[00:00:03] welcome to educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and you’re listening to educate for life radio where we air

[00:00:10] in San Diego on 106.1 FM in North County as well as Cape Rays 12:10 a.m. we’re

[00:00:17] also all over the place on the web we’re on YouTube and Facebook and everywhere else and if you have a question today

[00:00:23] please chime in type type of note into the comments section that’d be great

[00:00:28] we’d love to hear from you there’s also tons of other shows that you can listen to we’ve interviewed all kinds of people from all over the world on every topic

[00:00:35] you can imagine whether it’s astrophysics or cosmology or the issue

[00:00:41] of homosexuality or whatever it might be we talk about everything but today we have something that’s if you’re a parent

[00:00:48] that you’re considering possibly which is a home schooling and specifically we’re talking about classical

[00:00:54] conversations you know I titled the program title as is classical

[00:01:00] conversations the best homeschool curriculum in the world and so I thought

[00:01:05] I’d ask I have two great people on the air with me today Kristina Robinson she’s a area director for all of San Diego as well as Julie

[00:01:12] Friesen who has a support rep for East County and I just wanted to thank you both for being on the air today it’s

[00:01:18] really nice for you to be here thank you thank you absolutely so why don’t we start off a little bit as we get into this well you

[00:01:24] know my question is Kristina is classical conversations the best homeschool curriculum in the world okay

[00:01:33] I just thought that’d be a funny question to ask you know so so why don’t

[00:01:38] we start with you and just ask what does it mean to be the area director for San Diego for classical conversations well

[00:01:44] I’m the area representative and that means that I have a number of zip codes I can’t remember how many but I go

[00:01:52] basically up to about where we are now all the way down south to the Mexican

[00:01:57] border to the coast and to Arizona and I am I support the families of the

[00:02:03] communities and the directors and the support representatives within that area okay fantastic okay and how long have

[00:02:09] you been doing that I just started as my first year so I’m technically just started in November

[00:02:15] I’m doing this so so that’s big big responsibility yes we’ll be praying for you thank you and then Julie you’re the

[00:02:22] support rep for East County so what area does that cover so I am a director of a local program in Himal

[00:02:28] with about 23 families and then just this month I stepped up into this support rep role which means I am the

[00:02:35] team leader for two different communities one in Lakeside and one in Hamal and I help them encourage them and

[00:02:41] meet their needs fantastic and a full disclosure here my kids are actually in

[00:02:47] classical conversations Julie is the director for my wife’s whenever they go

[00:02:53] to the Monday what is it called immunity Community Day and everything so and it’s

[00:02:59] been a big blessing I think it’s really kind of blew my mind when I first got introduced to it and everything that

[00:03:04] goes on in and when I see it at home it’s pretty pretty amazing so I thought it was important to talk about this

[00:03:09] because February is a time when a lot of parents are starting to look at hey what do I decide to do and our educational

[00:03:15] system is changing a ton in America I mean we’ve got charter schools we’ve got private schools we got public schools

[00:03:21] and there’s all these people trying to figure out okay what do I do i’ve got all these options now and so classical

[00:03:28] conversations I think Julie you were telling me that it is the largest classical education in the world in the

[00:03:36] world yeah so ceci started 20 years ago in a basement in North Carolina and now

[00:03:41] there are I believe almost a hundred and fifty thousand students nationwide we

[00:03:47] just launched this year in Brazil we’re really strong in Russia in military communities all over the globe wow

[00:03:54] that’s incredible and then Christina tell us what what is classical

[00:04:00] conversations where does the title come from what is that what does that mean so classical conversations is a home school

[00:04:05] program that partners with parents to be able to school their children classically at home and it’s called

[00:04:11] classical conversations because we use a classical method of Education of the

[00:04:16] teaching model and we do a lot of conversations especially in the upper-level challenge levels which are

[00:04:23] junior high high school we do a lot of conversation chatting with the students letting

[00:04:29] then bring their ideas to the table and just really having conversations so

[00:04:34] that’s where that name came that sounds really appealing I’m sure to a lot of students so when you say conversations you’re you’re as opposed

[00:04:41] to teacher just up front just lecturing at the students is that what you’re saying yes so we have tutors that are in

[00:04:48] a class we never have more than 12 in a class in the challenge level and there’s the tutors job really is to help the

[00:04:55] children to to think up good questions they question each other they question

[00:05:01] themselves they go through reading various literature science books every but every strand or seminar is based on

[00:05:09] a conversation where the tutor is asking really good questions to drag out ideas

[00:05:14] from the students and then they can spend time you know wrestling with those ideas with their peers okay so would you

