transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] And also those kind of comments where it's like, well, it's not a Christian author, so I'm not going to read it. Always make me really nervous that if the author is Christian, they'll just take it whole.

Speaker 2:
[00:11] Yeah, everything it says.

Speaker 1:
[00:12] Because there are so many bad Christian books.

Speaker 3:
[00:15] For sure.

Speaker 2:
[00:16] So true. Welcome to Scholé Sisters where we are cultivating the maximum number of thinking moms we can. This is the podcast for Classical Homeschooling Mamas who yearn for something more than just checking boxes and getting it all done. Scholé Sisters discusses topics that matter to those of us who believe that educating ourselves through reading widely, thinking deeply and applying faithfully equips us for the task of educating our children. I'm your host, Brandy Vencel. To get my free, almost weekly, mostly Charlotte Mason newsletter, go to afterthoughtsblog.net/subscribe and sign up. My co-hosts today are Mystie Winckler and Abby Wall. Mystie is a homeschooling mom of five, including three graduates. She writes and podcasts at simplyconvivial.com and is the author of two excellent books, The Convivial Homeschool and Simplified Organization. Abby is basically the queen of the Scholé sistership. Abby is a country living farmer rancher, a loving wife and mom of five who homeschools and reads whenever she can. John Muir Laws, artist, author and nature enthusiast is teaching our spring training sessions this year. Come join us and embrace the practice of Nature Notebooks for every age. Session one is on May 5th at 1230 p.m. Pacific and we'll cover Nature Notebooks for children. Session two is the next week on May 12th at the same time and we'll cover Nature Notebooks for teens and adults. Come and develop some skills that will help you forge a deeper connection with creation. Go register now at scholesisters.com/nature. Today's episode is a discussion about the importance of independent thinking. You're going to love this conversation and so without further ado, let's get to it. Let's start off with our Scholé Everyday. Who would like to go first?

Speaker 3:
[02:34] This is Abby and I can go first.

Speaker 2:
[02:36] All right.

Speaker 3:
[02:36] Since we are big proponents of reading economics books here in sistership and on the podcast and I liked economics in college, the classes that I took, but I didn't read a whole lot. But last year, I read Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell and that was great. But it was a huge tome and I probably got a quarter of what, because it was so big, I don't remember everything. So I decided to pick up another shorter volume by Milton Friedman, who I think taught or was greatly influential to Thomas Sowell. They differ on some opinions. This is an older economics book. So that was kind of fun because some of the things that were in existence have been repealed. This one is called Economics and Freedom, which I thought, or Capitalism and Freedom, sorry, Capitalism and Freedom. That's I had the title wrong. And we like to think that a free market helps a free people. And that's his pitch for this. So I did look up one of these quotes because it was in the beginning of the book and it was great. It said in a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither of the statement expresses a relationship between the citizen and its government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society. The paternalistic, what your country can do for you implies the government is the patron, the citizen is the ward, and that a view that is at odds with a free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organicismic is what he says. What can you do for your country implies that government is the master or the deity of the citizen and servant or the votary. To the free man, this country is a collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions, but he regards government as a means and instrumentality, neither a guarantor of favors and gifts nor a master or god to be blindly worshiped and served. He recognizes no national goal except as it is the consensus of the goals that the citizens severally serve. He recognizes no national purpose except as it is the consensus of the purposes for which the citizens severally strive. So anyway, he's got some really great points, but I just love that because that's always quoted in a positive light and he's just saying both things are wrong. But one of the interesting things that I didn't know, and I don't remember this in Basic Economics, so Mystie, you've read it a couple of times, so maybe you will remember this.

Speaker 1:
[05:34] Actually, only once, but. Oh, only once, okay.

Speaker 3:
[05:36] Well, did you know that possession of gold was actually banned in the United States? Like citizens could not hold gold from 1934 to 1974.

Speaker 1:
[05:48] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[05:48] And I didn't know this. And he was talking about the history and it was before it had been repealed, because now you can have gold again. But it was only allowed in arts. That's how only a citizen could have it. But yeah, I didn't remember that part in my economics history. So anyway, it was kind of funny because he's like, and it should be repealed because this will be better for the economy. And so I was like, well, I'm glad Milton Friedman, you got your wish here. But anyway, so it was just funny.

Speaker 1:
[06:14] Was he before or after the gold standard was reversed, though? Because now it really doesn't matter.

Speaker 3:
[06:19] Yeah, no, I know that. But it was, no, he talked about getting off of the gold standard and everything like that. But yeah, he's after that. But anyway, it was just, I think this book was in the 1960s when it was written. And they've had some updates, but not all. So anyway, it was just interesting to get kind of an older take on some of these economics. But at the same time, it's still very relevant because, you know, economics are really a principle. And when you mess with the principles, then, you know, bad outcomes. But ultimately, there's underlying principles that just still ring true. So, yeah, it's been a good book so far, and it's not super long. So if you're wanting to dip your toes into a economics book, this one, I think, would be a good fit.

Speaker 2:
[07:06] Sounds great.

Speaker 1:
[07:09] Well, this is Misty, and my Scholé Everyday pick is Evening in the Palace of Reason, Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James Gaines.

Speaker 2:
[07:21] I love this book.

Speaker 1:
[07:23] It's like, I bought this book before. So this is in my category of books my children said I should read for my five-by-five. Had each of my children assign me a book. And so my second son, Jaeger, said I should read this one because it's really good. And I'm pretty sure, again, so my first book that I gave my oldest was the one I gave him for Christmas this year. I'm pretty sure I gifted this book to my second son at some point in high school.

Speaker 2:
[07:54] This was like, this book was on my shelf.

Speaker 1:
[07:56] I don't own it. It's Jaeger's copy, so I don't have a copy. So I had to buy my own copy, and I'm about a quarter of the way through, but it is such a great book. It was funny. I was like, well, how old is this book? Because I feel like I remember when it came out, and sure enough, it came out in 2005. So I probably do remember when it was new in making the rounds. But now, 20 years later, I'm actually reading it myself instead of just giving it to my children to read. And hey, I gave them pretty good books to read. Yeah. But it's especially interesting right now, I think, because this book is about an older generation that's dying out, meeting the new generation that has completely different assumptions, but is beginning to rule. That's Bach and Frederick the Great, and how the worlds are colliding, and how they disagree, how they are kind of playing this dance of one replacing the other in a culture. And I kind of think that's where we're at right now. But maybe it's just because I have Gen Z young men beginning their real lives out in the world. But I think, I don't know, one of my takeaways is they had a lot more respect back then. They had big, actually bigger disagreements with a lot more respect. So that's a little bit, makes you sad to be on Twitter. We already were sad about that.

