In a recent talk by William Michael of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy, he discussed the key to successful homeschooling. He emphasized that success can vary depending on each family’s circumstances and goals. For some, academic achievement may not be the priority, and that’s okay. Michael stressed the importance of using the resources and opportunities given by God wisely, as outlined in the parable of the talents.
He also mentioned that while it’s natural for Christian parents to be optimistic about their children’s potential, it’s essential to temper this with humility. Not all families have the same resources or opportunities, and God respects these differences in accordance with justice.
The core of his message revolved around the classical liberal arts, which he believes to be the gold standard in education. This curriculum, known to saints and wise men throughout history, encompasses classical philosophy, Catholic theology, and other noble studies. Michael argues that mastery in these areas leads to the most noble and beneficial education.
He also highlighted the importance of balancing the pursuit of these noble studies with satisfying modern educational requirements. This balance is crucial for homeschooling success.
Reflecting on his own experience, Michael pointed out that the success of a homeschooling program often comes down to the mother’s role. He drew parallels between the foolish woman described in Proverbs, who is always out and about, and the ideal of a mother who is present and engaged in her children’s education. He contrasted this with the modern tendency for both men and women to pursue lives that are not conducive to a stable and fruitful family life.
Michael argued that the most essential factor in achieving academic success in homeschooling is for the mother to study with her children. This active engagement fosters an intellectual culture in the home, provides stability, and leads to significant academic success. He criticized modern educational systems and programs that promote passive learning and fail to cultivate the necessary intellectual discipline.
In conclusion, Michael emphasized that while not every family needs to pursue the highest academic achievements, those who do should prioritize classical Catholic studies. The key to success, he believes, is for the homeschooling mother to make studying with her children her priority. This approach, rooted in historical and philosophical traditions, is what sets apart the most successful homeschooling families.
The summary above was prepared by ChatGPT.
Transcription
Today is Monday, March 11. And this is William Michael, of the classical liberal arts academy. And I’d like to talk today about what I would say is necessary, I would say the most, most important factor in successful homeschooling. And before I get into that topic, I want to say that I respect the fact that different parents have different ideas of what success is. And I think that’s actually necessary. Because, as Jesus said, To whom much is given, much as expected, and to whom less is given less is expected. And for some families, for some families, they may be first generation Christians, they may be uneducated people who are really just concerned with the spiritual or moral care of their children. And significant academic progress or achievement might really not even be a priority. And so what I might consider lower academic standards, might actually be responsible for one family. And so I don’t want this to be taken in any sort of absolute sense. Because ultimately, each of us is accountable to God, to do the most with what we’ve been given to give back to God, what he’s given us, with some profit added to it, as we read of in the parable of the talents. So I don’t want to put any, any false pressure on any parents who listen. And, you know, it’s dangerous for Christian parents, because some Christian parents think about the Christian life optimistically. And they say, well, with God, anything is possible with God, you know, who’s to say that, that our kid can’t become the next, Thomas Aquinas. And that’s, that’s a common way of thinking for Christian people, because it’s true With God, all things are possible. But that also needs to be tempered with humility. Because whereas disadvantaged people can often imagine that, that no one has any advantage over them. God very often respects the differences in opportunity and resources that different people have because justice requires it. So it’s a complicated issue. But what I’d like to lay out is something of a scenic well known, which means without this really, there’s nothing else to talk about. It’s sort of the ultimate factor, I would say, in whether a homeschool student achieves great things academically or not. And so I don’t want to pretend that there is one absolute standard for homeschooling. But when we come to academics, from a philosophical perspective or historical perspective, there certainly is an absolute standard, there is a gold standard as it were. And that’s the study of the classical liberal arts, classical philosophy, Catholic theology and so on the sort of course of studies that was known to saints and wise men throughout history which we teach in the classical liberal arts academy. in an absolute sense, that is the most noble of all academic achievement. St. Thomas proves in the opening of the Summa that theology, for example, is the noblest of all sciences. So if we took a kid who did extremely well in calculus, and compared him to a kid who did extremely well in theology. And we’re talking real scholastic theology, we’re not talking about just any, any theology course at a random school. The kid who masters theology would would possess the more noble science and would consequently have the more noble or better education. So what I’d like to talk about is what really becomes the essential determining factor in the success of homeschool students, with respect to the noblest of studies, and then, you know, descending from that the same thing applies to other studies as well. And because we live in time and space and are responsible to our own generation, we’ve got to find ways to do both. We’ve got to pursue the noblest studies and devote ourselves to the noblest studies that we can based on the