[00:05:21] say that this that from a classical education standpoint would you say the fundamental difference between what

[00:05:27] we’ve come to get used to in a public school the fundamental difference between a classical education and what

[00:05:34] we would say is a traditional public school education is this whole conversational aspect Julie what No so

[00:05:41] when I think of the term classical what that means to me is you what is your goal are you

[00:05:48] creating a child who has a set of skills and is ready for the workforce or you’re

[00:05:53] cultivating a child who was created in the image of God and in a public school you are not going to get any instruction

[00:06:01] that is meant to shape the child’s ethics their morals and their worldview and so what that essentially does is it

[00:06:08] fragments that child’s soul we’re teaching that in content we are not teaching them virtue we aren’t teaching

[00:06:13] them a character a true classical education has to be centered around a worldview and so as we approach those

[00:06:19] upper level high school years it looks radically different from a public education because we’re able to

[00:06:25] have conversations about things that actually matter and the way it was explained to me is that when Lieb Orton’s created the program she named it

[00:06:31] classical conversations because she wanted her students to be engaging in aged timeless and ageless questions

[00:06:39] those are not questions that students in public high school wrestle with interesting and I mean that’s absolutely

[00:06:45] true and I think that to a large extent we can see a lot of the troubles or the problems that we’re experiencing in the

[00:06:51] public education system is because they aren’t having these conversations would you is that what you think – Christina

[00:06:57] yeah I think so and I think a lot of times it they’re kind of told what to think rather than given an opportunity

[00:07:04] to think for themselves and so when there’s these big questions these big issues out there they don’t really think

[00:07:11] through them and there isn’t really time within this traditional school system to

[00:07:17] be able to do that they it’s just you know getting through English and then getting to math and science and each of

[00:07:22] those things are kept separate so how do you how is that different in classical conversations I mean how do you have

[00:07:28] time to cover all these or to have all these conversations you know you look at

[00:07:33] it sometimes it seems like maybe the the conversations would go off track into different areas where you’re kind of like well wait where are you going and

[00:07:40] then you don’t get as much time to learn things how does how does that facilitate

[00:07:46] it in classical conversations well first of all the students they come together one time a week so the other four days a

[00:07:51] week or five whatever days a week they’re working on their school they’re doing that at home and they’re you know

[00:07:57] digging deeper into their books reading things researching and then they come to class the idea is they come to class

[00:08:03] prepared to have those conversations that are specific to what they’ve been studying that week and then the tutors

[00:08:09] job is to keep those conversations steered in the right direction because you know we’re talking about teenagers

[00:08:15] adolescents they often could go off track but the tutor is there to help you

[00:08:22] know maneuver those questions and conversations to keep them on track and to keep them engaging with one another

[00:08:28] yeah oh the other key there is the class size so most of the challenge seminars have six to ten kids in them and you

[00:08:36] can’t go over 12 so in an hour each kid has an average of five minutes to talk I was formerly a public high school

[00:08:42] teacher and I regularly had over thirty kids in a class and we had an hour to do

[00:08:48] our class so that’s an average of two minutes or excuse me that’s an average of 30 seconds per kid after you counter

[00:08:55] and you know my lecture and all the other things that have to happen so they really can’t dialogue

[00:09:00] well no and and that’s what teenagers want to do they want to dialogue there at that what we call the rhetorical stage of learning where they want to

[00:09:06] express themselves to their peers and they simply can’t do that in most public school settings yeah that’s that’s

[00:09:13] really interesting well my guests today are Christina Robinson and Julie Freeston they work

[00:09:19] with classical conversations if you’re interested in this its classical conversations calm that’s their website

[00:09:25] and maybe you’re wondering hey you know I want to try something new the public

[00:09:30] local public school is not working out or I can’t afford maybe to send my kid to a private school or whatever it might

[00:09:37] be this is an option for you to consider and you know what the experience my wife

[00:09:42] and I have had within classical conversations is very good and the education is amazing and we’ll talk more

[00:09:48] about that but when we get back I’m gonna ask Julie and Christina what about the mom or the dad who’s out there who

[00:09:54] says you know what I’m not a teacher there’s no way I could do this how would you what would you encourage them with

[00:10:00] what would you say so stay with us we’re going to be right back and continue this discussion

[00:10:05] [Music]

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[00:11:09] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and we are airing all over

[00:11:15] YouTube Facebook everywhere this program is being recorded live right now but it will replay on Sunday at 10 p.m.

