Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 47 - Why Memory Work Matters In Your Homeschool // Laura Murfin

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Ep. 47 - Why Memory Work Matters In Your Homeschool // Laura Murfin · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Laura Murfin: Kids are strong and they're resilient and they are curious and they will learn the things that they need to learn. I really believe no matter how much money you spend on school, the most prestigious school in the world will have gaps.
• 0:23
  Christy-Faith: Memory work. Do you guys do it? Is it for you? Whether you're a seasoned veteran or have only heard of it as kind of a classical homeschooler thing, or maybe you're listening to this episode right now, and this is the first you've ever heard the term memory work. I wanna say this episode is for you.
• 0:42
  Today, we're peeling back the layers on this popular homeschooling practice to understand why many homeschoolers encourage their kids to memorize sentences and jingles in the disciplines of history, science, grammar, Bible, and geography. Today's episode is a great opportunity to give you enough information to decide for yourself if this is a practice that you wanna start including in your homeschool days. And if you're already doing memory work, if you're a homeschooler that does this already like me, this is gonna be a great episode because you're gonna be enriched with discovering the why deeper of the why. I know you know a lot of the why but even deeper on the why behind we are doing this. We're gonna surprise you with some stuff today and some information that maybe you haven't heard before.
• 1:29
  To do this, I have invited the most perfect guest and also a friend of mine, Laura Murfin, to share her insights. Laura Murfin is a multigenerational Christian, wife, homeschool mom of 6 daughters, entrepreneur, a fan of memory work, and loves her church. She desires to encourage her kids to accomplish hard things and define their calling so they can glorify God with their lives. She finds it exciting to see how God works in the lives of all his children. She strives to find peace and joy in every aspect of her life.
• 2:05
  And And what you didn't put in here, and I'm not surprised because you are such a humble person, Laura, is that you are the founder of Cross 7 Memory Works. So you definitely have authority to speak on this topic today. This is the memory work that my family has used. We were trying to do the math recently. Right?
• 2:21
  Am I going on my 5th year now? Just started my 5th year. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:26
  And so I can't wait to share as someone who has and we did different programs before that, but we found our unicorn with Cross 7 and you know this already. So I can't wait to share with you but, also, it's going to be really cool to dive into. I've already seen the benefits of doing the work in the early years and I can't wait to talk about it today. But first, Laura, I would love for you to share with everybody listening today a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your family, and your homeschooling journey.
• 2:57
  Laura Murfin: Sure. So I had no intention of ever homeschooling, and I thought, no way, that's not for me. And as I started having children, I started to go, you know, I don't know what's the right fit. My husband was the one that was like, I think you should give homeschooling, be open minded. So I was grudgingly thinking, okay.
• 3:20
  And I read like so many books from the library, you know, I just couldn't get my hands on enough. Anyway, I started homeschooling and I had no intention of doing it. And then I started to go, hey. I have a lot of kids. I need something that everybody can do altogether.
• 3:38
  And I wasn't finding what I needed. And I prayed and prayed and asked god, hey. I just need to find something for my kids and did some, research, found Claritas. They had books and I connected with them. They were so generous, shared their first work.
• 3:54
  I found them in their 1st year. They were just in the process of writing everything. And I said, hey, one of my kids would really benefit by having it on a video platform. Would you allow me to take your product and put it on video? And they said, yes.
• 4:10
  And we've been working together ever since. I've been teaching it in co ops for about 12 years and, yeah, it's been great.
• 4:19
  Christy-Faith: It's absolutely fantastic. And just to clarify, so what cross 7 is is can you just explain the difference between Claritas and cross 7?
• 4:27
  Laura Murfin: Claritas is the founders of our memory work, and they produced it, put it to song. And then Cross 7 is a subscription based website with the same exact materials, the memory work, and everything. I did wanna add visual components just so that it could be memorable. Like, when a kid's looking at Alexander the Great, you know, it puts a picture with a face and they really own it more. And so that's why I wanted to do that.
• 4:57
  But it's the same materials, just a different format.
