that.

they've lived and so uh we're we're. trying to say you know throw away the. world's wisdom follow God's wisdom and. it's going to look like you're crazy um. but uh guess what it works out better. for you in the end because people can't. separate daycare as an issue from. education because they put it together. and I think that's like when people ask. that question they're trying to figure. out how do I logistically do this with. the expectations I have at this point so. Robert is trying to help people see the. change your expectations but meanwhile I.

call that like a Monday problem you. still going to wake up Monday and try to. figure out what in the world am I doing. and one of the places I think classical. conversations is helpful compared to. other like homeschool co-ops is all of. us are in that same boat and what you'll. find over time is that CC moms like I. got to work my husband's sick I get to. we help each other bring the kids to my. house I'll take them. today the sense of community within us. is so different than what most most. churches provide cuz we're looking out. for each other cuz we know we're doing. something so hard mhm this will be.

um relevant to the voucher question so. we have a friend Rachel uh who's in. Arizona she's one of our leaders and uh. one of her friends Who's In classical. conversations took the voucher now. Rachel has bazillion kids they giving up. like $56,000 a year in vouchers they're. not taking the money and uh her friend. uh who was I guess uh need she was. working part-time they were having. conversations she was trying to convince.

Rachel that what she was doing was a. good thing and she said Rachel remember. before I got the vouchers uh I had to. work part-time and when I had to go work. my aunt had to come and watch the kids. so I could go work two days a week uh to. make enough money for us to homeschool. but now I don't have to do that and. Rachel said let me make sure I. understand what you're saying he used to. work on you used to rely on your family. and hard work and now you rely on the. government wow right cuz it sounds like.

it's a good thing right because it's an. easy. thing nothing good is easy jeez like as. you guys were talking to Sean I like I. like I got emotional over there because. I just felt like this like holy spirit. in here and then on the break like. everyone downstairs felt it too and it. was just like so bizarre but it's really. it's the it's like it's a lifestyle it's. bringing it back to God and his way of. life and just like and taking a village.

and relying on other people and it it. we're trying to be the body of Christ we. are trying to be the body of Christ not. enslaved to another non-believing. organization right and Christians just. still can't grasp that somehow I mean. when we're one of the things like when. you become a Christian there's no such. thing as being a part-time Christian. like you're you're in fulltime right and. so one of the things that Christ told us. is now we're ambassadors to heaven we. are ambassadors to Christ we're brothers. and sisters in Christ and so when you're.

an ambassador to some other country. right the other country doesn't pay your. bills right you're relying on the the. country that you came from the King that. you serve right and when you're there. you don't adopt their laws you adopt the. laws of the king that you serve and so I. mean we have very few people that are. ambassadors you know right so you don't. necessarily know those things about how. a US ambassador in Germany's treated or. how a German ambassador here is treated. right and whose laws you affirm and you.

don't rely on the government that you're. going to visit or being an ambassador to. do to take care of you and so if if our. father in Heaven has cattle on a. thousand hills why would we want the. crumbs from the enemy's. table right yeah that's how we see it. how we see it yeah it's so true but. Monday shows up. right and it's hard we got the Flesh and. we're Sinners and we live in America and. we make bad decisions we sell farm right.

but it's that it's that cycle it's that. keeping up with like the whole Joneses. type thing and yeah consuming things and. wanting those great vacations and at. what cost though yeah one of the things. like homeschooling gives you 16,000. hours back with your kids wow how can. you afford no one can how much would you. pay to get 16,000 hours with your with. your family or someone that you love. right yeah there's no that there's no. money no money in the world right I mean.

howow who who's who who lies on their. deathbed and says I wish I had spent. more time in the corporate office oh I. know I always say that I know that's I. always say spent too much time with my. kids I just wish I had been there with. my work husband you know I always say. that to Sean I'm like you're never going. to look back on your life like on your. death bed and be like God I wish I could. just check Instagram one more time you. know like things like that like come on. let's be real you know but so what are. your other questions that was longed so.

yeah so that basically so that was. really my thing like how do people do. this you know what I mean so you. answered that you know perfectly um but. my other one is I've heard a lot about. classical conversations and classical. education and I've heard you mentioned. it both up here too so what is the. difference between classical. conversations and classical educ a. because I also know there's like a. classical school here in Franklin and I. think it was like founded by one of the.

founding fathers of classical. education probably probably George Grant. or something did that one yeah so. classical education is what all of us. are about that's like the ideology of. Education okay but we all go about doing. it a little differently and so classical. conversations is just one organization. helping people with classical. education okay and so our model is to. not chase the children which what. schools do our model is to support the. parents we have a different consumer. mindset than a school would have um and.

then there's other co-ops who have like. so we're super structured there's other. co-ops who are like they're doing a good. job but you never know next semester. who's teaching or what it will offer so. the consistency isn't as strong and. we're not against those we think parents. should do what they want to do so what. classical conversations model is we um. uh assure you that if you pick up and. move to Italy next year you can join. that CC community and all your. curriculum is going to work got it we're. very the military loves our curriculum.

because it's whether you're in mosan. Beek or Michigan or Tennessee that if. it's week five of the semester you're. doing the exact same thing all around. the world and so we get you know college. we have history songs that we teach the. kindergarteners through sixth grade and. um they memorize those and so you know. we hear stories all the time about you. know they're at some college and some. history professor says something that. triggers some kid's mind you know that. song that he said and he starts humming.

it and then his neighbor looks at him. goes did you go to classical. conversations too and so been we hear it. a lot that story that's really cool. because a lot of um we got really big um. later and like so if you're in college. now you may not have gone through CC the. whole way but your little siblings are. and she they'll go my brother won't stop. singing that song you know I've heard it. before so this is kind of fun that's. neat that's so does that answer your. question so I was hoping with Sean we. can go through exactly what cc is and.

our differentiation yeah other programs. and I think you guys are going to take. him through um like right now starting. our son basically like at what age and. what to expect that type thing but it's. really hard in a firsttime conversation. because people still have they still. have school in their mind and they try. to fit what we say into school and it. doesn't work but it's the best you can. do because it's all you know so we're. hoping that we can go slowly through. that I make the analogy that like if I. was going to go learn cricket and they.

have a batter well I would bring. baseball and I would have the hardest. time figuring out the the batter rules. so I could say no this is a different. Paradigm the batter doesn't do the same. thing except hold a stick right so. that's the place we find ourselves with. classical. education that makes perfect sense yeah. cuz it is I keep thinking back to school. you know and and you have to the Lord. made it that way that's your grammar. that's what you know mhm and it just. takes time to break that for something. new so it's kind of like if you've.

always done a certain um a knitting. stitch as a left-hander because that's. what your grandma taught you and then. you try to go do it. right-handed it's hard I don't want to. do it so anyway what do you think the. biggest struggle for parents in the. community. is in in our your. yeah I don't know I say parents in. general the biggest problem is uh they. all have Wizard of Oz syndrome what do.

you mean by that so in The Wizard of Oz. you had a lion that you know needed. courage and a tin man that needed a. heart and the straw man that needed a. brain and at the end of the movie at. least um they find out they had it all. at the same time and so the wizard right. okay because of our accreditation system. and our expertise system that we've. established here in the United States. that has corrupted everything that is. touched um we have you know parents who.

have everything right inside of them. that they need and uh can rely on other. parents and grandparents and other other. people that have you know a year or two. ahead of them to give them advice and. they don't need any of those. accreditation ideas um but we have a lot. my wife was obviously a public school. teacher for 10 years and the first year. she was homeschooling you know our kids. formally you know she like spent all. summer preparing all the documents and.

papers and the worksheets and all that. stuff and I knew that if I had said. anything that it was not going to be. received by her so I let her do all that. and then about middle of October she. just threw it all away she said why'd. you let me do all that. and it's not that's what she knew and I. was like I couldn't I couldn't have told. you know if I had told you that all that. was a waste of time you would have not. not listen to me but like a lot of times. cuz there is a lot of public school. teachers or private school teachers at.

home school with our program like they. basically say the first year or two of. homeschooling they're just trying to. unlearn to be deprogrammed from. everything that the teachers colleges. have taught them um I think it was my. wife's second or third year. homeschooling our kid she goes I went to. school for four years I went to I got a. master's degree I taught for 10 years. and not once did they teach me how to. pass on knowledge to the Next. Generation that's a really good point.

wow because I mean you got to manage a. classroom with 30 people right and. that's not. natural 30 children 30 children it's not. natural I mean in business the the goal. is one manager for seven or eight. employees and those people are trained. and paid every two weeks to be there. right Jesus had his disciples that was. and one of them betrayed him and uh we. expect our Public School teachers to. teach 30 kids that's a really good. point which is why we're not we're for.

public education but we're against. public school because the very. industrial model of it breaks everything. that's natural about children and people. don't think about children the way we. used to because there aren't very many. of them. anymore right man so yeah this has just. been like mind-blowing to hear at all so. for me for classical conversations the. parents who we have parents who' have. been in the program 20 years or more. because they've had so many kids uh and.

our average is getting you know Higher. and Higher and um about six seven years. in they start to say I thought I was. here for my kids turned out I was here. for me I needed the women of the body of. Christ to learn to love on me and to. teach me to be more like him but that's. amazing we can't love that yeah but you. know but people want to hear about the. education and like of who. right it's the parents that need. educated because we have been short. changed and I that was one of the things.

that surprised me too when we first met. downstairs and you were like right away. you were like it's all about the parents. and you know giving knowledge to the. parents in the community that way I was. under the assumption you're going to. come in and be like do this with your. kid and do this with your and like make. it all about the kids but it's not it's. it's about the parents which makes total. sense you know and I mean I'm a. stay-at-home mom for our kids. and our 3-year-old he um he. memorized how to spell our last name how.