grace that were given. And we’ve also got to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s as I always say, and satisfy the modern requirements. We’ve got to an imitation of Jesus, we’ve got to fulfill all righteousness. Now I’ve been homeschooling with my wife. for over 20 years, our oldest child is graduating from college this semester. And he’s been he was homeschooled his whole life. So you go back at least 20 years, and we’ve been homeschooling the whole time. Now when I say, we’ve been homeschooling, I don’t mean that I have been directly working with my children at home. I’ve I’ve homeschooled my children in an indirect sense. Namely, I’ve provided for my wife and children to be able to devote themselves to studies. I don’t ask anything else of my children, but study. I provide them with everything they need for their studies. And most importantly, I provide them with a mother who is constantly present, to direct and help them with their studies. Now, I might say something like, the essential factor in homeschooling is having a father who earns enough money and has enough prudence, to supply everything that’s needed for the highest academic achievement in homeschooling, but that would not be true. It’s certainly important. But it’s not the essential thing. Because even if a man did that, he would not have the results that he desired. Ultimately, the success of a homeschooling program comes down to the work of the mother. And I think that there is something paradoxical I don’t know this is a this is a contrary not controversial but complicated issue. If we read the Proverbs, just bear with me for a minute here. If we read the Proverbs, we read that the foolish woman who is talked about in Proverbs, The foolish woman, she is characterized as a woman who never wants to be at home. She always wants to be out in the street. Out and About. She’s a gossip. She’s a busy body. We see this character of the foolish woman all through Scripture. Her feet never stay still. She’s always on the move. always out and about always gabbing with others in other people’s businesses. Worst she’s fooling around with other men. She’s characterized as boisterous, quarrelsome, and so on. This is the foolish woman in Proverbs so so proverbs makes it appear that women in their fallen state are sort of prone to this kind of idle, gossipy, meddlesome, quarrelsome behavior. And it’s sort of the opposite of everything that they’re supposed to be doing. If we look at the Virgin Mary, we see that she’s the exact opposite of all of those negative qualities. She’s quiet, she’s chaste, she’s private, she’s contemplative, and so on. But that’s the character of the foolish woman. In Proverbs and I, I would argue that that’s the natural fallen. inclination that women have to fight against, they have to fight against those vices, those characteristics. And in the Proverbs, I would say that the the characteristic, foolish man is an irreligious, indulgent, slothful person. And so we see different different vices that are spoken of, in the foolish man. And I think for for men and women, and especially for married couples, and parents, these are the inclinations these are the sort of natural tendencies of men and women, the women want to be out and about meddling, and in all the business of the neighborhood and community quarrelsome don’t want to stay put. And yet, they’re called to the opposite of all that, as wives and mothers. And men, men want to play, they want to indulge their physical desires, they don’t want to work. They want to idle around be slothful, gobbling up creature comforts, and so on. And when you put these two people together, you’ve got a real mess. And it’s the purpose of the Sacrament of Matrimony to get that all squared away, to inspire and strengthen a man to be sober, to be temperate, to work to be diligent and prudent, to be sacrificial, and so on. And for women to use St. Paul’s words, and you know, if you’re going to argue with this, you’re going to have to argue with the Apostle Paul. He, he urges women to become discreet, chaste, homemakers. And again, you can be a modern woman who fusses at that by but you’re fussing against the, the inspired writing of the Apostle Paul. And you say, Well, I don’t Well, you know, you’re starting to sound like that quarrelsome woman from Proverbs. And I just want I want to share something I recently studied, that that I just thought of that relates to this. When it comes to these modern cultural objections to old fashioned morals and social norms. In a philosophy course, I’m saying we took we actually happen to talk about this with respect to other issues. But there are three basic positions that people take with respect to these issues. In the sacred scriptures, and this applies to any religion, whether it’s Christianity or Judaism or Islam, whatever. A religion has, what are considered sacred texts, we’d consider the Bible to be our sacred text. Inspired, it’s divinely inspired to authoritative and so on. And it’s noticed that when we read the scriptures, it can’t be denied that there seems to be a real male bias God is referred to as a male, obviously, the Savior of the world is a male. We look at the prophets and the patriarchs, almost entirely males, the apostles are males. Priests can only be males. And you get the point, right, there’s sort of this male bias in the sacred scriptures. And we can point we can point to exceptions, we can point to women who are presented to us in the scriptures as extraordinary models of virtue and holiness, obviously, the Virgin Mary stands out. But if we look at the scriptures as a whole, there’s no denying that a modern woman raised in modern culture would look at that, read that and say, Man, this is really misogynistic, this is really biased against women. And there are three possible responses because all three of these respond, what’s interesting is all three of these responses, acknowledge that that’s true. Because it is true. But there’s three possible responses to that reality. The first is called a traditional response. And this response basically says, Look, we believe that these are the sacred writings, we believe that these are divine revelation, they’re inspired by God, they’re infallible. Therefore, if they are, in fact, biased, so what like