• 5:00
  Christy-Faith: As a homeschool mom who values a family together approach and leans towards the classical and Charlotte Mason styles, I often struggle to bring my educational vision to life with my kids' diverse ages and learning needs. With all our interests and super packed schedule, bridging that gap between the dreamy homeschool I want and reality, I gotta be honest. It's a challenge. Now, yes, I know perfection isn't the goal. But if you're listening and you could use a little easing of your mental load in your day to day, I found a resource that has become the quiet hero of our routine and it could be a really great option for you too.
• 5:32
  BJU Press homeschool curriculum. Now, many think that BJU Press homeschool is solely an all in one option. And though it does excel in that role, did you know you can also opt for specific courses and tailor them to fit your family's needs just as I have? BJU Press Homeschool provides the perfect balance of structure and flexibility and easily complements my family's mixed age, family together on the couch learning style. They are second to none in integrating a biblical worldview, stimulating critical thinking, and offering tons of hands on activities in the lessons.
• 6:04
  To find out how BJU Press Homeschool can come alongside you in your homeschooling goals too. Visit BjupressHomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes. Yeah, and it's great. It's on our Roku app and the girls wake up in the morning, make their beds, come downstairs, wrap themselves in their blankets and start their memory work while we're just preparing breakfast. It's a great way to start your day.
• 6:26
  You are, of course, as we mentioned before, the founder of Cross 7, but we need to define some terms here first for everybody listening. Would you describe or define what is memory
• 6:42
  Laura Murfin: work? It's just short facts, foundational facts that are enjoyable for kids to learn and introduce major concepts to. A lot of times it's a minute to minute and a half, worth of memory work for a subject. But we are just, reviewing it, reciting it, talking about it, expanding upon the information. When I first started teaching my kids, I was wanting them to have a lot of foundational facts.
• 7:11
  And so there were lists of things that we could memorize, short passages, and it just gave them, familiarity with keywords. And the recitation is just kind of reviewing it a couple of times every day and multiple times in a row. And it's amazing that children can learn memory work so quickly. You know, their minds are sponges and they're so curious. And it's just a helpful tool to introduce memory work.
• 7:40
  Of course, when you get older and in high school and college, you're gonna need to know how to memorize because there's so many complicated concepts that kids are learning. And so learning at a young age to do memory work and recite and start owning information is, critical component of education.
• 7:58
  Christy-Faith: Yes. Absolutely. And I've already seen the benefits of it. A part of the memory work is Latin and then when my kids are around 3rd grade, we start taking Latin courses and oh my goodness, they just kind of hit the ground running because they're already so familiar with it. Not to mention other aspects that we can talk about later like the skip counting with the math.
• 8:18
  Just how that helps with multiplication and division. I see it now, like, okay, it wasn't just to have my kids stand there and be so cool. Look what I know. There's actually a reason behind this which we'll get into later. Well, actually, let's get into it right now because sometimes it's hard to connect the why with what we are doing in education.
• 8:38
  For example, studying for a test that we you have on Friday knowing that you're just gonna forget everything on Monday. That's something that I say a lot and it's a critique of our public education system and a lot of the private schools in our country that it's just a cram and forget type of system and I have heard people who misunderstand memory work kind of criticize it for being very similar to that. I wanna talk about that because it is very different. So let's talk a little bit about the why behind memory work and how it is different than drill and kill stuff.
• 9:14
  Laura Murfin: Yeah. We don't like drill and kill. We like to make it light hearted and enjoyable. When we talk about Hammurabi, you know, we can see his picture and just we get into the story. We personalize it.
• 9:27
  We enter that world and the kids become mesmerized. I bring a lot of books that have pictures in them and they are kinda in my group right now, they're kind of like, hey, it's my turn to have the book. It's kind of igniting curiosity and opening a world of beauty for them. And so it does not have to be drill and kill. It's just showing them so much of God's creation.
• 9:51
  I I just love the fact one of the boys that has been in my coop, he was supposed to go somewhere with his dad, and he was like, dad, can you just wait until after our little 45 minute class? I just wanna hear what they're gonna talk about today, and that's what I'm looking for. And I I have all these kids in my class, and they're doing that in our little co op. And it's so exciting to see what they do. A couple years ago, my sister was going to college.