like our phone my phone number because. I'm like I must be on the phone with a. lot of receptionists because I'm always. repeating these things and he says it. exactly the way I say it to a. receptionist so I'm just like oh my gosh. but it's like what you said about you. know fighting insurance companies or. whatever like they're picking up on all. of those things you know so and the hard. thing is real life experiences yeah but. I'm like it's great he knows like our.

last name and phone number but as he. gets older he will do something very. sinful and you'll go oh my God he. learned that from me oh the mirrors both. ways oh gosh yeah yeah that's that's. already happening yeah Sean's gotten in. trouble with a few words that have. slipped. out yeah one of his first words he ever. said was. duck and so you know where that led. quickly yeah we're enjoying your wife.

she's very. smart get your questions I'm I'm all set. for now yeah till the next break I'll. have more all right guys I hope you uh. enjoyed my wife there for a minute she. she had. uh couple questions that she wanted to. get answered so thank you guys for that. but I want to move. into what's it like starting from do we. start a preschool or is it K you start. when you're pregnant you mean with our. community CC I mean with classical.

conversations kindergarten K4. kindergarten so what how does it work. just walk just start walking me through. what's the process what's it like all. the way through grade. 12 yeah so uh we have three programs the. foundations program is our K through 12. K through sixth grade program and it's. in the mornings from 9:00 a.m. to noon. uh so it's once a week and we go through. you know all the subjects they're.

memorizing about seven facts a a week in. math history geography science grammar. Latin uh inside Community they are uh. doing public speaking so they start. kindergarten kindergarten they do public. speaking um it's really cute they have. eyeballs and when they stand in front of. the room they say is everybody looking. we teach them to look at their audience. and then they put it down and when.

they're done all the four-year-old say. are there any questions and then in. between they tell you about their teddy. bear or Walmart trip wow but they're. four and they can do that how many how. often do they do that once a week once a. week they're given some type of a Public. Presentation in front of their their. their their their class yeah so they'll. have done hundreds maybe close to. they'll do about almost 200 by the time. they get on the challenge yes so they'll. DOA close to 12y.

old yeah so looking at your eye and. talking to you they'll do science. experiments we try to do that Community. Day uh art experiments things that you. wouldn't necessarily uh want to do at. home uh that you can do some people of. course love to do that stuff at home but. your basically the K through6. foundations program let's break it down. a little bit more so you're learning. this my wife and I next year are going. to I mean we we've got to make a. decision within the next two years and.

and so what what what what does that. look like what do we get where do we. sign up what can we expect as parents. yeah so you'd go to classical. conversations.com put in your ZIP code. it's going to show you a list of. communities and You' say oh that. Community is close to us let me click on. that that local director would call you. invite you to an open house or an. information meeting let meet the other. families there uh learn about the. classical conversations curriculum uh. you would buy uh the foundations guide.

which is good uh all the students are. learning the same things K through sixth. grade but just going deeper into it each. each year and then we have what's called. three Cycles so they it changes a little. bit based on world history and some. different things geography each time and. so you're going to the community each. week and we're going to demonstrate uh. at community you're going to have the. eight kids a tutor and the parents. around it and the tutor is going to. demonstrate how to teach these things at. home as well as doing those Public.

Presentation science experiments art. history music history stuff like that so. are the kids there at the community too. yep the kids are there it's like a live. is it like a live class that the that. the live demonstration flesh to flesh. eye to eye the parents come together and. practice together so then when they go. home they know what to do yeah if. suddenly oh Little Johnny's having this. issue or whatever you can call another. parent in the community how did you. handle this what worked what didn't work. and so uh yeah so you're doing that for.

12 weeks in the fall 12 weeks in the. spring um you know basically you know. for a kindergartener you're probably. working you know I said 30 minutes to an. hour at home with that stuff working on. handwriting learning to read uh you know. doing some math as well phonics so. kindergarten is about an at Max an hour. a day yeah so you're going to go to. community 3 hours once a week and then. about an hour per day and then you. typically add about 20 minutes or so of. formal education at home uh every single.

kind of grade level until you get to. about three four hours a day wow and. then so the nice how many people are. community did you say it's broken up. into eight families uh typ eight persons. per classroom or average Community size. is about 50 students uh so about 20 to. 30 families depending on student side. where does community take place. typically they're at a church is the. general place where they're H housed and. so you know Tuesday and Thursday are.

most popular Community days but there's. ones on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays. as well and occasionally they have ones. on the weekends so there's 2 th there's. over 2700 churches that sponsor these. around the world around around the US so. it's almost one per zip code so that's. why we so we believe very much in. touching each other while you learn and. so why it's geographically based what. with the church churches do you guys is. there is there is can any church sign up. to do this or is that also is there like. a selection process or so we don't work.

through the churches we work through the. the community leaders and we help them. identify and find churches and so it's. up to them okay CU we need five or six. School rooms Sunday school room churches. do reach out to us and say hey we would. like to have a cc community and like all. right let's see if we can find a local. leader to lead one in your in your. facility so but even maybe backing up. before that so let's say Katie wanted to. be one of our license directors so she. would contact us and say Hey I want to. help the community and I have two or. three kids how do I get license how do I.

get trained and so we have a whole. process where we spend a lot of time. with her explaining and on how you can. start your own business doing this and. then we'd say Katie find two or three. friends that you think would be amazing. tutors and would be willing to do the. work and want to also understand what. Christian classical education is so then. Katie brings her friends to our training. and things and we and she works with. them. so that you know you might have one. director and two or three tutors the. first year you might only have eight to. 16 20 kids and then they grow did you.

just say start your own business the. directors we license all run their own. business how does that how is how does. that work yeah so I mean this kind of a. part-time income they're probably. bringing in depending on the community. side you know $30,000 a year in Revenue. like $8 to $110,000 in profit once they. get you know fully fully full size but. they're just a small LLC or okay es Corp. and um they license our materials they. collect tuition payments and pay out.

tutors and stuff like that and then pay. us a a licensing fee based on the number. of students that they have so because. when homeschooling masas stay home they. lose the opportunity to continue in. their business and Leadership skills and. they lose the opportunity to make as. much money so I wanted them to to look. at them and say look you help other. people do what you want to do anyway. with your own children and all theirs. there see nobody needs daycare and let's. practice it together and so um. entrepreneurship is part of our training. for our. leadership yeah so you we we we help.

2300 women plus have a run a small. business every single year. wow um yeah so so the nice thing about. our kindergarten through sixth grade. program because homeschoolers tend to. have a lot of kids they're actually. memorizing the same information for each. year so my three kids my 10-year-old my. eight-year-old and my four and a halfy. old they're all learning and being. presented that same material each each. week and so they're learning the same. math facts the same history facts and uh.

then obviously the older kids are you. know maybe writing a paper about it or. you know going to read a book about it. versus the four-year-old is just you. know memorizing the quadratic equation. or Latin noun endings or something like. that he doesn't know anything but uh. kids are sponges and so God designed. their minds at that age to love learning. and love memorization and so they're. we're teaching you how to you know learn. the multiplication tables by doing. jumping jacks or push-ups or uh you know.

learn the history timeline song uh by. marching around your room or you know. just different things and the kids. really enjoy it and they memorize over a. thousand facts uh each year wow and it's. not the memorization of the Thousand. facts that matters what Ma what matters. is we need to build our children's. ability to memorize and we need to build. their vocabulary. the people in the room that seem the. smartest are the ones with the most. copious vocabulary they can use big. words even if they don't know what.

they're saying and so we help our. children because they're totally capable. of using the correct terminology um when. they're four five six years old and so. the memorization is just an expansion of. what a parent's doing at home right you. started with your children going no hot. well we've expanded that whole parental. natural way of teaching your children to. include science subjects history. subjects math subject. and we help the parents expand their. vocabulary while they're helping their. children what.

about what about. discipline how does that work on the in. the in the in the communities yeah it's. up because the parents are there they're. responsible for the discipline and so if. a kid's acting up you know the the. potent most of the time the parents just. see that they're acting up and pull them. out to have a conversation with them but. you know if you have multiple kids and. multiple different classrooms you can't. be with them all at once and so I mean. typically if you're aware of a kid who. has different you know challenges or.

something you know the tutor is aware of. it and there's having conversations. ahead of time on how to handle that and. before Community gets started each year. we have a parent orientation and part of. that is an agreement on how we plan on. handling um any sort of conflict and we. try to use the biblical model and best. practices is what we do everything off. of okay I guess I I guess what I'm. getting at is you know one of the. distractions in public school is Class. Clown you know somebody that's picking. on other kids bullies all that stuff and.

so I'm I guess what I'm kind of asking. is isas have to deal with that and what. happens what happens if you do have a. student it's a continuous disruption to. the class so what you're not picturing. because you're bringing School into your. mind is remember he said there's a tutor. and a bunch of parents in the room the. kids don't get out of hand except on. rare occasion cuz if you're um if you're. a dad and you're two and your. four-year-old's acting up and I'm a mom. in there with my four five six-year-old. I'm going to say can I help you I will.

help with your children you don't seem. to know how to help discipline them okay. we're there to help each other it's the. parents that are there to. learn okay so it's one teacher and and. at least one parent this isn't so. Community am I saying this right. Community that's so Community isn't we. ditch our kids for the day at classful. conversations and no okay and then. because we have a wide group of of um. ages and then our facilities only have.

so many rooms you may have the four five. and sixy olds in one room and the seven. eight nine year olds in a room and the. 10 11 12 year olds in a room so if. you're a parent that has one in each of. those you kind of have to bounce around. to see what's going on with them but you. can only fit if you got 60 kids you. can't put them in one room we've got to. divide them so we divide them up in. groups of eight as the biggest class. size and then that generally ensures. that most parents might only have two. classrooms um unless they have a whole. lot of kids because because there's a.