Speaker 2:
[09:49] I was thinking it made me sad, but that was because I was sad for Bach.

Speaker 1:
[09:52] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:53] That's kind of heartbreaking.

Speaker 1:
[09:54] It is.

Speaker 2:
[09:56] Well, I'm glad you're finally reading it. Joining in the ranks of the well-read.

Speaker 1:
[10:01] Yes.

Speaker 3:
[10:03] I'm not well-read. This is the first time I've ever heard about this book.

Speaker 1:
[10:06] Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:08] Abby, you would really like it. I think so.

Speaker 3:
[10:10] I will put it on my list. I might have to buy it. The other two that we talked about last podcast, I already purchased and they did arrive at my house. You might have to make it an episode. It's not that bad. It's only $9.39.

Speaker 4:
[10:27] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[10:27] It's been around a while, so there are cheaper copies.

Speaker 3:
[10:31] I'm making it a podcast officially. It's going to be awesome.

Speaker 4:
[10:34] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[10:36] Today, mine is I'm calling this Commonplace 2.0. I actually wrote this inside my double journals. It says Commonplace 2.0 because I'm quite proud of this, even though I haven't fully fleshed out everything because I feel like I have enough to start moving forward and then I'll figure out my process as I go. But what I did this time, so I finished my first book of the year, which was How to Take Smart Notes. One of the reasons why I was reading that was because it was about time for me to set up new journals and I wanted to do better. A lot of that was inspired by John Ahern's class that he did in sistership in December. But exactly what he was saying didn't quite work for me and was missing a couple of things anyway. Then I read How to Take Smart Notes, which also doesn't work exactly for me. My understanding is that you do something similar to what's in the book Mystie like online digitally? Ish. Yeah. What he actually has set up is a process that lends itself well to academic writing and neither of us are academic writers. I mean, you got to make your process fix your actual point, which was really helpful. I really did spend time thinking about what is my actual goal with this? What do I really want to do? I decided probably my main goal is retrieval. I want to be able to find these things later when I need them, instead of being like, I had a quote about that, I wonder where it is. But then also, I decided that I really want to prioritize writing something after I finish a book. If the book is at all worthy, I don't mean if I read a little junky novel that I need to think about it or something. But when I'm reading these better books, I want to spend some time writing. Basically, when we do our Scholé Everyday course that we're working on, I will have a whole explanation of exactly how this works. But for now, I'll just say, I have two journals, and one is basically the bibliographic information coupled with actual direct quotes from the book. What I did this time is when I was done with the book, then I went through and copied out the quotes that I actually wanted to write down because it was interesting to go through my underlining and realize more than half of the stuff I don't actually want to write down. Yeah. There was a reason to underline it, but there's not a reason to copy it. So I did that. But then the other journal, and I bought my journals in a two-journal set, so they're the same size but different colors. It's great. But is for me to do some sort of reflection on one of the ideas. So it's not a written narration. I do have a separate journal that I use for written narrations, which I mainly only do when I'm doing a major novel where I need to really track some things in order to make sure I'm following it. Like a Russian novel or a Dickens or something like that. So this journal is one of the ideas that really stuck out to me. I'm going to make myself write a page and develop some thoughts on that idea before I move on to the next book or the next thing or anything like that. So I did that last time and I was like, like I found that really satisfying because sometimes I'm sad when books are over and I don't know. I think the act of writing a little bit about it, like processing some of the ideas gave me some closure. I wasn't so sad. So.

Speaker 1:
[14:20] That's great. I've been thinking about something similar. I just made myself a little outline because I finished my first book of the year also and I have my notes and they are digital. So I have a folder for books with bibliographic information and then I have a different folder for quotes but they can link together.

Speaker 2:
[14:47] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[14:48] So I was thinking about writing after I finished a book, why I read that book in the first place? What was my connection to? Why did I pick that one up? What I thought about the author's writing style? Kind of a quick summary, not a full written narration, like what were his main points or themes? And then some kind of assessment or my own thoughts about it, or about one thing, kind of like what you're saying. So yeah, we're thinking along similar lines. I haven't fully written something out yet though. I've only made more notes rather than full paragraphs.

Speaker 2:
[15:28] I think what's probably the biggest change for me is actually that I'm not writing any of the quotes down. Until I'm done with the book.

Speaker 1:
[15:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:37] And then going back through and copying them. Because I've always done it along the way. But I've realized that that is lending itself to my retrieval problem. Because then it's all mixed in with other books and things. And I just have like this kind of mismatch. So I mean, I'm still, I'm still taking John Ahern's advice as far as like tagging them with topics and things like that so that I kind of have an organizational system for retrieval beyond that. But I just, I think in my brain, like waiting and giving myself time to sift through what, what do I actually want to keep instead of what I think I want to keep in this moment. Like in retrospect, after reading the whole book, what do I want to keep? I'm probably writing less, but it's more valuable. And then I can make sure I'm consistent on my topic tags instead of inventing new ones because I forgot what I started with or something. I'm still kind of perfecting the whole indexing and all that kind of stuff. But I think I'm going to like this idea of like, I finish the book and then I just do all the journaling stuff at one time. And then I move on to whatever I'm doing next.

Speaker 1:
[16:45] How long do you see that taking?

Speaker 2:
[16:47] It actually, I was afraid it was going to take a long time and I was going to regret doing this. But I would say I think it actually took me less than an hour to do all of it. Like do all of it, like the bibliography and the tagging and the whatever. I think it will consistently take that amount of time because I think some books will take me more time to think about what I want to write myself, you know? But this one took a lot of time because I was still thinking through my organizational system. So even though it was a simpler book in terms of the ideas, like I didn't have to like dig real deep for my own thoughts on some things. Yeah. But I had to figure out exactly how I was going to organize everything because I was only setting up the notebooks for the first time. So that took extra time. For this process and all this stuff, I'm going to really work it out and then we'll talk about it in the course. Misty, I actually think you should talk about your digital keeping stuff in the course because it'll be a good contrast. Because for me, my biggest thing is I can't do this stuff digitally because there's something about it in me that is really extreme when it comes to out of sight, out of mind. It's real bad. If I kept a digital calendar, it would probably never show up anywhere. Anyway, I have to figure out how to do this in a way that makes sense, but also is physical because a lot of the digital options, I think actually make more sense. I just can't do it.

Speaker 3:
[18:09] I also struggle. I can't do it all digitally, so I'm with you. I just seem to retain it better when it's pen to paper for me.