there’s, it’s, there’s nothing we can do about that it is what it is. It’s divine revelation. So we have to learn to simply accept it. And submit to it, because it’s the word of God. This is called the traditional response to these cultural dilemmas. And in our course, our professional Professor raised a quote from CS Lewis, who is a famous Anglican philosopher and writer. You may or may not know of him, but CS Lewis talked about this, because it was a popular issue in his generation. And people were wondering what they should do about it. And he responded with a quote. And he said, and I’m paraphrasing, if the sacred scriptures are, in fact, divinely inspired. And it’s necessary, that there be divine revelation, because what our natural understanding and reason would lead us to, would not be sufficient for the truth, then when we read divine revelation, we should expect to find something in divine revelation. That’s different than what we left to ourselves would think, or what we left to reason would come up with, because of reason and our own experience, or our own sentiments, or our own popular opinions. If they were sufficient to lead us to the truth, there would have been no need for divine revelation. And so when we find we should expect divine revelation, to challenge our understanding. And he came up with a with a with a good line. He said, the question is not whether we should ordain priestesses because that’s clearly forbidden in Scripture. He said, The ultimate question, if divine revelation is not to be followed, and not to be trusted, the real question is whether we should be ordaining priests at all or whether religion even matters. And so he argued that we either ordain only priests, because the Scriptures say so. Or we just forget this whole nonsense about religion. That’s considered the traditional perspective. And you can find men and women both who hold to that position, my wife and I, you know, I look at scripture and I say, look, it’s what it says. My My choice is to accept it or were rejected. And as a Christian, I’m going to accept it. And my wife will look at it and say, yeah, it’s obvious. But it’s sacred scripture. So be it. So that’s the traditional perspective. The second response, which is more of a modern response, is called the reformist perspective. And what the reformist perspective says is, look, it appears that there is a male bias in divine revelation. But the reason for that is because men have been the interpreters of Sacred Scripture, and the interpreters, being male have sort of twisted the scriptures to give it this appearance of male bias. It’s not the scriptures that are teaching this male bias, it’s the interpreters. And if we interpret the scriptures rightly, the appearance of bias will be removed. And one example that’s given is in the Garden of Eden, we could say, well, man was man was made first. And so woman was made after man, woman is inferior to men. And a reformist would respond and say, Yeah, well, Adam, was made after the animals. So if the argument is that Eve was made after Adam, so Eve must be inferior. Well, then Adam must be subject to the animals because he was made after the animals so that that look at the story of creation might be a false interpretation that leads to this notion that Adam was greater or superior to Eve. That would be a reformist argument. So the reformist argument is that we need to reconsider the interpretation of Sacred Scripture in societies that have happened to be dominated by men, and consider whether their interpretations are actually the necessary message of Sacred Scripture. That’s the reformist position on this issue. A third position. A third position is called the rejectionist position. The rejectionist position, is more extreme than the reformist tradition. And we certainly see this in modern society, but we see all three. But we certainly see this one the rejectionist position is, look, the fact that there is male bias in these scriptures or in parts of these scriptures, is actually proof that they are not inspired by God. This is proof that they’re not divine revelation. And so those passages of Scripture which contain any of this male bias, are to be rejected as the writings of men and not as divine revelation, that’s the rejectionist position. And so we can find responses from these three different perspectives, even in our own social circles. But to get back to my main point, when we look at homeschooling, we ultimately have to look at the Sacrament of Matrimony the natural order of the family. And when I say natural, what I’m what I’m what I’m signifying by that term natural is that it’s not just Christian. It’s not just this artificial religious idea imposed by people who choose to be Christians. The order of the family has been argued for 1000s of years law Long before Christianity ever showed up, philosophers had already explained the ideal order of the family. The philosopher Xenophon starts with an ex, strongly recommend reading it. The philosopher Xenophon wrote a book titled home economics or on household management, where he explains philosophically 300 plus years before Christ, he explains the natural order of a household. And how nature itself shows us how a household is to be ordered, what the man’s role is, what the woman’s role is, how the work of the household is to be divided, and so on. And if you read the writing of Xenophon from 300, I guess, closer to 350 BCE, maybe even earlier, and compare it to the writing of St. Paul, you see that they’re almost identical. So what St. Paul was teaching in the first century was not some new Christian idea that, that these Christians had whipped up. But it was a a human understanding of the order of the household that had pre existed, Christian teaching. And it really wasn’t until modern times. And I mean, I think that most people would be shocked to really dig into this and and find out how modern these ideas of of women’s roles and family organization are that we see today, which wreak havoc in every direction, and yet, are committed to by men and women. The reason why I think they’re committed to is because women, as I said, have this inclination to this life of the foolish woman talked about in Proverbs, and men have this inclination towards this life of sloth and irresponsibility. That, again, is