Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 113 - 5 Skills Every Kid Needs for an AI Future (The 5 C's Homeschool Moms Should Know) // Lisa Nehring

Transcript

Ep. 113 - 5 Skills Every Kid Needs for an AI Future (The 5 C's Homeschool Moms Should Know) // Lisa Nehring · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:10
  Christy-Faith: You're here for part two of my conversation with Lisa Nearing on AI future, jobs, college, and what homeschool moms need to know. So every mom listening right now has been hearing us and she's thinking about her own kids. How should she even begin to think about this? Like, I'm thinking of the mom who's pregnant right now. She has a two year old, a four year old.
• 0:33
  She's teaching the six year old how to read. Like, how does this right now, this major industrial revolution happening, how does that apply to her right now?
• 0:43
  Lisa Nehring: Yeah. I think we have to remember that our brains are not computers and computers are not brains. Computers can process information very quickly and do a lot of really kind of almost miraculous stuff, but only humans can assign meaning. And so the best way to inoculate our kids and ourselves against the industrial revolution is to really lean into what makes a human and embrace that with our family. Teaching our kids how to have actual world skills, but also understanding the arts and their faith and how to treat other people.
• 1:19
  So not just academic skills, but life skills, social skills, spiritual skills, what are the spiritual disciplines, those kinds of things. Because again, a computer can collate information and give you an average, but it can't tell you why anything is meaningful and only humans can do that. So why is education meaningful? I mean, let's just start there. Why should we even educate our kids?
• 1:41
  In my opinion, education is the transmission of culture. That's from Will and Ariel Durant way back. They did the history of the world during the second industrial revolution. Brilliant minds. And I love that definition because if we're thinking about that as parents, no matter what's going on around us, what culture do we want to transmit to our kids?
• 2:01
  Do we want to transmit a culture of love and truth and beauty and goodness? Well, we're the best people for that. And a computer isn't the best person for it because a computer is a computer. It's not a person, it's not a brain. And a computer can do a lot of things.
• 2:16
  It can create art, but it can't assign the understanding of beauty to anything where And people so I think really making sure that we're really teaching our kids actual skills. And what does that mean? Like basic skills. Your kids need to be numerically and linguistically literate. There's been so many stories in the last couple of years of valedictorians training around and suing their schools because they can't read a fifth grade text, but they're the valedictorian.
• 2:41
  This is crazy. So it doesn't take that much to teach somebody how to read really well. And if your kids can read and calculate, the world is completely open to them. And I'm gonna I just wanna share a personal story to prove how true that is. I grew up in a world that was pre AI, pre computer, pre microwave, practically pre color TV.
• 3:02
  I mean, am that old and I own online companies. Why is that? I like I already told you, I'm not a coder. I'm not really very techy. I didn't even know my phone had a flashlight for a couple years and I turned it on by accident and had to call my son to help me figure out how to turn it off.
• 3:17
  Like I'm not a tech person, but I know how to learn. And that is what we have to teach our kids. How do you learn? And nurturing their mind. One of the best ways we can do that as parents is to turn off the computers and not put screens in front of our kids' brains.
• 3:32
  The research on kids and brains is terrifying. This generation, Gen Z, is actually IQ points lower than the generation above them. Why is that? Because they grew up looking at a phone. And you know, I've seen this for decades going through the grocery stores.
• 3:51
  You have a toddler in a cart and they're in front of a pad, an iPad. Why aren't they in the stroller in front of the mom and the mom pointing out like, you smell this fruit? This smells like talking to them and engaging and interacting with them. Because all throughout time, that's how we raised our humans. And now all of a sudden, we're letting a tablet or a phone raise our kids.
• 4:10
  And this is bad for everybody. It's definitely bad for the kid. It's bad for our relationships. The stats right now are that your kids have more in common with a teen in Taiwan or China than they do with you in their home because of a device, because they're being socialized by the people on that device or the bots on that device and not the humans in their home. So we have to be really aware.
• 4:35
  I think it's really important to note that all the tech gurus do not let their kids have any kind of access to the internet until they're adults. Okay, that should be really informative to every one of us. And I'm not anti, I mean most of my kids actually grew up and they work online, you know what I mean? But I'm just saying when your kids are a little informative, don't let them have devices. And then really make sure that they know how to learn and to read and to do numbers and all those kind things.
• 5:02
  Spend time reading out loud to your kids. You know, all the old time homeschool y things, do those things.
• 5:08
  Christy-Faith: Oh. Read out
• 5:09
  Lisa Nehring: loud. Go outside.
• 5:10
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Oh, the old timey homeschool things. Hey. Shout out to Summit HealthShare for sponsoring this episode today. I love Summit HealthShare partially because it's my husband's company.
• 5:22
  What I think they're doing over there is absolutely incredible and life changing for many families. What is Summit HealthShare? Well, first, let me start with one of my rants about health insurance. Need I say anything? Probably not.
• 5:34
  But the co pays, the denials, the in network out of network nonsense, having to get permission to see your doctor, paying thousands a month, and then them still fighting with you every time you need just basic health care. I believe so much in the freedom that comes with leaving health insurance and moving to health sharing. Now it's not health insurance, but it does replace it. And it's been around for over a hundred years. With Summit HealthShare, most families and companies save 40 to 60%, and they have a 98% customer satisfaction.
• 6:08
  You get to see any doctor that you want, even holistic ones. No networks, no permission slips. You ladies know how I feel about freedom. I want medical freedom too. Summit HealthShare has different plan options depending on what your family needs.
• 6:22
  You might just need major medical, and that's great. On our plan, we get a little bit more, and we get free labs, free office visits, free prescriptions, and no co pays. Our family of six has saved a thousand dollars a month. And if it sounds too good to be true, it's not. It's actually how health care should work.
• 6:38
  We've just been accustomed to overpaying for our health care, and a lot of us don't need to do that. So if you are on traditional health insurance at all, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to summithealthshare.com. When you get to the homepage, you'll see the savings calculator. Go ahead and click that.
