Latest / Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland / Stop the Summer Slip

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Stop the Summer Slip · Gospel Tech with Nathan Sutherland

0:01
Speaker 1: Purposely your life, God's Purpose Listen it purposely dot com.
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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Gospel Tech Podcast. My
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Speaker 2: name is Nathan Sutherland and this podcast is dedicated to
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Speaker 2: helping families love God and use tech. Today we're going
0:23
Speaker 2: to be talking about summertime because our East Coast friends
0:25
Speaker 2: here in the United States are already in summer break.
0:28
Speaker 2: Our West Coast friends are ramping up quickly. We're going
0:32
Speaker 2: to be in summer break in the next two weeks
0:34
Speaker 2: or so, and we need to think forward to how
0:38
Speaker 2: are we using our tech and what is that going
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Speaker 2: to look like this summer, And specifically, I want to
0:42
Speaker 2: address the educational site the summer slip. The summer slip
0:46
Speaker 2: is real. It is the idea that when we go
0:48
Speaker 2: on summer break, we shut our brains off and we
0:50
Speaker 2: just have a great time. And it's not all bad decisions,
0:54
Speaker 2: but there are deliberate decisions we can make to stop
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Speaker 2: the summer slip, which is I'll talk more about what
1:00
Speaker 2: that means and how we can be helping our kids
1:02
Speaker 2: for this next school year. And I do want to
1:04
Speaker 2: take a quick step back. So I'm very much in
1:06
Speaker 2: the thick of school stuff because since January. I've been
1:10
Speaker 2: teaching a sixth grade class, and here in Washington State
1:14
Speaker 2: we do sixth grades is part of elementary, so it's
1:17
Speaker 2: not a middle school class where I run my one
1:19
Speaker 2: language arts unit that I would run for when I
1:23
Speaker 2: was teaching in while our junior high format, when I
1:26
Speaker 2: was teaching eighth grade, I would teach. You know, I
1:28
Speaker 2: am an English teacher, I am a social studies teacher.
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Speaker 2: Now I'm just teacher, and I do all the things,
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Speaker 2: which has been a hohot, and I get the same
1:35
Speaker 2: group of forty six students, I have twenty three, and
1:38
Speaker 2: then they rotate through and I teach two of the
1:40
Speaker 2: content areas again, so I have twenty three and twenty three,
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Speaker 2: which is fantastic. Loved it. Love that format way more
1:47
Speaker 2: than I thought I would. But I'm like very much
1:50
Speaker 2: in it. And as I watch summer coming, I have
1:52
Speaker 2: seen these students grow so so much, which has been
1:56
Speaker 2: amazing and so cathartic. I would use that word. Not
2:01
Speaker 2: in the moment, it's as stressful as I remember. God
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Speaker 2: bless you teachers for loving kids and for serving them
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Speaker 2: and for pushing them on to believe in themselves more
2:10
Speaker 2: than they believe in themselves. And yet it is so
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Speaker 2: cathartic when you watch a young person realize that they're
2:20
Speaker 2: smarter than they believed they were, and by smarter that
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Speaker 2: most of these kids would say, oh, I'm not smart,
2:25
Speaker 2: meaning school doesn't come easy. And yes, we have conversations
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Speaker 2: about smart. There's a range and there's different things you
2:31
Speaker 2: could be smart at and look at Isaac Gasamov and like,
2:34
Speaker 2: I do it all. But they believe that good test
2:38
Speaker 2: scores mean smart because while the system has told them that,
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Speaker 2: and then to watch them improve in math and reading,
2:45
Speaker 2: in language arts, and to watch those test scores improve,
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Speaker 2: and to watch their confidence approve, which means now they're
2:50
Speaker 2: more likely to initiate a question or to engage an
2:55
Speaker 2: assignment you've given them because yes, I'm still assigning work
2:57
Speaker 2: with team minus ten days of school left. And they
3:01
Speaker 2: were more likely to initiate because they believe they can
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Speaker 2: and that there's less of what I like to call
3:05
Speaker 2: that active non learning where they are just fighting you
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Speaker 2: tooth and nail from gaining knowledge and I find myself
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Speaker 2: doing more work than they're doing, right, Like, there's less
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Speaker 2: of that because they believe they can do it, and
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Speaker 2: they're willing to give it a shot now, and then
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Speaker 2: they're going to go on summer break and then they're
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Speaker 2: going to fantastically implode. Show up next week or next year,
3:26
Speaker 2: excuse me, in the fall, which isn't really a year,
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Speaker 2: it's like ten weeks, and they'll be like, oh, nope,
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Speaker 2: see you do it. I'm bad at school. So here's
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Speaker 2: what I want to share about the summer slip specifically,
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Speaker 2: So over the last twenty five years, I know education
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Speaker 2: is getting a really bad rap in America right now,
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Speaker 2: and this is mainly post COVID, and we can talk
3:46
Speaker 2: about what the place of ed tech to try to
3:48
Speaker 2: supplant relationship and what that's doing because in America specifically,
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Speaker 2: we've kind of put education as the final bulwark against
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Speaker 2: societal breakdown. So when families fall apart and when communities
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Speaker 2: start to break like, teachers are thrown in the mix
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Speaker 2: of Like now, you need to make sure the test
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Speaker 2: scores are good, and you need to make sure these
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Speaker 2: kids can read. You may need to make sure they
4:10