talked about in the book of Proverbs. So what we call modern household order, or modern gender roles, and so on, really is often just the lives of foolish men and foolish women being allowed to run their courses. Whereas throughout history, that foolishness would have been prevented by social norms or even laws, in countries that were guided by wisdom. And this freedom to live foolishly, is really a modern idea. And like I said, it wreaks havoc everywhere he goes, ultimately, the children pay the price for it all. The women, and the children pay the price for the men’s foolishness. The children ultimately pay the price for the women’s foolishness, and really all the consequences for all of these opinions and ideas about what I think is right and what you think is right and with it. These opinions take out all of their consequences on the children, not to mention the elderly who are left totally unprovided For so there are consequences we can judge the ideas by their consequences, rather than pretend that all things are equal. And so what I would say is with homeschooling homeschooling is ultimately a fruit of a well ordered household, a well ordered marriage, well ordered family life. And we see this in this in the academy all the time. We get contacts from parents who are divorcing, they’re divorced, they’re separated, they’re this they’ve got these problems this and it’s just you’re just trying to put the cart in front of the horse to think that you’re going to have some kind of extraordinary intellectual or spiritual culture when the whole foundation is being torn out from under the children. It’s nice to say positive things. It’s nice to try to be encouraging. But at the same time, we have to be realistic. If there were no advantages of virtue, if there were no advantages of good marriages, if there were no advantages of rightly ordered, stable families, then we wouldn’t need families at all. But the truth is, there are advantages. There are benefits that children ultimately receive when when mom and dad have their lives in order. When mom and dad live virtuously live according to wisdom in their own spheres, stay in their own lanes, as it were. The ones who reap all the benefits are the children and this manifests itself most in education manifests itself most in education. And so I would argue that the most essential factor, the most essential factor in success in, I should say, academic success in homeschooling is that the mother be provided with the opportunity. And that’s only part of it, that the mother be provided with the opportunity and that the mother actually take advantage of that opportunity. And pay attention to this carefully that the mother, study with her children. And make sure you get each part of what I’m saying. I’m not saying for a mother to stay home. I’m not saying for a mother to have enough money to buy homeschool supplies. I’m not saying for a mother to get all the best homeschool supplies. That’s not what makes the difference. That’s not what actually produces the results. What ultimately produces the results is that a mother who chooses to homeschool, makes it her mission to sit down and study with her children every day. That’s the difference. The idea of the mother who herself doesn’t study, but who buys some books and tells kids what to do or pays for some services or pays for some two. Just doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. There’s not enough money. The contradictory example of the mother who says to do one thing while she herself does the opposite, just destroys the spirit of learning. The key to success and again, I’m talking about long term historical philosophical academic success in homeschooling is for the mothers who choose to homeschool to actually study with all their might with their children to study with their children. That is the key that is the key to the to the intellectual culture in the house. All day long. It’s the key to the stability of the homeschool life. It’s the key to motivating the children it’s the key to the children having help that they need because their mothers studying with them. It’s the key to real significant academic success in homeschooling. Now you’ll often find stories about famous people in history who were taught at home and you’ll often find that this was case you know, one one great example that has always been a part of my Christian life. And remember, I was a Protestant before I became a Catholic. I was an Anglican. And as an Anglican one of the models of homeschooling was the family of John Wesley was a famous Anglican preacher who became the founder of the Wesleyan church, or the Methodist church, I should say. But John Wesley, became a famous preacher and writer. He also wrote hymns, and his brother Charles, became one of the most famous hymn writers in Christian history. If you look up Charles Wesley hymns by Charles Wesley, you’ll be amazed. But John and Charles Wesley would not exist. If it wasn’t for a woman named Susanna Wesley, their mother, Susanna Wesley was an amazing woman. And we can consider her to be a model of homeschooling. Mother, even though we’re Catholics, if you if you’re a homeschooling mother, I recommend you take some time to learn about Susanna Wesley. And I’m not talking about her religious beliefs. I’m not talking about any of that. I’m talking about her work as a homeschooling mother, because she raised two of the most famously educated Christians, sons in church history. These are respectable Protestants. And again, I’m not asking you to judge her religious convictions or opinions. I’m asking you to learn about her life as a mother. Because, and I, you know, I’d like to think of lots of Catholic examples. But I’m not as familiar with Catholic example. So I can think of some, but Susanna Wesley just happens to be on my mind. And she’s always been on the minds of my wife and I because like I said, we came into the Catholic faith from an Anglican background, we came into homeschooling from an Anglican background. And we were already familiar with lots of good examples in homeschooling from non Catholic Christian history, and then you can come into Christian history and find other examples. But one of the advantages that one of the advantages that the Catholics have had through history has been