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Reach Advanced Native like English fluency English speaking Effortless English Club calm It's a rainy, rainy day here in Indiana.
In fact, it's a rainy, it's a rainy week here at the homestead.
We've had rain and storms the last several days.
The ground is very, very muddy.
It's raining right now.
Talking to you from my, the toolshed.
And that's it. So we've got on the property here, we have a tool shed.
So the tool shed has no heat, no aircon.
It does have light.
It has power, but we don't have a heater in here, but we keep tools in here, lawnmowers and shovels and gardening tools and things like that.
So I've got the, it's got a garage door.
And so I've got the garage door open.
I'm sitting right at the entrance of the door, actually I'm standing at the entrance of the door, we're looking out over our property, the yard — my sister's property, really.
She's the owner. And a vulture is flying over — right overhead.
In fact, he's landing right above me on the tree.
We've got a bunch of vultures here.
This was just — oh, there's another one up there in that tree.
I see two vultures right there.
Hey, guys. They're sitting on the tree.
The trees still don't have leaves yet, most of them.
We do have some they're called Bradford pear trees Fairly big and they've got a lot of white flowers Kind of like in Japan, you know, the sakura trees It's kind of similar but these are white and they're blooming when there's one two three Four one two three four five six of those on this on the property.
Oh, here comes another vulture They're all coming over here to say hi to me.
They're right above me right in the tree next to me Three of them now.
So anyway, it's a nice day.
I'm just getting out of the house cause the kids are inside playing and they're playing music today.
So a bit noisy in the house, cause I just like being outdoors a bit.
Now some of you, some of you noticed that the audio podcast at least a couple of days ago had really bad sound quality, and I know that it did, let me know if this one is better.
I guess the best way to tell me is for now is just to put a comment on my Facebook for Effortless English or my Instagram.
Instagram is Effortless English Club and Facebook is just effortless English.
So either of those, just let me know, like if if the sound still having problems you can say yeah the audio is still not good or if it's much better please let me know that too.
I've got a new windscreen on the recorder here so hopefully this will give you better audio this time.
Today, actually, for the past week or so, about a week ago, we started focusing on a book with the kids, I started focusing on a book with the kids, so it's in English.
And the way we do it in our family is that I do all the English language education, And my wife takes care of the Japanese.
So we started a book Aesop Many of you will know Aesop because I've done videos in the past where I have taught one of Aesop's Little fables they're called, right?
There are these little They're really mini stories.
They're little micro stories.
Very short little stories.
The characters are always animals and And each story teaches a lesson, right?
It's something you're supposed to learn from the story.
And actually, you know, including the version we're using now is really nice because it's a illustrated version.
It's got these nice paintings that, so each story has a really nice painting of the animals and, you know, from the story.
So of course, kids love, you know, those kind of visual things and younger kids especially like you know illustrated books I think that's why they like the Peter Rabbit books they're great stories and really nice drawings as well so this one has really this Aesop book it's illustrated has very nice paintings and we're very well done not cartoony right like quality and I'm reading from those and the vocabulary levels, actually pretty high for six year olds, it's quite high.
And this is a great way for the kids to learn more challenging, more advanced, less common vocabulary.
And the way I do it, to help them understand, is I just paraphrase.
So let's say, I'm gonna teach you one today because we just did this one today.
And And I'll teach it to you too.
I don't have it in front of me so I'm just going to tell you the story from memory.
It's called the Old Lion and the Fox.
OK? There was an old lion enfeebled by age so that he could no longer acquire food by force.
He decided to use cunning instead of force.
He went inside of a cave, lied down, and pretended to be sick, to be ill.
The other animals, seeing him, looking sickly, inquired, came to the cave, and inquired how he was feeling.
And when they got close, the lion jumped on them and devoured them.
One day, a fox came to the entrance of the cave, but he did not go inside.
He stayed outside and he inquired to the lion about his health.
The lion said, Why do you stay outside?
Why don't you come in?
And the Fox said, Well, I would have, except I noticed all All the footprints go into, point into, the cave, but none come out.
And at the end of each Aesop's story, there's the lesson, the point, right?
And the lesson in this one is, take warning from the misfortune of others.
So you can see there's quite a lot of words there that, for English learners, perhaps, like yourself, and certainly for six year olds, could be quite difficult, you know, enfeebled, cunning, inquired, devoured, misfortune, these things.
So how do I teach that to my children in a way that's not boring, where I'm not giving them an English lesson?
It's pretty similar to what I do in effortless English, honestly, is— I'll just paraphrase.
So I'll just say—I'll read it as it is in the book, but then I'll go back and I'll say the same sentence again with the same meaning, but I'll paraphrase it, meaning I'll say the same thing again, but using easier, simpler vocab that they already know.
So I might say, okay, there was an old lion who was enfeebled by age.
So he—there was an old lion who was sick because he was weak because he was very old.
And he, he decided to use cunning instead of force to get his food.
He decided to be tricky.
Right? He decided to be clever, to trick animals so he could catch them and eat them.
Because he, he wasn't fast enough to catch them, normally, anymore.
So he went into the cave. He pretended to be sick, and the animals inquired about his health.
Inquired? That means that they asked.
They asked, are you okay?
Are you sick? What's wrong?
And when they got close, he jumped on them and devoured them.
He ate them up. He ate them all up.
Devoured. One day a fox came and stayed outside, and he noticed all the footprints point in.
None come out. Take warning from the misfortune of others.
So, you should look, you should see bad things that happen to other people and learn from them.
So, the same thing doesn't happen to you.
So, see, that's it.
That's that it's that simple, okay?
That's how you can do it and if you have kids and if you're trying to teach them, if you're reading stories to them in English, or even in your own language if you have young children and you want to do something a little more difficult, That's how you can do it, so they don't, of course, if you just, if it's too difficult, they might get bored because they won't understand anything.