Speaker 2: have social emotional learning. You need to make sure they
4:12
Speaker 2: have access to counselors. You need to make sure that
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Speaker 2: they're processing their identity on a broad spectrum, Like, that's
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Speaker 2: a lot for a classroom teacher who had a middle
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Speaker 2: school setting has you know, fifty minutes with this group
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Speaker 2: of thirty three kids, So I don't even have two
4:28
Speaker 2: minutes a kid per day. Like, that's a lot to
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Speaker 2: put on a plate of an individual. Now mine, I
4:35
Speaker 2: get the opportunity to teach at a private school, smaller
4:37
Speaker 2: class sizes. And what I like to tell my kids
4:41
Speaker 2: is the main difference between them and a public school
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Speaker 2: kid is every kid in my classroom has a support network.
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Speaker 2: Not every kid there has the financial resources necessarily to
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Speaker 2: go there. There's a wonderful system of financial support from
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Speaker 2: the district, but every one of them has someone who
4:55
Speaker 2: has brought them to this school. I was like, that
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Speaker 2: is a huge leg up when learning what we're talking
5:00
Speaker 2: about is in America, we have a system that's overloaded
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Speaker 2: classrooms and said classrooms, fix these kids or make sure
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Speaker 2: they stay awesome. And since COVID has gone downhill precipitously,
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Speaker 2: mainly because the introduction of a wide range of technology
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Speaker 2: and distraction. If you've seen test scores repeatedly drop over
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Speaker 2: the last few years, it's really happening with COVID. I
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Speaker 2: share that because prior to COVID, over the twenty five
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Speaker 2: years previous to that, two thirds of students in America
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Speaker 2: consistently met or exceeded the reading achievement levels that were
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Speaker 2: set within our country. And yes, that's a moving goalpost,
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Speaker 2: and I understand, but just now two thirds are hitting
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Speaker 2: at one third or not. I don't know if that's
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Speaker 2: better or worse than you were expecting. But one third,
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Speaker 2: that's not awesome that we're losing a third of them,
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Speaker 2: but two thirds certainly not as bad as I expected
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Speaker 2: when I read this. So in nineteen ninety eight and
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Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, the percent is the same for below
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Speaker 2: basic reading comprehension twenty seven percent of American eighth graders.
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Speaker 2: So there wasn't a decline in the twenty one years
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Speaker 2: between ninety eight and twenty nineteen, is what we're trying
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Speaker 2: to look there. Look at there, so while nearly a
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Speaker 2: third of them not hitting is not great, it's not
6:09
Speaker 2: dropping precipitously. And then we see this there was a
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Speaker 2: study that pulled 's see this is out of twenty
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Speaker 2: twenty is when they pulled this data. It looks at
6:20
Speaker 2: so it's taken from the Northwest Education Association. But it's
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Speaker 2: data for two hundred million students. Let's see here two
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Speaker 2: hundred million students. This is quote from the researchers. Data
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Speaker 2: provided by the NWEA allows us to estimate means and
6:35
Speaker 2: variance across eight grade levels using a data set with
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Speaker 2: more than two hundred million test scores for nearly sixty
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Speaker 2: million students in seventy five hundred districts across all fifty
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Speaker 2: states for a fairly recent time period twenty eight to
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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. So we have twenty eight to twenty sixteen.
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Speaker 2: We can see eight different grade levels, and this allows
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Speaker 2: us to see sequentially student progress. And what they found
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Speaker 2: is the summer slip. They found that the difference in
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Speaker 2: student high level achievement wasn't necessarily where you came from
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Speaker 2: or the school you went to, or what your family
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Speaker 2: background is or any of that, or where you live.
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Speaker 2: It came to whether you were doing any form of
7:19
Speaker 2: education in those ten weeks off. They found a slip.
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Speaker 2: If you took an average third grade reader and a
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Speaker 2: start fourth grade at the same level, the child who
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Speaker 2: does nothing over summer will experience a forty percent degradation
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Speaker 2: over their peers. So if they both finished third grade
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Speaker 2: at grade level they're reading, they're part of the two thirds,
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Speaker 2: and they go to fourth grade, one of them will
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Speaker 2: start losing forty percent of the progress, not overall knowledge.
