Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 10 - From Homeschool to Stanford (Part 2 of 2) // Amanda Reeves
Transcript
- there is a corner of it, I wouldn't even call it classical education, that views education as this list. Look at the things that I know look at my list is my list not so long. Welcome to the Christy Faith show where we share gamechanging ideas with intentional parents like you I'm your host christe Faith experienced educational adviser and homeschool Enthusiast together we'll explore ways to enrich and transform both your life and the lives of your children welcome back to part two in this episode we'll continue delving deeper into game-changing ideas for intentional parents like you so grab your coffee find a comfy spot and let's Dive Right In I think that a lot of parents when they are considering homeschooling or if they're on the fence about homeschooling it's very easy to fall into a scarcity mindset and I go into this in my book what about prom what are they going to miss out on all of this what I'm hearing from you is yeah your lifestyle and your upbringing and your education was very different but I'm getting the sense that there was an abundance in that can you speak to that did you ever feel like you were missing out on the quintessential High School experience for example um I know nowaday of course there is homeschool prom nowaday it's almost like we don't have to miss out on all those things but I also have noticed that a lot of homeschoolers also don't care about those things as much so I want to hear just from your memories did you ever feel like you were missing out on stuff and like that that was a bummer or anything like that I'm sure that there was some of that to some degree but one of the things that was perhaps unique about my education was that I grew up in an open enrollment District such that I could be homeschooled I could be taking all of my classes at home but I could also go and do extracurriculars at the local high school if I wanted to or even if there was a singular class that I wanted to take at a local public school I was welcome to go and take that class and then head home and do the rest of my schoolwork at home so I remember for example we had an absolutely Stellar AP Chemistry instructor at a nearby school who as soon as she started teaching chemistry all of a sudden the AP Chemistry test scores for the entire State just skyrocketed because she was one of those teachers who was so inspiring in what she did so my parents said well we're going to get send you over to do AP Chemistry so I would go to the local high school with my little backpack I'd take my chemistry class and then I would head home afterwards so as a result I got to really experience and pick and choose whatever I wanted from anything so if I wanted to go to prom I could go to prom if I wanted to take speech and debate at the local high school I was welcome to join the speech and debate team so I really got to pick and choose and do whatever I wanted from any of the different schools in my area which I think made it such that there really was nothing that I was lacking at any time but there were also a lot of opportunities that were put in front of me that I just had no interest in taking advantage of so I think that for a homeschool parent who's considering that element for one there might be a lot more opportunities in front of you than you're even aware of and as you start to unpack them you might be surprised at what you find at what your student is able to be involved with but at the same time I did get to take advantage of a lot of different things some of which I'm glad I got to take advantage of and other ones I think you know in retrospect I probably didn't need to go to prompt I want to ask you were there any subjects that you found growing up particularly challenging being raised in the classical framework and if so what were those subjects and why I think the subject in the classical framework that challenged me and probably my family also the most was ironically Latin I was the least inclined Latin student that ever was I was determined to study as little Latin as humanly possible and unfortunately for my parents they weren't particularly well equipped to to help me adjust through that because they themselves had never studied Latin and they realized pretty quickly that they weren't going to be able to keep up and study it alongside me by doing so they would be holding me back so I had a I mean I can't even say a LoveHate relationship with Latin for most of my education it was more a hate-hate relationship with Latin and it was only when I got to college that finally I was willing to give Latin a second chance and and take another look at it and then I discovered how fascinating it was but Latin was a big struggle for my family I did not take to it willingly I think my parents were overwhelmed by the number of resources and possibilities for how they could continue my Latin education so that was definitely the most challenging I think out of all of them and now you're a Latin teacher and now I'm a Latin teacher it is ironic I like to remind my students that I am a better Latin teacher because I was such a bad Latin student and I learned all of the lessons all of the ways to not learn Latin so now they get to benefit from it as my student oh I love that why did you decide to major in Classical Languages at Stanford so for the first year and a half or two years at Stanford I was actually studying bioengineering I wanted to study bioengineering I wanted to continue into the hard Sciences really I had aspirations of going into cancer research that was