But on the other hand, this is the kind of the challenge we have with kids in reading aloud to them, and especially as they start getting to this age of, you know, four years old, five years old, six years old, seven years old, and even higher, that they actually want and need to be challenged a bit, right?
You want, how do they learn that difficult vocabulary?
How do they learn more advanced vocab?
Well, they have to hear it, and the best way to get that is for reading.
But if there's too much of it, then they can get bored because they don't understand.
So how do you solve that problem?
You want them to listen to these more advanced stories, but you want them to also enjoy them so that they keep listening to them and they learn from them.
And this is how you do it, this is how you do it as a teacher, it's how you do it as a parent, you just paraphrase.
So if it's something that's got a lot of new words in it, like this does for my kids, for six years old, five -year -old, six years old, then you just have to, you know, after every sentence that has a difficult word, you say the sentence again, explaining it in a very simple way, with words they already know.
And that way they understand the story, they can enjoy it, look at the pictures and understand what's happening, and my kids do.
They get really excited.
We've been reading these stories from the Aesop book, like I said, we've done it before but we're really focusing on it this week.
And they keep wanting to do it again and again and again, which is that's a good sign that they're enjoying it and they're interested.
So I'm explaining to them using easier words, they understand what it is, but they're also getting exposure, they're hearing those more advanced words.
And they might not learn all of them instantly, of course, but they're getting exposure, right?
They're hearing those words and young kids especially have such good memories, you'll be surprised how many of those words and phrases they will remember and understand.
It's quite impressive, much better than adults.
And this is a painless way, and the most natural way, for kids and honestly even adults to learn advanced vocabulary and to enjoy more advanced, more challenging, more difficult reading or listening without getting bored and without getting stressed.
The bad way to do it is the school way, the traditional way.
What's that? They would give you a—they would say, okay, you've got to read these five Aesop stories.
Here's the vocabulary list of all the new words.
Memorize them! Those just—you take the list and you try to memorize them.
And by the way, to make it more stressful, we're going to give you a test and we're going to test you on these new words, and if you can't explain them, then you get a big red X.
Wrong! And if you do badly, then we'll give you a bad grade.
Oh, you got a D or an F, and now you can feel bad.
Right? Or if you get them alright.
Oh, you can feel good because you're a good little boy or a good little girl.
Which also is harmful, because They're just trying to perform for points instead of loving and enjoying learning for itself.
And quite honestly, it doesn't matter.
It does not matter if they, let's say they read that story we just did, the old lion and the fox.
And let's say one kid learns one of those new words.
Let's say learns enfeebled.
For some reason, they remember that one.
It means weak. But they can't, they don't remember the other ones.
Ah, they forget what devoured means.
And they forget what inquired means.
So out of that story, they only remember one of the new words, the more difficult words.
Well in school, what happens?
They take a test they get one right, and let's say five wrong, and they get a big F and fail.
And then they feel bad, and then the message is oh you're bad at reading, you're bad at English, you've got a learning disability all this garbage.
All this horrible crap that these poor children and adults do, start to think and believe these messages that get sent.
They don't have to be, they don't have to say these messages directly but they get the idea.
They get a paperback it's got red X's you know one out of six F.
The message is very clear.
You did badly. So the child may have enjoyed that story quite a lot before the testing, and they did learn a new word. They learned the word enfeebled, which is great, and maybe they're starting out with a curiosity and a desire.
Oh, this is nice. Oh, it's kind of interesting.
The animals. I want to read more." And then what happens?
They get the test back.
They get the F. They feel terrible.
And what does that do to their motivation to continue reading Aesop?
It destroys it. It kills it.
What does it do about their confidence?
Maybe they felt good because they learned a new word and they enjoyed the story.
But then after the test, they don't.
Now, they feel like they're stupid.
Now, they feel like they're not good at English or they're not good at reading.
And when this happens again, and again, and again, and again, that's how you kill natural curiosity.
That's how you kill their natural ability to learn and the desire to keep reading, and learning, and enjoying.
It's criminal, it's horrible, it's disgusting, and I hate it.
I hate that way of teaching.
I despise it, and this is why I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate schools, and the whole educational system, which is not education at all.
This is what they do to kids, and they do it at such a young age, before the kids have any chance of understanding what's happening.
They have no under - they - the kids are defenseless.
They're 5 years old, they're 6 years old, they're 7 years old.
They're too young to understand what's being done to them.
Now, you and I as adults, we can look at the system and see the problems with it and understand how it can damage these kids, but the kids, poor kids, they have no chance.
They're too young. And then that kid grows up and then very quickly they start to get this idea that they're stupid or their readings and, oh they hate reading.
I don't like reading, I don't like school.
I don't like learning because they think school and learning are the same thing.
And of course they're not at all.
Absolutely disgusting.
Because what should happen is they should be praised and encouraged because great, wow you listened to this story, you read the story, you know, the old lion and the fox.
Look at this, you learned a new word in Feeble, you learned this new word. Fantastic!
Wow, great! Hey, you want to read another one?
Yeah, all right, cool, let's read another one.
And it doesn't matter if they only learn one new word each time instead of five or six.
It doesn't matter if they sometimes don't learn any of the new words, because sometimes they will.
And if you would just encourage their love of reading and learning, they're going to read more and more and more.
They're gonna do it themselves without an adult pushing them.
They're gonna actually request it.
That's what my kids do now, right?
They bring me books.
In the middle of the day I'm just sitting, relaxing and they just go over to the bookshelf and they grab a book and they come over and sit next to me and they throw the book in my lap because they want to read it.
That's what you want.
That's what you want, OK?
Because if you take the long -term approach, that kid, even if they only learn one new word from the story but now they've got an enjoyment of reading and learning and they They start reading more and more and more and more and more.