[00:11:22] Cape Ray’s 12:10 AM and FM 106.1 in North County here in San Diego and I

[00:11:28] hope it’s an encouragement to you you know there’s a lot of people that are very concerned about what’s happening in education I know here in San Diego

[00:11:35] there’s a huge uproar taking place about sex education in the San Diego City

[00:11:40] Schools a lot of parents are very upset all over the country the education landscape is changing and homeschooling

[00:11:48] is growing as far as I understand it and and you can correct me if I’m wrong but in the 1960s is when homeschool really

[00:11:55] started to take off and then it was kind of a dip down and then in the 1970s again homeschooling began to increase

[00:12:01] and people give all kinds of reasons as to why they’ve decided to home-school

[00:12:06] from 1999 to 2012 the percentage of students who were homeschooled doubled

[00:12:11] it went from 1.7 percent of students to 3 point 4 percent that’s a quarter according to the National Center Center

[00:12:18] for Education Statistics 3 percent represents somewhere around one and a half million students that are now being

[00:12:25] homeschooled and you know there used to be a stigma against homeschooling but that is slowly decreasing and in North

[00:12:34] Carolina it’s one of the few states where when they asked home scores to identify either as religious or secular

[00:12:41] secular homeschooling actually outgrew religious homeschooling now constitutes over 40% of the homeschool population

[00:12:48] and I think for a lot of parents you know their initial reaction to the schooling is hey I really want my kids

[00:12:54] to grow up loving the Lord loving God loving Jesus loving the Bible and

[00:12:59] because the Bible was essentially outlawed from the schools in the 1960s

[00:13:05] they began to say yeah well then I’m gonna homeschool my kids and but now as

[00:13:10] the home as the the public school situation gets worse and worse and worse a lot of secular parents are also saying

[00:13:17] you know what I don’t want my kids in the in the school anymore in 2004

[00:13:22] SAT test scores of college bound homeschool students were higher than the

[00:13:27] national average of all college bound seniors that same year and if you

[00:13:32] contrast this with public school kids Bloomberg actually reported that they

[00:13:38] were bombing the SAT it says that there were generally disappointing results and

[00:13:43] education experts are worrying about the public school graduates even being prepared for higher education or the

[00:13:50] workforce and so I wanted to ask you to personally Christina we can start with

[00:13:56] you when did you decide you know for your family that you decided you were going to home-school

[00:14:01] and then ultimately join classical conversations what how many kids do you have and what are their ages we had

[00:14:07] eight children altogether and they range from far did you say eight I said yes okay they range from in age from 20 it’s

[00:14:24] a lot of work um so I first learned about home schooling when my oldest who’s 27 now when he was going into

[00:14:31] kindergarten I first learned about it but I wasn’t able to do it at that time so it wasn’t until 2001 when I was able

[00:14:39] to come home from working and start homeschooling my children at that time and it was primarily originally it

[00:14:45] became like a fear of having them in the public school especially high school you know Mike what was your biggest fear um

[00:14:52] just that I don’t know I guess pretty much everything you know other kids bullying things that they would learn I

[00:14:59] was a fairly new Christian too at the time so you know I just wanted them to have a different experience and I had um

[00:15:04] high school was not a fun experience for me and so so that was it initially but

[00:15:10] we’re also a military family so we move around a lot so for us it works well with our lifestyle because we we had to

[00:15:17] pick up and move every so many years and we don’t have to search for school or you know that kind of thing and I came

[00:15:25] to understand that I just love having my kids around me I love being the one that I taught most of my children how to read

[00:15:31] I taught them how to do math I thought them you know how to tie their shoes all those and I love being there when they have

[00:15:37] those aha moments I’m the one that gets to be there and not somebody else and I may or may not hear about it so yeah I

[00:15:45] think for me too as a homeschool father that’s one of my favorite things even though I go to work and I teach and I

[00:15:50] teach in a private school but being able to come home my kids are there and I can sit down and work with them and talk

[00:15:56] with them and just being I feel like I have more time to be with them it seems

[00:16:01] like so that’s pretty exciting so now did you homeschool your children the

[00:16:06] ones that have graduated all the way from kindergarten all the way through not all of them the oldest ones were

[00:16:13] came home in 4th and 2nd grade and then pretty much all the rest of them were

[00:16:18] all the way through the ones that are I have one graduating this year in May we’re super excited she’ll be our first

[00:16:26] CC graduate because we just found CC this is our eighth year of CCS ok we did

[00:16:31] 10 years of home schooling without classical conversations and then 8 years now with oh I really want to we’ll come

[00:16:37] back to that I want to Julie a chance your way I want to ask you remind me to ask you about the difference between

[00:16:43] experience homeschooling with and without classical conversations okay and then Julie what’s your situation to