• 10:18
  She was, in just college algebra. She is now a nurse. She was very perplexed. She didn't know how to do her college algebra. And I was able to say, well, you should do my memory work because, I have the answer for that.
• 10:33
  And so I showed her the little week that we were working on and, she was like, thank you so much. I now understand. It was simple. It wasn't that big of a deal. You know?
• 10:42
  It just more like gives you the game board, the rules of the game, and you're able to connect so many different things. I just love it that it's just not this drill and kill. You forget it the next day. You're owning these facts. And then I believe the curiosity just starts to grow even more, you know?
• 11:00
  Like, what's happening right now in the world? Yesterday, we were talking about that new modern city called The Line that's being built in Saudi Arabia and I think it's because we were studying about ancient civilization. So we were like, Hey, what's going on right now?
• 11:15
  Christy-Faith: I can't tell you how many times the kids have been out at the library or even in our own home library and they catch a word or they've opened a book and they say oh mom we did a sentence for this and it made them want to learn more and learn more about the topic. What benefits have you noticed in your own children from practicing memory work with them?
• 11:36
  Laura Murfin: Yes. They learned it all. I still have 1 8 year old, so she is learning it right now, but my oldest is 22. She's in graduate school. She tells me, hey, thank you so much for having me learn all of this memory work.
• 11:52
  It's come in so handy throughout the years. The various subjects, you know, grammar, math, history, science, And of course, to me, the most important thing you could ever teach your kids is the Bible and scripture, getting that scripture into your heart.
• 12:07
  Christy-Faith: As you were saying that, one thing that I very much appreciate about the program is that the Bible verses are memorized in terms of larger passages and they work through larger passages with 1 verse at a time. So a passage could last 3 weeks, it could last 5 weeks, but they often will be memorizing an entire chapter that's really important whether it's Sermon on the Mount or a certain psalm. And I just really love that context. We've done other programs where it's like verses were just floating in the air without context And I just really appreciate that piece to that. And I've seen so many benefits to that.
• 12:49
  So not only is there that scripture memory component but there's also the hymns. And you know, it's so funny because I grew up going to churches that were very modern and none of them did hymns. And so as an adult, I just fell in love with hymns because I think they're so beautiful. And it's interesting because depending on how you grew up, you might like hymns or not like hymns. But one thing we can't argue is that they're really great for our kids to remember because they basically are scripture put to song.
• 13:22
  And the I don't know who the person is who does the singing and the memory work, but she has a really beautiful voice. So it's a pleasant to listen to in the mornings. You know? I wanna ask you a little bit going even deeper on this why In what ways do you believe memory work impacts critical thinking skills and the ability for our kiddos to solve real world problems? Just even in their childhood and then later on in their adulthood.
• 13:49
  I'd love to hear your take on that.
• 13:51
  Laura Murfin: I really think it helps with their focus skills as they're learning it. I I see these kids that just look really long and hard at the words when they're first getting a new sentence, and they are zeroed in. And then their attention spans it's so easy to just, you know, with our, quick world of all this technology, just to not have a long attention span. But we're just working at trying to really own the words and understand what we're saying and making connections with the knowledge that we're learning. And, like, when you go to the library, oh, I know about that and I know about that and let's get all these books.
• 14:29
  It just opens like I said, it opens up a super rich world of all the amazing things that are around us. One of the things that when my one of my daughters was really young, she could not get enough of watching a cartoon called Spirit. It's about the horse. I don't know if you've ever seen that, but they it's it's a, you know, it's historical. But she was able to put the connection, oh, they're building the transcontinental railroad across the United States.
• 14:57
  And I don't think she would have ever had that without the memory work, you know, just, lightened up her world. And she was so excited and couldn't stop watching it. You know?