Long term, over five years, ten years, they're just gonna keep reading more and more and more and more.
It's gonna grow and grow and grow.
And their vocabulary will grow hugely, and it doesn't matter how many new words they get from one story or another, because, over time, because they're reading more and loving it and enjoying it and they're interested and they're curious, they're going to do great and they're going to learn so many new words, and their vocabulary is going to grow, they're going to become great readers, and great readers will much more easily become good writers.
That's what you have to do as a parent, because I tell you, the schools won't do it.
Of course, I recommend, take your kids out of the schools before they kill their...
before they do this to your kids.
Even if your kids have been in school already, they're older.
Still take them out because they can recover from all of that.
And they can find, again, rediscover that curiosity and their own internal motivation to learn and grow.
You see, this is the problem.
It hurts that the so -called good students are also harmed by this.
I'm sure you've seen this.
I know I saw it when I was a kid and teenager at university, that the so -called smart kids, the kids that did well, the ones that read the news story, and then they memorize all the new words and they get the perfect score, are 100 % on their vocab test. And ah, what message do they get?
Good boy, you're so smart.
Good girl, you're such a, you're so smart.
Follow the rules and memorize and do everything we tell you.
And you'll get all the points, and then you can be at the top of the class and better than all those other kids.
And then this becomes a sickness too, because then so many, not all, but many, many, many of those kids, people, start to focus on the numbers, the tests, the score instead of the learning.
And they become good little obedient slaves.
And the rest of their life, it's all about pleasing other people, performing for other people, so they get the points.
And I guess as an So they get the money, they get the promotion, they get – right?
It's all about making them compliant, obedient.
And I've known so many of these people, either as young adults or as, you know, later, as older, and these people, too, lose their initiative.
Meaning, they're always sitting around waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.
These are the people that think, oh, I'd like to start my own business.
But they never do it because they expect somebody to tell them everything.
What do I do next? What do I do next?
What do I do next? They are terrified to make mistakes.
They're terrified to just jump in and try things and look foolish and fail.
See this is where this hidden curriculum comes in, why it's so destructive and terrible even for the ones who do well in school.
Because the message they get is, I'm a good boy, I'm a good girl, oh I've got these high scores, I didn't fail!
They become terrified of failing and many times their parents beat into them, not literally beat them.
But, you know, put into them this idea, this belief that, oh it's terrible to fail.
Don't fail, don't fail, don't fail.
Oh good, you got an A.
My own parents were like this.
I was the good boy who got the good grades growing up.
Now luckily, you know, it was easy for me.
I was fairly smart.
But and luckily, I kept my own, my curiosity and I used to just I'm so grateful is that for whatever reason, my parents did encourage reading, independent reading.
So I used to read comic books and then I started reading, you guys probably know, Hardie Boys, they're like these little mystery books and my parents would always buy me books or go to the library and get books for me, anything I wanted to read.
And because of that love of reading, I became an independent reader and that is what I think kept alive my love of learning and, uh, and I actually grew to hate school, even though I got good grades.
I kind of had to get good grades because my parents would have punished me if I didn't.
Um, but, you know, thank God, literally thank God that I had that love of learning and independent learning that kept - you know, kept that alive for me outside of school.
So I realized that school was not learning.
But many don't realize that.
Many aren't lucky enough to have that happen.
And... You know, I understand my parents' motivation, because they come from this generation, they think that, you know, they thought grades were guaranteed to get you into the good college, and then the good college guarantees you the good corporate job at the big company.
And if you get a good job at the big company, oh now, for life, You're in great shape and now you can have that job for life and have a great life.
None of that is true anymore.
I don't know if it was true then.
It's certainly not true now.
So, you're not helping your kids by teaching them to be terrified of failing.
Quite the opposite.
They need to learn to fail.
Failure is important.
if you're scared to fail you're scared to take risks you're scared to try things new, that are you know new you're scared to look foolish and you have to look foolish when you first start something new and so then you just become a safe scared slave that's what you do to kids if you scare them about making mistakes scare them about failing no so does that mean oh you want them to just do badly and don't learn anything.
No! Of course not! You've got to...
But what you have to do is awaken their natural learning.
You don't have to force it, okay?
Kids want to learn, they're naturally curious.
It's already there.
You don't have to force it or push it or make a bunch of rewards.
If your child's not curious and desperately wanting to learn, it's because that was killed in them.
Most likely by the schools.
But you can still reawaken it if just give them a break.
Okay. But if you start early and you never do that to them, no worries.
Okay. All you got to do is encourage it and then they will take over.
They love reading. They love learning.
Yes. Even numbers and math.
Don't push. I have learned this myself even you know with one of my children is you know slower learner than the other.
You know, it's my son because he's had you know all these surgeries and hospital stays and so you know he's had some learning delays.
And of course that makes me, you know, nervous.
But what I found is that I've just got to be patient and wait till the time is right.
Because we've tried pushing things like, oh he's got to learn his numbers.
And we do it in a fun way, and an encouraging way, you know, and of course we don't do grades or tests.
But still, we've maybe pushed it too much, where we've tried to keep doing it, even when it was obvious he was not interested.
and and then I'll just realize this isn't working because it's just making him bored and he doesn't want to do it so we just stop we stop and we maybe we try other ways or usually what I do now is I just take a break let's just wait a few months cuz what I found with him and with my daughter too is that many many many times when they seem not interested they don't want to do something it's you know, that I've got in my head or my wife hasn't her head, oh, you know, they need to learn this.
But if they don't want to learn it, they're not going to learn it.
Okay? And you don't need to stress about it.
Just wait. Because what I've seen again and again and again, is a time comes when suddenly, they are interested or suddenly something that used to be so tough, becomes really easy for them.
And with my son, that's reading now.