Speaker 1:
[18:17] If I had to handwrite any kind of paragraph, it would just never happen. And I could whip out a typed paragraph in no time flat.

Speaker 2:
[18:27] Well, that was the thing with how to take SmartNotes. There's a little bit of a place where he talks about thinking through your goals and it just dawned on me, like I have never really sat down and I've developed processes that I do follow through with over time, but I've never really sat down and asked, what do I actually want to use this for? What's its purpose? Okay, what will I actually do? Because some of these really elaborate journaling systems would probably be kind of cool to set up, but I would never follow through. Right. You know, so I think this is simple enough that I'm not gonna get tired of it. So. Yep.

Speaker 3:
[19:03] I like it.

Speaker 2:
[19:04] It's the most important thing.

Speaker 3:
[19:04] I'm looking forward to hearing more about it.

Speaker 2:
[19:06] Yeah, it should be fun.

Speaker 4:
[19:11] Hi, Abby here to invite you to join us in sistership, our free online community. We believe reading widely, thinking deeply and applying faithfully is the kind of self-education every woman needs. Because our children and our homes and our communities and our churches need us to be educated, confident and fruitful Christian women. We need wisdom and experience from others and we need time to discuss the ideas that we are encountering. Sistership is free to join and full of fruitful and respectful discussion from women all over the world. They're interested in self-education, homeschooling, classical education, and Scholé just like you. Join us today at scholesisters.com/sistership.

Speaker 2:
[19:59] Today we're talking about thinking for yourself. And really we're getting at this no guru's idea. This topic, it was selected mainly because I lobbied for it. Because there's a certain Charlotte Mason quote that I just, I just spent a lot of time thinking about it. It just comes to mind quite often for me. So this is from her sixth and final volume. And it's kind of long, but I'm going to go ahead and read the whole thing one time. And then we'll kind of like pick out a few parts later as it applies. But she says, late in the last century, goody goody books were written about the beauty of influence, the duty of influence, the study of the means of influence. So you like don't think influencers are new basically. And children were brought up with the notion that to influence other persons consciously was a moral duty. No doubt such influence is inevitable. We must needs affect one another, not so much by what we do or say as by that which we are. And so far, influence is natural and wholesome. We imbibe it from persons real and imaginary, and we are kept strong and upright by currents and countercurrents of unstudied influence. Supine-ness before a single steady, persistent influence is a different matter. And the schoolgirl who idolizes her mistress, the boy who worships his master, is deprived of the chance of free and independent living. His personality fails to develop, and he goes into the world as a parasitic plant, clinging ever to the support of some stronger character. That phrase, supine-ness before a single steady, persistent influence, it just really has gotten caught in my mind. Basically, the opposite of thinking for yourself is something like that. Just letting one other person, especially if that person is charming, compelling, charismatic, just letting them think for you. And yet we know that the classically educated are distinguished by a number of qualities, one of them being the ability to think even through difficult topics and difficult issues, drawing not from one single steady influence like a guru, but rather from a whole collection of varied voices and experiences. I really think that learning to think for yourself is super important. And I think it's a super important part of what we're trying to do as homeschool moms with our children. So when I quote Charlotte Mason, I know I've quoted it on the show before, again, from William Six as saying, People are naturally divided into those who read and think and those who do not read and think. And the business of schools is to see that all their scholars shall belong to the former class. I usually end up focusing on the need to get our children reading. But today, I want us to focus on the need to make sure that we and then also our children are thinking.

Speaker 1:
[22:54] Yes. And can I just say that I think it is hilariously ironic that Charlotte Mason said this, and yet she has become so many people's guru. But not only can you not challenge what she says, but she's the be-all, end-all filter every other idea has to go through.

Speaker 2:
[23:20] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:20] And you can't even fit her within the greater tradition, but she is, in many circles, the lone soul source that's allowed. Whenever I see that, I think, oh, that poor thing, she's rolling over in her grave. I think she has a lot of great things to say about education, and her principles of education are very insightful. And I would never ever call myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler because of those kind of circles that are out there and what that has come to mean. And yet it's actually closer to Charlotte Mason's thinking to not have her as your one sole source, and to not call it Charlotte Mason education than it is. That's not really honoring what she's saying at all.

Speaker 2:
[24:19] Well, she actually tried to get everyone to call what she was doing the PNEU method, PNEU being the abbreviation for the name of her organization. And it was, I think, really only after her death that it really took off to call something Charlotte Mason. And on the one hand, I totally get it. I mean, in the sense of like, once a philosopher has died and they're done developing their thinking any further, then you can identify their thinking. You can say, oh yes, this is part of what Charlotte Mason would say and this isn't because she's done thinking through everything.

Speaker 1:
[24:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[24:54] But on the other hand, when she objects to it being called after any one person's name, including herself, and wants it to be called the PNEU method, if I remember correctly, in that context, it was like because she wanted to be able to appeal to a larger tradition. So I think she definitely is with you on that, actually.

Speaker 1:
[25:16] She just needed to find a catchier name.

Speaker 2:
[25:19] Yes. It's true. It's unfortunate. PNEU doesn't even roll off the tongue, right?

Speaker 1:
[25:27] Yeah. Like P-U.

Speaker 2:
[25:30] Totally.

Speaker 1:
[25:31] It just doesn't work.

Speaker 3:
[25:34] You needed a rebrand.

Speaker 2:
[25:35] Yeah, it's true. It's true. Better website, the whole thing. Okay. So let's start talking about thinking for yourself. What do we actually mean? Because I think this can be taken to an extreme, or it means something like you're going to never take anybody else's input. You're going to invent your own thoughts. You're going to throw off all tradition. You're going to ignore wise counselors. Like, what do you mean when you say like, oh, your kid should think for yourself or this mom should think, or you want to think about this for herself or you want to think about something? What do you mean when you say that?

Speaker 1:
[26:09] I think it's maybe easier to think about what it doesn't mean. And Charlotte Mason is, she paints that picture of the supine. So like laying back and just, if you picture your brain as something that's not actively working on something, but rather simply receiving, then that's the supine posture. You don't really want to think of consequences or think of how, if an idea applies one way or another to this particular aspect of your situation, you just want the easy, quick answer that someone else has said, you'll do it and it will work because the other person is smarter or more experienced, or some other, for some reason that you've decided, just doing what someone else says will work out better, which it's not going to. Even you talking about your different commonplace methods, I think, is an example here. We heard one workshop with one person's explanation that's really good and makes a lot of sense. Then you read a book on the topic, which is a different approach, kind of compatible, but different and different purposes. And instead of saying, these are two completely different systems, and I have to pick, and I need more information from one or the other so that I can exactly implement what it is they're talking about. That's the kind of reliance on a guru that Charlotte Mason is telling us to avoid. And the right approach is to say, okay, well, this person says that, so here's another idea, and I'm going to think about what my purpose is, and what my proclivities are, and make something that's a mix of these things that works for me. That's going to be okay.