• 15:06
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• 15:37
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• 16:02
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• 16:23
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• 16:51
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• 17:18
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• 17:39
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• 18:02
  Check out christy-faiths-list.com today. Yeah. And sometimes they refer to those as little pegs that are just like there's little memory pegs that are there so that later on when our kiddos are exposed to stories and living books and even textbooks, depending on how you homeschool, that they refer it back to those pegs. One thing that I love about incorporating memory work is this piece of foundational knowledge that our kiddos get with it. One thing that really annoyed me because you know I started out in the classroom.
• 18:38
  Yes. And it's been kind of trendy in education to ask kids their opinions Yeah. On stuff that they really have no business having an opinion on. It's not that I'm not saying we don't honor the kids. Of course, children are born persons.
• 18:53
  We honor them. We love them and we want to listen to them and we want to hear what they have to say. But there it it feels like there's this element of asking their opinion when they don't have enough foundational knowledge to make a valid or well informed opinion on something. And so that's something that I really wanted to change in terms of the narrative for my own homeschool with my own kids is approaching life with a humility. We've all met those adults that seem to have a strong opinion on everything and they've actually done studies on this that people that just walk around with the strongest opinions like actually are the people that know the least amount on the topic that they have opinions on.
• 19:38
  It's really fascinating how that works and I just wanted to make sure that not not that I don't ask my children their opinions but I make sure to ask them opinions on things that they have enough information about to form an opinion on. Right? With that foundational knowledge and what's it what is that training your kiddos to do? To make life decisions based on how you feel in the moment without proper information, you know? And I do feel like that there is a lot of that in our educational space right now with they call it critical thinking but it's really just opinion asking, in my opinion.
• 20:15
  So and I find it just quite frankly, irresponsible in terms of educating. But I feel like it's also putting in little seeds of pride with our kids and a lack of humility to stop and say, wait a minute, maybe I should find out more information on this topic before I start spouting my opinion on it, right? And so in my through a lot of mistakes, humility, humiliation, I have learned like, okay, Kristi, let's just which is funny because I go and I'm like a, you know, on social media spreading my opinion all the time but I try to only have very strong opinions on things that I've done a lot of research on. So I feel like I have the authority to do so or at least enough information to do so. And that's something I've been really thankful for with the memory work in terms of critical thinking like, hey, now that we have information on this, what's your opinion now?
• 21:05
  Right? Mhmm. Rather than just how do you feel about this major historical event that really do you have enough information to have an opinion on this or are you just retaining what you hear on the news or, you know, or what messages that society is saying? Which also goes to I want to talk about a criticism of memory work and I've thought a lot about this. I'm sure you have too.
• 21:28
  Is that some people can really view it as being outdated. Like, this is what people did in, like, prairie school where they had the kids recite things or too rigid. What what is your response to that?
• 21:43
  Laura Murfin: Oh, I think it's great. I think it in my experience, the children that I've taught and I've taught a lot of kids, they like it. Because the 1st day I I will say the 1st day, they kinda have a deer in the headlight. Like, woah. This is totally new stuff.
• 22:01
  And then the 2nd day, they're like, hey. I'm starting to get this song. And the 3rd day, they own it. They're shouting out the information and look it up, all of the, fun things. And they have this confidence and this joy.
• 22:15
  And that's what I love to see. I feel like what you were, describing too for modern education, There's a lot of just, it kills your love of learning. And what I want is children to love learning. And I feel like if once they see, Hey, there's so many amazing things out in the world. We open up their world, and they'll figure out what they wanna do with their lives and not be afraid to learn and do the hard things.
• 22:43
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. And they get so much self confidence out of being able to learn it and recite it. And, you know, I gotta say, just to be totally transparent, when I first started homeschooling, I was quite enamored by the thought leaders in the classical space, but I believe I was attracted to classical education for the wrong reasons. You know, I'm an academic myself, a historian, and I was like, oh my goodness, if you educate your kids in this classical way, they're gonna become savants and they're gonna be geniuses and they're gonna get into Ivy League Schools and all of that. I've come to really regret, you know, but I was new and I was just being exposed to things and I hadn't de schooled myself yet.