range of Ages in those so so most. parents then will say you know what I'm. going to stay with my child who needs me. the most it might be your little one is. very well behaved so you end up staying. with your older one who's got learning. issues and then you peek your head in. and look and see how the other one's. doing and we become a team so like I had. a mom one year whose child had issues. and she was an excellent tutor and as a. tutor she couldn't watch them cuz she's. tutoring so I took it on myself and um.

uh I arranged every time we had a uh the. kids started to act up a different. mother would walk him around the school. building he just needed to walk and then. he'd come back and he was fine for. another hour right we get to know each. other's kids and love on them and take. care of them and see what their. deficiencies are and see what the. parents issues are and help each other. this is Christian education this is not. modern. education so it's a hard Paradigm to. explain to people like the couple years. ago we had a high school student in one.

of our classes come out as transgender. right I mean we have people that join. you know just cuz happens it happens and. the community was and the the parents. knew that there was an issue they. weren't supporting you know that that. idea in their child's head and they just. came together as a community and decided. that they wanted to um support this. student the right way. and so all the kids said we're not using. your new new pronouns we're going to use. the pronouns God gave you and they. allowed the student to stay in uh the.

program and about 12 weeks later they. said you guys are right thank you thank. you for loving me wow and uh gave up. those pronouns and started identifying. as God identified them and so you know. we're Sinners situations happen I mean. occasionally kids get asked not to. return because of behavior issues or. things like that but since it's not. again it's not like the parents aren't. aware of the situation and going on and. having conversations and uh working.

through these trying to work through. these things in a Godly way ahead of. time um that we're usually able to head. them off or get them back on the right. track so and you're think you're asking. these questions because the age of your. children wish is good but we do have. middle school and high school programs. too that so that's what he's referring. to as a high school child did this but. the same thing they're in groups that we. go up to 12 is the most at the High. school program and there's usually less. parents in those rooms cuz those parents. normally have to go be with the little. kids um and so you know then it's on the.

director or the tutor's part to say to. the Mom hey kid did great in logic this. week or you guys you need to do a little. bit more math but I don't go home and do. it with you I tell the parent what. happened and give them some feedback to. encourage them and their child because. we can't all see everything and even. when we're in the same room with our. children I remember I was tutoring my. fourth born and this woman kept popping. her head into the classroom and this is. when he was 14 every week and I finally. looked at her I said why do you just. keep looking in my classroom you don't.

come in or talk or say anything and she. said oh I'm just watching David grow and. I was like what and that was the year he. grew 12 Ines in one year and I was. trying to figure out why I was having so. many discipline issues with him well. your body can't if your body's growing. that fast your mind is not growing and. so her just noticing that made me go ah. no wonder my kid and I are struggling. he's probably in pain well I wasn't. noticing that why cuz I see him every. day but she saw him once a week so we're.

a team trying to say our children are. Body Soul spirit and mind not just. academics yeah so we have typically not. the younger students but uh older. students will have what we call a memory. master and that's when it's they'll. they'll basically recite uh from memory. all 1200 or so facts they do it to their. parents and then the tutor and the. director and so uh they that's a kind of. a highlight opportunity you don't have.

to do that my kids haven't done that yet. but they will as they get older um and. we actually have a competition uh every. year called the national memory Master. where they have to memorize all these. things and do it in front of like a. elimination competition and they have to. not just give the facts forwards but. also backwards and so we'll give them. like a history timeline sentence and. tell them to go backwards or tell them. to hey give us the 15 times table. starting at 15 but work backwards and so. they have to start with 15 * 15 and then. do 15 * 14 Etc but yeah my I mean my.

kindergarten old kid knows 1 Time 1. through 15 * 15 at the end of the year. your kindergartner knows that yeah he he. can recite it he doesn't understand it. but right but the understanding can come. quicker MH because it's in his head wow. yeah we haven't memorized things like. the quadratic equation um um basically a. timeline from the beginning of History. uh to today 160 160 points on the. timeline they memorize each year over.

and over again the same one 60 so that. by the sixth year they've got it down. and then they can go backwards not just. forward or start in the middle they. memorize every every country and every. Capital mm not just at the United States. but the whole world mhm When Donald. Trump said no one's heard of that. country before every single classical. conversation student can point on a map. where it is wow so like when they get to. challenge a that start well I mean it.

takes a while for them to be to do that. but challenge a which is our Middle. School the first year of middle school. they at the end of the year they have to. draw the uh they have an hour to draw. the whole entire world uh they get a big. piece of paper and a pencil and an. eraser and they have to draw the entire. world Rivers capitals countries oceans. label all of them so yeah so they're. labeling almost 600 locations at the end. of the hour and they do it as fast as. they can and we say be sloppy just get.

it down we want it's not it's not CU. you're better than anybody else we want. you to prove to yourself what you know. and what you don't. know so starting in fourth grade we have. our Essentials program so that's what's. on the historic timeline what kind of. the Fall can enable the flood Tower ble. there's and then we go into is it all. biblical no we the early grade the early. five or six events are and then we get. into things like um uh the rise and fall. of Israel uh Jesus Christ yeah modern.

history World War II but that's all so. biblical on Independence like this war. between the states so there's all kinds. of things and yeah Elizabeth Henry all. the kings and so it's a world timeline. yeah it's a world timeline yeah so they. have like Transcontinental Railroad and. then the first train in London there's. just all kinds of things that they. memorize. wow so they don't know what they're. doing at first I remember a mom text me. she said my 2-year-old just named our.

new puppy Alan hotep. IV right it's because we're building. this copious vocabulary around the kids. and it's fun but there's that's only one. of the things well we we have review and. new on the memory work but they always. do a science experiment together and. they always do a um art project together. and they always do a presentation in. front of the the group so those are the. five what we call topics that we use. with the little kids what about is a. parent what about testing what about we.

submit any tests do we I mean each. State's different um so like in the. state of North Carolina every we have to. do an end of grade test but we just keep. the results you just have to do it. nobody checks on you unless there's a I. don't know the world ten Tennessee is. pretty I think a pretty free state so I. don't some states do testing every other. year some states have no testing. requirements um so some states like. Florida you can either do an end of. grade test or have a teacher evaluate.

your kid at the end of the year um so. each State's different so can't. necessarily like Texas has nothing right. Texas has always allowed you to just do. whatever you want and so do you hear the. words I just said Texas has allowed you. father shouldn't be letting a state tell. them what they're allowed or not allowed. to do regard but we do have to and we. help families in the states so have. testing we have resources to help with. that but we do a lot of assessing. assessing inside of classical.

conversations like that. four-year-old um after they give their. presentation uh for the day you know. they'll ask you know what's one thing. what's one thing he did well and what's. one thing he can improve for next time M. and that gets more and it gets more. sophisticated as they get older the. questions we ask them what about you. know big you know I think one of the. biggest topics that people talk about. when it comes to homeschooling is is. socialization M and so I mean how do you.

guys see kids. socially who aren't. around classmates every day you it. sounds like it's one day a week it's. eight kids do you see those I mean how. just go into the socialisation yeah I. mean for yeah yeah I mean a big OB. question over the years um I mean the. the driver of that original question. like we told you earlier like parents. were getting thrown into jail for.

homeschooling their kids so we weren't. socialized because we didn't want to go. to jail um but nowadays that's not the. case but like for us we'll have friends. over and they'll do some classical. conversations work together outside of. those Community Days obviously you got a. lot of um you know socialization. whatever going on there church Sports um. you know all of these different. activities that kids are involved in I. mean all the statistics show the. government like tracks it and as adults. you know says homeschoolers are more.

active in uh civilization uh than any. other peers voting you know being. involved in their Community Etc so uh. when this is what I tell people when. Sean I don't know how old you are when. do you are you in a room with 30 people. your exact same age from your exact same. zip code as an adult. never no right so we're not modeling. anything in a public school or private. school setting that exists in real life. it's all it's all artificial and so.

socialization for my kid is going to the. grocery store and talking to the clerk. and asking where the pancake batter is. it's going to the mechanic shop with my. wife and asking how much an oil change. is going to be inter more is like I'm. not talking about ages I'm just talking. about I think a lot of I I just think. people get get worried that their kid is. going to be socially awkward and not. thank God like.

not sorry they're not trans not not. being able to resolve resolve conf. social conflicts and and not being able. to to to to make friends and stuff I. think that's kind of what more more of. what I'm talking about it do doesn't. have to be their own people but sure. mean when that talked about the limp. handshakes they don't look in your eye. and they went to public school I mean. that's the one thing about home. schoolers that adults always come in on. they look you in the eye they talk to. you and ask questions they care about.

you so socialization is very different I. mean everybody socialized somehow it's. just what what is the outcome of that. socialization so we're trying to raise. our children to be Brothers and Sisters. in Christ we're not trying to raise them. to be another 12-year-old or to be. um a a j or an engineer we're trying to. raise Brothers and Sisters in Christ and. that means they have to learn how to. serve the world so the socialization. comes in I think in their opportunities.

to serve other people and most. homeschoolers do that on purpose so. we're still the ones visiting senior. homes go ahead and call the local D. drama Society here and ask them who's. showing up for the community theater to. be in there it's homeschoolers we're the. ones that are outd doing all the U. community activities cuz the kids have. been in a box for the whole day they. come home and they you know and then. they have sports they're tired they're. weary our kids are full energy mhm yeah. I mean it's just such a I mean I know.

why people ask the question but it's. just so nonsensical at this point for us. I mean it's it is for you but it's not. for somebody on the outside looking in. somebody on the outside looking in. thinks they're with they're with mom or. dad all day long they never leave the. house they don't get involved in extra. in. extracurricular Sports not going to be. able to be in intermural sports there's. not going to be school dances is my is. my son going to be able to talk to a. woman cuz he's not around them like.