• 6:54
  It takes only two minutes. And when you see those numbers, what you should be paying for the health care you need, you are going to be grabbing the phone so fast because health care is a serious thing, and you're gonna have really personalized questions, and they are used to answering all of them. Tell them all of your concerns, all of your questions, and they will tell you full stop if this is gonna be a fit for you or your family. And tell them that you listen to the show because I want you to have the VIP treatment. Go to summithealthshare.com today, and the link is in the show notes.
• 7:22
  This podcast is also brought to you by The Christy-Faith List. Now hold up because I want you to know what this is. I'm really proud of what The Christy-Faith List has become. It started really scrappy just compiling recommendations because I was fed up with guessing which businesses and providers and doctors weren't gonna give me a hard time when I walked through those doors. And I had tons of friends and family members with nightmare situations where they felt like they were walking into an ambush situation just when they were trying to get help for their families.
• 7:52
  And I was sick and tired of the discrimination that homeschool families were getting. But since then, it has grown into a massive directory of colleges, businesses, doctor's offices, reading specialists, occupational therapists, homeschool graduates that are in business themselves now. You name it all in one place. Because why wouldn't we wanna do business with the people who share our values and actually want to work with homeschool families and not give us a hard time? It is completely free for homeschool families to search.
• 8:20
  And if you are a business owner or part of an organization that loves homeschool families and wants to reach more homeschool families and grow your business in that way, please sign yourself up. We wanna know who you are. It's the place where homeschool families support the people who support us. Go to the christyfaithlist.com today. Well, you know, it's so funny because over, you know, a couple months ago, you and I, you were coming through town and we had dinner, and you were talking about how young adults this just struck me.
• 8:50
  And I've had a conversation with several people about this since because I haven't forgotten it. You were saying that young adults don't have social skills. And it's Gosh. Okay. I want you to talk about this for a second because well, one, it will just be fun because homeschoolers are always accused of not having social skills.
• 9:09
  Right. But it's not really us that's the problem. And would you unpack that a little bit? Because I think that's really important. There was a situation recently where there was a kid who spends a lot of time on the Internet and was just really struggling with real life relationships and didn't know this was a kid that was in public school.
• 9:31
  So would you unpack that a little bit? Like, what's happening with our young adults? Because you were even talking about their dating life.
• 9:37
  Lisa Nehring: Oh my gosh. It's really a crisis, honestly, because our kids, you know, if you go out in public, my daughter and I, we had some errands this morning and we went to a restaurant we really like and sat down and got a quick lunch. And the people next to us had their phones out and they spent the entire time waiting on their food with their phones in front of their faces, not interacting, not talking to each other. We've seen that for a long time where you'll see families out in public and they'll all be staring at a device, interacting and engaging and talking with each other. Now, interacting with humans is awkward.
• 10:11
  I think we all have this idea that, oh my gosh, we gotta avoid the awkward. And I grew up in a time where life was just awkward. It was, like I said, it was the dinosaur era, but if you wanted to go out with a guy, you had to bring him home and talk to your dad. You wanna talk about awkward? My dad was six three.
• 10:24
  He was intimidating. He you know what I mean? Like, and you had to sit there and go, I like this guy, dad. He's like, why do you you know, and and, you know, drill the guy. I mean, life is just awkward, and that is what builds resilience, is doing an awkward thing and getting over it and going, You know, I can do another awkward thing.
• 10:41
  Or doing a hard thing. And so we're also worried about not allowing our kids to have discomfort. And I think we think if we can help them avoid discomfort, we're going to quell their anxiety. But the research is showing that this is the most anxious group of young adults we've ever raised in America since we've been taking this data. Like it's really a crisis.
• 11:03
  Our kids are so anxious, especially since 2020, when the world just went on Zoom and didn't really come off of it. So we've got to get our kids off these devices and put them in awkward situations that we help them walk through and also help them do really hard things. When I was growing up, it was just assumed you were going do hard things. And if you were too much of a weenie to get through it, that was a you problem. Nobody got you a safe space.
• 11:27
  Nobody helped you figure out, you know what I mean? You just had to work it through. And I think we've got to give our kids some challenging situations. It's called actually the Goldilocks principle. And it means put your kids in situations and academic situations, social, spiritual, the whole bit, not too easy, not too hard, just right.
• 11:44
  But just right is one step beyond what feels comfortable for us. And so growth only happens in friction. We have to allow, we have to get comfortable ourselves with friction so we can allow our kids to have a friction full life, not a friction free life. And so I think that's one of the things, it's okay for your kids to struggle a little bit. And I'm not saying to the point of crying, I mean, there comes a point where maybe you should check out, like, do they need additional help or whatever.
• 12:12
  But I think we've got to be really intentional. It used to be that we could just outsource our kids' growth to the experts, to the school, to the church, but those organizations are being disrupted too. Academia is in complete and utter chaos right now. It's the same in the churches. And so we have to be really strategic about our kids.
• 12:34
  Now, like The Apprentice Show. I'm on Celebrity Apprentice now. I'm always late to the party, so I'm watching it fifteen years later. But it's so fun. And one thing that he does is he gives them a project.
• 12:46
  And if we've decided to homeschool, we've decided we're in charge of our kids' academic project. And that's comprised of a number of different tasks. So the overall project is what? That's a question we all have to answer. What do I want my kids to know or be or have when they graduate or when they leave my home?
• 13:05
  And then break it into tasks. What do I need to teach them this year? What do I need to outsource? Now, I've worked with Olympic athletes before and one thing they all have in common is that their parents are incredibly intentional. They get coaches for everything, not just the sport.
• 13:22
  They get academic coaches, nutritional coaches, life coaches. I mean, these 10 and 11 year olds have life coaches. I mean, like, didn't grow up in that world, so that's kind of crazy thinking to me, but I know that you worked with these families yourselves. Yeah. So you know exactly what I'm talking about.
• 13:36
  Christy-Faith: We were the coaches. We were the coaches.
• 13:40
  Lisa Nehring: Which is why you're so great. You're doing what you've been doing all these years. And so parents, you can be the coach. Can hire the team. It is so easy to hire a team.
• 13:52
  You can say, I don't have enough money. You don't need money at this point. You can resource your family and your kids with as much creativity as you have. And some of it will take money. It's either time or money.