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Speaker 2: And I do want that to be very clear. We're
7:47
Speaker 2: not dropping from a oh goodness, I can't do the
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Speaker 2: math in real time, but they're not losing forty percent
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Speaker 2: of their total knowledge. They're losing forty percent of their
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Speaker 2: progress that they gained the previous year. The reason that's
7:59
Speaker 2: important is because when we look at what these students do,
8:03
Speaker 2: and I made a little note here for an example,
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Speaker 2: but when we watch this progress these students are making,
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Speaker 2: we can actually watch the gap open in between students
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Speaker 2: and we can see what we would then become excuse
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Speaker 2: me describe as struggling learners. Come from the same group
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Speaker 2: of kids who were on part to show at least
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Speaker 2: standard and proficiency, if not better. So we have those
8:27
Speaker 2: fourth graders. One will start at four point zero, the
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Speaker 2: other three point six. So that's not a huge drop
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Speaker 2: in reading. But there are standardized this is standardized test
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Speaker 2: scores that we're using, so something like a map score
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Speaker 2: or a star score. That's that's what we're getting here.
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Speaker 2: So you're coming back from somewhere. They're immediately taking one.
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Speaker 2: They took one in the spring. But if we repeat
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Speaker 2: that and they go, okay, they both grow at the
8:50
Speaker 2: same rate, so they're still learning. They end, So they
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Speaker 2: start they ended fourth grade four point zero three point
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Speaker 2: six is what they're yes, they started fourth grade, that
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Speaker 2: they end fourth grade, they've gained a full year. One
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Speaker 2: would be five point zero and presumably four point six now,
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Speaker 2: and then at the beginning of the next year it's
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Speaker 2: going to be five point zero and four point two.
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Speaker 2: And then they go through that school year and the
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Speaker 2: one grows and it becomes six point zero and again
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Speaker 2: five point two because they gained another full year. So
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Speaker 2: they're still they're growing at a reasonable rate, but they're
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Speaker 2: going to come back the next year at a four
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Speaker 2: point eight and then four point eight and that other
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Speaker 2: one is a six point oh. So you're now starting
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Speaker 2: seventh grade and this kid has a sixth grade reading
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Speaker 2: level and the next student has a four point eight.
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Speaker 2: That's a significant drop. Now we're heading into junior high
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Speaker 2: and we want to be thoughtful as we are looking
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Speaker 2: at this process of how do we stop that gap?
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Speaker 2: And the answer is a very small amount of practice.
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Speaker 2: It's not much. It's fifteen minutes of reading per day
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Speaker 2: and fifteen minutes of mathematics, and you can stop that
9:59
Speaker 2: dropping grade. The whole premise of a summer break is
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Speaker 2: based on the idea that we would be in agrarian
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Speaker 2: society where we need these kids to help bring in
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Speaker 2: the harvest. So we built this ten week gap and
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Speaker 2: it's become summer break and it's part of tradition now,
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Speaker 2: and it's when families take trips, and it's also when
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Speaker 2: we go, wow, my kids did so great in the spring.
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Speaker 2: Let's celebrate by doing nothing. And obviously I oversimplify, but
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Speaker 2: I feel that weight as well, both when I'm in
10:26
Speaker 2: the classroom and for my own children. I'm like, man,
10:28
Speaker 2: I'm so proud of these kids, Like I just want
10:30
Speaker 2: them to be able to have a childhood again and
10:32
Speaker 2: be able to go and have some fun. And that's great,
10:35
Speaker 2: and I absolutely do want that. As someone who firmly
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Speaker 2: believes in the point and the purpose of risk and
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Speaker 2: responsibility and free play for growing resilient youth, I want that.
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Speaker 2: And don't let them just do nothing for ten straight weeks,
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Speaker 2: and certainly don't let them do nothing while spending extreme
10:54
Speaker 2: amounts of time in front of screens. I'm telling you
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Speaker 2: that because I care about your children, because I've seen
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Speaker 2: what it does in the educational environment, and because we
11:04
Speaker 2: know that it's bad for them. So it's okay if
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Speaker 2: they're going to have some fun this summer. It's okay
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Speaker 2: if they're going to drive a little less hard than
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Speaker 2: they did during the school year, and do not allow
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Speaker 2: the summer slip to drag them back and to convince
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Speaker 2: your child that he or she is not good at school,
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Speaker 2: because that's flat out not true. And we can keep
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Speaker 2: the progress they've just made and actually grow, if not
11:26
Speaker 2: in the score, in the things that actually matter, like
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Speaker 2: the ability to focus and the ability to have confidence
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Speaker 2: when we step into a learning space knowing we can
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Speaker 2: do hard things, So what do we do? Fifteen minutes
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Speaker 2: of reading, fifteen minutes of math? This completely freezes the
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Speaker 2: summer slip. The students that read fifteen minutes a day,
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Speaker 2: the students that do fifteen minutes of math, do not
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Speaker 2: see the drop in scores that these other students see
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Speaker 2: that we see consistently year over year over year. And
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Speaker 2: by the way, I stopped at the going into seventh grade.