[00:16:49] share with our listeners where you’re at sure so I was a typical working mom I was a high school teacher I coached several sports um it was juggling a lot

[00:16:56] dropping my kids off at daycare picking him up coaching after school you know me need my husband in parking lots and

[00:17:02] switching car seats and all that and I was pregnant with my fourth and we had a

[00:17:08] foster daughter who was living at home still she was it was her senior year she was pregnant at the time as well and our

[00:17:16] life was just very hectic and I felt the Lord saying you need to slow down I had

[00:17:21] heard about CC years ago from a friend and something brought it back to my awareness and I went to an info meeting

[00:17:27] and as a public high school teacher I’d had a lot of training in classroom management in educational theory but I

[00:17:35] had never seen anything like this and instantly I knew this is how kids actually learn how come nobody has

[00:17:41] taught me this before as an educator it just made perfect sense yeah and that was what I wanted and I knew right away

[00:17:47] so I really um fearfully approached my husband thinking he was gonna say you’re

[00:17:53] crazy we have a mortgage you cannot quit your job and to his credit he said if

[00:17:58] the Lord is calling you to do this then we’ll find a way to make it happen and so I I quit my job I just got props Ben

[00:18:06] and financially Cece was a good option it was fairly inexpensive and yet it

[00:18:12] offered us the community we were looking for once a week I was able to sign up as a tutor which provided some mild

[00:18:19] compensation that covered our tuition that first year and we just open head first and we’ve loved it ever since so

[00:18:25] that’s an interesting point you make there that hey you you recognize this this is how kids learn so what why do

[00:18:33] you think that this isn’t in public schools why don’t they incorporate this into yeah I can ask answer it based on

[00:18:43] what I think I think that it is a it’s a time I think that it’s a time situation

[00:18:51] where they really don’t have the time to allow for this plus the mindset of

[00:18:58] traditional schooling is not the same as a classical mindset as Julie said that

[00:19:04] the classical mindset is you want to we’re teaching the children in the way

[00:19:11] that they learn but we’re teaching them to be continued lifelong learners whereas I think in the school system

[00:19:17] it’s more of a you know let’s get them through each grade and I I don’t I just

[00:19:26] don’t think that they have really considered you know necessarily what

[00:19:31] would be the best method for each child it’s just let’s just put them all in Oh ed on to that too I mean again I was a

[00:19:37] public school teacher so I understand that you’re really constrained by the institution that you’re a part of and

[00:19:42] you have to have a standard set of benchmarks and you have to measure the

[00:19:49] children at given times but does that mean that all nine year olds are going

[00:19:55] to be physically emotionally and spiritually got the same place at the same time in September no and yet that’s

[00:20:01] what we’re soon when we place kids in grades yeah we put them say you’re nine or your birthday

[00:20:08] was in October so therefore this is the group of homogeneous age kids that you

[00:20:14] have to be with we don’t allow for a child who might be gifted in math I have

[00:20:19] a daughter who is linguistically really advanced she can read

[00:20:24] she’s nine she can read almost 10th grade novels well however she’s on third

[00:20:30] grade math because that she learned slower in math and we have chosen as a family to make the decision to pace math

[00:20:38] in a way that allows her to feel successful and not rushed you simply cannot do that there’s a lot

[00:20:43] more flexibility absolutely in order to adjust for where kids know and

[00:20:49] realistically that doesn’t work the other thing is yeah when we’re when you classically educate you’re educating the

[00:20:55] whole child so frequently at home we take we have moments where there’s sibling rivalries were able to take time

[00:21:02] to stop and have a character lesson in the middle of the day a public school teacher can’t frequently need it in my

[00:21:08] home frequently we’re coming up on another break here and I’m sorry to

[00:21:13] those listeners um I didn’t we didn’t get to the question of hey what if I’m not a teacher yet but I promise we’re

[00:21:19] gonna cover that we’re gonna have Christina and Julie answer that we’re with classical conversations calm is

[00:21:24] what we’re talking about today it’s a fantastic homeschool curriculum option for you to consider as you’re thinking about next year and so stay

[00:21:31] with us we’ve got two segments left we’re going to be right back [Music]

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[00:22:41] thanks for listening sorry I Julie said something that kind of made me laugh just before there so

[00:22:46] thanks for listening today you’re on educate for life this is Kevin Conover she said her heart’s beating really fast so Julie and Kristina are here on the

[00:22:54] show today they’ve never been on radio so they’re slightly nervous but they’re having a great job doing a great job and

[00:22:59] having a great time so what we’re talking about is education we’re talking about home school education if you’re

[00:23:06] out there listening and you’re a parent you know it’s a real wrestle to figure out okay what is the best way to prepare