I was getting stressed about you know, he knew kind of the basic sounds of the letters but I tried we tried doing reading of words with him a couple years ago and man nothing.
And he just started getting bored and and so we just stopped.
So now two years later we're trying again and he loves it and he's just sucking it up and remembering everything like it's suddenly so easy for him, and we just do it really short time, really quick.
If he starts looking bored with it, I just immediately stop.
Mostly what we do is just read aloud to him, and he's learning these Aesop stories.
My daughter, same thing.
She's just picking up these words.
So, stop Stop focusing on the tests.
Stop focusing on the performance.
Awaken this great desire to learn and read.
Keep it simple. Reading and some numbers.
That's all they need.
Okay? That's all they need until they're adults, reading and numbers.
Cause you know, when they're, if they're 22 and they love, love, love reading, and they've been reading through their whole childhood and, you know, they got basic numbers.
So at age 22, they got the basic math.
Okay. Maybe even basic algebra at that point.
Or maybe not, you know, but you know, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing some fractions and decimals that kind of stuff, they can learn any, any, any, anything else they want to learn at that point.
and if they have that independent learning and that love of learning, and they're not afraid to just jump in and figure things out and on their own by themselves and just Learn for their entire lives.
They'll do it. You've given them all they need They don't need calculus if they want to do it great We'll talk about that in a minute But just relax And awaken that love of learning The number one way if I had to reduce it down to one thing for younger kids for young kids, let's say Before teenager so 12 years and under it would be reading Reading reading reading read to them and Then as they get older they encourage them to read Whatever they want to read as long as it's you know Moral and decent there's nothing terrible in it Love of learning is key.
That takes me to, you know, discuss again.
I've talked about this before, homeschooling.
We're homeschooling our kids, right.
Our kids do not go to school, in other words.
Really it's home education.
I don't really like the word schooling at all, because schools are kind of anti -education.
They're the opposite.
So, home education.
The way it was done for thousands of years before these industrial schools were created and the system we have now in most countries.
Now the great thing about homeschooling, one of the great things is that you can follow any system you want.
And there are so many different ones.
If you start researching homeschooling, you're going to find all kinds of different approaches.
And there are people who follow a very organized curriculum.
You can buy them. And this probably is really homeschooling, where it's still a kind of school approach where the families are using like a series of textbooks and different subjects, and it's, you know, it was designed by someone.
And there's a lot of these out there.
You know, many of them are maybe focused on – are specifically religious.
So they're a good number of Christian homeschooling curriculum.
So they're teaching reading, math, science, you know, the typical subjects.
In a kind of a pretty similar way to teaching how they do it at schools.
but the, you know, Christian teachings and values and perspectives are put into the curriculum.
It's not the approach I take— and then there's others that are not specifically religious, but they—but there's still a curriculum.
Maybe they, you know, Montessori—they take a specific educational approach or philosophy and follow it.
So that's kind of the organized curriculum approach, which is still way better than school because the kids are at home with the parents they love in a great home environment where they can be encouraged.
So, you know, I'm not against that at all.
It's just not what I want to do.
And that's great. You can kind of find what works best for your family, for your kids, for yourself.
Now on the other extreme, is something called un -schooling.
And un -schooling is where there's zero curriculum, there's nothing.
And kinda each day is different, and you just, uh, you're just super loose and relaxed and you just kinda teach things whenever they come up.
Right? So if you're out shopping and you're paying money, oh you might talk to them about, talk your kids about numbers and money at that time.
And again, of course, it depends on the age of the kids.
But it's very loose and relaxed.
A lot of unschoolers focus on projects, so they'll, you know, let's say, okay we're gonna do, we're gonna make a garden.
And then, as part of making the garden, they'll try to include things like reading.
So, let's read some little easy books about gardening.
And they might even try to you know do some math or numbers like okay let's measure our garden and write down the numbers and you know you can bring in different things you want to teach with that project.
Now the one I have decided to use the general approach that I really like and I've played around with these different ones by the way I've bought curriculum and we a fairly loose curriculum, it was really focused on reading.
But I bought one and use that for when the kids when they were preschool like age three, four.
But I didn't follow it very exactly.
Mostly I just got all the books.
Because I like they didn't use textbooks, they use real books, kind of classic stories and books.
And I've done a bit of the unschooling thing.
But I finally found a book called Thomas Jefferson Education.
I've And I find this works very well.
This fits very well with my personal philosophy of teaching and education, and it fits very well with our family, with our kids, with my wife and I, you know, our personalities, energies, etc. So this is what we're following, what I've decided to follow, at least I'm following it for the English part of their education.
So there's a few things about Thomas Jefferson education.
So Thomas Jefferson education, Thomas Jefferson was one of the early presidents of the United States, wrote the Declaration of Independence, one of the great founding fathers of America, maybe the greatest, some would say, and a very educated man.
But what kind of education did he have?
It was a classic education.
And it was a home education.
He didn't go to some industrial school and sit in a class with desks.
He learned at home.
As did Benjamin Franklin, and many of those, you know, what we call the founding fathers of America.
You know, the heroes of the American Revolution.
The central point of a Thomas Jefferson education, the central curriculum, is based on classics, and this is one of the things I love about it.
Classics, meaning, classic books, classic works in all different fields and areas.
So it's really focused on reading classic books.
That's the core, the foundation, the main focus, the curriculum of this approach. So was not textbooks.
No textbooks. Zero.
None. No textbooks.
We don't do textbooks.
We read classic books, classic stories.
What is a classic? A classic is a book, or story, or, you know, it could be a work about math as well, or science.
But it's something that was written, you know, at least many decades ago, and that has been recognized as being important and deep and useful and valuable for, you know, decades and decades and decades, and for most of them, centuries, hundreds and hundreds of years, even thousands of years, Okay, so not just something new that just came out last year.