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Speaker 2: But it continues where that's the seventh grade student at level.
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Speaker 2: We'll finish reading it at seventh gard level, and the other
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Speaker 2: student will go from that five point two that they
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Speaker 2: were I'm sorry now I forgot the number, but let's
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Speaker 2: say it was a five point two, and they'll go down.
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Speaker 2: They'll be in the upper force. They will keep losing
12:12
Speaker 2: their progress. Even if they grow to a six point two,
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Speaker 2: then they'll be at a five point eight going into
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Speaker 2: seventh or at the end of seventh grade going into
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Speaker 2: eighth instead of being at a seventh going into eighth
12:23
Speaker 2: grade reading level. So, yeah, we want to make sure
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Speaker 2: that we are doing our best. Stop that. So what
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Speaker 2: do we do We go into high interest books. When
12:30
Speaker 2: we talk about high interest books and reading just a
12:34
Speaker 2: few minutes a day. So let's say we had a
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Speaker 2: student who read twenty minutes a day versus a student
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Speaker 2: reads five minutes a day. This is not new information.
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Speaker 2: Back in nineteen eighty seven, Naggie and Herman said that
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Speaker 2: that student who reads those extra fifteen minutes will be
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Speaker 2: exposed to one point six million more words than a
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Speaker 2: student who only reads five minutes a day. Oh, by
12:56
Speaker 2: the way, I didn't cite the study. I don't think
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Speaker 2: the NWEA studies Attabury and mckeachin as I believe. How
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Speaker 2: I would say that is the twenty twenty study, and
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Speaker 2: this is I'll give the journal links, but these I
13:11
Speaker 2: just got found these on Stage pub But you can
13:15
Speaker 2: check these out for yourself. The research is out there.
13:17
Speaker 2: It's been out there for forty plus years. That reading
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Speaker 2: consistently exposes our children to more words, and that more
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Speaker 2: words is the foundation point, especially in Western education, for
13:27
Speaker 2: how we do it. Even our math problems require words
13:29
Speaker 2: in a certain amount of philosophical thinking at a low
13:33
Speaker 2: grade level, Like it's not just math. I know this
13:36
Speaker 2: because when teaching math this year, I found that if
13:39
Speaker 2: I gave the students the equation, they can do the math,
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Speaker 2: and if they read it out of a paragraph, sometimes
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Speaker 2: they can't, which makes me feel a little crazy. And
13:47
Speaker 2: maybe math people know why that is. But I like
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Speaker 2: my children to be able to do math, and sometimes
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Speaker 2: the reading gets in the way. So please have your
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Speaker 2: kid read? All right, So what do they need to read?
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Speaker 2: High interest and self selected for summer reading, Like, find
14:00
Speaker 2: something that they find engaging and let them pick. You
14:03
Speaker 2: can pick the options back you've got these three books,
14:05
Speaker 2: which one you want that's still self selected. You can
14:08
Speaker 2: use something like Honey for a Child's Heart, which is
14:10
Speaker 2: a compendion of books split up by books that are
14:13
Speaker 2: great for young men and young women and then broken
14:16
Speaker 2: up by age and grade level and just read your
14:19
Speaker 2: way through it. And what I love about that is
14:22
Speaker 2: that it gives you a feeling of adventure and success
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Speaker 2: that's age appropriate and allows you to not just poach
14:29
Speaker 2: the books that are too high a level. And now
14:31
Speaker 2: you're reading these old kid books and that's great, But
14:33
Speaker 2: then once you've read them, going back to more age
14:36
Speaker 2: appropriate books feels less exciting and less enjoyable. And now
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Speaker 2: you also don't have those books to read in the future.
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Speaker 2: So read up all the great books that are age
14:45
Speaker 2: appropriate and something like Honey for a Child's Heart for example.