[00:23:12] my kids for life well we’re all concerned that our children are gonna walk out of the home and that they’re going to be able to have a life that’s

[00:23:18] good and that where they’re able to provide for a family where they’re able to navigate the different hurdles of

[00:23:26] life that are inevitably gonna come and the Bible says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he

[00:23:33] will not depart from it and so we have to ask ourself what is that but what does the Bible mean by that what is it saying what is that training that we

[00:23:40] need to focus on and a lot of times as parents we we can become overly

[00:23:45] concerned with grades and grades are important there’s no doubt about it but the Bible emphasizes actually character

[00:23:53] development over grades character character development over athletic ability and the Bible says that hey

[00:24:00] physical training is good for some things but spiritual training is good for both this life in the life to come

[00:24:05] and so that’s why we’re talking about this and Christina I wanted to ask you

[00:24:12] you know if you have somebody who says to you I’m not a teacher I don’t think

[00:24:17] I’m gonna be able to do this how do you encourage them is this only for parents that are really good teachers or is this

[00:24:23] also for other parents know it well first of all I’m not a teacher I was not trained as a teacher I had when I

[00:24:30] started homeschooling and started using CC I had a high school diploma and that was about it a little bit of college but

[00:24:35] nothing no degree in anything really the in CC we believe that the parent is

[00:24:44] the best teacher for their child and the reason is because you know your child first of all you’ve trained them and

[00:24:50] taught them four birth so it’s not really any different than what you’ve already been doing we

[00:24:57] just think of it in our society we think of it as oh my goodness now it’s their education I can’t teach them math sure I

[00:25:03] taught them to be potty training to use a fork but there’s no way I could teach them math so you don’t you don’t need to

[00:25:10] be a teacher to teach the classical way because what we’re doing is we’re

[00:25:16] teaching the way like within the grain of what the children are at so for the very young students it’s a lot of

[00:25:22] memorizing it’s a lot of repetition of information so you’re you’re just helping them you’re facilitating their

[00:25:30] education more so than teaching them I think and there are parts that you’re teaching them but you know when a child

[00:25:36] knows our math facts they’re going to be able to see that in a math problem and

[00:25:41] and know that two times two you know what the answer is because they can skip count they know their math facts they’ve

[00:25:47] memorized those tables what about when you get into like really high levels of stuff like if you’re getting up into you

[00:25:52] know trigonometry and then precalculus and so far how do you deal with that kind of a situation they’re not big on

[00:26:03] math but but again a lot of higher-level math is based on your basics there are

[00:26:09] basic fundamental operations and formulas that you need to know if you have those and you have those memorized

[00:26:16] and you understand them all the rest of it is building a pond that and it’s

[00:26:21] moving up and of course I mean if your student is like they want to be a math major then you know we encourage parents

[00:26:29] to find other people to come alongside them and help and that’s one of the beauties of classical conversations were a community so we have you know Julie

[00:26:37] may be really skilled at an area and she could help me with my kids in you know

[00:26:43] maybe it’s literature maybe it’s math that I need a little bit of help so I can reach out to other people as well so

[00:26:48] but you yourself do not have to be a teacher okay in order to teach your children okay Julie same question what

[00:26:56] do you say to the person who says I’m considering it I’d like to do it but I just don’t feel like I’m qualified yeah

[00:27:01] I mean what Christina said is very true you have taught your child to walk talk and how have you done that it’s

[00:27:08] naturally we all have in our in the way got creative created us this idea of how

[00:27:14] to acquire knowledge and that’s through repetition modeling observation asking

[00:27:19] questions and yet somehow when we think of our child’s quote-unquote education we think that we need to have an expert

[00:27:25] who knows how to do that when I quit public schooling and I’m told my friends

[00:27:32] or my colleagues that I was going to home-school you would not believe how many of them who are AP English teachers

[00:27:38] ap math teachers said oh I could never teach my child how to read those

[00:27:43] teachers felt like they were owners of a certain segment of knowledge and they

[00:27:49] didn’t think that they had the ability to teach a child something else because that’s the way we’re taught in our

[00:27:55] culture is that you have to be an expert to teach something but I will tell you most parents are their child’s number

[00:28:02] one fan and so if you’re the one who loves your child the most you have this ability to come alongside of them and

[00:28:07] there’s a lot of moms in my community who like Kristina only had a high school degree they say over and over again that

[00:28:15] they feel like because they’re walking through with their children on this journey of classical education they are

[00:28:20] reclaiming their own education by learning alongside their children my wife has said that very thing too she

[00:28:26] said oh my gosh through this process I mean they say the best way to learn something is by teaching it right so