Speaker 3:
[28:24] Yeah, I always appreciated Charlotte Mason's encouragement to mothers, that moms need to be constantly taking in that steady flow, because we need to be that stream, not a stagnant pool. And I think that that guru thing, it can be like, oh, this is a really beautiful pond, and this is the only thing that's there. It's kind of a self-contained ecosystem, and yet, it can become stagnant, and in different months, it can grow algae. But this steady flowing stream of having new ideas and information and new thoughts, because we're having lots of wide input, just it gives it a lot more life. I always appreciated that kind of analogy, especially for moms so that they can continue to bring in some of those things to their homeschool. We want that for our kids too and modeling we know is the best way that we can encourage and show our children.

Speaker 2:
[29:29] I was trying to think about this, what it's not and what it is, us defining this a little bit more. I wonder if it's as simple as engagement. If you are thinking for yourself, you are actively engaged. You're listening to someone else's thoughts and you're considering it for sure, but you are actively processing what you're hearing and you're filtering it through what you already know, which would be different in different contexts. Right? And you're not assuming like you are trusting an authority, but you're also not assuming that they're exactly right on every single point.

Speaker 1:
[30:10] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[30:11] I was trying to think through like what is really going on? There's a couple of places where Charlotte Mason talks about people who don't want to think and she kind of equates it to people who don't really want to make a decision.

Speaker 1:
[30:26] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[30:27] To make a decision, you have to have some thinking behind it. There's more than just that, that would paralyze a person. Sometimes we're overthinking it. For sure. But to some extent, it's the path of least resistance. If you can find a guru that you really do respect and pretty much trust, it's just way easier to farm your thinking out rather than to do it for yourself.

Speaker 1:
[30:51] Yeah. You don't have to do the reading. Well, how many people doing Charlotte Mason education haven't read Charlotte Mason?

Speaker 2:
[31:00] Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3:
[31:02] So you guys know sheep make trails. If you're in permanent pastures, sheep make these trails. And it's always these kind of wandering, meandering paths. But they're almost ultimately all the path of least resistance.

Speaker 2:
[31:16] Oh, interesting.

Speaker 3:
[31:17] And they're sheep trails. And so they just follow behind one another. And anyway, it's just like a very apt picture.

Speaker 1:
[31:25] We are sheep. Yes. All we like sheep have gone astray. So true.

Speaker 3:
[31:30] But they are oftentimes like you think of like, oh, this would be way shorter if you just cut through there. But no, we got to go a long way around because somebody initially thought this was the idea.

Speaker 1:
[31:44] Well, I also think that there's something related here to not wanting to think period about the ideas because we are so accustomed to following our emotions or being guided by emotions. It's difficult to think, and what we think is counter to our emotions. If we haven't been trained on how to submerge our emotions to consider an idea impartially, if you've never really done that, and instead, again, read Bad Therapy, if instead you've been brought up to say, no, your emotions are the criteria that you should use, then I think you're pretty much only left with following a guru, a guru who can make you feel a certain way about doing something. That it is just being influenced. If you are guided primarily by emotion, you are only going to be influenced.

Speaker 3:
[32:59] Everything is so fast and so at our fingertips, and we want to know it now. You just think about like using an AI instead of thinking through a few things, right? Like, oh, well, Chad GPT, tell me these things, right? And it comes up with all these, oh, these are great. Okay, going forward. And I think that there's an efficiency factor too, because reading and thinking are effective, but not necessarily efficient. And I think we've just gotten that production mode, right? We're, we're a very efficiency minded culture. And I mean, don't get me wrong, I like to be efficient as well. But the thinking which is weighing and judging, making judgments, discerning, takes time and effort.

Speaker 2:
[33:46] Yeah. Efficiency is often, not always, but it's often taking a really short-sighted perspective.

Speaker 3:
[33:55] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[33:56] In this moment, can I save time by asking ChatGPT? Yes. If I do that all the time, will I save time? Yes. Will I be stupider? Yes. Yes. Is that what I want to be? No. Long-term. This is not the efficient path to who I want to be. I'm saving time in exchange. All I got to give is myself. It's just, again, that whole idea of the Fascian Bargain coming into play where we jokingly say like, oh, this scientist sold this soul to the devil because he wanted to know stuff, but we will do it. We'll sell our birthright for a loaf of bread or something. We're like, oh, I will be stupider just to save some time.

Speaker 3:
[34:41] Or the Midas Touch, right? What are the unintended consequences of outsourcing our brains? We have to back up and think about that.

Speaker 1:
[34:50] There's definitely fear involved, like fear of getting it wrong. And a misconception, I think that if you are asking questions or considering it for yourself, then perhaps you are saying that you are smarter than the person who you're evaluating. Like if I'm thinking for myself, if I'm taking his ideas and weighing them, that's automatically saying, I think my judgment is better, when it's really just the only way to actually make it your own.

Speaker 3:
[35:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:31] Is to consider and weigh and kind of go through a similar process. You're not weighing and considering and thinking for yourself because you think you know better, or are smarter, or are being disrespectful. But because you want to grow toward the same wisdom, so you're going to follow the same path. Not take the pureed, finished form as quickly as possible, but actually follow through the reasoning that got the wiser person to where they're at. You're going to follow in their footsteps by considering deeply some of the same things.

Speaker 2:
[36:16] I was trying to figure out, so how does this mesh with the idea that we believe in thinking for yourself, but you also believe things like hierarchy is real, authority is real, tradition is valuable. There's all these different things that feel like they're in conflict with thinking for yourself. And so in listening to what you're saying, I'm just thinking, well, how much of this actually is just, you're actually submitting to it in just a more robust way. You meet people who really want to cast off tradition, and often they were handed traditions that they were expected to follow unthinkingly.

Speaker 1:
[36:56] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[36:57] And the reason why the tradition didn't have value. I mean, yeah, some traditions don't actually have value, or you get this backstory on them and you're like, oh, that's so funny. It was this certain, I remember reading one time about a church and it was like, they collected the offering in this peculiar way. And when someone actually looked into it, it had to do with just some really weird detail at the time when it was established. And then people thought it had to be that way. And it was actually like, oh, no, we only had a basket that looked like this at the time or something. It was just kind of silly. So it's like, yes, there are some traditions that you don't actually need to keep. Like pruning can be valuable. But I think the traditions we do value are usually the ones that we understand that we can think through for ourselves. I certainly valued baptism more after I studied it.

