Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.78 – Why Most Christian Kids Walk Away: Homeschool’s Answer | Classical Education | Faith Based Parenting | Virtuous Leaders | Family First

Transcript

Ep.78 – Why Most Christian Kids Walk Away: Homeschool’s Answer | Classical Education | Faith Based Parenting | Virtuous Leaders | Family First · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

• 0:00
  Even with Christians, there's this mentality that they can
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  send their kids to a Pagan school for 35 hours a week and
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  take their kids to church, you know, two or three times and
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  they'll be OK. And the statistics just show
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  that's not an accurate statement.
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  You know, 70% or more of kids who grow up in the church and go
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  to public school end up walking away from the church.
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  And so for us, it's really convincing Christians not to
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  send their kids to the humanist Church for their education.
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  This is Virtuous Leaders, the podcast for based Catholics who
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  will speak truth, do good or die trying.
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  Here's the show. So Robert Borton's you're the
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  head of the world's largest classical homeschooling
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  organization. Can you tell us a little bit
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  about that? Yeah.
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  My mom founded Classical Conversations in 1997 in our
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  basement. She had discovered classical
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  education. She had been homeschooling us,
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  and she knew she needed, you know, other peers to do things
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  like debate and do things like mock trial and, you know, not
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  just be debating and talking at her or with her about these
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  subjects, but have a group of peers to be able to have these
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  kind of a rhetorical discussions.
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  And so Classical Conversation was formed in our basement.
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  We started having more people wanting to join us, and I've got
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  3 younger brothers, so more families joined.
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  And basically Classical Conversations is a homeschool
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  community that you join where once a week during the academic
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  year you get together with other parents in a trained tutor.
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  You're going over the subject matter and practicing it, kind
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  of demonstrating it while you're in the room together.
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  When the younger years when we're studying grammar stage,
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  which is basically memorizing copious amounts of information
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  about all the different subjects until they go to the logic stage
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  and middle school and rhetoric stage in high school and
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  studying things like one of the things they do our senior year
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  is translate the Iliad from Latin into English.
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  Doing things like mock trial dissections, art projects, all
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  sorts of different things that you need a group to do.
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  And so homeschooling isn't just about leaving school, but also
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  embracing a whole different sort of paradigm.
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  Sounds like you follow the classical Trivium grammar,
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  logic, rhetoric arranged chronologically.
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  I think that was recommended by it.
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  Was it? Was it Dorothy Sayers Lost arts
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  and learning? Yeah.
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  So Dorothy Sayers kind of has a great essay where she kind of
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  codified that idea in many of our minds.
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  And then just going back and even now studying, you know,
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  Plato and Aristotle and the things that they did.
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  So we have a number of homeschooling moms now.
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  At this point, we have 170 employees at Classical
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  Conversations. We help families homeschool in
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  60 countries. So we have some of the best and
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  brightest homeschool moms that have been through our program
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  that are going through and trying to find those lost tools
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  and give new homeschoolers and veteran homeschoolers alike a
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  pathway to give their kids a great education.
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  I mean, homeschooling works anyways, but when you understand
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  why it works and the tools that can make it work better, you can
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  get a whole lot more out of that experience.
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  How many students have you all impacted?
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  Yeah. I mean over the years, I don't
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  know if it's a million students yet, but hundreds of thousands
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  of students over the years. I mean we've had right now like
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  this past year, we had about over 3000 graduate from our
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  program. This year we have 45,000
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  families which equate to about 130,000 students just this
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  academic year alone. So you know, obviously many of
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  those students stay for another year and stuff like that.
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  So individual students I'm not sure of, but over the last, you
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  know, decade, we've seen well over a million, million students
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  come through our program. And present.
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  So what motivates you to do this?
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  Yeah, I mean, I think just my love of the Lord and
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  understanding of what the Bible says is our really
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  responsibility as parents who gives children to us.
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  I was homeschooled through high school.
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  I really enjoyed it. I saw the benefits.
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  And so I wanted to be able to give back and and encourage
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  parents that if my family can do it, yours can do it too.
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  And it's really just, it's a way, it's a different way of
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  living. You know, just this idea of
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  we're not trying to do school at home, but we're trying to raise
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  the next set of leaders in the Kingdom of God.
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  We're trying to raise virtuous adults.
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  And so it's just a totally different way of raising your
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  children. And it's beautiful.
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  It works so well. And I have 3 kids of my own and
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  you know, I want them to live in a peaceful world that obeys
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  God's laws and commandments. And so we're really on the front
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  line of helping other parents do the exact same thing on a
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  day-to-day basis. What would you say is the
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  difference? Or how does homeschooling lead
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  to raising virtuous citizens versus other forms of schooling?