really where my head was was at and that's what I wanted to do since about middle school but when I got to to Stanford I started taking certainly all the chemistry classes the calculus classes biology classes all those intro level classes but at the same time I was taking classes over in the classics Department because I thought that they'd be really easy for me as somebody who had already been EXP oos to so much of that but pretty quickly I realized that that's really where my heart was I have a really strong memory of sitting down at my desk when you're my freshman year and bribing myself saying okay if you finish your organic chemistry problem set if you finish this you can go read the work that you need to read to write your essay about platonic philosophy and the important of solitude in education and that was a really weird T turning point for me because I never thought that I would be the person who would have such a natural inclination for wanting to study philosophy wanting to study languages wanting to study the humanities so that was a little bit of a a come to Jesus moment for me right then and there but then as I began thinking about it more and more and investing more in the classics Department I was just surrounded by so many people who are so sold out passionate about this study and were so eager to help you to fall in love with it as well and it was a natural Turning Point from there I think I made the final decision in my sophomore year when I decided I was going to take the intro Greek core classes alongside the intro bio core classes and I think three or four weeks in I changed my bio class to pass fail and I declared a Classics major because I was so in love with my Greek class and enjoying my study enjoying the peers so I pretty quickly turned over to the humanities the dark side if you will yeah my undergraduate and graduate degree are in history and I remember it's like I remember the the toxic message in my head it's like great I'll I'll graduate and be able to either be a teacher or sell vacuum cleaners right and then it just but the thing is is that I'm still a teacher and I love teaching and I loved teaching college students and and I love teaching mamas now I want to ask you you could have gone a lot of different directions with your degree even in Classical Languages there are many doors that are open to you and you've done a lot of cool things you've even been you've been a tour guide in Italy too I think but ultimately yep yep yeah yeah ultimately you're the dean of the lower school at scole Academy and you've landed in education our family personally has benefited from your incredible passion and talent why education for you in particular I want to hear and do you plan to stay there have you do you think you found your thing you're still pretty young and you don't have to but I'm very curious totally I realized when I was in college and Discerning what I wanted to do after college that for the number of things that I was passionate about and loved there were not enough hours in the day I realized that I love teaching I love investing in people's lives I love baking I love writing papers I love learning new skills there were just so many things that I loved to do and I just knew that there were not going to be enough hours in the day to do every single one of them but the thing I noticed about teaching that made me land on it as the profession that I wanted to do really for the rest of my life was when I come out of a class I feel twice as energetic as when I enter the class there's just something so invigorating and energizing about it because I love it so much and I thought well my goodness if I am teaching as my primary profession but I'm coming out of my you know let's say eight hours in the classroom twice as energized as when I entered it that's when I can go and I can bake those cakes and that's when I can go learn those languages that's when I can go travel the world and visit museums with all of that energy that I get just from loving being with my students and watching them learn and engage with material so that's what really drew me into education and alongside that I think that as a homeschooled student who primarily guided myself through the text that I was reading through the coursework that I was completing I learned how to learn throughout my education that was the biggest thing that I took away from my education was I knew how to learn a topic and I knew how to break something down into smaller parts and I thought well what good is it if I'm the only person who benefits from this knowledge I was eager to help train other students in that and teach them the lessons I had learned myself as a student and multiply the effects and the impact that those lessons then could have before we continue I want to share with you a program that has been a GameChanger for our family at our Learning Center we instructed and helped kids through pretty much every program on the market so we know first firstand just how important a solid math Foundation is for our kids Futures finding the right homeschool math curriculum that didn't compromise academic Excellence but also didn't put me and my kids through the ringer was a challenge until one day I found CTC math you guys the rest was history first off it's a Mastery based program which means your child gets a full grasp of the material it's also loaded with mixed reviews ensuring your kids don't forget anything they've learned the questions are adaptive too which keep students confident and progressing 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framework to build an undeniably successful H School each year