• 14:03
  But you have either time or money or a combination of both. So what do you want to resource your kids with? Which might be a really long answer, but I just want to encourage parents, like, don't be afraid. You're raising your kids right now for a reason. So you can be at peace knowing that it's not an accident.
• 14:19
  That's exactly what's supposed to happen. So be curious and focus on the main thing. But you and your spouse have to realize and understand what the main thing is for your family.
• 14:30
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And I think that if you're a homeschooler listening today, you're already there or at least halfway there because you're rejecting this idea of the government decides what a kid needs to know in this particular grade level. And let me tell you, if there was ever a reason to homeschool, there isn't a better reason than right now because there is no way the schools are gonna catch up with the teachers unions and all of that red tape just to make a single ding dong decision. And half the time our kids are guinea pigs anyway. Did you hear that now the whole thing is I just did an episode on it.
• 15:04
  Now the whole thing is, you know, how there was the science of reading? Well, they're now doing the science of math because the math scores were so low on nation's report card, the lowest since the nineteen seventies. And they're like, oh, wait. Maybe the common core math wasn't such a good idea. We're like, you think?
• 15:21
  Us homeschoolers who never did it, we're like, no. Our kids need to know how to compute. Yeah. Like, they need to So anyway, we don't have to get on those hamster wheels on those trains, but also we can be really intentional. We can that's the one thing that I've loved about homeschooling because I have four kids, and they are all such different learners.
• 15:39
  It's how I've been able to pivot. Yeah. Pivot when I've needed to pivot, which you can't do in any type of an institution, which I think is really cool. I just find this conversation so fascinating because I was talking to a friend the other day, and she's like, I'm so scared of AI. I'm so scared.
• 15:57
  I'm not letting my kids on AI. They're gonna cheat on their essays. And here I am thinking that is like the tippy. Like, do you know how big this iceberg is? And, you know, I wanna talk about something because we have had our kids start using some AI for composition.
• 16:14
  Let me tell you why. Yeah. One, it's a great brainstormer. But two, I think that even how we teach writing is going to change because
• 16:22
  Lisa Nehring: Oh, yeah.
• 16:22
  Christy-Faith: I use AI a lot, and I have had to get really good at knowing how to prompt AI. I've had to become a completely different type of writer just to prompt AI. And let me tell you, it didn't takes all of my intelligence to be able to do prompt AI for an output that I want. Like, we recently did a project. It was for Scott's company where we were having it write code for us and the specificity that we needed in our own writing skills to be able to do it.
• 16:51
  So what do you see? I mean, of course, we're always gonna graduate kids that know how to write a five paragraph essay, but what do you see in just in terms of that discipline, like writing? What do you what is that gonna look like in ten years?
• 17:04
  Lisa Nehring: You know, we have this conversation at True North every teacher's meeting, like every single one and a lot of in between. Okay? But really, we've gotta teach our kids again, I wanna get back to skills, and I wanna name five skills
• 17:16
  Christy-Faith: K.
• 17:16
  Lisa Nehring: That are gonna be so important.
• 17:18
  Christy-Faith: Should we get a notebook? Maybe.
• 17:20
  Lisa Nehring: It'd be really easy. It's five c's. It's critical thinking. And you just touched on that because you can have AI write code and test it and then publish it and you have a company, like, literally. I mean, seriously.
• 17:31
  So But we have to teach our kids critical thinking skills. And again, that means when they're young, stay off the computer because you don't build critical thinking skills passively taking in information. You learn critical thinking skills by solving problems, which is an active brain activity. So doing puzzles and board games and perplexers and solving math problems. You might not use algebra, but algebra is a great critical thinking skill, formal and informal logic, etcetera, etcetera.
• 17:58
  Critical thinking skill.
• 17:59
  Christy-Faith: And I don't wanna interrupt you here, but, you know, they took proofs out of geometry.
• 18:03
  Lisa Nehring: I know. I think that we're on chemical.
• 18:05
  Christy-Faith: Often, you know, parents their kids will say, I'm never gonna use this. And I'm thinking to myself, the cognitive what you are learning, what your brain is doing is so valuable right now. This is absolutely worth it. Are you ever gonna do that later? No.
• 18:19
  You'll use a calculator later. But the exercise in itself is where that value is. And then the other thing, you mentioned critical thinking. I wanna park here for just a quick second because I have a bone to pick. Okay?
• 18:33
  Asking a kid to compare and contrast the two characters in the book. That is not critical thinking. And you hit on that. Right? And then when and, you know, when you go to teacher school, they're like, make sure you incorporate the critical thinking in every lesson.
• 18:48
  And they're like, what do you think about blank? When the kid knows nothing about blank and then they're asked to form an opinion on something they shouldn't be forming an opinion on because they don't know enough. And then the teacher can check the box that that was critical thinking. Let's stop for a second. What is critical thinking?
• 19:07
  Because I want the moms to be able to spot the fake stuff and the real and know what the real stuff is.
• 19:13
  Lisa Nehring: Critical thinking is being able to take a lot of information, which a computer can do, and diverse information. Sort it out, curate it, understand which information is worthy of looking at and which isn't, and synthesizing and synergizing to come up with a solution for something. What do you think about that as a definition? I'm I'm just doing this on the fly.
• 19:34
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Sorry. I put you in the hot seat, but no. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 19:37
  It's Okay. Problem solving
• 19:39
  Lisa Nehring: It's at a problem solving. Uh-huh. Right. And and I think, like, what your whole thing about what's your opinion, we're in a crisis right now because I know several women who are like in their 30s and 40s, and they're like, I did a lot of research. And this is what they mean.
• 19:53
  They found something that agreed with them and read article and article. So they read 30 articles that all agreed with them. That's not research. Research is looking at the plethora of information about something and sorting out and coming to a conclusion based on what you are bringing to the table. That's the difference between confirmation bias and critical thinking.
• 20:14
  And a lot of people confuse the two. An opinion isn't necessarily critical thinking. You can form an opinion from having critically thought about something, but go online anywhere and you see opinions without any iota of critical thinking behind them. It's just, I felt this way, so I have an opinion. That's not critical thinking.