So, you know, the Iliad would be an example of a classic, okay, thousands of years old.
The Odyssey, the Aeneid, you know, Paradise Lost, more recently, Dante's Inferno, or Dante, just Dante's—all his Dante's works.
And you could, you know, take certain authors where, you know, Tolstoy, whatever, right?
Dostoyevsky, Shakespeare, certainly in the English language, Shakespeare in terms of literature would be one of the big ones.
The kind of those classic plays, Those are the most kind of well -recognized plays of Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Hamlet.
So you get the idea.
But they're also what we might call junior classics, so these are stories, and maybe some of them a little more recent, but still not new, right?
Because the value of old books and old stories is that they have been tested and analyzed and read and enjoyed and understood for a long time, so it's not just, you know, it's not something that's just popular because it's, because of some political fad, some political idea right now, but something that has benefited generations and generations and generations of human beings so junior classics like one of our favorites are the Beatrix Potter stories Peter rabbit you may know not the garbage videos and movies and Disney type crap they've done recently we don't we avoid all that but I mean the original
stories written by Beatrix Potter herself.
And we actually have a nice big book that contains all her stories with the drawings and it's all one big book.
And there are 23 stories from her.
So nice. They love it.
And again, like, you know, what, what I notice is that even though those were kids books, those were written for children, back, you know, what 120 years ago, or about.
But They, you can just see how we're so much more stupid and badly educated now than the people 100 years ago.
Because they're written for children, but the level of vocabulary and language of those stories is so much higher than children's books written, you know, in the last 10 years, let's say, or the last 20 years, so written recently.
Children's books, nowadays, are garbage crap with cartoony, often ugly pictures, stupid stories with no point or very little point, just focused on feelings, feelings, feelings, very simple language, and kind of dumbed -down simplified language.
They're garbage, we avoid them.
So we have read, I think, there may be a couple of the Beatrix Potter stories we haven't read yet.
Kind of longer ones.
There's one or two in there that are really long.
But we've read probably 80 % of them in the book now and several are, you know, the kids get their favorites.
We've read the favorite ones many, many, many times.
They love the one about the squirrel.
Squirrel Netkin, it's called, and they love the ones with the rabbits, Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny and the Flopsy Bunnies, and then there's several others.
There's a lot of good ones in there.
So that's another example of a classic.
So you read classics.
Of course there are, you know, religious classics.
So you would certainly, and Thomas Jefferson Education, the writers, there's a book called Thomas Jefferson Education, and they have several, a few other books they've written.
I think the author's name is DeMille, but they recommend all also that you should have a core, what they call the core classic, which is really your central, moral, religious work, so if you're a Christian, obviously that would be the Bible.
If you were a Muslim, it would be the Quran, right?
As a Sanatana Dharmi, for us, it's Bhagavad -gita.
Now, these are heavy works, for a five -year -old to understand these, you know, these are pretty deep philosophical works, you know, pretty tough, but what you can do is, even at the young age, you can find kind of simpler stories that come from those books, those scriptures, and maybe in it with a simpler language.
Or you could take one sentence or one verse and kind of using the Aesop method, I was just telling you, you could read it.
I've done this with my kids from Bhagavad Gita a few times, where I'll read a verse from Bhagavad Gita.
Then I'll go back and I'll say it again using simple, simple, simple language, basic language.
then we might talk about it a little bit.
And then, the other thing we do, is we just … I tell, for their kind of core religious education, we do what's called kirtan, which is just chanting and singing, and they love that, they love it, and then there's also just, you know, various stories, you know, parables, the Bible's full of these, so you could do - these are great for kids, it's a great way to start, is you just, you have these stories, these parables about, you know, the Good Samaritan, for example, or whatever, and then you, that's something kids can understand.
It's a story, and you can tell it, and you can retell it using simple language, and perfect.
Perfect. Now, the approach, what I Another thing I love about Thomas Jefferson education, number one, the focus on classics.
It's all based on classics.
Even mathematics. They recommend that obviously at a later age, like teenage years, actually reading mathematic classics in translation in your own language.
So, from Pythagoras for example, or, you know, reading Newton himself.
Don't not, direct writings since he created calculus.
Right? And then you know if you need help understanding these writings, you can, you know, you can get online, and you can find other things to help...
that help you understand and explain some of these classics, but so even for math to focus on classics.
Now another aspect I like about Thomas Jefferson approach is that they have this idea the authors DeMille of The phases of learning and this is nothing new You know Montessori recognizes this Waldorf Which are also very nice Child development and learning and educational approaches and systems. Very nice.
Nothing against those.
In fact, I I also steal ideas from from Waldorf well.
But a they divide I like the way they divide the phases because with the Thomas Jefferson approach and this is in what I I like too is it's an idea of a gradual increase in difficulty and intensity.
Now we all kind of know this but what it it's it's it's it's kind of extreme actually and it reminds me a little bit of the Japanese approach to education.
Unfortunately the Japanese of of course do it in a very typical school way.
But the idea, the general idea I like, which is this, very relaxed at the younger ages.
Very relaxed, so not too much discipline, not too much structure with the younger kids and younger means kindergarten, elementary school age, In other words, under 13 years of age.
So, very, very chilled out, no pressure to perform at those ages, because at those ages, what you're doing is just building up two things, their love of learning, curiosity and love of learning, number one.
And then number two, their self -discipline and motivation.
In other words, the ability to read things, study things, learn things on their own without someone forcing them, without someone telling them to do it, without an assignment or pressure of any kind.
And that takes some time to build up.
So they have the first phase, oops, might get a little wind here for just a second, the first phase they call core, core.
And that, you know, it varies.
The other thing I like about this, they're very flexible.