Speaker 1:
[37:43] Right. Well, and I wonder if some of this is the consequence of modern autonomy and individualism. Thinking for yourself is kind of a modern catchphrase to coming from the 60s and casting off all restraint that was marketed as thinking for yourself when really no thinking at all was going on. It was not thinking for yourself. It was feeling for yourself.

Speaker 2:
[38:14] So true.

Speaker 1:
[38:15] And going with your feelings. And so step back and examine no matter what word is being used, which is the guiding force. Thought or feeling, if people are thinking for themselves, then that ought to mean everyone is examining how close something is to objective truth. So thinking for yourself only works if there is objective truth. And if you acknowledge objective truth, and if you want objective truth, then each person can think for himself because everyone's trying to get to the same place. And so if you come up with a new question or a new consideration, it can help the whole group get closer and closer to objective truth. But if you reject objective truth, then there is no standard, there is no single purpose. It really is just do what's right in your own eyes, which is what the 60s was.

Speaker 2:
[39:28] Yeah. In How to Take Smart Notes, the author quotes Immanuel Kant, who I don't believe I've ever read. But he said something I thought was really interesting. He says, nonage and maturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. And I thought, so maybe some of this is the idea of growing up. And the idea that children do what they're told and don't really think about things. And, you know, and so it's like, I mean, I often say use your brain.

Speaker 3:
[40:16] Right? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[40:18] Maybe that's what we should call the episode. Use your brain.

Speaker 3:
[40:23] Well, and I'm, I wanted to bring this up a little bit earlier, but just this idea of imitation, like a lot of us have our kids do copywork because we want them to do. We have them recite poetry. We have them recite a catechism. We have them memorize, you know, beautiful works of art and truth and goodness and beauty. And imitation is part of learning and that's different. It's not in opposition to like, it's forming us. It's putting, what is it? I think Tolkien says like how we have to have the leaf mold, right?

Speaker 2:
[41:00] Right.

Speaker 3:
[41:00] To get ideas and to have some of these things like we have-

Speaker 2:
[41:04] Like compost.

Speaker 3:
[41:05] What? Yeah, it's compost. Mulch for your brain. But we have to have a lot of that. And I mean, we did, like all of us have taught the Progen. And a lot of it is like copying fables and making just little changes and things like that. Like I think that we're not trying to have, you know, the kids in the younger elementary early forms have these incredible opinions because often they don't know enough to have opinions or to be thinking from all of the aspects. Like we're to raise them to have good and proper norms and ideas flooding their brains, being saturated with those good, true, and beautiful ideas. Imitation is fine because they will make it their own, and they will have such a good foundation to grow upon.

Speaker 2:
[41:59] I even remember thinking about that stuff as I'm giving them things that they can think about.

Speaker 1:
[42:04] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:05] As they learn these things and internalize them enough that they can remember them, only what you remember is then something you can think about later. Yeah. And so, it was not to preclude thinking or replace thinking, it was to lend content to their thinking. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:28] Scripture talks about this too. It has the metaphor in Hebrews 5 of milk versus solid food, where it's an immaturity versus immaturity. Hebrews 5 starting at verse 11 says, about this we have much to say. This is like, Christ is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. It's like kind of, it's not obvious. You're not reading the Old Testament and coming across Melchizedek and thinking like, oh, this is a Christ figure until you're told in the New Testament. So anyway, he just was talking about Melchizedek and he says, about this, we have much to say. And it is hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the Oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have had their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. I mean, that's a big part of what we're talking about here, is not being satisfied with the milk. You need the milk. You need the foundation.

Speaker 2:
[43:47] Sure.

Speaker 1:
[43:49] But you should get to the point where your nourishment is solid. It's not been pre-digested or pre-chewed for you. And then, yeah, and spoon-fed. You should be able to go out and get and prepare and digest full food, like a mature person, where your powers of discernment are trained by constant practice to distinguish.

Speaker 2:
[44:19] Discernment. That's a good word that we should be thinking of when we're talking about thinking for yourself.

Speaker 1:
[44:23] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[44:24] When I was preparing for this, I was thinking about the concept of the Bereans that we see in the New Testament and how they are praised for examining the things that they're taught rather than just swallowing them whole, and they're comparing everything to scripture to make sure it aligns. And I feel like that part is the important part, because it's not whether or not it makes me happy to hear it. It's what you were talking about earlier, you guys, with this whole idea of absolute truth, they're sitting down, reminding themselves of what the truth is, and they're not being cynical. They're just saying, well, does what I just heard align with truth? And who's going to figure that out? They are. Turns out that is an efficient use of your time, I guess.

Speaker 1:
[45:08] Right.

Speaker 2:
[45:12] OK, so culturally, what are some symptoms that you think we all exhibit that shows this resistance to thinking for ourselves or the lack of thinking for ourselves in some way?

Speaker 3:
[45:24] There's some intellectual laziness when some people are like, well, I'm not going to read that because somebody has said something like, well, that's not a Christian author, so I refuse to read it, or they read five pages and they're like, well, I just don't agree with this, so I'm not going to see how these ideas actually unfold. I mean, I'm not saying books that are saying something that is contrary to what God commands and things like that. I'm talking about just your general book that other people have read and found value in and have suggested to you and then automatically just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I think there are some cases where it could be made like, well, there's a matter of conscience, like this is not a book that you're going to read because that's something that is a personal point of conscience that is somehow you don't feel comfortable with, and that's fine. But I have just seen books being trashed without being read.

Speaker 2:
[46:28] Yep, it's true.

Speaker 1:
[46:29] Well, if you go back to the maturity and milk and meat passage in Hebrews, it is true, like if you can't digest meat yet, you have to have milk. You don't want to be starving. Get that milk, get stronger, but practice discernment. It's not like looking for the milk, which is milk comes from a mother processing solid food and making it digestible for a baby. Think about what milk is. Milk is someone else doing the work for you and giving it to you easily.

Speaker 2:
[47:05] Milk is Cliff Notes.

Speaker 3:
[47:06] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[47:09] Also, those comments where it's like, well, it's not a Christian author, so I'm not going to read it, always make me really nervous that if the author is Christian, they'll just take it whole. Yeah. Because there are so many bad Christian books.

Speaker 2:
[47:24] For sure. Oh, true. I was thinking a symptom of not thinking for ourselves might be voter guides.

Speaker 1:
[47:35] Oh.