religious life, and the role that religious life has played in education, which Protestantism really didn’t have, and which in God’s providence today, we Catholics don’t really have. You can say, well, maybe we could send our kids to a monastery boarding school, a Catholic, a Catholic boarding school. Well, you’re going to be shocked when you look at what it costs to do so. And you’re also going to be shocked to learn that at such a school, they’re going to get a modern education anyway. You’re going to find boarding schools run by religious that cost exactly the same as elite, secular, private boarding schools. It just it doesn’t make any sense. And so our situation in 21st century America is not like the situation of Catholic parents in medieval Europe. It’s more like the experience of Protestant parents in medieval Europe. And again, I’m not talking about their religion. I’m talking about their their practical life with respect to education. But the most significant influence and I’m saying this, from my own experience, not just as a homeschooling father, but also as a teacher and tutor who works with families. I can tell you that the students who achieve the most are the ones who have the most academically interested and zealous mothers. Their mothers are studying, their mothers are writing questions to me about the courses, their mothers are writing and asking about different lessons their mothers are studying. My book on understanding classical Catholic kids, their mothers are working through courses. And their mothers, through their studies through their own zeal for this learning, simply share it with their children. It becomes the culture of the homeschool family becomes the culture of mom and the kids. And we see this in other areas, we can see mothers do this with respect to the sacraments, we can see mothers who are zealous for daily prayer, we can see this for mothers who are zealous for daily Mass attendance, or making regular confessions, which is all awesome. We can see how mothers by pursuing their own devotion, and bringing their children with them, initiate their children into that devotion most effectively. Whereas a mother who herself doesn’t pray her rosary, doesn’t attend Mass frequently, doesn’t go to Confession frequently, doesn’t say her daily prayers, doesn’t studies, that mother is not going to initiate her children into the sacramental life or into the Catholic devotional life. And we see but we see some Catholic mothers who really, really get that idea. And they lead their children into Catholic devotional practices by pursuing those devotional practices themselves, and yet, when it comes to academics, they throw that wisdom out the window, and they try something different. They try to do exactly the opposite. They think that they can just tell the kids what to study, or order the right collection of books. They think that they’re just going to whip up some some schedule, some super schedule, and everything is going to fall into place. And they know from their own devotional life, that that’s not true. They know from their own sacramental life, that that’s not true. And yet, when it comes to academics, it’s like they forget how the world works. You can never motivate people to do something by telling them to do it. When you yourself, don’t do it. You can be as clever as you want. You can think you’re as clever as can be. And your kids may have no choice but to at least fake it because they’re dependent. But they’re just counting the days until their independence allows them to stop this nonsense and live like you. They’re waiting for the day when they can just have the freedom to live with no rules like dad does, or live without any study like mom does, just floating around, wrapped up in a million different random silly tasks gabbing with the ladies, they can’t wait till it’s their turn to do that. Even though you’re yelling at them, to sit and be quiet, and to study and to meditate and to pray and take notes and follow the schedule. You’re telling them to do that while they watch you flit around like a butterfly, doing whatever you want all day. What you are doing is teaching your children much more than what you are saying. And what’s worse is that you what your actual deeds are teaching them is the opposite of what you’re trying to teach them. With all you’re talking. You’re modeling the hypocrisy that Jesus warned about. And that’s what hypocrisy is hypocrisy is acting. That’s what the word actually means. Hypocrisy means acting as if you believe something, when you’re talking to other people about what they should do. But not proving that you actually believe those things, when it’s your turn, to act. It’s true for the children, but it’s not true for you. And you can see how this hypocrisy runs through modern society. Like movie ratings, no son, sorry, this movie is rated Are you can’t watch this one. This one’s from mommy and daddy. No, no, no, this this is this is a adult lyrics in this music. This is an adult video game rated for adults. You can’t play this one, only Daddy can play this one. You need to go play that. Whatever. I don’t even know anything about video games. But I know the ratings. Just like the ratings of movies. codify this hypocrisy. Now, I’m sure that there are issues which are just matters of adult privacy that kids should be blocked from. Because they can’t understand them. But that’s not that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about two different sets of moral rules. One being contradictory to the other. For example, I am content to have a discussion with an unbeliever who’s going to ridicule the Catholic church who’s going to mock and make fun of the Pope and bishops may speak with foul language on and on and on. I’m willing to have those conversations because I’m not flustered at all by them. Arguments that they try to make against the Catholic faith. I can handle those arguments. foul language they use. I can let it come in one ear and go out the other. I understand. From a grammatical perspective that foul language is actually just a sign of a lack of vocabulary because crude words are just what grammar calls interjections. They’re just expressions of emotion. Intelligent people have other ways of communicating those emotions without drawing from all kinds