that's that's from the out that's the. perspective from the outside looking in. yeah and like I said the reason that. that was the perspective was because. homeschoolers did have to hide because. we didn't want to get arrested early on. um but nowadays we can move about freely. and so yeah I. mean no we have top 10 draft picks uh. we've got four kids in North Carolina. that got D1 scholarships on golf teams. like look at almost every single. Olympian in this individual sport.

they're all homeschooled um so it's just. the opportunity is out there it's not. provided to you by the civil government. you have to go find it but there's. homeschool sports clubs there's. homeschool debate clubs there's science. clubs there's you know starting going to. work I started working full almost. full-time when I was 16 years old for an. engineering company. um so the there's life life's out there. you're not are there parents who might. not do what they ought to do sure I mean.

that's in any situation right um but uh. the majority of homeschooled parents I. mean that's a concern for them too right. they want to have grand they're not. staying at home with their kid if they. don't want to have grandchildren right. so they want uh Little Jimmy or Jane to. be able to find a good mate that's going. to take care of them and stuff so do you. see the kids that are involved in. community together the the the aid kids. do they gener Al become is that their is. that their Social Circle well it can be. um so the thing that um most people.

don't know is that a third of all. children in the United States move every. year that's not that's for all. demographics and so what happens is that. they become you know close to one. another but then they move and they're. in a different CC community so that's. one thing that happens the other thing. though that happens is because of the. the growth CC has had every couple years. most community split in half to go start. another one and so those children now. have those friends and new friends that. have come in in order to uh grow our our.

model because it's very mission-based um. we're you know telling parents you don't. have to go to Africa to be a missionary. you can just go down to the next zip. code and start a new CC community and. teach folks about Christianity so the. children go right along with them but we. have would think something I think is. very wonderful but that might sound like. not to you is um how many cc students. students are married to each other and. they aren't necessarily from the same. Community they might have found each. other you know when they went to college. and then get married there's a lot of.

them I mean like for our household my. oldest T daughter's 10 she's one of the. top five gymnasts in the state of North. Carolina she trains 12 hours a week uh. my wife coaches so we have like our. homeschool classical conversations. friends and we have her gymnastics. friends and you know sometimes. neighborhood friends yes sleepovers with. make sure of groups or individual one or. other and she got friends that go to. public school and private school and all. sorts of things and you know my my. 8-year-old son plays you know wreck.

baseball and wreck basketball and did. some uh combatives and so again just. kind of interacting with people of all. demographics and uh and different sort. of activities he does a a robotics camp. where they learn to program robots and. uh do them out of Legos and stuff like. that uh we Havey my named Bernie carbo. at her church she's a Hall of Famer for. the Boston Red Sox and I take my. 4-year-old and 8-year-old at 10:00 a.m.

during the week once a week uh to go get. baseball hitting practice from a Hall of. Fame baseball player he charges me 20. bucks wow and then he gives him also the. Gospel of Jesus Christ and tells him. about uh how he loves Jesus and his. background and so um yeah there's all. sorts of opportunities when you're not. stuck in a box 8 hours a day for 180. days a week from the military. perspective there's only been two. cultures that have been successful at. having public education that the. government fully controlled and that was. ancient Sparta and modern Prussia and.

neither one of those organizations those. groups of schooling situations thought. it was a smart idea for teenage men to. be sitting in a school building they. made them right they got their academics. and they went into soldiering we're the. only culture it's been the last 100. years and we made it Global where we. said to young men then you need to sit. down all day long and not train them to. go out and serve the community and get a. skill set that will make it so they are. employable as well as just situationally.

aware situational awareness is what. you're describing when they look down. and don't shake your hand and as a. soldier you know that's probably the. most important skill to give your. children is that and so we focus on that. a lot as homeschoolers are you paying. attention to who's in the room with you. how are you going to serve them you need. to be kind uh I don't care if you like. your classmate does so you better do a. good job so that she'll be happy like. it's it's paying attention to the rest. of the world is what we're trying to.

accomplish but people want us just to. bring see PE think about when your with. your little ones that you have um. they're smaller than you so God designed. them to have to look up they look up to. you they look up to their wife they look. up to the stars and the sky you're the. first face of God that they've ever seen. and we all have to look up to him. why do why will your son one day be. taller than your wife cuz if a mother. can't look up to her son who else is. going to so God in his natural order has.

made it so that we should know um the. natural way for children to be raised. but what a schoolbooks do in the. classroom mhm they all look. down that's painfully wrong to do to a. child let alone a really energetic young. man there are women who love that School. setting and there's a few men that love. school settings but that's not what we. were designed to do um for the majority. of our childhood we were designed to.

work our butts off all day long like. they did in early colonial America and. then when it started to get dark at. night you pull out your Bible you pull. out your instrument you pull out your. history book because you're too darn. tired to go work anymore and then you. study the academics but we have it all. flipped around. mhmh so for like practical practical. stuff what we do at our house is uh the. night before I put out handwriting and. so the kids wake up they go downstairs. do about 10 minutes of.

handwriting uh then uh they'll go like. my four-year-old that's all he does you. know and then we'll do my 8-year-old. will then go do a math lesson uh my. 10-year-old will work on a paper that. she's writing and then after then I'll. serve them breakfast and I'll go to work. uh then my wife will come in and do. about 30 minutes of memory work where. she's reviewing some of the past memory. work from the previous weeks and then. spending time on the current memory work.

and getting them to uh parir it back uh. parir it that back that to her um and. then uh basically uh doing a a reading. lesson with each and that's pretty much. our day from an education standpoint a. formal education standpoint um little. kids little kids so if they were older. children they'd spend spend more time. doing math and um probably an hour in. the afternoon doing some research and. writing and then they'd read 2 or 3. hours at night before they went to bed. instead of watching a.

movie what are they. reading oh I have a whole list they read. from challenge a which is 12y olds up. through 18yar olds in challenge 4 um. they read 80 novels and write 80 papers. essays on those novels and then they. read um so that's just in the literature. Strand and then in the history strand. they. read uh all kinds of original Source. documents about you know like the Magna. Carta and the federis papers and things.

like that and write papers on them and. then the science strand they work on. writing science textbooks and learning. how to do research and pulling it. together and doing presentations in. abstracts so they're writing again so by. the time our students graduated. challenge 4 they've read couple hundred. books and they've written a couple. hundred papers and that is unheard of. and even Christian education but that's. what they do so what a couple of. children in the early days came to me. after end a challenge four and said Mrs.

bordon we just realized what classical. education is and you tricked us if we. just did math for an hour a day and read. a book for a couple hours a day and. wrote a paper for an hour a day we would. be so educated and I said wasn't that. what you just did and they're like yeah. that's why we realized that we're. educated and what they're realizing is. they so the mother and father become. facilitators sure I'll get that book for. you you oh yeah I remember as a child I. use that resource let's go see if we can. talk to that person or get for you you. become a facilitator more than you. become their teacher as you teach them.

to become autodidactic and teach. themselves and that's what people who. don't go through homeschool and through. high school don't ever get to see is. that beauty of becoming your child's. Mentor facilitator right because you. want all kinds of mentors for your. children but isn't it wonderful when you. can be one of. them yeah usually by the sophomore year. the kids are doing 75 to 90% of the work. on their own and the parents are just. holding them accountable and helping. them out when they get stuck and helping. them research or answer questions um.

they have but I mean they read books. like driving them to soccer driving them. to archery driving yeah I mean books. like you know Johnny Tain uh The Iliad. The. Odyssey uh some Chronicles of Narnia. books I mean we each of our starting in. Middle School through High School each. of our years has a different theme in. all of our literature and history books. revolve around that theme and the the. final year or your senior year is all. about leadership and so we're building. all the core blocks uh to develop the.

next uh group of leaders in our country. and so the things our seniors do a lot. of people won't do unless they get a. master's degree um. well we'll get to there yeah what back. what about attendance what happens I. have a lot of friends that do homeschool. and they they they travel a lot lot yeah. they they get an RV and they go across. the country or they do a a tour in. Europe or they go to Asia or whatever.

and and you know. they jokingly but not jokingly they're. like yeah like this is homeschool yeah. this we're on vacation this is education. they're seeing the world they're seeing. the Grand Canyon they're. seeing the Coliseum they're seeing. Gettysburg they you know and so it's. like it's. like a double benefit there but so what. happens if they're missing I mean like.

even our family like because of our. travels and work and stuff like we'll. miss a couple couple weeks um so I mean. obviously that's allowable we're not. have a gun forcing yet to get there but. you want to be a good neighbor right to. people that are expecting you to be. there so I mean the fees are if you miss. you still pay the same fees but uh yeah. for us like a lot of times uh if we're. going somewhere else we can actually. reach out and find out if there's a. local community there and we've gone to. other communities on weeks that we've. missed oh okay and there's 52 weeks a.

year we're talking about 24 of them and. not even 24 full weeks but 24 Tuesdays. or 24 Thursdays so a lot of times you. can work around it and then you know. we'll do a spring break and a fall break. and stuff like that so um you know. there's you know you'd have to work. pretty hard to miss a miss a significant. amount of time um but I mean there's. definitely people who say you know we're. going going to wherever for a month and. you know they take off and say goodbye. and say hello but that's one of the.

benefits of our model is you can do that. and you can know exactly what's going on. while you're gone so they'll take their. books with them and they know what the. you know assignments are going to be and. what's what's expected of them and for. the younger ages they're going to see. all the material twice in those six. years and so if you miss it one time. you'll pick it up the next time. um so yeah I mean I think you know if. you were going to RV school for 52 weeks. it's probably classical conversations. probably won't work that lifestyle for.

you uh that that year um but uh yeah. people come in and out and take long. vacations and like our community ends. the week before Thanksgiving and doesn't. start till the second week of January so. that's a six week period right there you. can go take off and do something and we. don't because we don't meet as many. weeks as the school does that's the. thing it's and that was design on my. part because we traveled a lot and I was. like we're not going to be stopped the. whole year with this group in community. are all the kids the a kids are they all.