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  Well, first of all, you kind of as a parent know that you're
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  going to be with these kids for at least 18 years and they're
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  going to have your grandchildren and they're going to be taking
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  care of you when you're older. So there's a little bit
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  different motivation to make sure that your kids are honest,
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  respect others. Then a, you know, a person in a
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  school setting or their private or public school who are being
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  paid to be there and most likely won't see your kid again after
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  their, you know, eight or nine months that they are together or
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  maybe they're just together for a semester.
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  And so, yeah, they want to try to do the best they can.
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  But you know, my wife, she was a public school teacher for 10
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  years. She saw nearly 300 kids a year.
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  And so, you know, as much as she wanted to be a positive impact
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  on all 300, that's just humanly impossible.
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  So it's, they get raised by each other in those types of settings
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  where, you know, you're with those same 30 kids every single
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  year and different adults come and go out of your life, but you
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  can count on your friends being there.
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  And that's why we see cliques. That's why we see these
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  different behaviors because they're modeling after each
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  other instead of modeling after adults who want them to grow up
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  in a, in a certain manner. So it's a fundamentally
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  different way of, you know, just looking at children.
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  Yeah. What are the biggest challenges
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  you've faced on this? Jerry Well, I think all of us
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  would, you know, all of us want to give our responsibilities
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  away to someone else, right? It's stressful or it's, it's
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  hard to be like, OK, I'm responsible for these young
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  ones. When the state will say no, just
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  give them to us for free. We'll pick them up on a yellow
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  school bus. We'll feed them at lunch.
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  You don't have to worry about it.
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  We have the experts and we're going to tax you for it anyway.
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  So just give them to us. And so even with Christians,
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  there's this mentality that they can send their kids to a Pagan
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  school for, you know, 35 hours a week and take their kids to
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  church, you know, two or three times and, and they'll be OK.
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  You know, the statistics just show that's, that's not an
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  accurate statement. You know, 70% or more of kids
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  who grow up in the church and go to public school end up walking
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  away from the church. And so, you know, for us, it's
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  really convincing Christians and not to send their kids to the
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  humanist Church for their education.
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  Yeah. Yeah, it does seem kind of like
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  a doctrination and secular humanism.
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  And if that's whether that's the intended purpose or not, it's
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  it's very successful in it. And some would argue that that
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  is the purpose of it historically, the way it's.
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  Developed. No, absolutely.
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  I mean it. You can have good people in the
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  system, but the system is always going to take power upon itself.
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  I mean, just look at, you know, you can put a bunch of time,
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  money and effort into school board races, but once the people
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  get elected in there, they can be good people.
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  And they just find that the bureaucratic system has just
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  basically, you know, enacted all power into itself.
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  And you're just a kind of a lifeless figurehead there to
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  take the body blows of public opinion while the system does,
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  system does. Well, have you, have you
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  observed that? Yeah, I mean, I have friends
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  that are in different school boards, and they can't get
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  anything done, or they're always in some sort of bureaucratic
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  minutiae. I've talked to people who are
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  6070 years old who've spent their life flipping school
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  boards from blue to red, and they realize that it was almost
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  just a complete waste of time, that they didn't build anything
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  sustainable, that it was just shifting sands of the culture.
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  And yeah, and I'm not saying abandoned those types of roles,
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  but that's not building for the future.
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  That's just putting balm on a a burn and trying to make the
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  patient, you know, less miserable.
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  We need to get a system together and get our kids out of that all
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  together. So you have a noble mission,
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  you're forming virtuous citizens with the love of the parents
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  within a high level of education, The classical
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  Trivium, which I can see the fruits of in your ability to
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  speak to just even in this interview.
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  So I suppose that's even met by just open welcoming arms by
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  government officials, because wouldn't they want this for the
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  for their citizens? Yeah, I mean, we try not to
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  engage too much with the civil government any more than then we
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  have to because we really believe that the role is of the
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  parents and the family that God didn't design the civil
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  government to be in charge of education.
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  I mean, governors like Ron DeSantis have gone all in on
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  classical education. I mean, we're glad to see that
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  more and more people are coming around to this concept, this
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  this philosophy that's worked for over 2000 years and
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  abandoning the modern paradigm that is doing so much damage to
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  our kids. But ultimately, I mean, the
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  vendors, you know, places like Pearson, you know, billion
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  dollar for profit companies, they're not trying to change
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  their curriculum to go classical ACT and SAT is not trying to
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  change their curriculum. So more and more Christians are
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  seeing that classical education is the way forward is a way to
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  create thinkers and people who can defend their faith and, you
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  know, explain it to other people.
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  And so more and more colleges, Christian colleges now are
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  embracing classical education or trying to figure out how to get
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  classically educated student into their classroom.
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  So there is a movement, you know, a fundamental, I think
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  sentiment among at least the right, right at this point of
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  the country or the conservatives to embrace more of a classical
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  education. But as CS Lewis put it, you
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  know, basically an education without Christ as a center just
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  makes a smarter devil. And so, you know, Christian part
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  of it, to me, is one of the major parts of it.
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  And, you know, not having those two things be separate.
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  You're not the first homeschool advocate I've had on this show.