So it depends on the child, how long each kid is in each phase.
but the core phase is basically, you know, young children from baby, they're first born, up until, you know, six, seven, eight years old.
So let's say eight years old, something like that.
So what's the core phase about?
What's the focus in that time?
And, according to the Thomas Jefferson education, and I agree, I like it, we're following it, The focus during those years is family life, good and bad, morality, religion, relationships, right, how to get along with family members, brothers, sisters, mom, dad, aunts and uncles and cousins, and then also practical living skills.
Cooking, gardening, cleaning, and cleaning up.
Communication, speaking.
Basic politeness, kindness.
All of these things.
And then in terms of academic learning it's really just enjoyment, so reading just reading to them, but there's no performance, zero performance, no performance pressure at all.
No assignments, they don't have to do anything, okay?
On the other hand, you certainly encourage them if they want to do things.
So that's the phase my kids are still in.
Although my daughter probably is kind of in between this core phase and the next phase, my son's definitely still in the core phase and that's a great thing, too.
Each kid will kind of be ready for the next step, the next stage at different times and you can just, you know, just relax and let them show you when they're ready.
Now the next one is called love of learning.
I like the names of this so much better than kindergarten, elementary, right?
So core and the next is love of learning and love of learning.
This kind of, it reminds me a bit of that unschooling approach. But love of learning is where they really you really let the kids explore and you encourage them to explore and try as many things as they can.
Again, with no pressure to perform or be great at anything.
But rather, an encouragement, just just go for it.
Just try it, try it and do and anything they show an interest in, within reason, you know, you encourage it and you support them and help them and you can explore and do cool little projects and things.
So, you know, like I'm doing the garden this year.
We're doing a big one this year, bigger and, you know, the kids are gonna do it too.
Each of my children will have a section of the garden and they have decided what they want to grow.
I just asked them, what do you want to grow in your garden?
And do I just let them pick anything they want?
My son wants to grow pumpkins.
My daughter wants to grow tomatoes, and they've got some other stuff.
They want to try so like, okay fine great And you know, I'll just let them help I'm not gonna I'm not gonna like, you know punish them if they don't if they're not out there working in the garden and weeding and Every single day, okay, because then what then they'll just think of it as an unpleasant terrible job and something they get in trouble for or that kind of discipline can come later and it should come from inside, but I'll encourage them.
And of course, another key part of Thomas Jefferson education that I love is they emphasize leading by example.
So you want your kids to read, you want them to read books and read for pleasure, you need to be reading books and reading for pleasure every day.
If you want them to do it, then you need to show them that you're doing it.
If you want them to read classic books then you need to be reading classic books.
You want them to learn gardening, well, you need to be out there in the garden doing it yourself too.
Okay. So, I'll be doing that too, of course.
And as you do that what you'll find is if you just encourage them a little bit they'll come along and they'll want to do it.
Especially if you don't pressure them to perform and oh, if they don't do it perfectly so what who cares?
At this stage love of learning you're just encouraging their love of learning.
It's in the name. That's the key point of this stage and that's like from age 8 to up to age 12 13 And like I mentioned how my daughter is kind of starting to get into this herself.
And one of the things you assign that they're ready for this that you'll notice is when they start asking about things, they start saying, I want to try this, I want to do that.
When it starts coming from them, not just from you, in the core phase, it tends to be We, as parents, just introducing things.
They, you know, we're getting books and reading to them, and we're, hey, let's make cookies today.
But then as they get started getting into the love of learning phase, they start asking you, like, my daughter just decided she wanted to learn piano. So am I enrolling her in piano lessons, and now she's gotta be a classically trained musician?
No, of course not. Okay, just gonna let her explore.
So, we got her a keyboard, not too expensive and, you know, she's been doing it on her own.
I never tell her to practice or when to practice or nothing.
She just comes to me, I want to learn a song.
Alright, what song do you want to learn?
I want to learn, Happy Birthday.
So, we get on YouTube, we find the notes for Happy Birthday and then she just went in there and just practiced and practiced until she could do it.
It's amazing. another thing she likes because we listen to kirtan which is like musical chanting and sanatana dharma chanting of a mantra the names of God with music so the famous one I think a lot of people know it's the Hare Krishna one which is my favorite so we listen to those and because they like them they like dancing around with them so now she's learning to play them so we She found one that's easy, just three chords on the keyboard. Ne, ne, ne, ne.
Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna.
Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
It's three chords. Very simple.
Pretty slow. And again, she just tried to teach me.
So I just found it, wrote the chords down, taught, showed her the chords.
And now she's just in there, playing it and practicing it.
Again, she just does it herself.
She says, I want to play my piano. I'm like, all right.
At this phase, it's just about exploring.
Maybe she'll continue on with the piano and you know and decide to do it in a more Discipline serious way.
Maybe she won't Doesn't matter she's but she's exploring music.
It's it's stimulating her brain and You know same with they love cooking.
So we do a lot of baking So we make bread we make cookies cakes But I've gained weight this last year We have an ice cream makers now we make ice cream and and then they helped me with other stuff, too So, this is great, love of learning.
And of course, it's the same with books then.
Our job as parents and teachers is just keep exposing them to cool books.
So like I pull out Asop.
If for some reason they just don't like Asop, for example, if I had chosen that and I just didn't respond to it, I would just put it away.
Just put it back on the shelf.
Not going to keep forcing it.
That's what they do at school, right?
It's like, well, this is the assignment it, and we're doing Asop right now." And if all the kids don't like it, most of the kids don't like it, well, tough.
We're doing it, and you're going to learn it, take a test about it, and if you do badly, you get a bad grade.
But with homeschooling, we can just pull out Asop and try it.
And if they like it, and they respond, and they're curious, Oh, this is great great to keep going, but if they don't which also happens With other books, I've done pull it out like we tried Winnie the Pooh a few last year About a year and a half ago the again not the Disney garbage the real one I think they're actually three, but we tried one of them the first one and I tried reading a couple stories.