14:48
Speaker 2: Let's just give some example. Owen right now really enjoys
14:52
Speaker 2: He's currently reading the mysterious Benedict Society. He loves anything
14:57
Speaker 2: right now that's mystery is So his favorite series is
15:00
Speaker 2: National Park Mystery Series. I wouldn't say favorite one of
15:02
Speaker 2: his favorites, Like, he doesn't reread a lot of series,
15:05
Speaker 2: and he's reread that He's also reread The Green Ember,
15:07
Speaker 2: which is not a mystery series, but those are the
15:10
Speaker 2: types of books he's really into. We are definitely looking
15:13
Speaker 2: at some of the more classic mystery novels to let
15:15
Speaker 2: him read, so in Agatha Christie, and he's getting the
15:19
Speaker 2: age going into seventh he's going into seventh grade here
15:22
Speaker 2: in two weeks, so it's going to be yes, we
15:26
Speaker 2: can let you read some of those more intense and
15:28
Speaker 2: thematically mysterious books with Henry. He so on the Henry
15:33
Speaker 2: loved Science, he loves animals. The Wildcrats is still very
15:36
Speaker 2: much like a we look back and be like, we're
15:38
Speaker 2: glad we did that. Henry really took to all the
15:41
Speaker 2: kids loved it, but he was like I need more
15:43
Speaker 2: books on that, and and asking around him like, hey,
15:45
Speaker 2: I need books that like take science seriously, like I
15:48
Speaker 2: want my son to know more about science and about
15:51
Speaker 2: zoology and about all the things that God has made.
15:54
Speaker 2: And I have found that either their you know, National
15:57
Speaker 2: Geographic and they go out of their way to take
15:59
Speaker 2: shots idea that there's a God who's made creation or
16:03
Speaker 2: there I won't name these other resources, but there are
16:05
Speaker 2: resources where like they go out of their way to
16:07
Speaker 2: try to insert biblical concepts into science that don't fit,
16:14
Speaker 2: and then we end up with like things that just
16:15
Speaker 2: aren't true. You're like, I get it, Like I agree
16:20
Speaker 2: God made the world and we are designed and we
16:23
Speaker 2: can see that in nature and math and creation, but
16:26
Speaker 2: like that's not accurate, like the thing you just decided
16:30
Speaker 2: to say in this book, what can we do? And
16:32
Speaker 2: so a friend who was homeschooling and said, you know what,
16:35
Speaker 2: you should check out Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
16:37
Speaker 2: by Jeanie Fulbright and it's awesome. We just I'll give
16:41
Speaker 2: you the link. I think I bought the book off
16:42
Speaker 2: thrift books for like nine dollars and three dollars shipping,
16:45
Speaker 2: and we bought there's now a second edition about the
16:48
Speaker 2: first edition, and I just didn't tell him it was coming.
16:51
Speaker 2: I just ordered it. It arrived, I tossed it on account.
16:53
Speaker 2: I was like, hey, book on birds and he is
16:56
Speaker 2: eating it up. He got sick this last week. Why
16:58
Speaker 2: by the way, are we still getting sick in late May?
17:00
Speaker 2: But he got sick and read the first chapter and
17:04
Speaker 2: was like, Dad, did you know there's kingdoms of animals
17:07
Speaker 2: and phylums? And I was like, oh, I remember learning
17:11
Speaker 2: this in school and it being physically painful, and you
17:14
Speaker 2: like picked it up on a day when you were sick,
17:16
Speaker 2: and you love it. So keep in mind that's self select.
17:18
Speaker 2: I knew that it was a high passion interest area,
17:20
Speaker 2: and then I gave him the option and he is
17:24
Speaker 2: voraciously reading it. And I'm assuming we'll get others, and
17:26
Speaker 2: that's awesome to see. The other kids have not chosen
17:29
Speaker 2: to do that, but I hope that they get inspired
17:31
Speaker 2: by their brother. But that's like, that's Henry's thing. He
17:34
Speaker 2: also loves classics. Little House on the Prairie, Little Women,
17:37
Speaker 2: and then Where the Red Fern Grows is one of
17:39
Speaker 2: the more recent ones, but the My Side of the
17:41
Speaker 2: Mountain The Hatchet like that series is currently growing. It's
17:44
Speaker 2: nice to do in summertime when we actually can get
17:46
Speaker 2: outside here in the Northwest. So but those are high interests.
17:49
Speaker 2: And then self select. Yes, I bought the book and
17:52
Speaker 2: provided it, so I selected the book, but he chose
17:55
Speaker 2: to pick it up and read it when he had
17:57
Speaker 2: the opportunity, and that's what we're looking for here. And
18:00
Speaker 2: then Hadley has become quite the little reader in first grade.
18:05
Speaker 2: She loves the box Car Children, and again that mystery piece.