of obscene ideas. I can handle those discussions I can handle attacks against the faith, I can handle the mockery of the Pope and bishops. I can handle mockery of my own faith and practice because I’m a 48 year old man with established habits. But I wouldn’t want my children whose habits are still unformed and who cannot handle arguments that might be made. Because they’re sophistical and deceitful. I wouldn’t want my children to be listening to that or to be talking a lot to such a person. But that’s the difference between an adult conversation or a conversation for dad. And conversation for the kids. What I don’t mean by adult conversation is dad is going to watch a dirty movie tonight. Dad is going to listen to music full of foul language. Daddy’s gonna watch a comedian who curses the whole time and talks about all kinds of obscene topics. But you kids can’t watch this. This is not for kids. That’s hypocrisy. And the kids know it. And so what do they do? They just bide their time and wait for their chance to do it that does to do what mom does, and so on. So when we ask ourselves what what really is the difference maker, between the homesource the homeschool students who make the greatest achievement in academic studies. And those who don’t, it’s not the books they have. It’s not the tutors they have, it’s not the services they subscribe to. All of those things could be the same. And you have two radically different outcomes. In fact, I just went through our list of premium student subscribers in the classical liberal arts academy and canceled about half of the enrollments because the students just make no progress. They have the same study materials, the state, the same services, the same everything. But there’s no progress. And if you want to know why. It’s because they simply don’t sit and work every day. And if you ask, Well, why don’t they just sit and work every day? Nine times out of 10. It’s because they’re homeschooling mother is all over the place. Their homeschooling mother doesn’t wake up in the morning, looking forward to getting to her studies with her children. She’s got a million things on the agenda, she’s going to be running around town all over the place. Those kids are not going to make any progress. Not the kind of progress that’s needed for classical Catholic studies. And there are other programs they could use where at least they could go through some activities online and complete quizzes are complete some games or check some boxes. But those those online programs that just give these kids all these activities and stuff like Khan Academy, and I excel and so on. The kids really don’t learn anything. In those programs, they don’t learn how to learn, they don’t learn how to study, they don’t learn the the intellectual culture that’s necessary for real Christian studies. Everything that the parents like about those programs is what’s bad about them? Oh, well, I like I excel because the kids can just sit down and work at their own pace. And I can do other stuff. I can do my own thing. I don’t even have to pay attention. That’s exactly what’s bad about AI Excel, and why it won’t work. It won’t teach the children how to study won’t cultivate intellectual discipline, won’t create any intellectual culture. It’s just dumb, dumb, busy work. And when we ask what is the actual goal of homeschooling. And again, we get into this, this self contradiction, we’ll say, Well, you know, anybody can give a man a fish and feed him for a day. But if you teach a man how to fish, you’ll feed him for his life. Oh, it’s time for school. Oh, here. Go get on your Khan Academy lessons here. Do this workbook silly book page. Here’s an activity book. Just just just fill it. Just do what it says just follow the instructions. Get get it done and put your books away. We’re done for today. What happened to the whole give a man a fish thing? That doesn’t apply to education that doesn’t apply to intellectual life. You think that that proverb was actually said because the person who said it was thinking about food? No. It’s another example of doing the opposite in homeschooling that we know to do in other areas of life. Or maybe maybe we don’t know that maybe we don’t know, maybe this is the problem. Maybe, maybe modern Christians actually don’t know. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe they have never actually studied and they, they really don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know how other Christians think I know how I think I know how my wife thinks. I see the effect it has on our children. They’re all great students. They learn how to study I see how it affects other students. In the Academy, I have I have students who are amazing. I have students who are in their teenage years now who can just open up the works of Aristotle, or other writers classical mathematics, and just get to work because they’ve learned how to study. And then the assignments that I give the students one time I had a guy a father, right complaining about the the Academy because he had looked over the academy and his kids were enrolled for a bit. And then he wrote to me complaining that all the academy is all the CLA is is a bunch of books and assignments. That’s all it is a bunch of books and assignments and quizzes. That’s all it is. And I said no die, no die. You know what’s missing from the Academy? The work of students. That’s what’s missing. When students do what students are supposed to do, you’ll find that this whole system provides everything. And it’s very simple. We don’t need teachers dressed up like clowns dancing around the classroom. We don’t need libraries of videos where kids sit there like Dum Dums and have teachers talk to them on a video. That’s not study. What we need is for kids to learn how to study because if we go and find leading scholars, leading theologians, leading philosophers in the world, in the adult world, what do they do? Do they watch videos all day? Is that what makes a scholar successful he has access to the best of videos. Is it because the scholars get together and dress up like clowns and entertain each other with magic tricks? And all kinds of gimmicks, secret tricks how to solve problems is is that what makes the great scholars great, or do great scholars get books and study and write and think