in the same grade it's and our bigger. ones yeah and the younger one and our. smaller ones not necessarily um but. they're usually again paired up by ages. so like my four-year-olds in a group of. four and 5-year-olds my 8-year-olds with. just 8year olds my 10-year-olds with 10. and 11 year olds okay so is it. individualized then if the if the if the. grades are different so each within the. within the with the within that. Community Day they're going to present. and uh to the level of the kids so the.

group of fifth and sixth graders who are. being presented the same base materials. that the kindergarteners are being rep. presented their experience that. Community day is going to look different. than than that based on you know their. longevity and age age groups so um yeah. so so let's say they're doing a science. experiment with the four and fivey olds. four and fiveyear olds just play but the. 12 and 13 year olds will do the same. project but they'll have to write a.

research paper or they'll have to do a. scientific method or they'll have to do. something with it then that way Mama at. home goes okay all you guys did the same. thing in general um I'm going to go home. and see oh the next thing we're going to. do at home is maybe we're going to do a. bird study and now I know how to grade. it I know how to help the little ones be. involved while the bigger ones have more. work to do so that's what we're modeling. is that each age can do a little bit. more than the younger ones can but we. can still work on the same material okay. because it's not the material that.

matters it's the practicing the skills. of learning that matter okay interesting. so that makes sense so if they're. studying George Washington you can do it. at any. level it does does make so our. curriculum is written to help the. parents scale and our tutors model how. to scale it so a parent can go ah I see. what you're doing no I can do that oh. okay oh okay because we don't one time a. grandfather said to me I want my. daughter to home school but she's got. four kids and if she does four kids and. six subjects how is she going to do 24.

hours a day and I was like you're. bringing School home Nobody Does that we. combine our children together and we all. do math at the same time we all do. science at the same time um because we. need to be efficient at what we're doing. too so it teaches parents how to juggle. and be parents of many aged children. instead of like I just can't hand you. there's too many of you so we model. being a parent of large families yeah so. like my you know for learning about. George Washington maybe uh my wife's giv.

them the George Washington history. sentence that they're going to memorize. my four-year-old is coloring a picture. of George Washington my 8-year-old you. know he's going to color the picture and. then go play with Legos for 55 minutes. my 8 8-year-old's going to you know. color the picture and write a few. sentences about them and go play Legos. with her young his younger brother for. the next 35 minutes and then my. 10-year-old will write a paragraph about. George Washington and go walk a five.

minute YouTube video on them or. something like that and so they all. learned about George Washington and uh. all at the same time and so that's one. of the benefits of classical. conversations versus other homeschool. programs it's all integrated by age. level and so what we're teaching them. and having them memorize as a. four-year-old they're going to see again. when they turn 13 and 16 16 and 18 and. so one of the problems in America with. our math and why we're so bad at math is. they're trying to learn algebra and they. don't know addition or subtraction or.

multiplication and so they're trying to. learn algebra and multiplication at the. same time versus we've taught our kids. at a very young age how to do. multiplication even though they don't. understand it but when they get to the. algebraic level well they have that to. fall back on and they're just learning. you know why is there an A in here or B. in here and stuff like that so it's it's. really providing it's called the. foundations program a foundation for. your student to you know be able to. learn everything else at a much deeper.

level and so that's one of the things. that classical education is different. from modern education classical. education teaches you how to go deep in. a very few subject matters so that you. have those skills to do that anywhere. that you want to as an adult versus. modern education just teaches you that. first inch you know a mile wide and an. inch deep and so you might survey a lot. of information but you don't exactly. dive down into understanding it and so. it's a very deep education versus a very. surface level education the other thing.

is I want to just qualify some. definitions so we've said challenge a a. couple of times so we call our Under 12. students Foundation students because. they're all doing the same thing and Mom. and Dad are very active uh then the. challenge a hits so we called them. because there's a challenge there's an a. challenge a b challenge there there's a. challenge for each of them so even. though we have six traditionall looking. subjects in challenge a their main. challenge is called ownership we learn. to own your responsibilities then.

challenge um B challenges to become. disciplined if you're going to own that. you're going to have to work at it then. challenge ones um which is our our high. school level uh um challenges Freedom. Ship you're becoming an adult do you. want to be a free adult or enslaved. adult so all the literature they read. that year is about enslaved and free. cultures and talk about that then the if. you're going to be free in challenge two. you're going to learn and discuss. choices Freedom comes with freedom comes. choices and then in Challenge three we.

go but you know what choices have. consequences so all the curriculum is. based around the literature and history. around the consequences of decisions. people have made in the past and then in. challenge four like Robert said it's. leadership so if you are free to make. good choices and bear the responsibility. of your own consequences you have an. opportunity need to be a leader that's. our grades we don't say ninth grade 10th. grade 11th grade we say what the. challenge is for. each so our history is around it our.

literature is around it even our math. science ma our geography everything so. you may read like amamos Fortune Freeman. in challenge one who was a Tanner and. while you're doing that you're also in. science learning about biology and. tanning and then the math equations are. such that um you're beginning to. understand uh how to apply the grand the. memory work to actually to actual. algorithms so people can process in a. factory or plant so like everything is. superly. intentionally integrated so that we're.

working on the whole child and not um. bifurcating everything that they do one. of the differences between classical. conversations and other programs is. because of that large age gap between my. my brother and I and the youngest two is. classical conversations got started. after my mom had basically you know. homeschooled us through high school and. saw the saw what she did and the results. if you think about a scientific. experiment said what should we do.

differently and so foundations and then. Essentials and even the earlier. challenge levels were actually designed. around this is what we did this is the. outcome that we had how do we make it so. that that outcome's even stronger uh. versus your typical uh Christian school. or private school right they say okay. let's do a kindergarten and then they. into a first grade cuz everyone liked it. in a second grade and a third grade and. eventually they have a graduating class. but and they get great results compared. to the public school but they didn't you.

know 13 years ago have the wisdom of. saying what do what is the steps that we. need to take to make sure that we have a. whole person who is a leader and free um. versus what classical conversations was. we it's kind of like the organ Trail I. don't know if you play the Oregon Trail. growing up right you picked a guide like. classical conversations we got to oron. again and said well that was a bad way. of doing it we should have done it much. differently and then we went back to the. east coast re rerouted all the lines. figured out what the right Trails were.

and now we're just taking people uh. metaphorically uh along the Oregon Trail. and so that's kind of what classical how. classical conversations is different is. we said we got to the end of the journey. and said this worked this didn't work we. want to help you we want to tell you. what works and what doesn't work for our. family what we've seen work and doesn't. work for other families take those you. know hundreds of thousands of families. over the last you know 29 years or 27. years however long it's been and give. all that best practices to you and we do.

that we deliver it in community okay. okay well let's let's take one more. break and then we'll pick up I hate to. say it but we called it fourth grade but. uh we'll pick up there and wrap it up. all right sounds good. perfect join me and my special guests. for the next behindth scenes experience. exclusively available on vigilance Elite. patreon the behind thes scenes footage. is raw and uncut this is as close to the.

set as you can possibly get you can. expect anything from off toic. conversation Studio tours the final. moments before the interview starts and. everything in between the behind thes. scenes content is constantly evolving. and will continue to bring you more as. we grow you can gain access for just $15. a month exclusively at vigilance Elite. [Music]. patreon I know everybody out there has. to.

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intelligence brief sign up links in the. description or in the comments we'll see. in the. newsletter all right guys we're back. from the break we're getting ready to. pick up fourth grade is uh but you know. I just we had a I mean I I can tell. me and my wife were chatting down there. right before I came up and I mean I can. definitely tell a difference in the kids. nowadays that are homeschooled versus. not homeschooled and you guys have.

brought up the fact that you know. they're zinging questions at you they're. not just they're not just listening. they're engaged they're they're asking. questions and and like pepperin in in. their intelligent questions and I. noticed it with uh Jeremy's kids my. producer and pretty much everybody's. kids they just seem more engaged sharper. more. confident uh in and able to hold adult.

conversations like it's impressive man. it's impressive and. so I want to get into I want to get into. the fourth grade setu but I also want to. get into how like how does that happen. how's that developed how do you how are. you bringing that critical thinking and. like the confidence to to Pepper an. adult with questions into these kids a. lot of it's just lifestyle development. like the intentionality behind the. program from those you know weekly.

presentations teaching the kids how to. do that just having them be interested. in life having the parents that they. look up to asking them good questions. not letting them just uh you know ask a. question and not answer it but actually. go maybe go look at it look it up if uh. they don't know it and teach them to go. ask other adults questions I mean that's. the thing that I think homeschoolers do. more something that you can't get in. private school uh is you just in public. school and private school you have one.

teacher and that's the person that you. go ask questions about in homeschooling. like I mentioned earlier like if you. have a question about something you go. ask the scientist in your church or uh. you go find an expert that teaches that. subject locally or go find a local. business owners that's doing that thing. and go have a conversation with them and. so I think just that um that level of uh. intentional uh behavior that parents are. developing with their. kids just interesting cuz in public.

school when I went I'm it's probably. even worse now I mean people are. embarrassed to ask a question they don't. you see it you see it in adult rooms you. know what I mean they want to raise. their hand or talk to you they don't. want to exactly they don't want to raise. the hand they don't want to ask the. question they're embarrassed to ask the. question but what I noticed about. homeschool kids is they are not. embarrassed to ask questions and they. they can ask some pretty tough questions. well I think classical education is all. about learning to ask good questions and.

so it's the exact opposite of uh a. lecture-based education where you're. just supposed to listen to some expert. at the front of the room and write down. everything you can and then regurgitate. it uh a classical education is all about. learning to ask good questions learning. who the experts are where the source. materials are and so the kids just. naturally grow up in a situation where. they're more inquisitive than other. people and they think it's a good. they've been trained and that's a good. thing to do versus right if someone's.

lecturing and you stop I didn't get that. last thing can you repeat that right. that's an interruption in their um in. their space and so uh that's frowned. upon right that's uh so it's exact exact. opposite just the mentality that. homeschool parents have with a education. like oh the sun rises from the East to. the West why is that you know oh the. ripples are um forming on the ocean like. why is it why is that why is it low tide. why is it high tide you know and you're. just asking kids questions all day to.

see what they know or what they think. and since you're mentoring them in that. manner that's the same way that they're. going to grow up and go so I have a. friend who's 20 years older than me that. was one of my mentors and she always. reminds us that the scriptures say that. a student will be like their teacher and. so um if your teacher is somebody that. you have just for a a couple hours a. week and there's new ones the next year. you don't even get to fall in love and. know what they think um and then today. with all the online education she says.

do parents want their children to be. like a plastic box right the. homeschoolers that are intentional they. just spend the time with the children so. the children that's their model that's. what they're going to be like so if. you're a curious parent you're going to. have curious kids if you're not a. curious parent you might luck out and. get some Curious Kids but that's not. going to be the intention that you have. with them so something also is. that I think you mentioned at the very. beginning about how parents are nervous. that can I do this can I do that and can.