18:08
Speaker 2: She's into that. She likes the not knowing, but the
18:10
Speaker 2: box car children like are as safe a mystery style,
18:13
Speaker 2: like even the amount of engagement they give you isn't
18:17
Speaker 2: too high to where they're like so stressed out to
18:19
Speaker 2: find out what's happening next. And then she loves audiobooks,
18:22
Speaker 2: so she's still doing a lot of Jesus Storybook, Bible audiobook,
18:25
Speaker 2: and then the classic role Dolls, which I've told you
18:27
Speaker 2: our children love. This is now the third child who's
18:30
Speaker 2: loved Role Doll. But do know his humor is rude
18:34
Speaker 2: by our modern standards, like we have to tell our
18:36
Speaker 2: children that's not how you actually talk to someone. But
18:41
Speaker 2: we have not seen negative of fruit come from that
18:43
Speaker 2: in terms of the way they treat people, the way
18:45
Speaker 2: they think about reality or themselves. So currently they're just
18:48
Speaker 2: getting a love of pithy humor. But Matilda, Charlie and
18:52
Speaker 2: the Chocolate Factory Fantastic Mister Fox are some of Hadley's
18:56
Speaker 2: favorite listens. And I put it on like A point
18:59
Speaker 2: eight twenty eighty five, and then that's what she can
19:02
Speaker 2: do during like a quiet time if we have like
19:04
Speaker 2: a hey, you're going to go play on a weekend
19:07
Speaker 2: for example. Yes, we still do this because we found
19:10
Speaker 2: that all of our children need time to just like
19:12
Speaker 2: decompress from being around each other. And so these are
19:16
Speaker 2: some of the stories she can read. She still loves
19:18
Speaker 2: reading a book about Biscuit the Dog or a book
19:22
Speaker 2: about Fancy Nancy like. She can do those. But her
19:25
Speaker 2: chapter book it has been The Box Car Children. So
19:28
Speaker 2: i'd share you my children's read they're a younger age range.
19:32
Speaker 2: If you have older children, yes, the Read Loud Revival
19:35
Speaker 2: and The Honey for a Child's Heart will get you
19:37
Speaker 2: into those books. The point is fifteen minutes a day parents.
19:40
Speaker 2: As we strive to raise kids who love God and
19:43
Speaker 2: use tech, it's intimidating to look at this next stage
19:45
Speaker 2: of life and think about what academics may look like
19:48
Speaker 2: for them. When you're thinking about college, considered George Fox
19:52
Speaker 2: University for your children because of three things. First, it's
19:55
Speaker 2: going to give you a more intimate known environment where
19:58
Speaker 2: they have a focus on being known personally, academically and spiritually.
20:02
Speaker 2: Your child will grow in their faith. Ninety three percent
20:05
Speaker 2: of undergrad students at George Fox last year through the
20:08
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five academic year said that being at George
20:11
Speaker 2: Fox has helped them grow in their relationship with Jesus.
20:14
Speaker 2: We also want them to grow academically, which means being
20:18
Speaker 2: a part of a university with rigorous academic standards and
20:21
Speaker 2: opportunities to be engaged. They have a nationally recognized engineering, nursing,
20:25
Speaker 2: and education programs, as well as chances to study abroad
20:29
Speaker 2: here within the US and then internationally and finally personally,
20:32
Speaker 2: to be part of a vibrant campus atmosphere where you
20:35
Speaker 2: can play intramural sports or part of their NCAA Division
20:38
Speaker 2: three athletic programs with twenty three sports available. The goal
20:43
Speaker 2: here is to go to a place that's going to
20:46
Speaker 2: support your goals, not try to make you support theirs.
20:50
Speaker 2: To have that goal be to raise you up to
20:52
Speaker 2: be all God's called you to be, and to truly
20:55
Speaker 2: equip your young person with my in my case, my
20:58
Speaker 2: son's or my daughter to love God and then from
21:01
Speaker 2: their love of God to go wherever God is called them.
21:03
Speaker 2: That includes being equipped with a degree that'll help them
21:06
Speaker 2: do that, to be missionally equipped to love and serve others,
21:09
Speaker 2: to lead where God has planning the man, to know
21:11
Speaker 2: the Gospel for themselves and be able to share it
21:13
Speaker 2: with others. So George Fox University is an amazing resource
21:16
Speaker 2: for our kids, for our community here in the Northwest,
21:19
Speaker 2: and for anyone who's looking to raise up a young
21:21
Speaker 2: person who can love God and from that love others.
21:25
Speaker 2: I am telling you about a resource that Anna has
21:27
Speaker 2: made for this. I found the research and then Anna
21:29
Speaker 2: made the resource. How about that? So it is us,
21:31
Speaker 2: I guess, and this is the summer Slip bingo. It
21:34
Speaker 2: feels less like an assignment and it feels more self selecty,
21:37
Speaker 2: but basically it's bingo. And you'll see here that there's
21:40
Speaker 2: read outside, there's us do a day screen free. There's
21:44
Speaker 2: a couple of blocks for that. Read a book in
21:47
Speaker 2: a series, read a nonfiction book, read under a tree.