and talk about what they study in those books. That’s what it means to study. So when you come to the classical liberal arts academy and complain that it’s just a bunch of books and assignments. Yeah, that’s because we’re we’re working to teach kids how to study how to study. We’re not trying to string together passive activities like videos, or have adults act like fools to try to entertain kids who are not being taught how to study. We’re actually trying to help kids learn how to study and all that they need. Our books wisely arranged, you know that we take this for granted we take like, like this collection of books is just available anywhere. If if if it’s just this collection of books, show me where else you can find this collection of books. Show me where you can find these assignments at another school. And then most importantly, show me where you can find a place where you can submit those assignments and have them reviewed by someone who has studied those books and can offer a grade and some feedback on those assignments. That’s what school is really about. It’s about students studying. That’s what school is really about. And it’s about to a community of adults, helping students to learn, to study as efficiently as possible. And what I’m saying is the key to this, the key in homeschooling is for the homeschooling mother, to be seated in the midst of her children, studying with them, studying for herself, studying with them, reading the lessons with them, talking about the lessons with them, checking their assignments, communicating with us with them. And being personally engaged not not just to get their checkmarks finished or help them appear to be doing something, but to actually learn and put into practice the lessons that are studied in the classical liberal arts in classical philosophy and Catholic theology, in the humanities, and so on. When a mother does that, and does it for years and years. That’s where the kids come from. In a homeschool context. That’s where the kids become great students. And I can, I can introduce you to some of them. In the classical liberal arts academy, if you pay attention to what goes on in the academy, you’ll see where some of these kids are at what studies they’re working through. I can show you assignments from students that modern colleges would not be able to produce from their students. I had a father write to me recently and say the stuff that his daughters are doing in the academy. He’s a college professor and his his college students, even at the graduate level. Don’t get into studies as thoroughly as his daughters do. That’s one father and then think of the other father, all you have is a bunch of books and assignments. That’s right. You see the difference? Now, in some extraordinary cases, in some extraordinary cases, you may have a father who for some reason is at home, I hope it’s not because the mother is working. I hope that’s not why. But sometimes you have a father who has the opportunity, or maybe the Father Himself is an academic. The father is a college professor. He’s got maybe a couple of days off each week, he’s at home, he’s with his kids, the kids are in his office, whatever. And he can be personally engaged in their studies. That’s great. But normally, normally the day by day, year after year grind of homeschooling rests with mom. And the greatest achievement for homeschooling students in normal circumstances, comes when mom makes studying her goal, this contemplative life is her goal. She wants wisdom. She wants to study, she wants to study with her children. She wants to talk about the lessons with her children. And another advantage and I’ll wrap up here. Another advantage in the classical liberal arts academy that modern study programs take away is that when when kids are divided into grade levels, and you’ve got first grade, second grade, third grade, all this artificial grade level nonsense. The kids are all separated. And this is why you need giant public schools with armies of faculty members because they divide the kids into all these artificial groups totally unnecessary divisions. They divide them they have different books for every single level. And that requires separate teachers or supervisors or basically daycare workers who oversee their activities for every single different group of these artificially divided students, and what homeschool parents will do with absolutely no Oh reasoning is they’ll simply buy all of that same grade level junk for their kids at home. And so they’ll have a first grade curriculum, a third grade curriculum, fifth grade curriculum and an eighth grade grade. And you know what mom can’t sit with the kids, and discuss all their lessons and stuff, because the kids are all on totally different lessons. Because that’s not how education should even work. That’s not certainly not how homeschooling should work. And modern schools, modern study programs make this kind of education impossible by these artificial divisions of kids, which, which is only good for one or two things. The dividing of kids into grade levels is good for two things. It’s good for creating jobs for teachers. And it’s good for allowing book companies to make tons of money by selling 15 books for every kid rather than a couple. It’s great for moneymaking for professional, so called teachers, and book publishers, but it’s terrible for students, and it’s terrible for families, terrible for parents, completely terrible for homeschooling. Doesn’t make any sense at all. And so you’ve got to have a study program that’s actually designed like study programs always used to be designed to be studied by groups of different ages mixed together. This used to be the normal learning environment, the only time kids river separated into different groups was when there were radically different levels of achievement. So if you had one student who was studying Latin grammar for for four years, and another student who’s been studying for five years, they might be put together in a separate group. And then the students who are just getting started could be kept together in another group. But they could be different ages, you could have a seven year old and nine year old and a 14 year old, that wasn’t what mattered what mattered was their level of achievement. Modern schools just