I do a good job and I think that. motivates them and propels them to do a. good job like um how do I know I'm a. good parent well you. care like the fact that you ask that. question indicates that you are on a. pathway to being a good parent and so. how do I know I how can I educate my. kids. just the fact that you have that. question or I'm willing to ask it means. that you're got a really good chance of. doing a really good. job well you guys have my wife fully on.

board and the interview is not even over. yet so um and and really I mean me too. but um but let's unless something. drastic changes in the last half of this. interview here but let's pick up at at. the fourth grade level yeah so in fourth. grade we have we have what's called our. Essentials program and the essentials of. the English language and that's when we. start teaching them how to write and how. to write well and uh we use this program.

by Andrew pah called IW um and it really. just again it's a model so we take some. of the best writings through history and. start having our fourth graders and. fifth graders and sixth graders modeling. it and then at the end of the year they. do what's called faces of History where. they pick a character out of history and. write a three page or three paragraph or. longer uh depending on the age group uh. presentation on them and then at the end. of the year we would do a big uh.

Capstone is what we call them in. classical conversations where they. present their uh faces of history and so. they go you know you've got 15 kids. know8 to 15 kids depending on how many. classrooms you have of that and they're. all presenting on on different. historical people and so it's uh very. intentional writing program is really. what Essentials in the faces of history. is the audience is supposed to guess who. they are based on the presentation so. they can't say the name of who they are. so it gives them a little bit of a like. will they trick the parents or won't.

they trick the parents kind of and so. the audience asks asks the the student. questions and the audience is the. parents the audience is the parents and. grandparents you know people like that. and so they'll go and they'll you know. if they're talking about you know George. Washington they'll probably you know. dress up and be like you know I was a. general in the war I got shot six time. or you know all those details and you. know tell about some facts and some. stories and then you know they'll say.

all right who do you think I am at the. end and then the parents will guess so. we're practicing their presentation. skills practicing having them look. people in the eye practicing their stage. presence and so they'll do that fourth. fifth and sixth grade along with you. know diving deeper into that memory work. that they're doing and then they'll head. off into the ChalleNGe Program which is. as mom my mom was describing earlier. those six challenges where we put the. all the building blocks together for. leadership and go back through history.

and read you know who struggled with. what you know what were those things. going on reading about Booker 2. Washington and uh learning about you. know slavery the truth about that stuff. not some woke version and not some. whitewash version but what was actually. going on in in people's minds um doing. each each year has a special event at. the end of it so they do things like uh. challenge A's they do a science fair so. that's a big Focus along with the um.

drawing the map from memory uh Challenge. B is mock trial which they'll go and. they um we have a case uh person dies on. a work site so there's prosecutors. Defenders. Witnesses um judges and we typically. have those in courtrooms with real. judges a lot of times they say that our. uh seventh graders do better than the. seconde law students they see doing the. same sort of presentations you can go.

see one so if you want to find out where. the challenge because what happens One. Challenge B and another challenge B from. near ZIP codes we'll meet at the. courthouse and um try each other both. will prosecute and both will defend and. the Public's welcome to see that and for. me like the best story out of that was. when I ran David's m trial the judge. said you know what um he was a juvenile. district judge and he said I was going. to quit being a judge this was the end I. wasn't going to go to it anymore because.

all I hear is this horrible stuff from. juveniles every single day it's my job. he said I'm not going to quit now. because of I just met you 12 students. and I know it can be better wow you know. so we hear those kind of things all the. time so so to have um the way that works. is we do take a true a true case and. we've had it had it scripted um or not. scripted but researched kind of at the. student level and then the children. write the script based on their roles. and they write it as a team and then.

they meet this other team they've never. met before and they go against each. other and they wear suits and ties and. they speak really well and you know. they're all of 13 years old so our. expectations are just really high in. those Middle School years versus most. School situations treat them Kind Middle. School kind of as a waiting ground. they're not children who are fun at. school they aren't able to do what a. high school student does but we say no. they are dialectic they will ask. questions they will rise to the occasion. so let's give them occasions to rise to.

and so through the essentials and. challenge A and B that's kind of the. focus and it's as you can hear it's a. language and words and just getting. their speaking skills sharpened tell. them about the other capstones in the. challenge levels sure you so challenge. one is um a policy debate which is um. you don't get to pick a side and two. it's two on is this huh what age is this. policy debate 14year olds 14y olds. debating policy and so the the students.

pick the policy um the first the first. time they ever debate we give our tutors. ideas and help with directing the. children and then after that they could. start picking what they want to debate. on where do they do they have a list to. pick from or do they just look going on. in societ yeah so should the government. fund um the Arts to um death penalty. penalty abortion rights I mean this. heavy subjects that they get. into so uh do you do you see excitement. out of these kids to do this not at. first but eventually yeah and they have.

to learn to defend both sides so if. you're Pro death penalty you have to. learn how to defend uh want anti- death. penalty you're removing it from the. Civil government's jurisdiction so the. Public's welcome to come watch that. Capstone event and that's that challenge. one Freedom Ship level and then. challenge two choices um they end the. year with um uh the Poetry yeah no. that's Challenge three what is challenge. two uh the protocol oh protocol so at. the end of challenge two they go to.

protocol where they dress up and suits. and tie sometimes tucks and gowns and. instead of having a prom which would be. more traditional or or modern they go to. the Opera or they go to some Symphony. Orchestra but it's called protocol. because beforehand we do instructions so. that when they go to a very nice five. course meal the boys seat the girls and. they know where the silverware goes and. things like that so that they get to. because challenge two has a lot to do. with art in our choices and how art.

reveals the choices of a culture so we. thought the Capone event should center. around culture so that's what they do. and then they do an art grant that year. yeah they write an art Grant trying to. understand how things get funded you. should have had them send it to USA yeah. they were going to the wrong place we. were going to the wrong places and. Challenge three is what we have called. the um poetry Cafe and um the children. spend the whole year in the literature. seminars reading uh ancient poets modern. poets Shakespeare and then writing their.

own poetry and so they just like the. faces of history for the little kids and. the parents The Poetry um cafes where. they share the Poetry they wrote that. year with with the bigger audience and. the thing that's really special to me is. that poetry is very personal it's like. writing music and to see children. children willing to share their poetry. which is not cool MH in a public setting. and I've even seen them start I've seen. the audience cry because the Poetry is. so beautiful and that this these.

children share their hearts and the. reason they're willing to do that versus. not even ask a question in public school. is they've been with the same about a. dozen kids for the last few years with. all the same parents around helping they. trust us they're willing to reveal their. heart cuz nobody's going to mock them. one of the best things I've ever heard. in all of classical conversations was. this mother of a 12-year-old came to me. in tears and her daughter was in one of. my seminars and um she said um you know.

my daughter and she's highly autistic. and very strange and all the years that. she was in public school she never had a. friend and since September and US. joining classical conversations she's. gone to three sleepovers and girls call. her all the time they don't care that. she's different. that's what we're trying to do is show. that we can be kind to one another so. schools talk about it and regulate it we. help our children to live it but they're. modeling those adults who look you in.

the eye and try to help you they're not. modeling their peers who don't know what. they're doing they're little. kids wow that's the thing about private. schools and Public Schools is because. there's only one teacher to 30 students. or 20 students the students learn to. model each other's behavior and that's. why you got clicks and these different. behavioral issues cuz they don't have. the mentor mentee um you know it's it's. too big it's it's too many and so it's h. and then they see a different teacher. every single year and so all it does is. condition them that adult in their life.

is going to leave them the next year and. their father you know if they're from a. broken home their father's left them. their mothers left them they go to the. school they have a teacher that they. like and then other teacher left them. and but their buddies are with them and. so that's a lot of reasons why we have. these behavior issues in public schools. because the only people that they can. trust to be around is you know they're. five or six friends that have done all. the things with them and that's why you. see a lot of these you know behavior. issues that that are there but and like. to my M to Mom's decision like the. stories we hear from Community there was.

this little girl she was you know. disabled in a. wheelchair um and would always like. watch the kids at uh you know recess go. play baseball or whatever they were. doing and one one one week the the boys. were out there you know 10 11 12 year. old boys with there like 7 year old girl. and they saw saw her and so they stopped. their game and they went in and got her. and helped her hit the ball damn and. then wheeled her around for a home run.

no kidding no no adult told him to do it. no adult was you know there was adult. you know monitoring them you know for. safety and stuff but they just saw that. this little girl was always watching. them play and wasn't able to do that and. so they've they've had it modeled by. their parents a helping loving other. people system and so I think that's a. big a big difference when you have a. community especially you know you know. not 30 kids but eight 8 to 12 kids per.