• 20:31
  Your feelings can inform your critical thinking, but they it's not the same. So yeah. This why this
• 20:38
  Christy-Faith: is why you're still hearing people in classical education saying give your kids formal and informal logic. This is why they're still saying it. So so because that seems so abstract and not useful, but why is it useful to put give our kids those classes?
• 20:56
  Lisa Nehring: Okay. So informal logic is super fun, and you're just doing fallacies. And you're gonna teach your kids fallacies and they're going point out all of yours. Yeah, yeah. It's so It's fantastic.
• 21:07
  Yes. We've both been through that a couple of times. Formal logic helps your kids understand syllogisms as well as truth and validity. Now one thing, I didn't know this so I took, I actually taught formal logic and it was really difficult for me to get my brain around. And so it was really actually a critical thinking exercise for me.
• 21:26
  But you can have something that is valid but not true. I mean, think about that for a minute. These are the kind of distinctions that critical thinking really tells, teaches our kids and helps them understand for the rest of their life. Somebody can say, I'm presenting an argument. Well, that's valid, but is it true?
• 21:45
  Because if it's not true, then it doesn't matter. I mean, it depends on where our value system is, but from my value system, me and Chuck Norris are in the same camp, baby, and there is a truth with a capital T. Yes. So I think we have to be aware of some of those things. I want to encourage parents, if you are really teaching your kids some of these things, it could be really hard and uncomfortable for you.
• 22:05
  I've taught my kids a lot of things that are tough. Like I've had to learn them or relearn them or decide that they're important or not important, and that's okay. You don't have to have all the answers to teach your kids. You can open the book and you can wrestle through it together. You're going to wrestle faster because you have more time in the world, understand more things, and you have more tools in your toolbox, but you're going to get to a point with homeschooling, especially where your kids are going to get smarter than you in certain areas.
• 22:29
  Both my boys can run circles around me and pretty much anybody else I know about history and geography and theology and the Bible because they just took off with it. My daughter's a foreign language kind of gal and she can run circles around anybody with philology and foreign languages and stuff. So, you know, if you really teach your kids some of these skills, just assume they're going to take off way above and beyond you. But it's worth wrestling through the hard part to teach your kids these skills.
• 22:59
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And one thing that I think you and I are on the same page is I think there there's even a revolution happening in homeschooling where you and I have talked about it. We really feel like and we want to change the homeschool culture. We it's already looking different. It's already changed.
• 23:15
  I think that's why moms look to us too for guidance because homeschooling doesn't look like it did twenty years ago. I hardly know any families where there is a traditional stay at home mom and a dad provider, for example. But also what has come along are better programs for homeschooling. And so, like, we do this and both Scott and I get to work out of our home, which is completely different than how work was done thirty years ago. So we can pinch hit, trade off, sit with this kid while you sit with that kid.
• 23:47
  You know? And so I just want you mom to be encouraged that you're not alone. If you're working right now and you're like, how am I how would I ever homeschool? That whole concept of sitting with your kid seven hours a day, like, that was back when they had to homeschool without computers. Like, you would this is not how any of us are doing it.
• 24:06
  And I would even argue in fact, I do argue. I taught a master class on this on fostering independence with your learners.
• 24:16
  Lisa Nehring: I love it.
• 24:17
  Christy-Faith: That it's not good for you or your kid if you're sitting there for seven hours a day teaching them. It could be indicative of a learning issue that you need to address. But for a typical kid, that's not doing them any favors. Right?
• 24:29
  Lisa Nehring: The other difference is you have communities like Thrive. We did not have those in the nineties. I mean, we had park day, but honestly, we knew people had gone to jail, so we were really on the lowdown on the park day even. You know? Yeah.
• 24:40
  Christy-Faith: So stop and explain that because I don't think I know what you mean by that, but tell
• 24:43
  Lisa Nehring: them explain to them. Yeah. Yeah. We would get together once a week at the park, Literally, we were we started out homeschooling in California, and so we would meet at the park for lunch and the kids would play, and we would go over the Scholastic book orders. That was park day.
• 24:58
  But now you have online communities, and you can you know, you have talent like Christy ready and willing to teach you about education and emotional intelligence and all sorts of things right from your own home. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. Think what you're doing is fantastic and reaching people. You you can live anywhere in the world and have access to somebody like you. That's a huge difference in homeschool community.
• 25:22
  Christy-Faith: It's and it's amazing what we're doing in there. We just love it. And what you're doing as well. So for the family who just can't let go of college, which is valid valid. Right?
• 25:34
  I mean Yeah. Like the traditional sense. I we Scott and I are educated. I have a graduate degree. I'm an academic homeschooler, rigorous, in fact.
• 25:42
  Yeah. If a kid is going into college and getting a degree right now, what degrees should they be looking at and what degrees should they not be looking at? Homeschooling for kids means I'm juggling roughly 24 different subjects at any given time. And a few years back during a particularly busy season, I hit a wall. I needed some serious help with the heavy lifting of teaching everything myself and managing schedules for four kids.
• 26:05
  That's when I found BJU Press Homeschool, and we've loved their courses so much that we keep going back. Some families use them for everything and love it. I use them for certain subjects. Either way, total mental load relief. Here's what my mornings look like now.
• 26:19
  Let us take science for example. My three girls do that one together. They fire up the lesson taught by a real teacher, well produced, actual teaching, not just click through busy work. And I sit there with my coffee, watch them, or make breakfast, and we discuss the big ideas. Every BJU Press homeschool course prioritizes critical thinking, a biblical worldview, and hands on learning.
• 26:39
  I just guide the conversation and pick which activity or pages or projects we want to do, and everything's already planned out. They have an online platform included for you called the Homeschool Hub, and it keeps everyone on track, both me and my kids, without micromanaging or nagging. And when I have questions, I call my homeworks consultant. These people don't just help you get set up. They're available for you whenever you need them.
• 27:01
  It's like having a homeschool expert on speed dial. Go to b j u press homeschool dot com or click the link in the show notes to find out more. People are always curious what curriculum I use for my own family, and honestly, it changes. We have tried a lot over the years. Some work for a season and some completely missed the mark, but there is one that's stuck.