• 23:29
  We're realizing, wait a minute. Why do I just want my kids to stand there at at Thanksgiving and impress all of the relatives who are critical of homeschooling that my kids can just stand there and recite all this stuff? And I really have come, you know, so far from that where in the beginning because I was so insecure in my homeschooling, it made me feel better as a homeschooler that my kid could sit there and impress the grandparents. And so I will I do think that I started the memory work thing for kind of the wrong reasons, not really understanding the why out of my own insecurity. I liked the structure.
• 24:06
  It was a tangible way to see what my kids have learned. But over the years, I've really made an effort to study, okay, what are the benefits of this? What is the reason why this is a practice that has been going on for, you know, this is not new. The progressive education is what's new. That's why it feels foreign to us.
• 24:25
  But people have been educating young children in this way, giving them this foundational knowledge for 100 and 100 of years and we just kind of lost it with progressive education. Now, you mentioned that you don't see a lot of resistance. Was there ever a time in your homeschool where your daughters fought you? Like, mom, do we have to keep doing this? Was there ever that?
• 24:44
  What was that like?
• 24:45
  Laura Murfin: Six daughters, totally different learners. Some of them could learn memorize so quick and they were done. Others, it was a fight. But, you know, because we had done it in community and they could see their friends and, hey, there's other people doing this. They would join in.
• 25:04
  They really liked having their friends with them. I also did it alone. We didn't always do this in community. But, you know, when you just do it a little bit, it doesn't have to take long. You know?
• 25:16
  A whole week is, like, 7 7 minutes long. 7 minutes is such a short part of a kid's life. Like, if I do say, okay, kids. We're gonna learn grammar and math right now back to back. And this song is 45 seconds long.
• 25:33
  And when they hear, oh, seconds? I can do that. And then I'll say, hey. Let's just listen to it a couple more times, and then we'll go get a drink. And then they're they're doing it.
• 25:43
  And then I'll go, Hey, I think you guys got this. Let's just review a couple of weeks all at once. And so you'll do weeks 3 through 7 or something like that and a half minutes long And they're like, wow. We know a lot of stuff. And we're we're making a lot of connections.
• 26:00
  And so it's, you know, because it does build the confidence, then you're not getting that resistance so much. Yes. I get resistance on the 1st day sometimes because, oh, it's new. It's work. But by the 3rd day, hey, we learned something new.
• 26:17
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. I have a 3rd grader and the other day, we were doing math together and she was looking at her problem and I saw her starting to count on her fingers and I said, you know, what about skip counting? And her eyes got big and then all of a sudden it just made everything else on that page easier for her and so I had to make that little connection for her and then I I joked. I told her. I said, it's for her and then I I joked, I told her, I said, It's kind of like I've given you memory work on purpose.
• 26:44
  She just smiled at me and was happy because it made her math page easier. I don't have a community near me that does cross 7 memory work all together in a community. Are there a lot of communities nationwide that incorporate your memory work?
• 26:59
  Laura Murfin: Yeah. You know, we I don't manage any communities at all. I just provide curriculum. Yeah. So I will hear back from people.
• 27:08
  Like, I get emails. Hey. We're doing this in community. So I I hear from quite a few people all over the US that are and even in South Africa and Malaysia, just different places. But, yes, I do know there's quite a few of them, and I think they just like to get together and see each other and keep it lighthearted.
• 27:26
  I mean, I know there's all different styles. Every single group is gonna have their own way of doing their business. But for me, we keep it light. I don't even cover all the subjects because I have 5 year olds, and I hit 5 subjects, math, scripture, English, timeline, and history right now. This is the first Yeah.
• 27:44
  For some of those kids. And I think by next year, we're gonna have all the timeline done. They they own that timeline up to week 8 right now. And so next year, when we cover the timeline, we won't really have to learn that because that's the same every year. And then we're gonna deep dive into the science and do all that kind of stuff.
• 28:03
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. I know with my 5 year olds, I never made them do the geography just because some, like, some of those countries are just so hard to pronounce and I'm like, we're gonna we're gonna get this later. It's not a big deal. Well, oh, and that also hits on something really important. Just the difference between this and drill and kill.