Speaker 2:
[47:37] So before we left California, I and a couple of really old friends that I've been friends with for like 30 years, we started it for ourselves, and we called it Ballots and Brunch, and we would get together with our ballots, and we had divided it up so that we weren't actually researching everything, but all of us had to research a third of the things. Then we all got together and presented our research basically. Then we decided how to vote. We didn't always agree, but we decided how to vote when we were there. And so then from there, we made what we called the Local Irreverent Voter Guide, because it was full of us being sarcastic about politics while we were telling people how to vote and explaining it in really pleasant ways. But I was thinking about this. The reason why we did that was because we were tired of voter guides that were just, do this, do that, do this other thing, and trust me, I'm a conservative. And then later you read it and you're like, how was that conservative? Yeah. What's your definition of conservative? And usually it's like every vote but one or two is conservative on your conservative voter guide, so they sneak in a couple of things while they're telling you the rest of what you want to hear or whatever. Anyway, I was actually thinking when we were doing that, had I stayed there, I would have loved to have promoted that as an activity that people did for themselves rather than taking our voter guide and using it and copying it as their own vote. Because it was a really good exercise. Even though I didn't personally do all the research, even listening to a friend who did do the research present it was great. Much more engaging.

Speaker 3:
[49:24] I wonder if to the reason that was helpful is because it just forced you to actually think about it, right? You had the accountability. You had to be ready for the brunch and present your ideas and so it, in essence, you know, I mean, ballot measures usually do make us like sit down and read through things and everything like that. But I'm just wondering sometimes when thinking is hard and difficult, because it is, and we want to take the path of least resistance, it's very helpful to have some accountability for it as well, right? This is why we all engage in book clubs, right? It forces us to read. I mean, we are all readers anyway, but for those who don't, we're wanting to read and think about the ideas and discuss them. But I'm wondering if those are just something helpful.

Speaker 1:
[50:13] It gives you a deadline and an occasion where thought is being required of you, and putting yourself in that kind of position where it's like, oh, I'm going to have to have thought about this to have something to say. It's like just giving yourself a deadline, tricking yourself into requiring it.

Speaker 2:
[50:34] Well, it's true. The only time in my life that I have researched judges and voted intelligently about judges was during that time where we divided up the judges, and I had to show up and know what I was talking about, about a judge. I actually was making personal phone calls to lawyers I knew, asking them if they'd ever tried a case before this judge and what they thought, or if they knew this person or whatever. Judges are notoriously difficult to nail down because they actually don't really run. They don't make fancy political commercials or anything like that. It's hard to know what they really think. You almost have to ask somebody in the industry to figure out, get a feel for it, and even then you might be wrong. But yeah, the accountability of needing to show up and be able to be accountable for this particular judge's background, and which way they may fall on certain issues that would be pertinent. I never did it before those days, and I never did it since.

Speaker 3:
[51:36] Well, I'd say too, when you run a book club and you have to come up with some topical discussion ideas or questions, it really does help you think through the book in a different way. I know when I'm teaching my literature class and asking the kids certain things, like coming up with good questions really does help them think through ideas as well. And personally, it helps me.

Speaker 2:
[52:01] Yeah. I feel like that's a natural transition to this idea of what are some simple, practical ways to help our kids or ourselves learn to think for themselves, for ourselves. That was really convoluted, but I think you know what I mean. The first one is this idea of setting up a group activity to which you have to have already thought before you show up.

Speaker 1:
[52:28] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[52:28] It does work really well. But what are other things? I'm specifically looking for simple and practical because I'm sure there are elaborate things we could do, but it's like my journaling thing. I need to be actually willing to do it repeatedly for it to be valuable as a thing on my list.

Speaker 1:
[52:50] Well, I think with our kids, we need to be super careful to not just give them answers and help them shortcut the process. Our goal for them should not be that they have made as few mistakes as possible, but it should be that they know how to make good decisions for themselves. That doesn't come from simply being told what the best thing is, but by having to work that out. And they'll actually learn better by having made some mistakes along the way. But I do think that sometimes, especially moms get in just the habit of thinking that in caring for their children, that that means their job is to remove possibilities of making mistakes or of being wrong. And sometimes the right answer is to let your child be wrong and figure that out for themselves the hard way.

Speaker 2:
[54:02] It kind of reminds me of when I was growing up, I would play around with ideas that I am convinced probably almost gave my dad a stroke. Like my brief stint as an animal rights activist in fourth grade. But it was interesting. I actually found a paper that I wrote in fourth grade. And it was so funny to me because I remember why I was tempted to be an animal rights activist because I ran across information put out by PETA about animal experimentation and it all made me really sad. And looking back, it was probably all run by Dr. Fauci, which explains a lot. And so it was just like that kind of a thing was really objectionable. But I was taking it way too far. And my dad's response, though, I'm sure he was troubled, was basically like, maybe you should read more, you know? And he would actually kind of like provide a book or a magazine article or something like that. This was before the Internet. Things would show up in my bedroom as like the more material that was available to me to read. And so he did it directly, argue with me or even really engage. He'd be like, oh, that's interesting. Maybe you should read more. And so this paper, I mean, it actually shows me like halfway through shifting gears and deciding that, you know, maybe we should test some of the stuff on animals before we, you know, like do human experimentation, which is the alternative, you know? And it's like, you know, just anyway, it just was really interesting where I could see that him challenging me to think more, not less. It was so valuable because he could have come in and been like, no, that's not what this family believes. And here's what you're here are your belief orders. You need to follow your belief orders, you know? And instead, he encouraged me to thoughtfully develop my opinion rather than sticking to one piece of propaganda that I had been exposed to. It was really great.

Speaker 3:
[56:03] Yeah, we often talk about the sermon. Right? And just think through the ideas. And it's funny now at this point, like the kids will start asking, so what did you think about the sermon today? You know, and it's just an interesting take. Usually it's just positive and, you know, kind of what they really took away from it, what was their own. And so that's been nice. But I think just thinking through ideas that are presented on Sunday at church is a really natural way of, you know, having a discussion about important ideas.

Speaker 1:
[56:40] And like as much as possible when your kids come to you and say like, oh, how do I do this? Or what should I do? And there really are a number of possible options. You can help them figure out what are your options. And then say, pick one. Like I'm not going to, it just, I like how, was it, which quote, oh, Kant was talking about the lack of courage to use one's mind. And I think that that's a part of it is it takes courage to choose from a set of options and we have to grow that courage in our children and ourselves. And even just to recognize like, oh, I need courage here, not certainty, you know, not a guarantee. I just need courage. I think that that can help us be more comfortable in making that, making those decisions and choices.