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  One question I haven't asked yet is do you, do you think there's
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  any good school alternative to homeschooling?
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  Well, there's better ways to do do schooling than that are being
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  done. But homeschooling for me, it's
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  the natural way of doing things. If you go look at nature and
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  nature's God and how they designed the world to act is for
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  parents loving parents to raise their kids.
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  I was with Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, and he was
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  revealing, I was at an event where he was revealing the first
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  AI component to their math, you know, con maths that that's
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  online, the Khan Academy. And he's on stage and he's
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  saying, you know, it would be great if, you know, every kid
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  had someone who loved them and, you know, it was like a
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  one-on-one mentorship tutor relationship.
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  But, you know, I just don't know how you could do that.
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  And so we need stuff like AI def.
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  I was like, I turned, my wife was there with me.
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  I was like, if only God had thought about that.
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  I mean, it's pretty clear. I mean, even if you're not a
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  Christian, I mean, you could look at the design of just like
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  animals and stuff like that. I mean, they're raised by their
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  parents, you know, 99% of them. I mean, you have some some
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  different groups are animals that might, you know, do certain
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  things in a group setting, but it's primarily parents raising
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  their offspring. And so, you know, there's
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  there's ways to do, you know, private school or the parents
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  are involved that more closely resemble homeschooling.
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  And I think those are going to turn out better.
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  But the farther that the parents are removed from education, the
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  harder it's going to be in a lot of these systems.
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  You know, they'll give lip service even like Arne Duncan,
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  who was department secretary of Department of Education under
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  Barack Obama, said that parents are child's first and best
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  teachers and we need to recognize that.
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  But then they put in all these different systems and the
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  Republicans do it too, that separate children from their
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  parents into educational responsibilities.
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  So, you know, it would be possible having parents in the
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  classroom, you know, parents helping out, those type of
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  things that could keep the parents involved and would make
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  the the education more closely resemble a homeschooling.
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  But there's very few examples of that.
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  Are there any particular policies or legislation,
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  executive actions people should be looking for or hoping for
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  advocating for to further your vision of education?
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  Well, I think, you know, from the federal level, I know people
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  are excited about the Department of Education being cut by Donald
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  Trump. But if we keep all the same
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  Common Core or Every Child Succeeds Act or all those acts
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  from the federal government, then, you know, that's really
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  not, that's just changing the, you know, window dressing on the
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  Titanic. You got to get rid of those laws
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  altogether. And then just the mandatory
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  education laws in each of the states that requires you to go
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  to school or go to jail, basically.
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  You know, we need to get those out of there because it's just,
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  I mean, a lot more people are recognizing that public
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  education is just really, really, really, really expensive
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  babysitting. But a lot of that is, you know,
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  you're forced to attend to some sort of educational institution
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  or school, whether you want to be there or not, or whether you
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  tend to be a disruptive or if you want to be someone who's
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  actually learning. And so a lot of these laws just
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  are pointless. So I'd like to see, you know,
• 13:57
  see those get removed or, or lesson to.
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  So, you know, I hear all the time people say stuff like,
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  well, my grandma only had an eighth grade education or so.
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  And so, you know, ancestors only were allowed to go to school
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  through 8th grade. I was like, have you ever seen
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  those eighth grade tests? Yeah.
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  Like, you would need like a master's degree probably can't,
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  you can't pass those tests. Your grandma with an eighth
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  grade education is smarter than, you know, all these people with,
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  you know, feminist master's degrees.
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  So ultimately, we need free people to educate themselves.
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  And so any any laws that restrict, you know, people
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  getting together for educational purposes, creating red tape
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  around those need to need to go. You're speaking the truth, So
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  what's what's your vision for expanding this and how come?
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  What can people do to help? Yeah, classical conversations,
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  you know, our vision is to, you know, free families and to help
• 14:52
  them to understand what their God-given responsibilities are.
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  And so, you know, one of the things you can do is just join a
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  local community, classicalconversations.com to
• 15:01
  find out information. If you'd like to lead a local
• 15:03
  group, you know, we'll teach you how the tools of classical
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  learning and how to, you know, create a community yourself if
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  you're not owned. But if you're part of a church
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  and you want to expand your ministry to homeschoolers, you
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  know, hosting a local classical conversations community is a
• 15:21
  great way to do that. You know, we have a partnership
• 15:24
  with HSODA. They have a foundation for
• 15:28
  families who can't afford to homeschool that offers grants
• 15:30
  and different things. So if you're if you're a donor,
• 15:33
  say go over to HSODAS compassion fund and give them a donation so
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  that they can help more people homeschool who want to but just
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  are, you know, in in a financial straight at the moment.
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  So there's plenty of ways everyone can get involved in
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  that classical conversations and helping people homeschool.
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  Well, Robert, keep forward in tomorrow's virtuous citizens.
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  Thank you. Thanks for listening.
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  Please like, subscribe and share with your friends.
• 15:57
  See you next time.