[00:28:32] there’s no doubt about that but so I’m sure a lot of people listening out there or people that are skeptics or maybe

[00:28:38] critics might say something like well what are the real facts you know what evidence do you have that classical

[00:28:43] conversations actually makes a difference in you know college acceptance or SAT scores or being

[00:28:52] prepared for the real world and I know you have a magazine here can you share with us some of these yeah I want to

[00:28:58] start by saying though Kevin the mission of CC are our mission statement is to

[00:29:04] know God and make him known and one of our state is Andy true estate national

[00:29:12] it’s one of our national directors and he is fond of saying are you preparing kids for college or for Christ

[00:29:18] and that really hit home with me because I think again parents start to freak out and they don’t trust the Lord that he

[00:29:24] has a plan for their children CC is a very rigorous academic program but again its mission is to equip kids to be like

[00:29:32] Paul who can be all things to all people people who can defend children who can defend their faith whether they’re

[00:29:37] called in to the mission field or the medical field and so yes CC is a very rigorous program I have some stats in

[00:29:43] front of me that show that C C’s Nash or SAT average is 646 and 591 which are

[00:29:51] more than 150 points above the national average CC students have been accepted into you

[00:29:57] know Brown University University of California Berkeley the University of Texas what I think though is more

[00:30:05] important is this stat that says 97% of parents reported that their teens

[00:30:12] Christian faith was strong as a result of CC 97% that’s amazing incredible and

[00:30:19] III agree that that there can be no higher barometer or measure for what

[00:30:26] we’re looking at because the stats right now are that seven to eight of every crit of every ten Christian kids are

[00:30:32] leaving the faith after high school if they attend a public school and so for us that’s as Christians who are trying

[00:30:39] to train our children up in the Lord well that’s by far the most important fact and I think – I really like what

[00:30:46] you were saying about how you know math builds on math and if you teach a child how to learn then what happens is

[00:30:53] they’re motivated on their own to grow and to learn and to take to take charge

[00:30:59] of their education as they get older that they’re not always leaning on a teacher to motivate them but now there

[00:31:04] are motivated internally to be to look at life and and what do you say that’s something that you see a lot is that the

[00:31:10] kids as they’re getting older they’re motivated to learn on our own and take advantage of their education from the CC

[00:31:18] graduates that I know they they they feel equipped to go out there and learn

[00:31:25] things on their own they become lifelong learners and you know like Julie said that parents in her community that

[00:31:31] talked about reclaiming their own I also feel that way and I feel like I now can be a lifelong learner because I

[00:31:37] know how to learn even though I went through all those years of school but you know for my daughter who’s

[00:31:42] graduating this year she she can take subjects that maybe are difficult for her because she doesn’t like them as

[00:31:49] much or you know her brain doesn’t think that way and she can russell through that because she knows the steps to

[00:31:56] learning she knows that she needs to focus on the basics first the grammar part you know the vocabulary and then

[00:32:02] she can start building on that into the further parts of that subject and so I’ve seen in my own family my kids

[00:32:10] learning to learn how to learn and loving learning as well and they become

[00:32:16] lifelong learners I saw that it’s um it’s really adorable I have one of my daughter’s started teaching our four

[00:32:23] year old Spanish and she mimicked the ceci method we got these dollar-store target flashcards of Spanish and she

[00:32:30] took them and started having the four-year-old parrot back to her and then they would sing a silly song they

[00:32:36] would make up a hand motion they would repeat it and sure enough they it works

[00:32:41] and she I didn’t tell her this is how you should teach your sister how to learn learnt Spanish cards she just has

[00:32:47] seen that happen so often that now she doesn’t even have to think about it this is how you teach someone this is how you

[00:32:53] learn that is really amazing very encouraging and so if you’re listening we are interviewing my interview today

[00:33:00] is with Christina Robinson and Julie Friesen Christina Robinson is the area rep for all of San Diego and Julie

[00:33:06] Freeston is a support rep now for all of East County and so we’ve been talking about classical conversations I I highly

[00:33:14] recommend you check it out classical conversations calm and we’re gonna we have one segment left we’re gonna talk a

[00:33:19] little bit more about how widespread classical conversations is it’s in other countries now it’s in Brazil and other

[00:33:25] places it’s all over the place so very exciting and we’ll also talk a little bit about the home school experience for

[00:33:32] Christina what was the difference between home schooling with classical conversations and then without and

[00:33:38] she’ll give us some perspective on that also so stay with us we’re gonna be right back

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[00:34:47] thanks for being with us today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and my websites educate for

[00:34:52] life.org and my ministry what I do is I also provide a home school curriculum