• 28:19
  So the way a lot of memory work programs work is with this recitation is they're in cycles. So this is not something like you memorize something for a test that you have on Friday just to forget it all on Monday. No. This is something that you keep circling back to year after year after year. It's just foundational knowledge.
• 28:42
  It's conversions of measurements. It's the different mathematical equations that come up all the time like PEMDAS. It's grammar. Right? What is a noun?
• 28:51
  What is a pronoun? What is an adjective? What is an adverb? I'm already reaping the benefits of that because now we are informal grammar and the girlies are just they just hit the ground running because I said, well, tell me what an adjective is when they're hunting for it in the sentence. And they just say the jingle and then boom.
• 29:09
  So this is stuff that you just keep going back to. It's not something that you've asked them to do once and then you never see it again. And that's what's just something that's just so cool about it. Now we like to talk about game changing ideas on this show. I wanna ask you, what is one message that you would give to either your younger self, homeschooling self, or a younger homeschooling mom to encourage her today?
• 29:36
  Laura Murfin: Yes. I would say, relax. You don't have to produce a genius. You know, the first thing is God loves your children more than you do. When you're open to him, he leads you and guides you to the things that fit each child perfectly.
• 29:53
  Every single one of my kids has variation in their education. They've just taken different paths. It's wonderful to see that he's in control and that you don't have to be. So let your child grow at their pace. Do not compare with other people.
• 30:10
  Even your own kids, they're totally different. It's fun to watch that unfold. And we don't know what's around the next corner. And we just want to build that resiliency, love of learning, and just love of life, you know, just knowing who God is and all the knowledge that He has created for us to learn. So when I start teaching my kids, I like to focus on the 3 r's, you know, this the old fashioned way of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and then the memory work, of course, incorporating the scripture through all of those things.
• 30:46
  So, you know, that doesn't take very long, and you just kind of just watch them bloom, and that's really fun. So
• 30:53
  Christy-Faith: Whether you're newer to homeschooling or you've been homeschooling over a decade, the fact is creating a streamlined successful homeschool is hard. The pressure is high, and the weight of responsibility often leads to self doubt, second guessing, and feeling completely overwhelmed with the excessive amounts of opinions and curricula options out there. We love our kids. And at the same time, the stakes are high. We don't wanna mess this up.
• 31:20
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• 32:18
  Hi, mama. If you like my social media content and my show, I'm pretty sure you will love my book, Homeschool Rising, Shattering Myths, Finding Courage, and Opting Out of the School System. My book is for homeschool parents, both veteran and new, and the perfect book to hand any homeschool skeptics in your life so they can better understand why you've chosen this amazing lifestyle. This book will challenge you, empower you, encourage you, and give you solid, mindful answers to all those questions you get about your homeschooling choice. Grab your copy and maybe an extra one for your mother-in-law today.
• 32:56
  Homeschool Rising is available wherever books are sold. Yeah. I love that. Relax. And this is from a mama who has 6 daughters, everybody.
• 33:04
  Were there any seasons or times where you're like, wow, I am really messing up right now. I'm worried about this particular kid. Can you share a story? Because I know there's somebody listening right now who is in an utter panic.
• 33:18
  Laura Murfin: Yeah. I I typed in, should I stop homeschooling? You know? Let's just ask Google. You know?
• 33:25
  Maybe Google can give me the answer. I wanted to quit. You know? And then I got this article of these 2 girls who were homeschooled, who hated homeschooling, and they're adults. So their story was kinda sad because they had to get out of the school.
• 33:42
  The mom did not like what was happening, but she worked the night shift and the dad worked the day shift. So their children had nothing. And so they basically watched cartoons. And then by the time they were out of the high school age, they realized they wanted to do stuff, but they didn't know how to do their math and all this stuff. And guess what?
• 34:02
  At the end of the story so they're arguing, don't homeschool. We had a terrible education. Well, they both have college degrees doing what they love. So it just made me go, ah, you guys are not very good at denigrating homeschooling. Not that that's homeschooling at all, but I just feel like kids naturally learn on their own.