Speaker 2:
[57:45] Yeah. I had one child that was very indecisive when he was younger. When I read this, I thought, I wish I had had that as a category of part of the problem. I knew there was this people-pleasing component where he wanted everyone to be happy. So if I said, you're going to choose the pizza, you're going to choose the family movie for movie night or whatever it is, like he doesn't know his own mind, but he also wants to make everybody happy. So he's not going to choose what he wants or even care to know what he wants. He is going to take a poll, you know, and try to please the masses or whatever. But I wish I had had that as a category because I think it would have been appealing to a little boy to say, have the courage to choose what you want regardless of whether or not your sisters turn into a bunch of whiners. You know, like, I feel like he would have laughed like you're laughing. And that would have been good for him too, right? Because I feel like being able to laugh at it is the beginning of courage, I think.

Speaker 1:
[58:45] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[58:47] Anyway, I wish I'd had it back then because I think it would have been helpful. He did grow out of that eventually. We really worked with him, but I think that phrase would have really helped.

Speaker 1:
[58:58] Yeah, I'm pretty sure half the time any of my children have said, oh, I need some math help for this. Like what it really boils down to is they want me to just paint it out all for them. Like, okay, so here's the formula and every step of the way, I'm going to watch like a hawk your action so that as soon as you do anything wrong, I can say, oh, here we go. And so we can get to that answer quickly. And I always feel like I'm having to just keep my mouth shut and say like I, so I'm here, I'll answer a question like, well, usually I answer a question with a question like, well, what is the formula? You don't know, maybe you're going to have to review the lesson. Have you done that yet? And like, it takes longer and it's painful, but that's how they actually learn the math. And if I just did half the work for them of figuring it out, like helping them shortcut it, that is defeating the purpose of algebra in the first place. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[60:06] And I have one that loves to trick people into doing the work for him.

Speaker 1:
[60:12] Is he the youngest? Oh, you have two youngest. You don't even have a youngest.

Speaker 3:
[60:15] It's not the youngest. It's the middle child. No, actually, my two youngest are my best students. So maybe it's because they compete with each other. I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[60:27] It probably is.

Speaker 3:
[60:28] They're great. No, and I just have to remind...

Speaker 1:
[60:32] It's a sneaky middle child.

Speaker 3:
[60:33] Well, and like, when you have dyslexia, that's actually one of their brilliance, like that they use workarounds to get the support that they need. But also, then you have to call them out on it, because that's, no, did you read the chapter? Well, no, not really. I'm like, okay, then I'm not going to help you with the assignment until you've read the chapter. It still happens because we all face resistance in wanting to learn things that we do. And so we have to keep that in mind too. It's like, well, this is good for you, and you will suffer a little bit. Invitation to the pain of learning, like this is a little bit of suffering. But I was also thinking too, my husband is great with what-if scenarios, and speaking things out to their very logical ends. I hate what-if scenarios because I think this is stupid, and this is a what-if scenario, and I don't care if this is an outcome or possibility. But he is great with talking with the kids about like, okay, well, if this happens, then this, and then this is going to cost, and he breaks it down and he makes them answer a bunch of questions, and follows this immature thinking out to its logical end, or how he sees it, and it's a great way of, and they're answering the questions, like he's not just spoon-feeding them.

Speaker 2:
[61:54] Sure.

Speaker 3:
[61:55] But he's making them, with his experience, think through the ideas that are probably going to come up, the problems with their errors in thinking. Because we have a lot of kids who like to, they have lots of opinions, and often, stupid ones. I love my kids, but this is, and oftentimes they just say it to get a rise out of the situation, because that's how our family is. And so it's good to have someone, dad is a great person for thinking through long convoluted problems that I just don't care about.

Speaker 2:
[62:32] Yeah. There's certain times in the Ambleside Online Curriculum where I think they're really strong on causing children to think just by triggering it through the assignments. It's kind of a natural trigger. So the thing that comes to mind is that they assign children of the New Forest in which Oliver Cromwell is a villain, and the kids are hiding from his people in the forest and this kind of stuff, right? But then, I don't remember if it's that year or if it's just later, but you read a different perspective. He's not that bad of a guy and he's well-meaning and there's different. Then your kids are like, wait, isn't this the guy that will add it? They have to face this idea of the nuance of a person and a political situation just by reading the history from different perspectives. There's a number of times where they do that, where the kids cover the history, might be in historical fiction, might be in a history book proper, like they might read two chapters into different history books and they conflict a little bit or something. But I feel like by experiencing those differences in perspective, it forces you to have a thought because both of those things can't actually be true. And you're far enough removed from it that you may not ever actually figure out what the right answer is. But it's definitely causing you to think about it longer than just right this second. Which I think is probably good for us too. I mean, I don't mean like with the Bible, we should read heresy. But some of those books that are like three views on this, four views on that. And it kind of explains how different traditions interpret these difficult passages or difficult whatever. I mean, it really does bring about a lot of thought for you to realize like, man, really, really good thinkers have come down differently on this issue.

Speaker 1:
[64:36] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[64:37] You know, and then like, it's like you are triggered to use your brain and decide, you know, which one you think made the better case or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[64:45] Well, and I mean, I will say, I read a lot of books by Catholic authors and I am not Catholic myself, but I do appreciate a lot of their things and you do have to wait and discern things that, you know, there are things I agree with, there are things that I don't, but I can still appreciate those things. And I think that's another instance, right?

Speaker 1:
[65:06] I was thinking about, we have Augustine, who came up with the category of all truth is God's truth and so we can plunder the Egyptians. Like, take the truth and leave the error and the idolatry. That's a possible category. And then I think there's an example of that. I've read Calvin's Institutes a couple of times now with my children. And, you know, in one part of the Institutes, he'll be totally insulting all the Greek philosophers, like, as a category, and be kind of devastating in his critique of what they think of on one thing. And then, you know, a couple chapters later, he's citing them as a source. He's like saying, just like Aristotle said, da-da-da-da-da. It's like, it's both. And this is how educated people have always communicated. He was familiar with all of those, such that he could say, here's where we ignore them and mock them. Here's where we agree. And we don't just say, well, because there are some pretty significant problems, we're not going to ever read them or we're going to pretend that they don't exist. No, that's not what any of the great theologians in any tradition has ever done.

Speaker 2:
[66:38] Do you feel like you use writing to encourage your kids to think for themselves? Do you think that that is part of the process for them?