• 27:20
  CTC math. It's a full k to 12 online math curriculum, and it's won oodles of awards for a reason. It's just that good. I use it for all four of my kids, and they couldn't be more different when it comes to math. Finding one curriculum that actually works for all of them, that's been nearly impossible.
• 27:37
  You know that pit in your stomach when you realize the curriculum that you just invested in isn't working again? Yeah. That was us until this one. The genius behind CTC math is that it's adaptive. The questions adjust to each kid's level in real time, so they're always challenged but never crushed.
• 27:56
  And mama, it does the teaching and grading for us. Yes. You heard that right. That's a homeschool mom's dream. Well, especially for me when it comes to math.
• 28:04
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• 28:32
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• 28:44
  This one stuck for us and I have a feeling it's gonna stick for you too.
• 28:48
  Lisa Nehring: Well, I would really focus on degrees that you have an end goal for. So, something that takes a professional license is going to be probably fairly safe in some of the economies that I mentioned beforehand. Now, is probably going to, I don't know what's going to happen with accounting, finance. I mean, it's just such a strange time, but law is probably not super safe. I would say anything in the mental health field, but again, it's a really politicized, in other words, very liberal profession, but anything you need a professional license for is probably going to be okay.
• 29:21
  But I would really make sure your kids know what they're going to college for and then research that particular school. What kind of foreign money do they have coming in? How are they doing financially? Are they going to close while your kid is there? And interview the professors in the field of study.
• 29:38
  Because certain fields of study are really getting hit hard by foreign dollars for a reason, so parents be aware of that. But I don't know that I would say any particular job necessarily at this point, unless it's really STEM heavy or in the medical field, biotech is gonna be really huge too, that you probably need a degree for. Other than that, I would say certifications, honestly, over a degree.
• 30:02
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And I'm seeing that too because right now, like, if I was thinking about hiring a personal assistant and my first thing is, well, I need to know how adept in AI that personal assistant is. Because Yeah. I know that what used to take me four hours, I can now do in about twenty minutes. And so Yeah.
• 30:20
  As an employer, why would I pay someone four hours to do something? So I think too that's something to keep in mind in terms of wisdom for the future is whatever your kid is interested in, figure out what how AI is going to adapt and change that thing, and then your kid can be an expert in the AI adapting of that thing.
• 30:41
  Lisa Nehring: So So here's an interesting thing to think about along those lines is that, yeah, AI is gonna change things, but digital detoxers and gamification kind of experts, these are two very interesting fields in my point of view. Digital detoxers are gonna be a burgeoning field. And what does that mean? Helping people get off their device. I'm not kidding.
• 31:02
  And just kind of do a brain cleanse from all the digital input that they have. This is a real job that's coming up in the middle of nowhere. And gamification too, how do you use game theory to really motivate people and stuff like that? So there's a lot of really interesting fields that you can self educate on that you really don't need a degree for. And really, again, I just want to tell parents like, what is the problem that you're dealing with and find a solution to that?
• 31:30
  Do you need a degree to find the solution? Yes or no? It's that easy.
• 31:35
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Yeah. And even if that person is using AI to solve your problem because, okay, so like this is just and I don't mind getting personal, but I was interviewing somebody yesterday for this thing that I needed to do for a next project. And because I'm maxed out on like, I'm about to head into travel season for speaking, and I'm starting my next book and all these things. And I'm like, I could absolutely absolutely do this myself.
• 31:57
  Right? Yeah. But I am like, I'm maxed out on even the AI using that I do. Right? And so when this person was presenting to me, she was showing me her deck, and I'm like, I know AI helped her make this deck.
• 32:09
  She was showing me some of the stuff. And I was like, and I know she's using AI to help her, but I'm I need her to. I'm now maxed out. So there's and I don't know if there's a term for it yet on I think entrepreneurs in particular got really excited about a year ago. I can do this with AI.
• 32:26
  I can do that AI. But what we're finding is I am maxed out on all the things that I can now do myself that I now need people to do that.
• 32:35
  Lisa Nehring: To help you with.
• 32:36
  Christy-Faith: To help me with the AI technology.
• 32:38
  Lisa Nehring: Yeah. Exactly. And gamification really helps people stay motivated. So they do the thing, and they do it faster, and they do it with more precision. So it really capitalizes on that human economy of we're gonna get every ounce of your ability out while you're working for us, but digital detoxers come in and go, but you still need to breathe and think and be a human.
• 33:00
  You know what I mean? So, again, these are two problems. How do we get the most out of our time, and how do we stay human and available to our people? You know? Yes.
• 33:08
  Christy-Faith: This brings up an important point. So number one is last week, I was scrolling on TikTok, and I saw an ad for a detox. And they were saying that they're gamifying the detox Yeah. Which which is, like, so cool. And I was like, oh, wow.
• 33:24
  That's really neat. And when I just taught a three unit class to my co op on digital literacy, I had them watch the social dilemma, that book that movie, the social And I think it really opened their eyes to how the algorithms really learn you. And people that don't have critical thinking skills are people who are very easily controlled.
• 33:46
  Lisa Nehring: Right. K?
• 33:47
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Read chapter three of my book because I talk about this is kinda why the public school system was invented. It wasn't invented to make your kid a savant. It was invented so that to support the government in what their goals were at the time in the industrial revolution. Yeah.
• 34:03
  And so but I just also, when I ended the class, I made sure to tell the kids, this will never nourish you. This technology will this is goes back to what you were just saying. Technology is never going to nourish your soul. Mhmm. There's actually studies that tell us what does, though.
• 34:24
  Like, there's that hundred year long study out of either Yale or Harvard. I'll link it in the show notes maybe where they figured out that it's your relationships. That is what and not a bunch. They actually figured out it was a number, a very small number of Yeah.
• 34:40
  Lisa Nehring: Like five, I think, or
• 34:41
  Christy-Faith: something crazy. It was that.
• 34:42
  Lisa Nehring: Yeah. Really the size of a nuclear family maybe. Yeah.
• 34:46
  Christy-Faith: I know. Go figure. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:49
  And just and the things that nourish our soul, like rest and I was guilty of this last night. I was so stinking tired, but not tired. And what do I do? I start scrolling, but scrolling is not rest. That's not resting your brain.