and each kid presents us with Uncharted Territory but when you have a good plan the right plan you can rest in the security and confidence that you are doing a great job the path is easy join Thrive say a quick hello to your new friends start The eight-step Homeschool success framework and kiss anxiety goodbye it's risk-free no contracts you can cancel any time no questions asked go to christy-smith is really just for gifted kids you are clearly gifted so I do want to address because I know you teach kids who have special needs and I don't believe that a classical education is only for those who could teach themselves or for autodidacts which is what you were you were an autodidact now that is always a great thing it's really just being an independent learner knowing how to acquire the knowledge that you want and need to know for your goals it's really just being a self-learn it's what throughout history everybody was but somehow now yeah if you want to know why just buy my book homeschool Rising I Chapter 3 is on the history of why we are now we have students sitting in a classroom staring at a teacher waiting to be told what is important but I want to speak to a classical education for maybe differently wired Learners kids who maybe have diagnosis I want to hear you speak to that because it's so much more than rigor absolutely absolutely yeah the classical education movement has been I think unfortunately slow to recognize that not all students are going to learn in the same way that's been something that's really been part of the movement for about the last maybe 5 to 10 years but it's been a little slower in the uptake and that sort of of vein but I think that for many years classical education was put up as this gold standard for what education would be and in a rather elitist way it was presented then as oh this is challenging this is rigorous this is difficult without recognizing that no one topic has to be more difficult than another I genuinely think that Latin is no more difficult to learn than any other language or even any other subject there's nothing particularly challenging about this language compared to others it more just has to do with how are you teaching the material how are you breaking it down how are you approaching it how are you inspiring love and Delight in this subject for for a particular student and all those sorts of questions are always going to be particular to a student one of my favorite tasks as a teacher is to have a student come into my classroom and start tinkering with things and figuring out what is it that's going to make this student light up in this classroom what is the thing that they're just going to latch on to and fall in love with and for every single student the particular sequence of events is going to be ever so slightly different but I firmly believe that for every student regardless of their educational background regardless of of what special challenges they might be facing in their education whatever their proclivities are there's a sequence of events that can cause a student to fall in love with a particular subject I'm thinking about um a student that I have in my classes right now who his his parents had told me that he was probably not going to be one to talk much in class he is quiet he's very shy around people he's very reserved and because of an early speech delay he's just very insecure about speaking in front of people so he comes into my class and sure enough he's a very quiet student student but we just started reading a little bit about ancient Roman history in that particular class and the way that this student cannot stop talking all of a sudden is absolutely incredible because he's found something that he loves and that he's interested in and engaged in and it's my job as a teacher and would be for any teacher any parent who's working with their student to play around with it to start toggling the buttons a little bit and see if you can figure out what is that sequence of topics of conversations of approach is it will cause a student's eyes to just light up and fall in love with a subject and don't sell yourself short Amanda because what I was hearing when you were saying that is I was hearing that you have made a classroom that is a safe place for this young man and I'm getting emotional thinking about that because that has been our experience with with our own family and I think that there's a couple thoughts that I have on this number one I think that the homeschool culture is overall I would say an extremely accepting and comforting culture socially we are accustomed to quirky families and just like when we're invited to a birthday party all of us come right it's not like age segregated and things like that but at the same time I think that because we're so attacked be over the socialization piece that we are very conscious of being safer places now I'm not saying you know I've also had I've been in I've left co-ops that were too clicky I just don't do I don't do Mom drama I do gossip and I don't do clicks so that wasn't a fit you know it all depends but I just want to say that yes that student has lit up but I also think it's the environment that you have created you have created a safe place the other piece I think that the classical movement has a reputation of being a little bit audite and snobby I think that part of it is slightly unavoidable because children who are classically educated present differently to society so like for example I remember several years ago when my son was basically only six years old if I recall was the neighbor was she was a little kinly we love her an old neighbor she has moved and she