completely invented this whole K to 12 birthday system of sorting students. And the thoughtless homeschool families bring the kids home out of that futile failing school system, and they set up the same exact system at home. And they get largely the same results where they maybe they boast that their kids get 50 points higher on the LSAT than the public school kids. But it’s the same system. In the classical liberal arts academy, we actually present families with a study program that doesn’t care about students ages where a family can work together in their studies. It’s hard to explain that unless you actually get into it and see how it works. And I don’t have time right now to talk about it. But the study program has to also allow for great achievement. And modern study programs are not designed for great achievement. They’re there. They’re designed to serve the low standards of modern grade level schools. That’s what they’re designed for. So to wrap this up, you have to aim for real, real intellectual standards that relate to true teaching in philosophy and theology, in the classical liberal arts and the humanities. You have to satisfy modern requirements, because that’s part of our civil obligation as members of a society that has made certain schooling requirements mandatory, but they’re not all consuming because they can easily be satisfied. You’ve got to have a study program that allows for all of this to be done. It’s got to be affordable. It’s got to be easily accessible. It’s got to provide for the whole entire course of study is not just bits and pieces of all disconnected, distracted parts. It’s got to actually be designed to be effective in a homeschooling Vironment and most significantly, most significantly, as I said, You’ve got to have the homeschool parent pursuing those studies herself, usually. I think in most ideal situations, it would be herself it would be mom doing that. And she’s got to model everything that she wants her children to learn. She is the model. She’s home with them all day. They’re they’re looking at her following her all day. Now, if she’s wrapped up in in housewife tasks and things like that, she decided that what she really wants to do is be a great baker. What are her homeschool son’s going to do? And if she decides she’s going to be a, a soccer mom and run around with all her, what are her? What are her daughter’s gonna do? They’re all gonna be athletes. Everybody’s gonna play sports. What about the kids who don’t play sports, sports are not essential. Extreme housewifery is not essential. One of my friends once said, every eating experience doesn’t have to be the ultimate eating experience. You’ve got to admit, you’ve got to choose your priorities. You’ve got other women, who I’ve dealt with in the homeschool community who decide that breastfeeding is the chief end of the female person. And everything in the family is set aside so that a mother can breastfeed even if she’s already got five kids. We come to questions of priorities. What is the noblest responsibility? What is the highest priority? And do we see that noblest priority as the mother’s priority? Or do we see her interested in other things? And you can say Why think this is stupid. This is ridiculous. That’s fine. But there are going to be consequences with respect to academic achievement. And you’re listening to a talk about academic achievement. You’re not listening to a talk about how to get the greatest nutrition. As a breastfed baby, that’s not the content. That’s not the topic of this talk. And you knew that when you started the talk. The topic is how to obtain great academic achievement as a homeschool family. And in order to do that, and you could say, well, nobody cares. What you care about. The topic is how to achieve great academic achievement. As a homeschooling family and looking back to Christian history, we have an absolute standard for what great academic achievement means. It’s the classical Catholic curriculum, the seven classical liberal arts, classical philosophy, Scholastic theology, the study of sacred scriptures, the humanities, and in addition to all of that modern college and career preparation. That’s great academic achievement. And what I’m saying, As an experienced homeschooling father, and as a homeschooling teacher, a private school teacher, a school administrator, etc. The children who make the greatest achievements, academic academically, in homeschooling environments, are those who have mothers who make studying with their children the priority of their life. That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying you need to do that. I’m not saying anyone who doesn’t do that. is evil, not saying anything like that? I’m saying a very simple objective fact. Classical Catholic studies with modern requirements are most effectively achieved in homeschooling families, where the mother makes those studies. Her priority and study use them with her children, period. So having said that, I want to just make it clear what I’m saying and what I’m not saying. I’m not saying every family should pursue the highest academic achievements not possible. Explain that. At the beginning. I’m not saying if you don’t pursue the highest academic achievement, you’re a loser or you’re evil, or you’re letting down your family or you’re disobeying God. I explained in the beginning, for some families, especially those who are new to the faith, just getting their legs under themselves as Christians. Academics really can’t be your first priority and, and to be honest, homeschooling might not be the best choice just because other people in the parish are doing it, or you think it would be fun. That’s really not what should motivate you. To think that you can effectively homeschool your children. I would like you to think about these things. I’d like you to consider my experience. Both successful experience working with families who achieve great things, and unsuccessful experience working with families who are not capable of achieving great things. And take this as a bit of advice. The families who do the best objectively speaking based on experience, the families who do the best, the students who do the best, are students whose mothers study with them. I hope that’s helpful.
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