• 35:05
  It's escape, and it doesn't you don't feel better after it. And we all know this because we all struggle with And so, yeah, I think that's really interesting. Some ladies in my community are doing, like, screen detoxes Yeah. Social media detoxes in particular because it's really it's so you know, watching a beautiful film is a whole different neurological experience than scrolling TikTok as well. So it's all
• 35:29
  Lisa Nehring: In short yeah. Honestly, hate to say this, but the research is on short form videos are really bad for the brain. And if you just think about it, like your kids can actually watch a cake being baked, somebody getting beaten up, somebody reading the Bible or somebody screaming Nazi chants all within less than a minute as they're scrolling.
• 35:48
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 35:49
  Lisa Nehring: And they don't have the frontal lobe to really kind of sort through. They don't have the critical thinking skills to say, this is worthy, that is not, this is is holy, this is unholy.
• 35:57
  Christy-Faith: Yes.
• 35:58
  Lisa Nehring: And so it's really messing with our kids' brain. You know, we had talked about the five Cs and we only talked about critical thinking. I don't know how long
• 36:05
  Christy-Faith: Oh my goodness. No. Let's go. I just wanna go see if we have to go right there. Yes.
• 36:10
  Absolutely.
• 36:10
  Lisa Nehring: But critical thinking, I mean, I'm right there with you. Teach your kids informal and formal logic. It's one of the best things you can do for them. The second one is communication skills. And this is not just listening skills, but it's speaking and writing skills.
• 36:25
  It's persuasion. The number one thing most employers want from a new hire is can you sell? And that is just the art of persuasion because we're all in that, we're all in the selling field. We're selling our spouses on a vacation. We're selling our kids on math.
• 36:38
  We're selling the employers on giving us a raise. We're selling our customers on buying our thing. So we're all, it's transactional and it's just how well can you communicate with others and can you do soft cells and hard cells. But really communication is a dying art because we're doing LOLJK. I don't even know all the things.
• 36:57
  I use like five of them. But writing out complete sentences, a lot of kids don't know grammar anymore. And grammar is a critical thinking skill, honestly. They don't know how to spell, which is again, I mean, is so wonky, but again, it's a critical thinking skill. So teaching your kids really solid communication skills, how to write, how to read, how to think.
• 37:16
  If you can write well, you're thinking well, but also how to listen. And again, your opinion isn't the most important thing in the world. So sometimes just shut up with your opinion
• 37:25
  Christy-Faith: and just let somebody else talk. Yeah. I mean and I know we've just talked a long time, but people actually don't wanna hear you. They wanna be heard. Like, no.
• 37:33
  And like, in in general, people just wanna be heard. And honestly, even with even though I talk a lot because I run a podcast, I'm always asking myself, what is she struggling with right now? What is how can she feel seen and heard with what I'm about to share with homeschooling? Like, I'm still trying to achieve that even though I'm doing the talking. But, yeah, absolutely the communication.
• 37:55
  And you know what's so interesting is be very careful because you talked about the grammar, and I was walking my daughter through finding the difference between a PN, a predicate adjective, and a predicate noun yesterday. Mhmm. And I was watching it tickity tockity right in the brain, and I'm thinking, this is really cool. So, you know, as though people will criticize, you know, they've studied the diagramming sentences doesn't matter anymore. Well, okay.
• 38:21
  Fine. But what you need to realize about an education is you are developing the mind, and the mind is has neuroplasticity, and that is her categorizing as fast as she can to decide if it's a PA or PN because she has to know if it's an adjective or noun and all this and what type of verb was there. That is so valuable just in and of itself. Yeah. Mhmm.
• 38:45
  Exactly. So keep going. Yeah.
• 38:47
  Lisa Nehring: Okay. So critical thinking communication, creativity. And a lot of us think we're either born creative or we're not, but creativity is a skill. And the skill is just this, it's simple. What are the problems and how do I solve for them?
• 39:01
  I mean, that is down to its essence. I mean, we're made in the image of a creative God and so we all have creativity innately in us. But some of us think that maybe we don't, we're not that creative. But you can teach your kids creativity And I think you should because of this high-tech world we live in. What happened in 2020?
• 39:21
  Everybody went back to YouTube and they watched Yo Yo Ma play his violin. We listened to Jean Luc Picard recite Shakespeare. We watch people dance. I mean, we all went to the arts because the arts nourish our souls. And when the going gets rough, and it always will, we go to creativity.
• 39:38
  That's what keeps us going. That's our imagination. I mean, if you look at what happened in World War II, the people who survived with their souls intact, they were the ones who have the imagination to think, this will end. We're going to get over it. We're going to survive.
• 39:53
  And so we've got to teach our kids those creativity skills. Plus, the creative person is the one who is going, Okay, AI is coming at me fast and furious. How do I pivot? And being able to pivot is going be one of the number one skills our kids absolutely need. So the fourth is collaboration.
• 40:09
  We live and work in a global gig economy. Now Christy and I met online and then I saw her in a line in Texas. None of us, we don't live in Texas. And I was like, I said to my daughter, there's Christy-Faith. And then you walk by my thing and we started screaming at each other because, you know, I guess that's what we do.
• 40:25
  But we've been friends ever since. I think that is so cool. Like, you can have so much talent in your own home because, you know, you can meet people from around the world with the technology that we have. We've got to teach our kids to collaborate in unique and unusual ways. My husband met somebody from Israel years ago because he heard him on a podcast and called him up.
• 40:48
  And we've been very good friends since. My kids have had amazing opportunities. They've traveled internationally. My daughter's fluent in Hebrew. I mean, could go on and on about all the results of my husband making this phone call, but we all have that capability of being really collaborative right now.
• 41:04
  So figure out how to use it and use it for your benefit. And then most importantly, I think is character. We have to teach our kids that even though we live in a world of avatars, who you are in line behind an avatar needs to be the same person you are in grandma's living room. So if you wouldn't do something in front of grandma or say something in front of grandma, don't do it online. And we've got to teach our kids integrity because there's, again, there's a lot of crazy things happening in the world.