• 34:21
  And it doesn't have to be this rigid structured thing. Just open up their world and yeah. I'm not homeschooling my kids with cartoons or anything like that, but it just really helped me relax. And I was also raised at a Christian school with very subpar curriculum. And my mom would say, I'm so sorry.
• 34:41
  That's the only school we could send you to. And we my sister and I were like, no. That's the best thing you could have done. So I've been able to go to college because I knew what I needed to learn. My sister's a doctor teaching in the, university.
• 34:56
  I just feel like we have to relax and just know that kids are strong and they're resilient and they are curious and they will learn the things that they need to learn. I really believe no matter how much money you spend on school, the most prestigious school in the world will have gaps. There's no way we can cover all the gaps. And that's okay. And that helped me to relax too because as your kids get older, they will discover what they need to learn.
• 35:26
  And then if they know how to read and write and do math, they'll be able to fill the gaps that they need for their particular calling in life. And that's what I'm so excited about.
• 35:36
  Christy-Faith: Hi there, podcast family. If our episodes bring a smile to your face, challenge you, or spark your thoughts, tap that like and subscribe button to stay connected with us. Also, we'd truly love to hear your voice in the comments. Your insights and stories are what makes this community special. And not only does it allow us to hear you, but your engagement helps us reach more people and spread our message.
• 35:57
  So go ahead and don't be shy. Like, subscribe, and comment. Yes. Well, I love that so much. And hey, you heard it here from a woman who has a classical background.
• 36:08
  It's fascinating to me how many of you guys are telling us relax. And you're also saying a little bit of a unschooling message. Not that you're a proponent of unschooling per se, but trusting that you're right. There is no way we're gonna cover everything. If you're right now, if you're feeling like this tension and you feel like, oh my goodness.
• 36:32
  What does my kid need to know? I gotta check the state standards. I gotta do all this. I gotta do that. I would definitely step back and say, wait a minute.
• 36:40
  Why am I homeschooling? Am I a a content based homeschooler here? Why am I doing this? Am I just trying to replicate the system at home or do I want to cultivate a human being? Because there's no way our kids can know everything on the planet by the time they're 18, for sure.
• 36:59
  There's just absolutely no way but what we can do is focus on skills. And I think that's something that memory work does is it focuses on skills that really help our kids layer not only with foundational knowledge but also, like you mentioned earlier, attention and the ability to memorize because we do have to memorize things in order to, you know, do well later in life. I wanna ask you, is there anything in your industry, in the homeschooling industry or whether it's classical or memory work industry, recitation, whatever, is there anything that just frustrates you? Like when you see something come through your social media feed, you're just kind of annoyed. You're like, oh no, don't say this to homeschool moms.
• 37:38
  Is there anything that you just can't get behind?
• 37:41
  Laura Murfin: I just don't think parents should push their elementary students too hard because guess what? It gets hard when you actually get into high school and you get into college. And I know not all kids are gonna go to college and that's, you know, God has a different plan for every person. I just see all this push for early education, and we gotta do this I don't see that the results give them what they want. In my mind, I it's like really stressing out about a 8 month old not learning how to walk.
• 38:11
  They're not ready yet, you know? Give them a chance just to enjoy all the things around them. And nobody really cares unless there is an issue, of course, if a child is walking at 10 months or at 15 months. And people don't care when your children grow up. Did your kid learn to read when they were 4 or 9?
• 38:29
  They don't care. You know? Everybody learns differently. I have different learners. I had a learner that was a lot older when she learned how to read, and I just felt in my spirit that I did not need to just stress over that.
• 38:43
  I just knew she's a fun person, she's smart, and she would get it in her time and we had the time to do other things. We just let her enjoy things and information and knowledge and all of that in her own special way. And she's doing great. So I just don't want poor little kids to have to do all this work and have all this rigorous stuff at a young age.
• 39:06
  Christy-Faith: Yeah. Well, and studies have come out that those rigorous I think the latest one was out of Europe, that those super rigorous preschools, they it backfires. The kids get burnt out. They're earlier than ever and things like that. And I remember when I first met Scott and I had first visited his home because we went to Biola University and then so we drove up one weekend when we were a little bit more serious so that I can meet his parents.