21:51
Speaker 2: And as they finish this, they could only do one
21:53
Speaker 2: a day, although on some days when we're home all day,
21:55
Speaker 2: we are like today is a double day. Like you
21:58
Speaker 2: can fill in two blocks. Your child will say I
22:02
Speaker 2: did that today, fill in the box. And then when
22:04
Speaker 2: they finish, there's some kind of a reward. Last year
22:07
Speaker 2: we actually printed on it, like you get a five
22:10
Speaker 2: dollars gift card, you get a blizzard from dairy Quid,
22:12
Speaker 2: which those are two rewards our children love because they
22:15
Speaker 2: can only do one a day. We're talking you're going
22:18
Speaker 2: to do this once a week at the beginning, and
22:20
Speaker 2: then they're gonna have to go for a blackout and
22:22
Speaker 2: it'll probably take longer. So if you could pay five
22:26
Speaker 2: bucks a week, so a total of fifty dollars per
22:28
Speaker 2: child over a summer and be sure they don't lose
22:31
Speaker 2: any of their academic growth, you would pay that, right, Like,
22:35
Speaker 2: that's one and a half sessions with a tutor for
22:39
Speaker 2: you spend an hour and a half of tutor time
22:41
Speaker 2: or maybe one hour tutor time depending where you live.
22:44
Speaker 2: You paid fifty bucks, Like that feels like money will spend.
22:47
Speaker 2: So while it is a little irksome, they finished and
22:50
Speaker 2: you're like, oh, that cost me five dollars, Like that
22:52
Speaker 2: was five dollars invested in your child retaining their growth
22:56
Speaker 2: and their academic momentum into this next school year. We
23:01
Speaker 2: have seen for over two hundred million students over an
23:04
Speaker 2: eight year period across all fifty states that the summer
23:07
Speaker 2: slip is real. I showed all my students with their testing.
23:10
Speaker 2: We pulled in there, we just finished spring testing. I
23:13
Speaker 2: pulled them all over and like here was your math
23:14
Speaker 2: score you just took. Here was your math score from
23:17
Speaker 2: this fall. But look at last spring's math score. It's
23:21
Speaker 2: awfully close to where we are now, right, And there
23:24
Speaker 2: was a big dip in the fall, and you grew
23:26
Speaker 2: and you grew again, and you're the highest you've ever been.
23:29
Speaker 2: But imagine if you start the year there and then
23:32
Speaker 2: we began like, yes, you've grown, and yes you've shown progressing.
23:35
Speaker 2: Yes I'm proud of you, and yes you worked hard
23:36
Speaker 2: to get here, and that effort could have been put
23:40
Speaker 2: in from a different spot and you would have seen
23:42
Speaker 2: continued growth from there. And again, the goal is not
23:46
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, higher test scores. The
23:48
Speaker 2: goal is for our young people to retain their love
23:51
Speaker 2: of learning and their ability to learn at a high level.
23:53
Speaker 2: And we've seen that drop after summer if we do nothing.
23:56
Speaker 2: We've seen it maintain if we just do fifteen minutes
23:59
Speaker 2: a day, and this Bingo card can help. Yes, there's
24:02
Speaker 2: even some con Academy on there. I just realized I've
24:04
Speaker 2: been talking the whole time about just reading, but fifteen
24:06
Speaker 2: minutes a day of math also helps them retain their
24:10
Speaker 2: high level of understanding. And I love con Academy. It's
24:14
Speaker 2: free to use. You can make an account for yourself.
24:16
Speaker 2: You can make it a youth account that goes to
24:19
Speaker 2: your account. So I have my parent account and then
24:21
Speaker 2: my children have sub accounts under that. That also saves
24:24
Speaker 2: for when they forget their passwords or whatever. We just
24:26
Speaker 2: write passwords down, keep it inside a cabinet. They can
24:29
Speaker 2: log in on their own when it's appropriate to do,
24:31
Speaker 2: and we use macs so we have screen time set up.
24:34
Speaker 2: If you want to see how to do that, I
24:36
Speaker 2: have a tutorial video that I can show you how
24:38
Speaker 2: to do. But even if they chose to get distracted
24:41
Speaker 2: while using Conacademy, they can only use the websites I've said,
24:44
Speaker 2: so I could say, hey, this streaming service is off.