age group and you know siblings playing. with siblings different age groups. playing with different age groups I mean. that's real it's not socialization it's. creating civilization it's creating a a. community and environment to uplift. people and not tear people down I mean. people always talk about peer pressure. in a negative way because that's how. most of of of us experience it but in. our communities it's the opposite we. help people rise and uh I mean that's. you know when the Bible says is going on. a journey with a friend is good because. when you fall down they can pick you up.

and that's why you know being in a. homeschool community and not lone. schooling is is so important and then we. have our final Capstone in challenge. four so that's the one that I mean the. students actually really like to do this. one it's called their senior thesis and. they do the same thing you used to have. to do to get PhD they write a 30-page. paper on a topic of their choice and. then they pick um people from the. community to come judge them and then we. invite the community to a church or a. bingo hall or somewhere that has a stage.

and the students present their thesis. and in front of everybody the judges. criticize them and question them and try. to get them to defend their thesis so. they show that they really did the work. and they understand it and that's what. you used to have to do to get your. doctorate who are the judges people from. the community the kids get to invite. pastors and business owners and fathers. that are senators or congressmen anybody. can come do it but the kids invite the. people they want to judge. them wow because they're not kids.

anymore they're adults and they need to. know that assessment's going to come. from all kinds of people and all kinds. of fields and you know most people don't. want to public speak and when that child. has spoken for 15 minutes presenting. their paper and then another 15 minutes. answering questions they feel like they. can do. anything yeah but how many people is it. are they speaking to uh usually there's. a few dozen to 50 it's not but three or. four people but three or four kids no. three or four people are judging them oh.

yeah yeah yeah three or four judges but. they're also speaking to an audience not. just the judge up to 50 people sure. because it's a really popular EV event. and we like every parent who's not there. yet wants to come see what it looks like. so they'll be ready when their child's. working on it wow wow yeah we want to. start collecting those and Publishing. them and sending them to yeah cuz I mean. it's just amazing the research and stuff. that these kids do and a lot of them are. doing AI the last two years so our group. I think is ahead of the curve with all.

the AI papers we've been seeing do you. guys do any I mean when what are the. core subjects again so we call them um. grammar dialectic rhetoric uh uh debate. research and logic or what we call them. they translate roughly to uh language. like English and Latin for grammar. dialectic is um um just lost my mind we. got geography history math science yeah.

with the little guys so we have yes do. old so we have here I'll do it the way. you would know so we do Latin um math so. algebra for for the older kids Latin. math um Science History debate and. rhetoric where rhetoric's a catch all of. presentation. skills reason ing logic so they do six. semesters of pure logic um from. challenge a on they do one they do a. course in philosophy or or theology for. a semester at every Challenge and they.

do a course in formal logic in every. challenge also so that gives them three. years of logic which very few. universities require anymore wow wow is. there any you know is. is society kind of evolves in the tech. world is there any is there anything. that uh like coding or anything like. that well um we don't do it specifically. in our program but as like we teach them.

how language is modeled which is part of. coding uh we teach them math and logic. which is part of coding so they have all. the building you know building blocks to. do well at it and we see a lot of. students go on on to do that at. University or even just skipping. University and going right into the. workforce and like our CIO at work um he. has he knows 40 different coding. languages and there's new coding. languages coming out every couple years. and so it's better to we teach them how.

to learn coding languages so whatever. the next coding language is they can be. the Forefront of programs and designers. and things like that so um it wouldn't. surprise me at all to have a lot of. classical conversation students doing. this AI programming um so and then the. kids become. because like we work hard for a short. period of time we don't go the full. length of a school school semester so. typically in uh starting Middle School. and High School you've actually got an.

additional 6 weeks of school left to do. at home that's not related at all to. classical conversation so a lot of times. people are diving into those sorts of. you know timely specifics for their. family um in those time periods and like. for me I thought I was going to be a. computer engineer I actually wrote some. of the first websites for politicians in. North. Carolina um but I went and actually at. the age of 16 uh worked full-time for a. coding company and realized that's not.

not what I wanted to I didn't want to. sit behind a computer all day um but. that type of opportunities are there so. many of our students you know when. they're 15 16 years old go and get. almost full-time jobs doing what they. think they want to do the rest of their. lives and they sometimes find out that. it is and sometimes they find find out. that it's not and they want to go do. something else and homeschooling kind of. gives you that that freedom so it's uh. are they using any technology for their. for their homework are they using.

computers iPads anything like that they. can do we don't go home with them so. sure they can but we don't allow that. within our seminar days when they come. to community okay and we don't even let. the tutors bring in PowerPoints or. slides or anything our motto is stick in. the sand if the lord loves some poor. Indian woman who has no husband seven. kids and wants her to equip them to. serve him for the rest of his life and. she has no resources well we can do it. too so we try not to have an American. Education or an unachievable wealthy.

education we try to have an education. anybody can achieve okay okay how. do I mean how does how do they how do. the older students do on ACT scores yeah. I'd have to I mean we have them on our. website um but yeah I mean they. typically are two to three points on act. ahead of your homeschoolers one or two. points ahead of your average like. classical Christian School um I think. about 70% of our students get academic.

scholarships uh to college um. 70% yeah but recognize not all of them. want to go to college so that's a pretty. high number yeah we have universities. that give scholarships just for our. students yeah there's like there's at. least a handful of them will they'll. give you an academic scholarship just. cuz you grad graduated from classical. conversations cuz they believe in our. students and their their abilities so. much we hear from college students all. the time who are like English 101 and.

the professor after like a month goes. you've got an A if you'll help me grade. all of your peers paperwork there's. nothing there's no there's nothing I'm. going to be able to teach you and and I. need the help getting your peers up to. the level so um we have a partnership. with a college in Florida Southeastern. um where students can actually get. college credit for their classes and. they're uh in such a way where they're. uh transferable to other universities. and things like that so A lot of times.

are I mean they're they could. technically graduate with an AA if they. did everything but most of the time. students are going to be graduating with. 9 to 12 hours of uh College coursework. finished and that's actually a pretty. good sweet spot in order to still get. scholarships and stuff like that and. yeah we had a student. um he was interviewing at Baylor and. they invited him to his scholarship week. and basically they gave him their. scholarship assignment was you've got 30.

minutes here's you know here's a subject. here's three papers to read on it give. us a one minute speech on it afterwards. and he had done that about a 100 times. in classical conversations and so he got. a you know full $250,000 scholarship to. Baylor because of all the work that he. done and I mean that's one particular. student that I know of but that happens. all the time over and over again so one. of my say one of my first students after.

only two years of being in challenge. because we were just getting going she. got a road scholar to Oxford and then. scholarship and then joined um the. FBI so they it doesn't take long to. change the you know a child's um. abilities because they're fresh and. they're young. wow yeah but we much I mean we don't. really lead with those type of stats CU. we're much a seek first the kingdom of. God and everything's going to be added. and the more we seek first the kingdom.

of God the more that seems to be added. um and so you know not not doing it. perfectly by any means but it's quite. remarkable and even like special needs. students are in our programs and we hear. from parents all the time that you know. the doctor said they're never going to. be able to do this you have special. needs kids too oh yeah a lot of home. school because of special needs cuz the. school can't meet any of the needs. MH yeah so it's a yes you got to meet. all sorts of people in classical. conversations yeah we've had whole.

communities that specialize in Special. Needs we don't like make that a policy. or sanction it because as we've said. before the director kind of gets her own. tutors together and finds the parents in. that local community so every now and. then there's enough of them of interest. that they'll get together with that but. um that's not our standard by any means. usually they're all integrated because. they're coming with siblings and so. there's usually a healthy sibling with. maybe a child who's struggling so we try. to bring them into like that whole idea.

of mainstreaming them into the general. population we definitely do that because. we don't think like I don't know Sean. I'm pretty sure I'm brain damaged every. person has some things that they need to. work on and so we just look at them as. somebody we have to. help I think the last thing with the it. sounds like we pretty much covered the. curriculum yeah and so um oh I wanted. one part can I the master's program so. uh one thing that we. noticed that's where I was going oh is.

this the master's program for parents. yes yes that's where I was going next. what's your question just I can go so um. we noticed 10 15 years into CC that. these parents who are teaching six. different subjects to six different kids. over 20 to 30 years were becoming very. very smart and yet at when their. children were denesting they had no. credentials and the world still wants. credentials so we got with seu. Southeastern University in Florida and. we put together a master's of classical.

studies through seu and if you're in our. ChalleNGe Program doing the assignments. with your children which is majority of. parents do you actually can earn your. Masters while you're homeschooling your. own children so we wanted to have a way. to to recognize how hard these. especially mamas were were working cuz. we'd have the smartest we have the. smartest clientele in the world and then. they'd go work like minimum wage at the. library cuz they hadn't worked in 12. years but they they're smarter than most.