• 39:33
  And one of the things that she wanted to make sure I knew was that Scott was reading at 3 years old. And I was like, oh, that's so interesting. And then later on, you know, it comes up in conversation because she's just so excited that her son read at 3. Well, we realized, no, he was just memorizing the books. He wasn't reading.
• 39:51
  A lot of kids can't blend sounds at 3. What they're doing is they're memorizing pictures, which actually is teaching a child to read how a dyslexic reads, which is something that we don't want to do. And if you're curious, if this is Spark, you're like, wait a minute, what did Kristy just say? Yeah. Look, go ahead and look at the science of reading and some of the research that's come out in the last 10 years about reading interventions in our public school system and how they've been just totally detrimental to teaching kids how to read.
• 40:23
  So but I wanna ask you, did you bring anything special for our audience today? I know you is there a free trial that we can offer?
• 40:30
  Laura Murfin: Yes. On my website, I will provide that link with you. It's 4 weeks free. It gives you a chance to just look at all this the information that we have. Get familiar.
• 40:42
  If your kids like to do quizzes and all kinds of things, I feel like you will be able to give it a chance with your kids. Look at it a couple times a day in the morning. You know? A lot of people do that. If it's not for you, they can cancel before during the 4 weeks.
• 40:59
  You can cancel if it's not for you. That's fine. And I don't expect it to be for everybody because everybody's so different, but I have seen it work for so many people. It's just been a great foundational tool that supplements any kind of curriculum that you're using.
• 41:16
  Christy-Faith: Yes.
• 41:17
  Laura Murfin: So I am super excited to share that with you, the 4 weeks freeze.
• 41:22
  Christy-Faith: Awesome. Okay. Yeah. We will make sure that that link is right in the show notes so mamas can try it and you know but you were saying it's not for everybody but I was thinking I just I can't think of a any situation where it doesn't benefit a child to learn how to skip count or to learn the parts of speech or I mean and it may just not be that particular method but in terms of have making sure our kids have this foundational knowledge, it's something that I am just a huge proponent of and it's a fun way. It's been rarely do I stick with something as long as I have stuck with cross 7.
• 41:55
  We're going on our 5th year, and it really has before recording, I was just telling Laura just what a blessing it's been for our particular family. And I am seeing now that my kids are older, I am seeing on a daily basis the benefit of just spending that 10 minutes a day, waking up in the morning, plopping on the couch, putting on that memory work while I'm cooking breakfast or whatever is happening to get the day started. It's just really been a gift. So I want to personally just thank you for the difference that it's made in our lives and in our homeschooling lives. And so, mamas, make sure to definitely check it out.
• 42:33
  Try out those 4 weeks. Do it every day. Have your kids watch it. See what they learn. And I think that you guys will really like it.
• 42:41
  What is your URL for your website?
• 42:44
  Laura Murfin: Cross7, all spelled out, c r o s s seven.org. Okay.
• 42:51
  Christy-Faith: And we will put that link in the show notes. What's the origin of that name?
• 42:55
  Laura Murfin: My husband's mom passed away when he was 21, and they had a cattle farm. And her brand was cross 7. She was a very devout Christian and just felt like she wanted all her cows to have a cross and a 7 on them, you know, just identify them and, yeah, so that we wanted to honor her and that's kind of where that name came up. So
• 43:20
  Christy-Faith: Always wondered that. I oh, yeah. I didn't know, but I like the name a lot. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
• 43:28
  Again, everybody, the links will all be in the show notes for you to give it a shot. And also your customer service is excellent. Mamas can email with any questions that you guys might have regarding it. Every time I've emailed, even before you knew who I was, I would get emails back almost right away. So it's not just because the email happens to be Christy Faith, really.
• 43:49
  It was before I was Christy Faith. You your customer service really is excellent. So thank you so much for serving the, homeschool community in such a great way, and I really appreciate you coming on the show today.
• 44:01
  Laura Murfin: Thank you very much for having me. I am so ecstatic.