he said something and she challenged him on it not in an offensive way she didn't cross the line or anything but he had the logic skills and the rhetoric skills really only at six years old respectfully point out how she was incorrect on this particular matter and I think that that it's important to acknowledge that if we are wanting something different for our kids and something better for our kids we should not expect the outcome of our kids to look like all the other kids I want my kids to be able to think critically engage in indepth conversations I want them to really know how to think spot fallacies Eng you know engage with true socialization which is engage with adults as well as an infant not just kids their age and that can be quite intimidating and dare I say can make adults feel uncomfortable and when adults feel uncomfortable they can judge sometimes if they if they feel a little you know attacked would you agree with that that that could be a piece of why that the classical movement has a little bit of a snobby reputation cuz I agree with you Latin is not harder to learn than Spanish I agree with you on that y my son is reading anid right now loving it Me growing up in public school I would have had the mindset that I'm not smart enough for that book he's never been told that narrative he just loves to read so why wouldn't I just pick up another book and I would love for you to speak to that a little bit because I feel like there's some nuggets there that are important to hear for people that maybe are intimidated or think they're not smart enough to teach classically or my kid has special needs so he or she is not a fit yeah absolutely I definitely think that there is something really unusual about students coming from a classical framework in particular in terms of their eloquence of speaking their Clarity of thought and even just the depths of ideas that they have yeah which I think that's something that's important to recognize is that's coming not necessarily from a particular program that's not coming from a particular way of teaching particular topic that's coming from engagement with great ideas and that engagement with those great ideas sometimes is as simple as just picking up a copy of the anid and being deeply confused by it I know the first time that I read the anid I jokingly titled it 10,000 ways to kill a man right or maybe that no I take that back I think that was The Iliad The Iliad was 10,000 ways to kill a man and then the anot was why is this guy not making it to Italy any faster than he is right so sometimes engagement just looks like picking up these works and being deeply confused by them but in classical education rather than than setting the book aside you start thinking of those questions you start taking those questions back to the text and you start demanding that the text explain itself to you one way or another which then at the end of the day means that classical education is going back to putting beautiful and good and true things in front of our students and letting their brains do what brains naturally do and giving them the support that they need to continue pursuing that even when perhap perhaps some days it's a little bit more challenging sometimes they're reading a text that really requires a little bit of extra effort to become clear but putting students in an environment where they have the tools that they need to keep coming back to it with their questions to keep raising those thoughts and to keep engaging with the things that they are exploring that's what classical education is all about the show will resume in just a minute but first I want to share with you an incredible resource that is totally free to homeschooling families everywhere have you ever felt like you were on trial for your homeschooling Choice when visiting a doctor or another service provider it's unsettling especially when someone misinformed has the power to threaten your family unfortunately we have heard countless stories of parents who have felt trapped in offices and met with suspicion rather than support simply because they were homeschoolers I've been profiled and interrogated myself and I'm sure many of you have as well enough is enough it's time we proactively vet service providers before giving them our business and our money enter Christy fath list a directory 100% free to homeschooling families connecting you with homeschool friendly service providers who promise to support you in your homeschooling choice we want every homeschooler in America to know about and be using this list so here's how to make Christy Faith's list a household name one tell all your friends about it let's show the market just how powerful the homeo School movement is number two check Christy face list website before stepping foot into any service provider's office to make sure they are on there and number three if your favorite service provider isn't on the list make sure to refer them there's a button on the homepage of the website it takes only 30 seconds and that way we can send them a lovely invite if you're listening and you are a homeschool friendly professional we want you on the list we're eager to connect homeschooling families with you shout your name from from the rooftops and bring you tons and tons of business we have plans for every type of business both small local Nationwide and worldwide check out Christy list.com today hi mama if you like my social media content and my show I'm pretty sure you will love my book homeschool Rising shattering myths finding courage and opting out of the school system my book is for homeschool parents both veteran and new and the perfect