I'm probably almost 90% of the. professors in our college system so why. not make it so that they can teach. college courses and it's just normal. moms and dads doing the work alongside. their kids um and so it's an opt-in. opportunity we have yeah so I let's just. go into that a little bit more I mean so. do they get the Masters for teaching no. while they're teaching while they're. teaching so in other words let's say you. work on um an essay on um The Iliad or.

or some book from Homer with your child. well you're and you're taking the. English course for this classical. studies so you get in with your Master's. cohort and you show the work that you. did with your child and then there's a. little bit of additional work to bring. it up to the Master's level that You'. compl lead so you're doing it well with. your children because we're trying to. show that the family can build community. together and so there are adult. activities there are children's. activities but mostly they're going to.

work together man you so we were just. really fortunate because seu had had so. many of our students they were like what. are you doing why are they such great. kids and we're like well because of. their parents and they right away were. like yes we're going to help you right. make this master's program cuz now when. these parents empty nest we want them. teaching at Christian Schools across the. globe so we want them already ready to. go not empty nest then spend four or. five more years afterwards before they. can um you know teach yeah so we try to.

set it up I mean if they want to we have. about 100 people in the program so it's. the largest classical Masters in arts in. in the world was the day we opened up uh. registration M uh and uh yeah so you can. basically do this and come out with a60. $70,000 a year job more if you want to. and so you can use all those years of. homeschooling and expertise to shape. shape more young minds and so it's uh we. God said honor your father and mother.

and we have the audacity to believe. it where do. you where are you guys heading next. what's the goal what's the next the next. Benchmark you're trying to reach yeah I. mean I think you know we're higher. education in college trying to to see. what we can do there to influence even. more whether it might be starting our. own or partnering with more colleges so. I think that's the next thing is cu you. got these parents are doing a great job. with these kids but um universities.

quite frankly don't know what to do with. them a lot of them you know until they. reach a junior or senior level they've. already done harder work in our program. than they're doing at University level. and so it's kind of wasting their time. so we want to see if we can fill that. Gap and I think now that we uh have so. many alumni and parents are alumni how. can we help them you know connect create. an Alumni network and uh you just. continue to Foster that community. and take over the world yeah I mean we.

have you know we know that we have. dozens of alumni producing podcasts and. we need to find out who they are so I. can be on them. all good call good call but yeah I think. just be faithful to the Lord what he has. for us and it's hiss business or his you. know we answer to him nobody else so our. goal is to hear the Well Done faithful. servant when we get to the beac seat. what does actually I do one over want is.

there any type of a. graduation yes what's that like it's. awesome well there's a lot of people. just graduate you know locally and. they'll do it at their local church and. stuff like that like their Community. will have an event for just them oh um. but we do an a gradu. at the home office uh with Lee and I and. about about 5 10% of our students come. to that every single year uh but we're. actually going to be moving that uh.

starting next year to going on a cruise. which we used to do before Co you used. to do before Co so we're we're going. back cruising so it's a you know be like. a fornite cruise or something like that. and uh one of the evenings we'll have a. big graduation ceremony and and party so. maybe you can be come and be we should. invite him yeah we should invite him for. that let me know would love to do it. it's just the greatest thing is that you. get this 150 students from challenge 4. across the globe who've never met each. other before and in 10 seconds they're.

best friends because they've read the. same books they love the same God they. know the same world you know they have. this just Unity of like people who just. love books you know how they get. together and talk about the same books. well people who love classical Christian. education love talking to one another. and um I remember two graduations ago. our youngest son was there and he had. been around for a while cuz he been. college and various things and. afterwards he C came up to me he said. Mom are all the graduates this happy. because they were doing backflips and.

high-fiving each other and just you know. really enjoying the the time together. and they had just met each other that. day wow that's really cool that's really. cool so I think um you know wrapping up. the interview maybe I should have asked. this at the beginning but. in in both of your I like both of your. definitions what what is a classical. education you let my mom go first cuz. you'll have the better answer well you. me do you want me to follow up with. yours.

no. so practically a classical education is. one where instead of handing a child a. whole lot of paperwork and asking him to. fill it in multiple choice uh complete. the answer is instead you hand them a. blank piece of paper and you say tell. tell me what you know about and you give. them the topic because then they can. assess do I know or do I not know cuz. anybody can learn patterns to filling in. the blank and multiple choice questions. so that's the difference between a.

classical and a traditional or modern. education but in general what a. classical education is is the Trivium of. grammar dialectic and rhetoric and that. is why it's um accessible to anybody. because grammar really means all the. words and ideas and and things you put. into your brain using your senses and. everybody has senses that's grammar the. dialectic is everyone's got a brain what. are you thinking about all those things. that your senses um you know told you.

about the world and then oh I have a. thought I'm going to go do something. that's the rhetoric and so no matter how. brain damaged or handicapped you are we. all have that. ability and so folks who like are. learning welding they need to know the. language of welding they need to think. about what am I going to use when I weld. and then eventually they may become an. artist in welding and people will say. you're really good at this and how do I. know it's because of what I showed you. so that's true with all of language also.

um I'm good at you're if you're good at. learning language you usually become. good at thinking about language and then. hopefully if you practice you become. good at teaching or speaking or. presenting like things through language. so what that does in education is as a. parent. if my child's frustrated or not. progressing in an academic subject I can. say okay is it because I've not given. enough time to bring in the information. is that all it is or you've had that. experience with somebody you go yeah I.

know he knows it how come he can't. explain it to me we've gone over it well. maybe they've got the information but. they haven't thought about it enough to. know how to express it so like a really. good example to me is when you watch a. toddler and they're kicking their feet. and they're frustrated it's because they. know they want to say something and they. don't have the words for it so the. grammar dialectic rhetoric the rhetoric. is they kicking their feet you know they. know something but they don't got the. words so the worst case was whenever we.

have War especially when young men are. bored and no one will listen to them and. they don't have the words to describe. what the problem is that they're trying. to that or that's frustrating them and. so we as parents are trying to say. there's not subjects we know you have. these senses what can I do to teach you. how to learn what can I do to teach you. how to think what can I do to teach you. how to express your thoughts and it. reduces it from all these University. options and choices to a parent having.

just three. responsibilities and so that's what the. classical model is and I had said maybe. earlier today um what we want our. children to be able to do is to name. like Adam ask questions like Jesus and. persuade like Paul that's to me what the. classical model does for us and it. doesn't matter whether it's in Warfare. or if it's in. knitting yeah I just add on to it I mean. it's basically the way you learn. anything it's a process that you go.

through and so for a classical education. what we're trying to do is pick the best. materials that the human mind and God. inspired has produced over the last. 4,000 years present that to the students. and have them go through the process of. really learning those things well so. that uh whatever God gives them to do or. however the economy changes or whatever. happens in their future life they know. how to address the challenge and. overcome it and so uh you know for. people you know grammar like I like the.

story of Michael Jordan Michael Jordan. you know at the height of his career uh. reporter said you know I'd love to see. how you practice um and Jordan says. we'll get there at 5:00 a.m. and I'll be. practicing and so the reporter gets. there at like 5:00 a.m. and Jordan's. just all sweaty and and uh the Reporter. Goes you told me to get here at 5: what. what did you what have you been doing. he's like oh I've just been dribbling. the last hour and so dribbling is. actually a grammatical stage of learning.

how to play basketball um you know. that's what I teach I teach UA. basketball with my kid right we teach. the kids how to dribble and hopefully. keep their head up that's the grammar. stage um so Jordan even at the height of. his career was still practicing the. grammar of basketball and so uh the. dialectic stages when you cross someone. over and the rhetorical stage is when. you hit that game-winning three to send. your team to the NBA championship and so. um Sports and music never lost the. classical model because the only way to. be good at either of those things is to.

is to do do use the classical model so. if you've been an athlete or a musician. you've uh not known what that's what. you're doing but that's the process that. you were going through probably the same. thing in the military I would suspect. when they're teaching people like I know. my brother was going through a gun. course and they were teaching them the. names of all the parts of the guns and. what they did right that's the grammar. of the guns and then you're breaking it. apart and that's the dialectic and then. hopefully you're shooting bad guys and. that's the rhetoric so so it's the.

fundamentals of learning yeah it's the. fundamentals of learning and it's just. practicing it over and over again with. copious amounts of good materials and. people that love. you wow I wonder I'm just how many of. these kids become. entrepreneurs really a. lot All My Sons are I'll bet I'll bet. there's a lot of entrepreneurs coming. out of there we don't that's the hardest. part about homeschooling I would say. that's the one weak thing about. homeschooling we do not like to sit in a.

cubicle 8 hours a day. yeah I remember when my friend empty. nested and I saw her a few days later. and she'd gone back to work and she I. said how's work going she goes they. think I should sit in that chair all day. long because none of us had ever done. that right wow. so the classical conversations kids. start start businesses and hire all the. public school and private school people. to work for nice genius but um well you. know to me I mean it sounds like I mean.

it sounds like it's a it's a perfecting. the fundamentals of learning so that you. can go anywhere and learn anything you. want and. uh makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. and on top of that I mean it it you know. me and my wife were talking downstairs. about it right before this last segment. and and um you know just it's a. lifestyle it's not a curriculum and it. seems like the.

the the premise for adults. is giving your kids to have to have the. tools to be better than you were and to. just create you know to give the gener. the Next Generation the tools that need. to be good. people have great values succeed in life. and yeah man I mean that's all any good. parent wants I think right I give a. definition of. homeschooling sure so most people think.

it's like said earli they bring in. school home and that's not it at all. what home school education is is a. husband and wife have children and while. they work on their marriage and they. build their business and they build. their home and they serve their. community and they build their. government and they build their Church. they do all that construction work with. their children around their feet that's. home. education I love that I think about that. all the time you know.

about teaching my kids all the things. that go into I mean I really really want. my kids to be critical thinkers and to. be able to to question you know ask. questions and and know how to grow a. business out of nothing and that's. stuff's all really important to me. because then you can go anywhere in the. world and find success make not find. success make success and um and I'm. always just thinking about how I'm going.

to do it how am I going to how am I. going to do that and this model. sounds really like the perfect way so oh. thank you so um well Le and Robert I. just it was an honor to interview you. guys and uh I love what you're doing and. I just want to say thank you again for. coming this is going to answer a lot of. questions for a lot of people and uh. it's just amazing like what you guys. have built so thank you well we.

appreciate the. opportunity my pleasure it was fun it. was fun yeah we had a good time with you. even during the breaks what a fun guy. you are Sean yeah well God bless and I. hope to see you guys again yeah. absolutely thanks. [Music]. no matter where you're watching Shan. Ryan Show from if you get anything out.

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