24:46
Speaker 2: This is a basic feature, by the way, on just
24:48
Speaker 2: any Mac product that you have. You can do this
24:51
Speaker 2: on phones, you can do this on iPads, you can
24:52
Speaker 2: do this on MacBooks. And you do need to know
24:55
Speaker 2: that because you want them to be using the parts
24:58
Speaker 2: of the internet you've said they can use. So fifteen
25:01
Speaker 2: minutes of con Academy now they can just use that website.
25:04
Speaker 2: They can't go to any other domain because there's only
25:07
Speaker 2: open domains to what you've said is acceptable and fancy
25:10
Speaker 2: things like VPNs don't stop that because it's your computer
25:13
Speaker 2: that's actually controlling the domain, not an outside website. And
25:16
Speaker 2: so I do love just that basic functionality. There's I've
25:19
Speaker 2: been told things like this you can do on PCs.
25:21
Speaker 2: I don't have one, so I can't prove that. But
25:25
Speaker 2: the idea of doing a local instead of blocking all
25:29
Speaker 2: the bad stuff only releasing the good stuff, I just
25:31
Speaker 2: it's simple. I like that. So if you're going to
25:34
Speaker 2: use something like con Academy con Math fifteen minutes a day,
25:37
Speaker 2: it's fantastic. Give them a special award. So I did
25:41
Speaker 2: this in class where my sixth grade is like, hey,
25:44
Speaker 2: if you finish every lesson at proficient, if you finish
25:48
Speaker 2: everyone for all of sixth grade, I'm going to give
25:50
Speaker 2: you a special we literally like I'll bring you in
25:51
Speaker 2: a donut. And a couple kids are like, what if
25:54
Speaker 2: I finish them all at mastery level? It's like, I
25:56
Speaker 2: actually don't know to brainstorm. So two kids went and
25:59
Speaker 2: did that. All right, I'll think of something else. So now,
26:02
Speaker 2: and that's really the goal here. We're trying to make
26:04
Speaker 2: this fun, We're trying to show high engagement. We're trying
26:06
Speaker 2: to encourage the behavior we want to see, and we're
26:08
Speaker 2: putting a little skin in the game where we will
26:10
Speaker 2: reward our children. We will prioritize this, we will make
26:13
Speaker 2: time in our schedule, and this Summer Slip Bingo card
26:17
Speaker 2: makes it just a little bit easier for all of
26:19
Speaker 2: us to wrap our heads around that I'm not giving
26:20
Speaker 2: you an assignment. Maybe you are, and that's fine, but
26:23
Speaker 2: if it feels like a battle, and you're like, ooh,
26:25
Speaker 2: how do I make this feel like something that they
26:27
Speaker 2: can want to do and that I can encourage them
26:29
Speaker 2: to do without you making every single day a fight,
26:34
Speaker 2: the Summer Slip Bingo has This is be our third,
26:36
Speaker 2: I want to say, third summer of doing it, and
26:38
Speaker 2: it's been great for our family. It's well worth the
26:40
Speaker 2: fifty bucks a kid, and you can choose to augment
26:43
Speaker 2: that maybe they get some other award that isn't financially
26:47
Speaker 2: costing you anything. With that in mind, we're going to
26:49
Speaker 2: finish that there stop the Summer Slip show high engagement,
26:52
Speaker 2: and I just am gonna this will probably be what
26:54
Speaker 2: I talked about next week, but put a pin in
26:56
Speaker 2: the idea of screen time does matter. It is not
26:59
Speaker 2: just fifteen minutes and then limitless screen time because they've
27:03
Speaker 2: at least retained their learning, because at the end of
27:05
Speaker 2: the day, the goal isn't just remembered more. The goal
27:07
Speaker 2: is become an awesome person that produces the fruit of Christ.
27:11
Speaker 2: And limitless amounts of screen time do not do that.
27:14
Speaker 2: Be intentional about what tech our children are using and
27:17
Speaker 2: how they're using it. And because I don't want this
27:19
Speaker 2: to be a two hour podcast, I won't go into
27:20
Speaker 2: that today, but I do want to just remind you parents,
27:24
Speaker 2: let's make awesome summer adventures accessible. Let's make some of
27:27
Speaker 2: those adventures they're reading and math our kids are going
27:29
Speaker 2: to do. And let's make screen time be intentional and
27:32
Speaker 2: support our children becoming all that they can be in Christ.
27:35
Speaker 2: If you have any questions for me, you can reach
27:37
Speaker 2: out Nathan at gospeltech dot net or on Instagram, Facebook,
27:40
Speaker 2: and YouTube at Love God, Use Tech and then join
27:43
Speaker 2: us next week as we continue this conversation about how
27:45
Speaker 2: we can raise kids who love God and use Tech'll
27:47
Speaker 2: talk to you then