It's a stat the way it's written It's very indirect and it's kind of I don't know.
I understand the writers.
The style is trying to be a bit clever a bit funny, but it's so indirect and It's kind of scattered it jumps around a lot that the topics doesn't just stay with the topic the way especially the way the characters Speak, it's quite confusing Even to me as a adult.
I mean I know what it's saying, but I'm kind of like oh, this is a little You know hard for me to explain it because it He keeps, he's trying to show that the characters are maybe not so smart or they kinda, not thinking very clearly, but it can be very confusing, especially for young kids.
So anyway, we tried that like a year, year and a half ago and it was okay, cause I tried to explain it simply, but it really didn't go very well.
And so I didn't just keep forcing it on them.
I just put it back on the shelf and like, Let's try again.
And then more recently they've requested Winnie the Pooh, and we've done a few more stories and they like them.
They like them. So you'll find this happens a lot, that if you get something, whatever it is, it might be something you love.
Maybe something you enjoyed as a kid or something, something you think it's important for them to learn.
Just don't get upset and don't try to force it if it doesn't go well, if they don't seem interested.
okay there's so many classics out there, just just put it aside and then come back and this is a good lesson for them because they will learn too that oh well maybe sometimes in life something we're not interested in something, we don't like something but then we can change and it might be that later in life we suddenly understand it or love it or enjoy it much better.
So that's that love of learning phase, where you're going to be doing a lot more.
And if you've done a good job of encouraging them to enjoy learning and been and made it enjoyable.
This is love of learning phases where the kids start to.
I mean, really, it becomes a little difficult as a parent because they're so curious, they're so excited that the requests are endless.
I want to do this, I want to do this, I want to do this.
Let's read this, let's do that.
I mean, it's just sometimes I'm just like, okay, can we take a break?
I want to learn piano. Oh, let's do the garden.
Oh, let's go to the zoo.
Oh, I want to read this book.
I want to do this, I want to write that.
I want to do art. I want to learn drawing.
I'm gonna learn, oh my God, you know.
That's good though.
Obviously it's great, but that's what you want to see, but it can be a bit challenging.
thing. And then that is what leads to finally what they call in Thomas Jefferson Education the scholar phase.
And you can tell by the name, what is scholar, this is the serious education phase.
Okay, this is what so many people want to force on kids way too young.
Now, this is when I was talking about the Japanese system.
The Japanese system tends to be very loose and relaxed with kids in elementary school.
And then, when they hit middle school, they drop the hammer on them and suddenly middle and high school is just brutal.
They've got to just study, study, study, study, and they go to this class after school and they've got all these super tests and exams. and unfortunately like I said, they do it in the typical school way with exams and garbage.
And just, this kills their soul.
Sad to see, actually.
But what's a real scholar?
A real scholar studies and learns intensely.
So this is the phase where they have to use quite a lot of discipline and effort.
This is where they really start to challenge themselves intellectually, mentally.
And they start reading many different challenging classics, like the real adult level.
And let's face it, these days, a lot of the stuff they'll read at this level, the scholar phase, you know, most people would think of as college level or even grad school level.
But there's no reason they can't they should be reading it as teenagers But to do that they need to have that self -discipline the Self -motivation that great great curiosity and love of learning.
That's the foundation if they don't then you try to force them to do this and It's you can't do it.
You just can't force someone to do that because it's so challenging and difficult, require so much time and effort, this scholar face, that they're just not gonna really do it very well unless they have that foundation, unless they really, really, really know how to learn and challenge themselves without an assignment, without someone telling them what to do all the time.
So this is where they read the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Aeneid, at the very least, in a translation.
But the original, they might read some easier versions when they're younger, this is where they read the real thing.
Possibly, this is the age where they might even try to read it in Greek, and try to start learning Greek or Latin.
Ok, This is where they read Dante's works.
This is where they, in terms of religious education, this is when they read and study the commentaries about Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Qur 'an, and the writings of great saints and philosophers.
This is when they read Pythagoras and Newton.
And this is when they read Plato and Aristotle.
This is where they read, you know, many, many, many of Shakespeare's plays.
And the Thomas Jefferson education in the book, and their philosophy, which of course I'm not at this stage yet so we'll see how I do it.
You always have to adapt to your kids and how things are going.
And yourself, too. But their recommendation is this is a gradual approach. So the first year of the scholar phase, it's a little bit more relaxed, but you start encouraging them.
And of course they're doing this, that you become the mentor.
Not like the big, mean boss, because the kid can always say no. But you can start suggesting things to them at this point.
Why don't we try Plato?
Why don't we try Plato's Republic?
Now, in the scholar phase, guess what?
It's work for you, too, because as the parent, as the mentor, you have to read all of these things too, because there's two parts to the scholar phase.
Reading and discussion.
Reading and discussion.
It's not enough just to read it.
You gotta talk about it.
Well, who are they gonna talk about it to?
They gotta talk about it to someone who's also read it.
That's you. So, you're going to get a whole new education that maybe you had, or maybe you didn't.
If you read these things in the past, well, you're probably going to have to go back and reread them again.
So, this is your chance to read all these great classics you've heard about.
So, you read Plato's Republic, and your child starts, you know, reads it and you could maybe, you know, go section by section or however you want to do it, and then you talk about and discuss the ideas in it.
And eventually, maybe in year two or year three of the scholar phase, you can introduce writing, and you can have them write about what they have read and then discuss it.
So you might do writing and discussion.
And that's all it is, the scholar phase, is just going deep, deep, deep into all of these classics in all these different fields.
And it's still driven by your child.
You're the mentor, so you certainly can encourage them to go with—you know, you can say, hey, let's try Shakespeare, and you tell them why Shakespeare's important.