book to hand any homeschool Skeptics in your life so they can better understand why you've chosen this amazing lifestyle this book will challenge you Empower you encourage you and give you solid Mindful Answers to all those questions you get about your homeschooling Choice grab your copy and maybe an extra one for your mother-in-law today homeschool Rising is available wherever books are sold I love that now I got to ask you because you know I'm me and you are a critical thinker and I like to think of myself as is one is there anything in the classical movement that you see that you just can't get behind for whatever reason you're like not so sure about this yes I think something that I have noticed in the classical movement the more that I've got into it the more I've worked with students who have experienced a lot of different permutations of the classical movement is I think that there is a thread of Education that is calling itself classical that is so based on just the wrote memorization of facts without a deeper engagement with the ideas so I'll have students who will come into my classroom who have every single Latin ending memorized I tell them all right can you tell me your present tense verb endings and they confidently chant OST motis un and then I say that's amazing now tell me what kind of a word of verb is and they look at me with deer in the headlight eyes and they say OS T moose un and I say that's beautiful now tell me if a verb has one of those endings when is it happening and they look at me with greater fear in their eyes and they say OST moce un so I definitely think that there is a corner of I wouldn't even call it classical education though it uses that term a lot of times that places such an emphasis on the rote memorization of facts and Views an education as this is a list of the things that I know look at my list is my list not so long do you not see every single one of these books that I've read do you not see all of these different endings that I have memorized there's a sense that because of the quantity of material that they've studied that they've gotten an education out of it but I think at the end of the day I mean there's a saying that we use in classical education molum non molta right we do much not many where you want to take a few key ideas and you want to engage deeply with them and you want to harvest just as many nuggets from it as you possibly can so I really can't get behind anything that's claiming to be classical with such an emphasis on rope memorization without inspiring a love and a curiosity and a humility towards studies that I think that classical education should be inspiring I think this message here is so important and I believe deeply in my heart that one of the reasons why those programs where it's just look at what my kid can do my kid can rattle off all these things I actually think that because our society has a distrust of homeschool families because in Prussia you need a profession you need a certificate to do it which sends a message that now everyone else is not qualified to do this whereas that that's new like this is that idea is only 150 years old but I do think that we gravitate especially if we were not educated in this way ourselves we gravitate towards those programs as a security blanket like we don't want to mess this up and then what happens is at the Christmas get together the kid can rattle off flatten endings and can rattle off history sentences and can say you know name the planets and all of this and everyone's impressed whoa right and then it makes people stop asking questions about the type of education they're giving their kids I do memory work with my family but it's in its proper place it's for a purpose because I know that if we don't have that structure we can't build anything on it okay so we're not saying and I know I don't want to put words in your mouth but I think that you would agree Amanda that it's it's does this memorization have its proper place and be very careful in mistaking that for a classical education because that is that grammar stage and the proof is in the pudding you see these classical programs there is a mass exodus by Junior High because it's that grammar stage look at everything my kid can memorize then the mom and dad look at what the curricula looks like like starting in the next stage in junior high and they go wait what what because they never were actually told what what they were doing what they were getting into what a classical education is but the thing is is that when you really take that dive and it doesn't take long hopefully this episode did that for you you realize there's a freedom there there is a freedom because you can put these things in its proper place and stand on a solid rock of an educational style that has been around since the beginning of time basically I consider myself at the core to be classical but now I call myself eclectic so yeah do my kids learn Latin yes do I teach history in the very popular classical way absolutely not I do not you know with the popular classical programs so you know when you start to stand on Solid Ground you start to have the courage to step out and so I think that's an important message that is just be careful just because something calls it you know we talk about this I help a lot of mamas with their kids and their reading just because a program calls itself Orton Gillingham does not mean that it is because everyone's calling themselves that nowadays because it's they need to otherwise they won't make sales but be very careful I want to ask you I want to know just a little something about you cuz you're such an intriguing person