• 41:32
  And I don't want to say anything too negative or what's going on to exploit our kids, but there's a lot of exploitation directed at our children. And so we have to teach them really, if something happens that they're uncomfortable with and they feel ashamed and embarrassed about it, they need to come talk to us like ASAP. Again, back to collaboration. We're their partner. We're on their team no matter what happens.
• 41:54
  And so if they have a breach in their own character, they're not alone in the world, and we've gotta teach them that no matter how many people say that they are and blah blah blah. But those are the five Cs. And if we can focus on that, our kids are gonna be okay.
• 42:09
  Christy-Faith: Yes. And I wanna also end on a really positive note because one thing I think is gonna happen with all of this, because nowadays, you don't even know if it's a deepfake.
• 42:20
  Lisa Nehring: Yeah. Exactly.
• 42:21
  Christy-Faith: You the deepfakes, we you could kinda tell a couple years ago. Now you can't. What I think is gonna happen, and I honestly hope it does, because I think it would be best for humanity, is that we're not gonna be able to trust what's online pretty much at all, and it's gonna drive us to in person community. It's going to drive us there. Like and I think that's a beautiful thing.
• 42:47
  I think that's a good thing. I even want it to drive in person sales, honestly. Like, because and then we'll have people interacting with one another again. And I think that the pendulum always swings, and we get very excited about this. And, oh my goodness, you can make an AI video.
• 43:03
  I could make a, I mean, I think right now, I'm sure it wouldn't look good. Maybe it would have fewer wrinkles, but I could make an AI avatar of myself and, like, do a put a script in. I think that technology is here. It's
• 43:17
  Lisa Nehring: been already here.
• 43:18
  Christy-Faith: Right. And so already, I was asking my social media team. I was saying, like, I wanna kinda start putting is there gonna be a time where we have to put on the top of my videos that this is not AI? Like, this is actually
• 43:31
  Lisa Nehring: Wow. Yeah.
• 43:32
  Christy-Faith: Certified or something. Is that coming or what? Because we can't trust anything. So I think that there are benefits to of course, I think there is going to be more jobs in the long run. I think that your word disruption is so accurate.
• 43:50
  So it can feel very scary right now, especially if you're in one of those fields. But I do think you're right. That skill of being able to pivot. And you guys, listening right now, everything we've talked about today in educating your children, have you caught that it's all skills? This is all skills.
• 44:10
  Right? And so just keep that in mind as you're shopping for curriculum. And is this curriculum, like, content obsessed? Or is it actually wanting to help you build your children's skills? Maybe if you weren't planning or you were thinking formal logic was irrelevant, maybe rethink that.
• 44:28
  Right? Because that will give your kid an edge. Let me tell you. People skills, doing whatever field they're interested in, get them interning in those in person relationships. Because I think that young kids in their teens and twenties right now, they don't know how to communicate with each other.
• 44:45
  And it's shocking to an adult when the, oh, he's so personable. Oh my goodness. Right? So be encouraged mama listening because I think, honestly, well, homeschooling is I think more people are gonna homeschool than ever have in the future because we're just not buying it anymore, and I'm just excited about what you're building. Would you share a little bit, though?
• 45:06
  I feel we talked about all these abstract things. Lincoln recently joined your dual degree program at True North Academy. This is where he is getting his degree. He's chose business. He's getting his business degree, his bachelor's degree accredited as well as his diploma at the same time with some extra coursework.
• 45:27
  Would you just take a moment? Because I'm sure moms are curious. They're rethinking college. We were. Is it, and what are the benefits?
• 45:35
  Lisa Nehring: Yeah. So we started this program two years ago, and or we're partnering to bring this program to you two years ago. And so kids are taking high school classes, they've been modified, and they're taking 10 classes a year. So there's six live classes and four self paced over the course of a calendar year. So they don't have to do it all during the school year.
• 45:56
  And then they go into a private college portal, they take a test, and then they accrue credit. So when they have a certain number of credits, they earn either an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree. And it's really our response to what's going on with college and how we can provide meaning, but more importantly, skills for our students, because I do believe the degree still matters. They can graduate from high school with both a transcript and an accredited high school diploma and a transcript and an accredited college degree at the same time. So they're 17, 18, and 19, and then they can start a business.
• 46:27
  Several of our kids already have their own businesses. They're going to go all in when they graduate, or they're going to apply to graduate school. They have their undergraduate degree done at 18. So they're gonna finish graduate school when they're like 22, 23, 24, instead of 28, 29, 30. It's a half a decade more of earning that they're gonna have available to them and no debt.
• 46:47
  And that's one of the beautiful things about this program is that it's less than the cost of a college high school in most states. Now, I'm in South Dakota, our private schools are probably less than a lot of areas, and this costs less per year than one year of a private high school, and you get two degrees at the same time. And again, these colleges are partnering with us because they see the handwriting on the wall. They're desperate for students who want to complete the degrees. They want students who will complete the degree because if you don't, it messes up their school profile, which means they don't get rankings or federal money.
• 47:24
  It's a thing. So they're very forward thinking and they're saying, we want students who will do the work and who are going to think outside the box and we're going to provide a great program. And so that's what we're doing. We really try to make sure that we know our kids, they get to know the other students in the program, the teachers know them, we require videos on. And so it's been a lot of fun.
• 47:48
  We have students from around the world at True North Academy, and the dual degree program is growing. We just added an associate's degree last year. So you can earn a two year degree if you want to in the program as well.
• 48:01
  Christy-Faith: And then how is this different than other homeschooling programs out there right now where you can get credits? Because that's clear because at our at my co op, moms are like, wait. What's Lincoln doing? And it Yeah. And that's the question I'm answering a lot.
• 48:15
  It's how is this different?
• 48:17
  Lisa Nehring: How is it different? So you can go to a college, probably local, any of your state schools or several other homeschool programs that have dual credit, and you can take a class and you get kit and you can earn three college credits when you earn one high school credit. Like, you can do biology or college algebra, those are pretty common ones, some of the gen eds. Then when you apply to college and you go to a four year university, you can transfer those credits if the college will accept the credits. It's completely up to the college.