Shakespeare's kind of the base—one of the core classics of the modern English language.
And so many books, and even movies, will mention Shakespeare, or they quote from Shakespeare's plays, and so, you know, you'll have a deeper understanding of English literature and even just English language culture, blah blah blah, you know, you can persuade them, and then you read them yourself and you can do the same thing.
But ultimately though, it's your child's decision.
so they might say, I don't want to read Hamlet right now, then maybe they'll start it, maybe you suggest let's do Hamlet and they start reading it and then you're just like, ah, I'm just not liking it, I don't wanna do it.
So what do you do? You do the same exact thing I did with my young children, the same thing you do with the young kids, you just put it to the side.
It doesn't mean they'll never read Hamlet ever in their life and if they never read Hamlet, it's not the end of the world, okay.
There's plenty of, if they're reading, if they'd rather read Plato or Aristotle instead of Hamlet, okay, it's no loss, all right?
No big deal. But there's a very, very, very good chance that maybe a year later or two years later or three years later or even later as an adult, once they've grown up, that they might just decide, hey, you know what, I think I'll try Hamlet again, and then might quite like it.
So, you don't force them—they have kind of veto power we say, right?
You can encourage them to read certain things.
You can read certain things yourself and say, hey, you should try this.
This is really interesting.
You can do all of that, but again, you're collaborating.
You're working with them.
You're their mentor, not their boss.
And so, if they just say no, I don't want to do that, then that's fine.
Put it to the side and move on to something else.
As part of the Scholar Phase, they'll be reading Classics and discussing them.
So reading and discussing 5, 6, or more hours every day once they get to the middle of the Scholar Phase, maybe the 1st year, not so much. But by year 2, 3, they're doing it.
They're just sitting and reading Classics and talking about them with you.
for, you know, again five, six hours a day or more.
So pretty intense. And let's face it, nowadays, this is more like a college -level education or even above.
The United States, you know, even university college is so dumbed down and easy now, But the truth is, your kid does this for four or five years.
Six years even. They're going to be so far ahead of most other kids.
Okay? This is why you don't worry about them if they— if you think, oh, they're behind the kids when they're in third grade when they're eight years old.
Oh, my God, those kids are learning fractions, and my kid hasn't learned fractions yet.
Oh, my God, they're— Okay, it doesn't matter, okay?
It doesn't matter, because by the time they hit 18, 19, 20 they are gonna be so far ahead because they're getting a real education, not just focused on grades and tests and all that nonsense.
They're actually gonna know how to think and they're gonna be reading classics that require deep thinking.
And this is a gift you give them then for the rest of their lives.
It's a gift to give yourself too because in order to do this, you got to do it yourself.
So that's a Thomas Jefferson education summary.
Highly recommend. Get their books.
They've got ones called the Phases of Learning.
That's where they talk about these phases I just talked about today.
I think that the main book, the first book, is called a Thomas Jefferson Education by Demille.
D -E -M -I -L -L -E is the guy's last name.
That's where they talk about the general approach and using the classics and being a mentor and how to do it basically.
So if you're interested in homeschooling, even doing this with your kid, you know, after school, then I highly recommend get get both those books.
And this is real education.
And this is, you know, you can even do it if you don't have kids, because maybe maybe if you feel like, you know, I didn't get a very good education, because I feel that way.
You know, luckily, I've done a lot of reading in certain areas and you know, all my life.
So I guess I've got, I've gotten myself or given myself a decent education but I didn't get a grade education in school you know same stuff I did everything for grades and tests so it's my best learning and then the things where I've learned the most have been what I things I've read or done or tried outside of school but I'm even looking forward to this because there are tons of classics, so many classic books that I have not read, you know, famous classic books that I just haven't done and read.
When my kids hit this phase, I'm kind of looking forward to reading some of them and seeing which ones they're interested in, so that I can maybe explore some of them.
I've read a lot of Shakespeare plays.
I haven't read any like the famous Russians outside of was it Dostoevsky I read the one about the guy that's dying.
What's his name? I can't remember the name of the title of the book.
It's a judge and he and he basically learns that he's dying.
And it's just about his the whole thought processes and he goes through as he gets closer and closer to dying.
But I haven't read a lot those – I mean, you know, War and Peace.
Even Dickens, I've read not – I don't think I've read maybe a couple Dickens books.
Probably way back in school.
Don't – but I wouldn't mind going and reading a bunch of those.
I haven't read any of Dante, actually.
So, quite looking forward to reading some of these things actually, and maybe I'll do them soon.
We'll see if I get more time but at nonetheless, at the very least, I'll do it when my kids start hitting this scholar phase and it'll give me something to do when I'm in my 60s so I can give myself a second education too and enjoy that with the kids.
And that's maybe the best thing of all is that when you're homeschooling at any age, you're learning too.
And you're learning, you send the message to your kids that, you know, learning is lifelong and you share such a closer connection with your kids because you're sharing their education with them.
You're doing it with them and you're learning along next to them and it brings you closer.
Instead of sending them off to some building to strangers to teach them God knows what they're going to teach them, where they're separated from you, and they're taught a bunch of things, and you don't even really know what they're learning or listening to every day.
Instead, it's quite the opposite.
You're sharing it together, and that creates a very strong bond for them, which is a great message for them because it shows them, teaches them a message about how to create a a strong family, and it will help them as they become teenagers and adults, and it will be happier for you too, because you'll enjoy an even closer connection with your children.
It's quite beautiful.
All right then, well, lots of love to you.
I'm going to go back in and play with my kids now.
It's just kind of a drizzle right now, meaning it's just a very super light rain coming down so I'm gonna walk back to the house and I hope you're having a great day today and I will see you again soon.
Lots of love to you.
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