in general what is a passion project just in your life right now what are are you working on anything fun what are some current interests that you have if you're enjoying the show and you don't want to miss out on future episodes hit that like And subscribe button and show us some love with your comments those five star reviews really do make a difference yeah no this year I realized that I needed to pick up some new hobbies just because I had gotten so excited about the work that I do that I was really putting a lot lot of emphasis in work which was great but then I thought my goodness I want to have something fun to talk about at dinner parties other than just the wonders of the Latin language uh so my big uh projects for this year I mean aside from just planning my wedding which is taking up a big part of my brain space but I have decided to Deep dive into the world of sourdough baking and it is such an adventure I obsess over my poor little starter I currently right now my sourdough is over RIS in the sun right now and I'm absolutely thrilled because it tripled overnight it's never tripled before and I'm so excited so right now sourdough is at least 20% of my personality and when people see me they know not to ask how are you doing Amanda they instead ask how is your sourdough starter doing and the answer will be one and the same because if the starter is thriving I too am probably thriving a codependent relationship with the sour of starter exactly so I also have tried sourdough I made the mistake of starting it in a Colorado winter and later I was advised that that is not a that is not a great idea to be a brand new sourdo person but I named her I even it was a she I named her Esther and she died Amanda she died and I I it was emotional it was emotional so when you build yours up you know people can send their starters they can share how close of friends are we true you know expect a package sometime in the next three years no it was great I I got word from a friend that there was this lady at my church who apparently had a particularly robust sourdough starter so I just kind of sidled up to her at church and I said tell me about your sourdough starter and she was like are you in the business and it was it was this whole furtive thing happening there in a church Pew and then later that evening we had a Christmas service and she said I'm going to bring you starter so she and her son come over with this jar of starter to this you know formal Christmas Carol service that we have she hands me this starter and her her son informed me that its name was Mo Mo the dough and I had to take really good care of it and the pressure that I feel I see them at church still and I I feel like I have to kind of avert my gaze because my loaves are not as they should be and I feel like I cannot yet return to them and say I have done Mo well MO is thriving in his new environment someday well and I think my mistake is I was trying to use sprouted flour and I don't think a beginner should be trying to use sprouted flower yeah so I gave up and I was like you know what there's I I gotta move on I gotta move on I can't even keep my plants alive I can keep my children alive that's good that's good so it's a good start yes I love it I am thrilled that you came today I want people to know where they can find you're not a big social media person we don't care we love you and you're this episode is so value packed I can't wait to share this if someone wanted to find you or buy your sourdough starter just kidding don't bug her I'm first in line people yes where get it first yes where can they find you yeah I would say probably 99% of the time I'm probably in class teaching so that's probably the best place to find me is in class with my students loving teaching them Latin no but I mean in all seriousness you can find me at scol academy.com that's where all my courses are housed and you can also find my email on that website so you can go in take a look at all of the courses that we're going to be offering maybe sign up for a Latin for children class with yours truly and if you have other questions you'll be able to find my email there as well yes and just for the record this is not sponsored whatsoever but we have had at this point many teachers at skole Academy never once have we been disappointed in fact we're over the moon with just the quality of educator at that particular Academy it is an academy that caters to homeschool families and it's kind of an allart method where you very much a college model where Latin is either two days a week or three days a week or you can take a literature class or a history class and it's actually added a social element that I did not expect because my children have friends all over the world my son a couple weeks ago needed to wake up in the middle of the night because he has a friend on the other side of the world and it was they needed to do this thing and it was just really great so totally different than what that covid schooling was that online disaster dumpster fire that you all experienced back then these are really high quality live online classes with Stellar instructors we will put that in the show notes again please know this is not this was not sponsored podcast this is not this is just it's just a Love Fest is all it is so thank you so much for coming on today I cannot wait to share this with my audience well thank you for having me it was a pleasure to get to share a little bit about my [Music] experience we belong I told you you are the one you're my S won't you take me higher than the we can go all night till we find our light and show everyone nobody doesn't like us