• 48:46
  So it's just like an AP exam. The college might or might not take the AP exam. So you spend a lot of time and money investing, but you have no guarantee that the college will accept it. Now I tell parents all the time, if the program says we'll accept it, get it in writing on their letterhead. Don't just say, well, talked to that admissions counselor three years ago because nobody cares.
• 49:07
  So now they might accept the credit, but it goes into a gen ed or electives and it doesn't apply to the degree. So now you're paying for more credits. And so I don't, I generally, none of my kids actually did dual credit in high school. I think my one son did speech, which cracked me up because he did a video recording and sent it in on his garbage little phone. That was his speech class.
• 49:28
  None of my other kids did dual credit because I really thought it was a waste of time. We're gonna spend double the money, double the time. I really wanted them to learn skills, so we did theater and politics instead. I felt like they got real world skills from that instead of trying to, you know, double up on the credit. And in my opinion, that's a lot of what AP is too.
• 49:46
  It's a lot of stress for the kids. So, a biology class, you're going to use a program like Apologia probably, it's a really good college prep class. In AP biology, it takes Apologia, the kids have to learn that, and they have to memorize an additional 1,500 facts about biology. That's the AP Biology exam. And you take that exam, you have to pay for the prep usually and then the exam, and then the college might or might not accept it.
• 50:11
  And if your kids don't get the score the college wants, because you can get between zero and five on the AP exam, they might get a three, but the college will only take a four. I mean, so it's like, I don't think a lot of parents realize that the educational world is very money driven. The remedial education system is a billion dollar market. The AP, the TUFs, ACT, SAT, these are billion dollar industries. And they're making a lot of money off of our kids and our parental insecurities.
• 50:41
  So parents, you don't have to stress about all this. Find somebody who's gonna help you reach your academic and vocational goals for your kids. Somebody that you can trust like Christy or me, and let us help you create a pathway for them. I'm not even kidding. Because there's a lot of people out there that don't really understand all of education and you and I both have, like I worked at a private graduate school.
• 51:03
  Like I like it's competitive and like, some of our kids are really, you know, they need to go the competitive route, but it's a small percent, you know, it's not everybody. And so how are we going to work with the rest of our kids? I mean, that's the plan. Help them create a strategic educational pathway for your kids and work the plan.
• 51:23
  Christy-Faith: Yep. Absolutely. We're gonna say we knew her when. Lisa Nering, one of the very first to make the dual degree for homeschoolers. I think this is really the future of education.
• 51:32
  I'm excited about the just the cost. Like, what is it now? A $100,000 to put your kid through
• 51:39
  Lisa Nehring: school and Maybe a lot more than that. So the average cost is like a low cost college for one year is 18 to 25,000 per year. Yeah. I just want to share something my daughter said to me, my youngest daughter. And again, when my oldest kids were going to college, it was a different world.
• 51:57
  But my youngest daughter went to college. She went to a private class school for a year and got great scholarships. And then she went to a small liberal arts college on the East Coast. And she said it was one of the most demeaning experiences of her life, which, oh my gosh, that just real Like I had to sit down with that for a minute because that kind of broke my heart a little bit. She said in the comp one class, they read two seventy page books and wrote a reflection paper.
• 52:22
  She came to me and said, I did more in seventh grade than I did in my college crumb class. Why am I doing it over? And she did. She did. So parents, you've got to be aware that the industrial educational complex is all about getting our money.
• 52:38
  And maybe you want to spend your money buying your kid a house instead or setting them up in a business because you could buy a boomer business and they could have they could have a 6 figure job at 20. Like, I'm not even
• 52:48
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Well and because I follow some of those TikTok creators, and there was this one gal in her twenties and she bought a boomer business for $40,000. And she goes, I make $10,000 a month right off the bat. And she goes, my employees were already there. It already made so, yeah, I think that we just we gotta think outside the box in the future readiness for our kids.
• 53:09
  And I think more and more of us are just being dismayed by this whole college route. And, you know, I met Scott at Biola, and we were on a get your roommate. There had these things called GUYRADS, and it was get your roommate a date. And my roommate got Scott as a date, and that's how I met him. So there are things that but, also, I don't think our experience that we had like that is our kids even if they do go to a traditional college, I don't think that experience is gonna be the same, not as wholesome, just not the same.
• 53:42
  And I did have to let that go. But you know what? We've already let go of prom. Well, we can do high school prom. But the point is that we can create other more amazing, just as amazing Yeah.
• 53:54
  Experiences. We just don't know what they look like yet, and that's really hard when you can't see them. So be encouraged homeschooling parent listening right now. There are lots of alternatives for your kids to set them up for success. That's something both Lisa and I are so alignment on is we want to help homeschooling parents set their kids up for a bright future, and we'll stop at nothing to do it.
• 54:19
  Lisa Nehring: I mean, it's true. Listen. Our kids need friends. Like that that's so self serving to me, but listen, I'm not, I love making money, it's so fun to own a business. Like don't get me wrong.
• 54:29
  Like I'm a capitalist at heart, but honestly, I want your kids to succeed.
• 54:33
  Christy-Faith: Yeah.
• 54:33
  Lisa Nehring: And I want Christy's kids to succeed because we need a community of success in the world, not just for our country, but for the world. The world needs hope, and homeschooling is a great way to raise our kids to offer hope to the world. I really do think that. I believe it.
• 54:48
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Alright. So we will put a link in the show notes, but how can families reach you if they wanna know more about True North? Yes.
• 54:56
  Lisa Nehring: You can go to true north homeschool.academy, and we offer free advising. You can do free future focused advising or the associate's or dual degree. And I just want to assure you we really do listen to what you're doing with your kid. So you're going to leave with a personalized learning plan for your student. Of course, we'll tell you about our stuff, but it's not a big sales pitch.
• 55:17
  It's really we want you to leave with a personalized learning plan. But true north homeschool dot academy, and I'm also over at it's not that hardtohomeschool.com. We have some big Facebook groups, but our contact information is on both the websites, and I'd love to hear from you.
• 55:30
  Christy-Faith: Great. Well, thanks for coming.
• 55:32
  Lisa Nehring: Thanks for having me, Christy. I appreciate it.