[00:34:58] which is specific to apologetics Christian apologetics that’s learning to

[00:35:03] defend your faith learning to share your faith and deal with all the skeptics that skeptical questions that people ask

[00:35:10] and responding in a way that’s both gentle and loving so a lot of what I’m doing is similar in a sense to classical

[00:35:18] conversations although what I’m doing is just providing an education that’s specific to apologetics you can check

[00:35:24] that out on my website educate for life org and we’ve also got all kinds of radio programs where you can listen to

[00:35:30] for example Jason Lyle who proves God’s existence through science you can listen

[00:35:36] to dr. John Baumgardner he’s a geophysicist who talks about the evidence for the flood it’s absolutely

[00:35:43] incredible you can listen to the creator of the action Bible Sergio Carrie hello

[00:35:49] I had him on I’m not too long ago he’s the one the artist that drew all of the action Bible used to work for Marvel and

[00:35:54] DC and just all kinds of amazing people who testify to how God has worked in their life and how they have testified

[00:36:03] to the truth of God and and his goodness and His grace so my guests today are Julie Freeston and Christina Robinson

[00:36:10] and they’re with classical conversation so Christina we left off talking about you used to home school without clouds

[00:36:16] and classical conversations and then you were turned on to classical conversations what happened there and

[00:36:21] what is the difference between what you were doing and then and then became involved with CC so we started

[00:36:28] homeschooling in 2001 and CC did they were operating at that time but not we

[00:36:33] were in Washington State and they hadn’t made it over to Washington State yet so I had friends in my church and stuff and

[00:36:41] we just did a bunch of different things every year we were doing a different thing because we were trying to find what would work for the kids and it was

[00:36:48] it worked we still loved it but it was a bit frustrating at times and it was quite expensive because we were having

[00:36:54] to buy whole new things of curriculum every single year it was 2011 when I

[00:36:59] first went to an information and heard about classical conversations and I had learned about classical

[00:37:05] education prior to that so I was very excited to see that this whole thing was

[00:37:11] all in one curriculum one guide that I could use for my kids for all of my kids

[00:37:17] and I was super excited about it and that’s kind of how I got into it the

[00:37:22] state manager at the time was like well we need a you know we would need a new community a new director I was like okay

[00:37:27] and just God told me you need to be doing this so we stepped into it and totally by faith I had never seen it or

[00:37:34] anything but I just was excited about it because of that classical model and the

[00:37:40] difference for our family is I felt like once we moved into classical conversations we had a framework we had

[00:37:47] like a scaffolding I have freedom within that scaffolding because I homeschool because I want to have freedom for my

[00:37:53] kids education so I still have that freedom there but I have a framework that so I’m not having to figure

[00:37:59] everything out myself I don’t have the time or desire to figure it all out for myself so it’s there for me you know

[00:38:05] yeah yeah because when you when you decide to make the jump in a home schooling it’s kind of like you need

[00:38:11] something to grab hold of otherwise it’s overwhelming it’s like there’s so many options out there so Julie what is the

[00:38:18] what is the process through which the framework the scaffolding of classical

[00:38:25] conversations as it pertains to like in kindergarten you start here and then you move up into you know elementary to the

[00:38:33] middle school and to high school how does the educational system change according to the philosophy of classical

[00:38:38] conversations right so it changes according to the way kids learn and we have three programs we start out in the

[00:38:44] foundations level which is for four-year-olds through 11 year olds and in that stage of life you’re meeting

[00:38:50] once a week with a community you show up for class mom or dad is required to attend that community day with their

[00:38:57] kiddo and what they’re seen they have a trained tutor who is going through seven

[00:39:03] different subjects math geography science Latin English grammar history

[00:39:10] and a world timeline and that tutor in a really fun crazy sometimes way is singing

[00:39:17] dancing chanting all while mom and dad are participating with the kids we also do a fine art sixth a fine arts lesson

[00:39:24] we do a site fun science experiment and then we play a lot of games the reason mom and dad are in that class mom or dad

[00:39:30] is so that they can be equipped to go home the rest of the week and keep

[00:39:35] working on that knowledge through those fun songs and games and dances and chants so I wanted to ask you about this

[00:39:42] because this was kind of a surprise to me when my wife started using CC is that she there was a lot of singing going on

[00:39:49] and I was like wait she’s like let’s put this in the CD in the car and they’re

[00:39:54] singing you know and then we’re at home there’s more singing and pretty soon I was like honey wait I need a break from all the singing here but but tell us how

[00:40:02] CC uses the singing Christina how does that how does that work what’s the what’s the drive behind that well if you