Speaker 1:
[66:47] Oh, I think it totally is. But I also think that it doesn't become that until like 14, 15. Like, you have to already have some thoughts. And then writing is how you figure out your thoughts and refine your thoughts. And like, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago, I wrote on one of my teenagers' paper a few question marks about like this and that other thing that they said. And I pretty much said, try again. Like this is, this doesn't follow from that. And this whole thing is overblown. Like try again. I can't even, I almost felt like writing at the end, like I can't even, I can't even follow you. And then sometimes it's, it is just more refining or some people, some kids need more conversation before they're ready to write. But writing is thinking. Yep.

Speaker 3:
[67:50] Writing is thinking on paper. And I tell my kids all the time, they have a very strict writing instructor. And so it's so good for them because they are forced once a week to write a paragraph that is polished is what she calls it, polished paragraphs. And she does a great job. And when it doesn't make sense, she calls them out on it and she sends them a ton of feedback and review. I mean, we've been very blessed for this. When my kids were younger for Plutarch, we would actually give kind of like a group narration or they would narrate to each other. Then we would all kind of listen and discuss it because Plutarch, especially because of the language, the archaic language and a lot of them sometimes can need help. And then I would have them write about it as well. And that seems like a lot, but it really clarified the ideas and the important things that they wanted to do. And so yes, I think some of them do require more discussion and then writing about it is very, very helpful.

Speaker 1:
[68:53] Another thing I think that forces thinking in a more intentional way, it's not like writing to discover what you think or developing or honoring your own opinions and what you think. Debate can be used to force uncomfortable thinking. My older two boys did a speech and debate club. And then I was just talking to my daughter, who's at New St. Andrew's College, so her rhetoric class, this term, they're going to be doing debate in the kind of debate that my boys did and that my daughter is doing right now. And I guess this is part of Pro Gym a little bit. They are given a position or there's a statement that's made and then they're assigned, whether they're affirmative or negative. It's not like, well, figure out what you think and then choose a side and write about it. It's actually, there's a case to be made for both sides and you're just going to be randomly assigned and I always have felt like on those assignments, it's actually better for the student to wind up with the opposite opinion than what they actually hold. They have to think through it against their grain of what their assumptions are. And that's really good for them.

Speaker 2:
[70:20] Some of this conversation is why editing is actually so important. Because it's not just about getting a final product that would look great if you published it in a magazine or something. It's when you find, I think it was you Abby who mentioned the parts that don't make sense, then she calls them on it and has them think it through. But there's two reasons in my experience, why something wouldn't make sense when you write it. The first is you were going too fast and you actually did something like skipped a word or punctuated wrong. There's just the equivalent of a typo, but you were handwriting it or whatever. But then the other side of it is because you actually didn't understand it well enough to explain it right.

Speaker 1:
[71:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[71:10] That part of it, struggling through that until you get to the point where you can explain it correctly, that actually means that you thought well enough that you came to a point of understanding.

Speaker 1:
[71:23] Yeah. Not just letting your students get by on a technically correct sentence, but that is just bloviating.

Speaker 2:
[71:32] Right. I don't know what that word means, but it sounds right.

Speaker 1:
[71:38] Uh-huh, uh-huh. I don't think you, yeah. This is just you trying to sound more educated and thoughtful than you actually are.

Speaker 2:
[71:48] Right.

Speaker 1:
[71:49] Yeah. That we should not be impressed with our children and let them get away with that. I mean, I felt that way sometimes with books I've read too. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:02] James K. Smith.

Speaker 1:
[72:05] I wasn't going to name any names. Actually, there have been multiple, but it's that academia and a vibe that is just so full of jargon and complicated sentences. It's like you're trying to prove something. You're not trying to actually communicate anything other than you have credentials I don't have.

Speaker 2:
[72:26] Right.

Speaker 3:
[72:27] One thing which we talked about a little bit before that, it takes a lot of practice and there has to be a large quantity. There was this great story in a book. Each class was assigned to take five amazing photographs. They were going to be judged and half of the class was just told, just get five, and then the other class was told, you have to take at least 150 pictures and then choose your five best. And it's obvious which one was better, right? The ones that took way more photos were the ones who had objectively better quality photographs. This idea that thinking is just going to happen naturally, it does, but it also takes just a ton of practice. Lots of narrations before they get to have an opinion, or they really can have an opinion around 14 and up. Lots of discussions about ideas, lots of books being read and talked about. And I think that just a lot of practice, quantity and quality.

Speaker 2:
[73:36] Yeah. You remind me of a piano teacher I had, because she talked about like, if you're practicing it wrong, that wasn't even valuable practice. Like your practice needs to be good practice. Not that you can't make mistakes, but it has to be of a higher quality than just, I'm going to be slapdash and put in my time. Because you're not going to get to where you want to get in terms of your abilities if you're not practicing excellence.

Speaker 1:
[74:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[74:08] Well, is there anything else before we go? Are you thinking, are you self-driven thinkers now?

Speaker 1:
[74:18] I think thinking is always one of those things that you have to keep doing to remain good at. And there is always room for growth. So no matter where you are, thinking is something that you need to be working at and continuing to do.

Speaker 2:
[74:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[74:38] Use your brains. Use your brain.

Speaker 2:
[74:41] To go back to our guru, Charlotte Mason said, mix it with brains.

Speaker 1:
[74:45] Mix it with brains.

Speaker 2:
[74:56] That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of the Sisterhood of the Podcast. Please make sure you are following us in your favorite podcast player so that you don't miss any episodes of our season. If you enjoyed today's episode, there is a discussion post inside the free area of the sistership. Just use the comment section to share your thoughts. Go to scolesisters.com/join and sign up. All of the books and things we mentioned today are linked in our show notes. Just go to scolesisters.com/ss173 to check it out. Reminder, it's time to register for our spring training sessions on Keeping in Nature Journal with the amazing John Muir Laws. Sign up at scolesisters.com/nature. In our next episode, Mystie, Abby, and I spend some time discussing Paul King's North's book Against the Machine and how it relates to homeschool politics, online learning, and our real lives. You're going to love this episode. Until then, we want to remind you once again that homeschooling is a marathon you needn't run alone, so open up your eyes and look around you. Find your sisters.

Speaker 4:
[76:26] You guys, what happened?

Speaker 3:
[76:27] Somebody is using the leaf blower outside of my window. Sorry, I got a phone call from my children.

Speaker 2:
[76:38] Of course you did.

Speaker 3:
[76:41] I have a little bit more time now, I guess. The name schedule, I just got interrupted like three times, but very quiet teenage boys came in and told me.

Speaker 2:
[76:51] Oh, they're so well behaved today.

Speaker 4:
[76:53] They did.

Speaker 3:
[76:53] It was even my neighbor boy who also is going to the game. But anyway, I just made sure I knew all the information.