[00:40:09] think about the way you know first of all it’s that repetition thing you know little kids how many times you have to watch the same movie over and over and

[00:40:15] oh yeah there’s that repetition thing but also for the singing I mean I guess

[00:40:20] using an example I think about Schoolhouse Rock you know when I was young and that’s how I know the preamble

[00:40:26] to the Constitution and when I think about that I hear Schoolhouse Rock in my head and a conjunction I know what a

[00:40:33] conjunction is because of Schoolhouse Rock and I heard that a very long time ago and so the song I don’t understand

[00:40:42] the why behind it but it it gets into us in it it’s like a Diddy on advertisement

[00:40:49] and Kevin I have a lot of people who’s telling me well I’m not musical okay well I’m not musical either I’m not a

[00:40:55] musician I don’t play any instruments but God created everyone to appreciate

[00:41:00] music that’s why we have the Psalms how many jingles can you repeat from your

[00:41:05] childhood simply because you listen to them exactly so I think the why behind the music is simply harnessing a tool

[00:41:11] that’s intrinsic in all of us that if something is rhythmic it might not be necessarily musical it could be chanting

[00:41:17] or it could be saying it to a certain rhythm it just works and it goes in there yeah I mean it’s incredible it’s

[00:41:24] with our kids math and everything Cece is doing their ability to multiply you know they go

[00:41:31] through their fours they go through their sixes they go through and we’re hearing all this and it’s incredible that they’re able to remember all that

[00:41:36] through that song that’s pretty amazing to go back to your question after that eleven-year-old stage the program moves

[00:41:43] into a longer day where the kids are attending and after after that normal

[00:41:49] program they stay for a really intense grammar language arts and math games

[00:41:55] portion of their day they start working together with a tutor and again with mom

[00:42:00] in the class to diagram sentences we use the Institute for excellence in writing which is a world recognized writing

[00:42:08] program for those middle school kids and then finally around seventh grade the

[00:42:14] children enter into what we call our challenge program and that’s a once a week seminar with six different strands

[00:42:20] and one tutor mom or dad normally does not sit in on those classes because

[00:42:25] those kids at that age don’t want mom and dad’s so they’re with their peers they’re with their train tutor and

[00:42:31] they’re wrestling with those conversations that’s fantastic and there’s an so there’s an adjustment meeting each of the kids needs at

[00:42:37] different stages of life yeah and can you tell us again one more time what how many kids around the world are now using

[00:42:43] classical conversations about a thank you you say a hundred and fifty thousand

[00:42:49] from the latest stats that I’ve seen yes I would say that’s within the within the

[00:42:54] US okay and it’s growing all its growing all the time right we have in Canada in

[00:43:00] Russia and Brazil and there’s some other countries that we have communities that

[00:43:06] we can’t identify those places sure to protect people but Germany has a lot of

[00:43:12] there’s a lot of military bases where often where there’s a military base you’ll see a classical conversations

[00:43:17] community because you know they start it here they move overseas and they want to continue that so I don’t I know that

[00:43:25] there’s somewhere around 4,000 students in Russia this year we had a big huge

[00:43:30] convention there whereas we had our three-day practicum in the summer and four in Russia they had one over there

[00:43:37] and it’s all biblically based yes and so this is also a an evangelism

[00:43:43] tool in a sense – and that you’re you’re helping people to grow in the Lord and discipleship program in a sense right

[00:43:49] yes again our our mission is to know how to make him known that’s a classical conversations mission oh it’s absolutely

[00:43:54] phantom and I found the facts 50,000 homes gleaned families over 125,000

[00:44:00] students that is great well hey we’re just about out of time here if you’re listening I want to encourage you to

[00:44:06] check out classical conversations comm if you enjoyed this show and you want to learn more about it or you want to share

[00:44:12] it with somebody it’ll be available for you to be able to share on social media and stuff like that so I encourage you

[00:44:17] to do that spread the word and Julie and Kristina I just want to thank you for taking time out of your day to be here I

[00:44:22] know you’re both very busy you’ve got eight kids here and how many kids you have Julie four kids at home or okay so

[00:44:28] you’re both very busy so thank you so much for being here appreciate it thank you you’re welcome okay thanks for

[00:44:34] listening for all those you out that are listening today thanks for being with us we’ll be back next week we’re actually

[00:44:39] interviewing pastor Alex who has a church here called India Christian Fellowship and he’s from India himself

[00:44:47] and they’re gonna be talking about doing missions in India so pretty exciting stuff too and lots of good stuff to

[00:44:53] learn about and be encouraged with there so I hope you’ll join us next week god bless you and I hope you have a great

[00:44:59] day [Music]